4 replies to this topic

[simbalion]

Saturday evening my neighbor came over to visit and brought over a few items his son wanted rid of because of moving to a smaller house. Two of those items were Atari 400 computers and the other was a Coleco Adam base. I have been trying to get an 400 for a while now and I finally got two for free! Tested them out, but neither wanted to work. One just shows either a back or green screen and that is it, the other would show a screen off and on and you could hear the speaker make the key press blips when you pressed a letter. I completely tore apart the worst on first and used it to get my bearings. Neat little critters. It still only shows a black or green screen. I fiddled with the second one and could get it to work if I wiggled the power/AV board around. So, I detatched it, sprayed some contact cleaner in the channel switch and the connector socked and plugged it back into place. Voila! Now I have a fully functional 400 computer! Looks like the keyboard pad was replaced sometime in this unit's life and I am surprised how sensitive it is for an old touchpad. Now I wonder if I can save the other one or make it into a parts machine? Not sure what is wrong with it. One thing I do know, I now need to find more cartridges!

[doctorclu]

It is good to hear some excitement over the Atari 400.  That was my first computer, the poor man's Atari 800 basically.

I remember getting mine and playing Star Raiders.   Wow just amazing remembering how that felt.

[simbalion]

doctorclu, on Mon Apr 9, 2012 2:32 PM, said:

It is good to hear some excitement over the Atari 400.  That was my first computer, the poor man's Atari 800 basically.

I remember getting mine and playing Star Raiders.   Wow just amazing remembering how that felt.

I have had a couple 800's for several years now and always wanted the smaller 400 to go with them. I can always remember seeing 400's sticking out of a couple hoarder piles at our local flea market. That touch keyboard was interesting, but the guy would never sell them for any cost. Well, he finally got forced out because the flea market owners were ticked off at him and now all these years later I have the two 400's that I saw when I first started into all the retro-gaming in the late 90's.

[ClausB]

Congrats! When you open your 400s don't forget to reseat the chips. That is, gently pry each chip part way out of its socket from both ends and push it back in. Use a small thin blade screwdriver. That has fixed my 400s several times.

[simbalion]

Finally got the working 400 cleaned up and took a picture of it. I tried reseating the chips in the other one, but it is still the same. Anyways, piccies!

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