Ebay - 1090 Expansion System

[doctor_x]

Not mine nor do I know the person but figured I would mention it since its a pretty rare thing... Also looks like he started it at a relatively reasonable price too as its only up to 570...

 

Pretty cool.. Wish I was rich!

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/RARE-Atari-1090-XL-Expansion-System-Prototype-WITH-COVER-for-800XL-600XL-/291849042910?&_trksid=p2056016.l4276

[jaybird3rd]

That's a beautiful specimen!

 

 

Seems like a relatively simple PCB. I'd love to see someone make a replica, maybe in a Micro-ATX form factor so it can be installed in a regular PC case.

 

EDIT: I've saved the pictures from the auction and attached them as a ZIP archive.

 

1090.zip

[Albert]

Man, I would love to have any of these. Two questions:

 

1) Were there really only five of the plastic covers produced?

2) Are there any cards that were produced (and presumably only in extremely low numbers)?

3) What kind of power supply does it use?

 

I assume it's really not useful in any capacity, but it is such a cool piece of Atari 8-bit history.. It's not something I've spent a lot of time reading about.

 

..Al

[+Allan]

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8bits/xl/xlperipherals/1090xl.html

 

Allan

[jakeaglass]

 

1) Were there really only five of the plastic covers produced?

 

 

I know that very few with the cover (which is actually metal) were made, and my source for the exact number 5 is this post: http://marc.info/?l=classiccmp&m=104965963222931&w=2

 

 

 

2) Are there any cards that were produced (and presumably only in extremely low numbers)?

 

 

Here's a link to the page talking specifically about the cards: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8bits/xl/xl_protos/cards.html They're next to impossible to find, though.

 

 

 

3) What kind of power supply does it use?

 

 

 

Coincidentally, another eBay seller has a PSU he claims to be compatible with the 1090: http://www.ebay.com/itm/1090-1027-Power-Supply-AC-Adapter-9-5-VAC-4-2A-40VA-Orig-Atari-New-in-Box-/130888127546 (it's the same one used for the 1027 printer).

 

 

 

Seems like a relatively simple PCB. I'd love to see someone make a replica, maybe in a Micro-ATX form factor so it can be installed in a regular PC case.

 

 

 

The idea of doing a reproduction run of it is quite popular: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/108759-a-reproduction-of-the-atari-1090xl/

[Albert]

I did read the two pages on the Atari Museum page about the 1090 XL, which did answer a few questions. Amazing to see how far along this was, and that at least three cards were developed for it. Crazy that only two sets of cards are known to exist, with only the memory expansion being "complete". Well, the CP/M one might be, but without software we'll probably never know.

 

It does seem that it would be much easier for hobbyists to design and release an expansion chassis these days, as well as cards that would work with it. That would be a damn cool set of projects.

 

That linked thread didn't really have any activity beyond 2011, except for the last post in the thread that has a link to a 1090 XL Technical Notes document.. Must read that later.

 

..Al

[Albert]

Wow, there's a list of possible future devices that could have been made for the 1090 XL.

 

1) Disk Drive Controller-*

2) Votrax-

3) Modem (300 and/or 1200)-*

4) Touch Tone Decoder-

5) EPROM Programmer-

6) B.S.R. Controller Interface-

7) Relay Switch Card-

IEEE 488 Control Card-*

9) Real Time Clock-

10) 80 Column Display-*

11) Printer Spooler/Buffer-

12) APPLE Card-*

13) VCS Adapter Card-*

14) A/D Converter Card-*

15) Infra Red Interface-*

16) Hard Disk Interface-*

17) Music Card-

18) Speech Recognition-*

19) Ram Disk-*

20) Battery Back-up CMOS RAM-

21) Corvus Interface-*

22) Ethernet Interface-*

* indicates a smart device.

APPLE card! VCS Adapter card! Man, this would have been pretty incredible...

..Al

[+kheller2]

Reading over the various information out there, it seems the ram expansion cards could be bank switched. I wonder what method was used.

[Fred_M]

 

That linked thread didn't really have any activity beyond 2011, except for the last post in the thread that has a link to a 1090 XL Technical Notes document.. Must read that later.

 

..Al

 

I think you will find this thread very interesting: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/252409-atari-1090xl-schematics/page-4?hl=%2B1090&do=findComment&comment=3516619 This thread is quite recent.

 

The discussions about the 1090 popped up several times here. A few years ago a friend of mine tried to sell his 1090 with top cover (it is made of metal) on Ebay but it did not reach te reserved price of $ 3000

 

I posted a lot of pictures of it here on AtariAge. Here are some of them.

Edited August 21, 2016 by Fred_M

[Level42]

Mmmm, would have been awesome to run an expensive VCS card inside an even more expensive 1090 box connected to your XL computer which cost way more than any 2600 and then be able to play games that are way inferior of what a standard XL machine could do........useful idea ! :D

 

The other cards sounded a lot more interesting though.

 

Sad....it's a lot of money for a useless box....

Edited August 21, 2016 by Level42

[Albert]

I agree, a VCS card is kind of silly, but still kind of cool at the same time. Perhaps it could have been used to aid in 2600 game development? If you could compile your 2600 games on the 8-bit and then immediately run them on real hardware, that would have been faster than what most companies could probably do back then..

 

Of course, by the time the 1090XL would have been released (1984?), the 2600 had already waned, so not sure how much third party development would have been taking place.

 

..Al

[jakeaglass]

It's fun to imagine where this might have gone had Atari not shifted their strategy entirely to PC's after the '83 video game crash (and if more of us here had the time, it'd be an awesome project platform to start producing an open interface with many of the aforementioned expansion cards), but the potential of the 1090 was always limited by the 8-bit XL series itself—IMO it's a cool relic of transition and adaptation to changing technological markets, done just a bit too late.

[Rybags]

2600, CP/M and probably A2 addons would use the XL as a glorified keyboard to a large extent.

 

The museum article mentions "bus mastering". I suspect they discovered it wasn't possible. The PBI is a flawed design in multiple ways, probably the most prominent that the /HALT signal from Antic isn't available. This was corrected with the ECI.

Without /HALT it's not easy to tell when the bus is available. Even then, an external device would also need to be able to assert the line itself but in any case Antic has to get precedence.

[Alfred]

Geeze, $3000, that's nuts. I just threw mine in the garbage. Didn't see the point in keeping something that didn't work, had no cards and had no prospect of ever working.

[gozar]

The 1090XL is something that barely made sense at the time. Yes, every Apple II user would talk about how great their machine was because it had slots. And almost every //e that I've used has exactly three cards - the 64k/80 Column card, the super serial card, and the disk drive card. Apple could have put those on the motherboard and removed the slots, such as what was done with the //c.

 

In hindsight, the Atari's SIO system was user friendly and easily able to handle everything that was needed at the time.

 

Where Atari missed the boat was not adding 80 columns to the 1200XL (and fixed the crappy video). That would have given people a reason to upgrade, and made the 8-bit line more competitive with the Apple II line.

[Dmitry]

My first computer was a ti-99 and we had the expansion option. It was really necessary for the 32k ram upgrade and disk drive...but it was so expensive I dropped my interest and switched to the atari platform. Now interestingly enough the coco multipak idea actually worked as an idea. Because every peripheral would also work without the multipak pkus it wasnt that expensive

 

What I wanted from the atari was 80 columns. As gozar stated, big loss not to have it and you know I wwant into games as much as some but updated player missile...twice the number, four times as many....

[FifthPlayer]

In hindsight, the Atari's SIO system was user friendly and easily able to handle everything that was needed at the time.

 

Except when you wanted to interface with generic serial/parallel devices - in which case you needed to pay $$$ for an 850 module. I bought some third-party SIO<->parallel connector for my printer, and an MPP modem that used the joystick ports rather than pay the 850 surtax.

[gozar]

I used the XM301 and SX212, but for printing I bought an interface to use my Panasonic 1080i. I can't remember the name of the interface.

 

 

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[tuf]

Geeze, $3000, that's nuts. I just threw mine in the garbage. Didn't see the point in keeping something that didn't work, had no cards and had no prospect of ever working.

 

I hate to say it, but epic fail

[oracle_jedi]

Where Atari missed the boat was not adding 80 columns to the 1200XL (and fixed the crappy video). That would have given people a reason to upgrade, and made the 8-bit line more competitive with the Apple II line.

 

Agreed!

 

I would have liked to see a 1400XL standard that featured 80-columns and 128K of RAM as standard, rather than the voice synthesizer/modem combo that Atari seemed to think would find a market.

 

Atari was right to kill the 1400XL/1450XLD/1090 triumvirate. Although sexy for collectors, in 1983/84 they would have been another Atari turkey.

[oracle_jedi]

 

Except when you wanted to interface with generic serial/parallel devices - in which case you needed to pay $$$ for an 850 module. I bought some third-party SIO<->parallel connector for my printer, and an MPP modem that used the joystick ports rather than pay the 850 surtax.

 

The problem was not with the SIO interface itself, but Atari's decision to only provide RS232 and Parallel Printer interfaces in the expensive/hard-to-find Atari 850.

 

I also used to have a cheap and simple SIO to Centronics interface that drew its power from the SIO port, and connected my Atari 800XL to an Epson LX800 printer. I think it was made by ICD, but it was a long time ago.

 

The Apple II did not provide RS232 or Parallel interfaces as standard either. According to a quick Google search, the list price of the Apple II Parallel Printer Interface Card was about $180. The list price of the 850 at the time was about $220 and provided four serial ports as well as a parallel printer port. To be sure an expensive option for the late 70s/early 80s, but inline with other vendors of the time.

[+slx]

 

The Apple II did not provide RS232 or Parallel interfaces as standard either. According to a quick Google search, the list price of the Apple II Parallel Printer Interface Card was about $180. The list price of the 850 at the time was about $220 and provided four serial ports as well as a parallel printer port. To be sure an expensive option for the late 70s/early 80s, but inline with other vendors of the time.

 

 

Yeah. Seems incredible now, but in the beginning half-decent 80-column printing simply set you back about 1000$. Hard to imagine in the time of the 69$/€ inkjet but that's the way it was. I used an "ApeFace" SIO to Centronics box ISO of an 850, too, and most of the time it worked great (but needed frequent unplugging to reset).

 

The 1090 might have worked had IBM not come out with the PC. (I just recently found out that such a huge box was available for the TI99 as well which I had never heard / read of back then - and probably less than 10% of users had one...)

[Dmitry]

Slx, as I mentioned I started on the ti-99. My dad was computer savvy and actually bought two computers in 1982

 

The kids comp was the ti-99 4a. My dad considered expanding that into something he could use but because the peb was so darn expensive he bought a dual floppy trs80 model iii instead. 64 cols but still decent. But if he thought we would be happy with the kids comp after we knew about this floppy drive magic he miscalculated.

 

I also abandoned the ti99, maybe it took a year but I picked up an atari and spent a summer mowing yards with a 1050 on layaway.

 

Had a classmate that went on a year long fundraising effort to get a peb..he gave up. But I did have one friend that bought it all...but the ti was soon gone as a market player

 

As for me, the move to atari worked out well even if most of my friends went c64. For a guy that cared about floppy drives the c64 performance was notoriously bad. Plus my dad installed the quarter meg atari in my...by that time I had switched from 400 to an 800xl, making the upgrade possible

 

 

I left the atari on 24/7 making my ram disk my main drive...ran a bbs

 

i was quite happy with ramdisk performance. I did try a c64 for about a month, but I wasnt into games so I couldnt appreciate it. The floppy drive was terrible

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

- I've seen upgrade cards for the Apple II something that had stuff like a faster versions of the 6502 (i guess 12MHz).

 

- The 1090XL would have made sense, if Atari's decision making had made sense. But it seems like Atari didn't want to earn money selling hardware and software. And if the 1090XL would have been brought to market, more companies would have made carts for it.

 

- RS232 and the Centronics port weren't the standard in the earlier years that they became in the later years. So the 850 did make sense.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[gozar]

Hello guys

 

- I've seen upgrade cards for the Apple II something that had stuff like a faster versions of the 6502 (i guess 12MHz).

 

 

I wonder what the sales figures were for additional cards for the Apple II. We have the Microsoft CP/M card, and the Mockingbird, but what numbers are we talking about?

 

 

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