Atari 400 32K RAM upgrade back in the day (1982). Was it possible, easy?

[gary_m_walton]

Recently been mulling over memories from my Atari days and have this query that has perplexed me for a while.

When the Birmingham (UK) Atari user group started at the Matador pub around October 1982, there were various inaugural competitions to add some excitement.

 

I won 'Adventureland' - but this required 24K to run. I only had a 16K machine so I needed a RAM upgrade.

 

Now, I'm not sure whether I had a 400 at the time or if I'd swapped my 400/VCS for an 800. The 800 would have been easy to upgrade.

 

If I had a 400, would that have been a difficult job to increase the RAM? I remember going to Maplins (Newtown, Birmingham) on the Saturday to get extra RAM to run Adventureland.

 

If the 400 couldn't be easily upgraded, this suggests I *did* have an Atari 800 at the time and simply bought an additional RAM module. Perplexing question answered!!!!

 

Anyone know of the complexities of upgrading a 400 back in the day. Fairly sure I didn't leave my 400 with Maplins.

 

Cheers

 

[leech]

3 hours ago, gary_m_walton said:

Recently been mulling over memories from my Atari days and have this query that has perplexed me for a while.

When the Birmingham (UK) Atari user group started at the Matador pub around October 1982, there were various inaugural competitions to add some excitement.

 

I won 'Adventureland' - but this required 24K to run. I only had a 16K machine so I needed a RAM upgrade.

 

Now, I'm not sure whether I had a 400 at the time or if I'd swapped my 400/VCS for an 800. The 800 would have been easy to upgrade.

 

If I had a 400, would that have been a difficult job to increase the RAM? I remember going to Maplins (Newtown, Birmingham) on the Saturday to get extra RAM to run Adventureland.

 

If the 400 couldn't be easily upgraded, this suggests I *did* have an Atari 800 at the time and simply bought an additional RAM module. Perplexing question answered!!!!

 

Anyone know of the complexities of upgrading a 400 back in the day. Fairly sure I didn't leave my 400 with Maplins.

 

Cheers

 

Good question, the one I bought a few years ago already had a 48kb upgrade installed.

[+Stephen]

I can't say easy - but I know for a fact that in 1982, the 400 could be upgraded to 48kB.  It was my 1st machine which I got in August of 1982.  It was of course only 16kB, but very luckily for me, the folks had a b-key keyboard upgrade installed for me, so I never had to use the membrane.  Well, some months later after Dad & I spent a long time typing in and debugging Caves of Ice from Compute, we got the dreaded ERROR 2.  We did not do the RAM upgrade ourselves, and I do not know where my dad took it, but when I got it back, it had 48kB and I used that machine for many years until finally getting a 130XE.

 

Sorry - I should mention that I am in USA, not sure of parts availability in Europe in those early days.

[+DrVenkman]

Atari sold a 48K upgrade through its dealers and service centers, and at least some users did their own upgrades. I have a 400 here that I never realized had a homebrew 48K upgrade (apparently @ClausB's design). For over 10 years I just used it to play cartridge games. Then one day on a whim, I put in a BASIC cart and typed ? FRE(0) and got 37902. When I took it apart, I found the upgrade.

 

 

[segaman40]

We had a small group in the early 80's, all apart from one had the 800, but the fella with the 400 kept it, he had it upgraded to 48K and had a full travel keyboard fitted too.  He passed it to me many moons ago, he regretted the keyboard he always told me he preferred the membrane, but I look at it now and it's really very good quality, has a nice positive feel to it.  I'm pretty sure he had those mods done during the 80's, here in the UK. 

[ClausB]

In the US, Axlon sold a 32K replacement memory board called RAM CRAM. I bought one in early 1981 and had it installed. No jumpers required.

[ClausB]

The 400 was designed to handle up to 32K RAM. 48K required soldering jumpers to the main board plus modification or replacement of RAM board, as above.

 

Here's the RAMCRAM manual:

https://archive.org/details/axlon-ramcram-memory/mode/1up?view=theater

 

[gary_m_walton]

Thanks for the replies everyone, That's what I love about this hobby. @ClausB Thanks for that - so it looks as though 32K was fairly straightforward but not 48K. I have 32K in my head so I think they could have done that quite quickly. @segman40 Yes, I agree. It was a nice keyboard and now I'd probably keep it in preference to the 800 - which was a bit of a brute for sure. If I had, I would have retained my VCS also which I really enjoyed. I think he got the better part of the deal  

 

BTW I really like the styling of the 400 but my 130XE looks quite chic also. Happy memories.

 

Just for info, I'm doing all this to chart my Atari Journey and am attempting to catalogue (and date) each bit of Atari item I bought. Luckily, I have some (but not all) receipts and you would not believe the research I've had to do but the results are interesting. I may screenshot and post some day to so you can all see how truly sad I am (but I don't care  ) 

[Beeblebrox]

Recently acquired 400 which I opened up.

 

I am assuming this is a 32k 400 upgrade custom board with 16x mostek ram chips, and on the back of the ram board are two jumpered connections.

 

No mods to the top of the 400's pcb, but there is a jumpered passive component on the underside.

 

Few pics:

 

 

 

 

[Zonie]

Hmm... I bought my 400 for $10 back in the late 80's. I only ever played cart games on it, but now I'm wondering what it has inside. Probably only 16K. I have a 48K 800 I traded an A500 for about 8 years ago...