New Atari 800XL Revive Machine?

[Booterror1973]

On 1/25/2024 at 6:09 AM, mattsoft said:

No offense to the Atari 400 mini, but I don't really want another ARM-based software emulation device. The RM800XL appears to be a much better recreation of the A8 with modern updates than the stuff coming out of Atari. Hoping they make it to the finish line!

I hope so too, the use of real cartridges and SIO peripherals could be a big boost for the community. Bringing new cards etc. like what we see with the 2600+

[donjn]

Been pretty quiet over there, I wonder if this thing is dead before its released.

[Brentarian]

https://x.com/rm_800xl/status/1793984840955736168?t=XbVCf9Vypf5U-1RzhSic7A&s=19

Edited May 24 by Brentarian

[Gory-Glory]

It looks like a cool computer 😀

[+kheller2]

On 1/24/2024 at 7:07 PM, Mark2008 said:

That's good discussion, and I admit I took the sales estimate from Wikipedia.

 

I notice Facebook Atari 8-bit Computers (private) has 12.2K members, and the Facebook group "Texas Instruments TI-99/4A" (private) has 1.1K members.  And although I have never visited it, just to throw in another metric, Commodore 64 (C64) (private) 44.4K members. 

 

 

Well of course this is not a perfect metric, the size of a Facebook group depends in part on the history of the group itself, when it started, how many schisms the group may have endured, whether there are multiple such groups or competing non-facebook platforms, whether membership is public or private, etc.

 

But, that group size, along with other metrics, say new software released each year, hints to me, there are differences in continuing popularity not explained by original marketshare alone.

 

I wasn't curious about this as a some kind of contest, of course, and the TI community is quite interesting.

 

Has anyone done some research into the real number of 99s made?  I poked around the TI board and did some searching of the Internet and went down a rabbits hole on calculator serial number deciphering.   I figured that some of the more common mags back in the day (Compute!, 99er) etc. might have at least published some officially released (who knows if they are true) numbers.  I just find the range of 2-4M units a bit of stretch, but then who knows.  It makes me wonder how my Timex Sinclairs were sold in the USA.

 

[woj]

Yes, looks nice, but first I want this thing to fully load and run Joyride, Alley Dog, Rewind, Mikie, pass ACID tests, and then we go from there It also promises to be extension friendly, I wonder about VBXE though...

[ToddUGA]

I would actually buy one of these but something tells me Atari won't let this see the light of day. Too bad too. Tired of emulation solutions and would love to have a modern 800XL that took original carts and peripherals.

[pcrow]

1 hour ago, ToddUGA said:

I would actually buy one of these but something tells me Atari won't let this see the light of day. Too bad too. Tired of emulation solutions and would love to have a modern 800XL that took original carts and peripherals.

I'm not sure Atari can block it, as it's not using Atari trademarks or copyrights, and any patents would have long since expired.  Though the threat of a lawsuit might be enough to stop someone even if it wouldn't stand up in court.  (And the law might be different where this is being produced.)

 

This is an interesting middle ground between emulation and native, as it uses an FPGA to implement all the special chips.  Yes, it works with cartridges and SIO devices, but it's not exactly the same.  (I think we still need someone to get a high-resolution photograph of a Pokey chip outside it's ceramic case to get the actual real transistor design so that we can get perfect emulation.)

 

That said, if I were Atari, and if it didn't conflict with the THE400 Mini license contract, this is pretty much exactly what I would want to put out.  The only thing I would add would be FujiNet-style WiFi, and have an online store for buying anything Atari has the license for (likely for $1 to $5, depending on the title).

[+mytek]

21 hours ago, ToddUGA said:

I would actually buy one of these but something tells me Atari won't let this see the light of day.

Thus far there have been several reproductions created in various forms. I think no less than 4 drop-in motherboards for the XE/XL line, and 6 completely new unique manifestations, all of which use the Atari VLSI chips as their basis. And there were two dedicated FPGA based ones as well, which this one likely falls into that same category. So far they're all still alive and kicking as far as I know. In fact if it weren't for this very progressive support for the old Atari tech, I doubt that the Atari retro scene would have been anywhere near what it is today. And it certainly hasn't deterred great interest and purchasing of the new commercial systems. Kind of a win-win scenario if you ask me

[ijor]

On 7/26/2024 at 5:31 PM, pcrow said:

(I think we still need someone to get a high-resolution photograph of a Pokey chip outside it's ceramic case to get the actual real transistor design so that we can get perfect emulation.)

We did that more than a decade ago:

 

 

[leech]

On 7/28/2024 at 2:07 PM, ijor said:

We did that more than a decade ago:

 

 

I guess they were a little pokey in knowing that information...   (Yeah, I'll show myself out.)