How are you preparing for the End of Atari?

[eegad]

I started preparing way back in the late 80's. When I saw some mail order place having a warehouse clearance on XL stuff, I bought a new in box 800XL and 2 new in box 1050's. At the time I already had two 800XL's (1 with RamboXL) and two 1050's (both with USDoublers), and also an original 800 which a friend gave me when he moved to the ST. All the stuff that was being used in the 80's still works fine (and it still surprises me that the drives and old disks all work). And just this year I finally opened the new-in-box 800XL and one of the 1050's...figured I might as well see if they work while I'm still alive. They do. So I think I'm good. At least one system should outlive me.

[_The Doctor__]

Don't worry the whole, just found these super rare cartons while breaking down a pallet while tripping thru the ole wharehouse get em while you can for $$$$$$$ ploy continues forever....

[SIO2]

Prepare yourselves. The end is not near!

 

Atari lives!

[Mclaneinc]

In a play on part of my sig, Atari is never dead as long as we remember them...

[ryanmercer]

Try finding a spare keyboard, even used, for an Apple II Platinum or spare parts to fix a keyboard, those will be used if you can find them.

 

 

 

 

Ugh tell me about it. I bought a Macintosh Plus 1Mb M0001A last year without a mouse and keyboard, the damn mouse and keyboards were going for twice what I paid for the computer!

[ryanmercer]

With best and B & C still around I am not really all that worried about it now, maybe in 10 years

 

B&C says on their eBay store that they've been sending stuff to a recycler because it's not worth shipping

[ryanmercer]

Yes, I do have a supply of spares. I have actually thinned out the collection to just what I really like.

 

 

I did that earlier this year. Decided I mostly like the 800xl and had orpheouswaking come around the house and gave him a bunch of machines and half of my floppy drives knowing that he'd find the stuff good homes sooner or later.

[tschak909]

sigh.

 

This is why it is imperative that much time and energy be focused on both software models and gate-level (FPGA) models of emulation. The hardware will run out, and eventually die, and the emulations will be all that is left.

 

-Thom

[DavidMil]

Atari will end for me when I keel over! I've got plenty of spares till then!

 

DavidMil

[Keatah]

sigh.

 

This is why it is imperative that much time and energy be focused on both software models and gate-level (FPGA) models of emulation. The hardware will run out, and eventually die, and the emulations will be all that is left.

 

-Thom

 

As much as people don't want to face that reality it's the hard truth. Maybe not entirely evident today, but it's coming. And the amount of out-of-spec hardware is very slowly increasing.

 

I love things in their original condition, make no mistake. But emulation and simulation come naturally for me because I always wanted an all-in-one solution to play all my cartridges from multiple systems. And x86 emulation is really the only practical way of making such an all-encompasing machine with enough versatility and performance for a premier experience.

 

It is important to recognize that the best emulation/simulation products come from love of the hobby, like most things. It seems that commercial products do exactly just enough to play their own games. That's great for introducing newcomers to the hobby, but not for any kind of documentation or preservation or replacement.

 

I would also like to see exact replacement chips, so far there's only been a few. And those are programmed gate arrays. Not nearly enough variety to cover all the early consoles.

 

In the meantime, for my Apple II collection and 80486 DX2/50, the best preservation is occasional usage and plenty of spare parts.

Edited December 10, 2016 by Keatah

[Keatah]

Not to start a fight, but aren't FPGAs are also an "approximation".. granted much better and closer, but still the timing is not exact?

 

FPGA and Software Emulation are only as good as the work put into them. This includes timing. It is vital that people understand (yet refuse to) that FPGA is not a recreation of the original hardware, but a simulation of it via lookup tables and gates and formulas. Not that different from software emulation.

 

FPGA earned a good reputation early on for being consistent and interruption free, not necessarily by being any more accurate. There simply is no stuttering or interruptions caused by traditional Windows' virus scanners or system updates or any number of background tasks - in FPGA rigs.

 

Most people got a bad impression of SE because in the early days SE was usually running in conjunction with other crap on underpowered computers. The emulation would stop or slow down or jitter while the sound got stuck in a funky loop. Today this isn't an issue. There's enough host CPU cycles available to make sure SE timing is spot on and continues running smoothly.

 

I tend to favor SE over FPGA because of all the "value-added" side features not eminently noticed right away. First, SE seems to undergo more rapid development. Bugs are fixed faster. New features are implemented faster. And equally important is that new devs more readily join in on an existing project. This is clearly evident with MAME and Stella. Whereas with FPGA it seems to take forever before a new core is available and only one person is working on it. And another thing, SE offers more extras like a better GUI, and is more readily able to use its host's features. Think screenshots or rom organization. Configuration often has more options and variety too. And sound and display support is superior.

 

SE has a vast amount of pre-compiled libraries and APIs upon which to call when interacting with its host hardware. All this has to be done from the ground up with FPGA rigs.

 

FPGA feels like playing games through a straw. Rom names seem to have to be a certain format. There aren't many options to tweak. There's only one way to start it up. And it's one type of hardware. Rare custom hardware. Separate hardware which exists outside of and away from the resources of a PC. With SE there's thousands of hardware configurations you can buy that will work, and many versions of any given emu. Though the latest version is usually all you need.

 

There's plenty of front-ends ranging from a simple command-line interface, through a series of icons you build up and put in folders, all the way to custom operating systems.

 

With SE, for example, I can have 6 of my favorite machine configurations in Altirra instantly available. Within 2 seconds I can switch machines from a basic 400 to a decked out XL/XE. I can also have a few of my most favorite games ready to go, too, at the click of an icon.

 

When I'm done with Atari I can segue right into Amiga stuff as fast as power switches can flipped on real hardware. If I want fast loading floppies I can have that. If I want authentic timing and slow access I can have that too. If I want to swap out a processor I can do that by changing a menu option. NTSC or PAL? No sweat. Rapid-fire and programmable function keys across all consoles and systems? It's there. 100% reliablity? In the bag..

 

If my emulation rig was stolen or otherwise damaged beyond repair, it would be a simple matter to replace the hardware and restore from backup. With an FPGA rig I'd have to hope the original manufacturer was still producing them which means I'd likely be shit-outta-luck.

 

So, after another micro-rant, you can begin to see the amazing versatility that software emulation has to offer. And with it we aren't preparing for the end of Atari, but just the beginning!

Edited December 10, 2016 by Keatah

[luckybuck]

Not at all, not a single bit. One has to take my Atari from my dead cold hands. Atari is even emp save, so would survive a nuclear attack, if not too close. Unless we finish:

https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Rarity%2010

there will be no end. When source codes are all in the open, there will be a new time of Atari.

 

Atari forever!

[Blues76]

Getting NOS is becoming harder and harder. Still Best and B&C has stuff. However, that's becoming less and less.

Ebay stuff, in particular computers (800XL,130XE...) are not in very good condition in most cases.

 

The good news is that Software Emulation and Hardware replacement (FPGA) seems to be a way to keep this alive for a lot longer (I know people like to have the original, but things are what they are).

We have people like Candle, Lotharek, and so many others creating adds-on that is amazing. This is an amazing community.

 

I think the odds for Atari for our generation (people who used Atari originally) are in good hands. I do wonder how many non-original users (people who did not use Atari in the 80s) are interested and will remain interested.

[ryanmercer]

 

 

I think the odds for Atari for our generation (people who used Atari originally) are in good hands. I do wonder how many non-original users (people who did not use Atari in the 80s) are interested and will remain interested.

 

 

I'm not an original user. I was born in 85 and while we did have a 2600 in the house until I was 4 or 5 it was my half-brothers and kept in his room in the basement so outside of arcade machines I had no real exposure to Atari until August of 2014. I've half a dozen or so 800xl's now and have owned 15-20 machines total although gave a bunch away at the beginning of the year to downsize. I love the original machines but part of me would really like to see a new machine get made that would support the .old software and hardware.

 

The fact that people have made new Apple II and Commodore 64 machines gives me hope.

[Blues76]

we have a clone using fpga

http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96

[ryanmercer]

Meh, that's a black box. I'm talking more along the lines of the (hopefully, I mean it is crowd funded sooo) forthcoming The 64 or like these retro computer kits from Briel. If I'm coughing up 200$ for something, I want it to look nice, not like a kvm.

Edited December 26, 2016 by ryanmercer

[Blues76]

this one looks better

http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=190

 

of course, you may wait for something else or you could get it without the case and 3d print a case

 

anyways, the point is that we have something already

[ryanmercer]

Meh, we have a Swiss army knife when we just need to butter our bread.

[Blues76]

Meh, we have a Swiss army knife when we just need to butter our bread.

 

What is your dream Atari 8 bit system that you want to see crowd funded ...

 

what specs ? ....

[ryanmercer]

Same as the original machines except double the current highest memory any mod has ever had, HDMI, cartridge slots and a nice old school appearance with a mechanical switch keyboard. Not a piece of sheet metal with a bunch of jacks.

 

If I want a piece of sheet metal with a bunch of jacks, I'll use emulators and an rPi.

[Keatah]

I'm not an original user. I was born in 85 and while we did have a 2600 in the house until I was 4 or 5 it was my half-brothers and kept in his room in the basement so outside of arcade machines I had no real exposure to Atari until August of 2014. I've half a dozen or so 800xl's now and have owned 15-20 machines total although gave a bunch away at the beginning of the year to downsize. I love the original machines but part of me would really like to see a new machine get made that would support the .old software and hardware.

 

The fact that people have made new Apple II and Commodore 64 machines gives me hope.

 

That's a trend that should get rolling. All these replica machines and kickstarter projects and FPGA emulators don't go the full distance when it comes to peripheral compatibility and coverage.

 

FPGA is in hardware, but it still half-assed. The i/o and expansion ports don't get replicated in full. These kickstarter projects are software emulators running on SoC or an R-Pi; they also don't replicate the original ports either - by nature they can't.

 

Software can kind of be forgiven because software is, well, software! Some emulators make a good go at covering basic hardware expansion. Altirra, WinUAE, and AppleWin are some software emulators which *DO* make an effort at covering things like that. They feature a variety of boards and peripherals that affect the emulation significantly enough to where you can imagine your virtual machine has a clock card, or 80-column card, memory upgrade, or accelerator. Sound and graphics boards are included too. Fast disk drives are on that list also.

 

In fact I'd argue (and successfully too) that software emulation exceeds FPGA and SoC stuff in this respect.

[ryanmercer]

I'd just like a group of people to come together and design something that for sure is going to work. Doesn't even need to get made. Once we have a solid plan, that is fairly true to an original machine with say more memory and preferably socketed everything (please no surface mount for sure!).

 

Once that is done we could actually determine how cheaply they could be made. The biggest issue is going to be getting SIO made in bulk, we'd need the connectors and new cables. I looked at having some made before I sold my business and the companies I contacted wouldn't even quote me unless I was going to have tens of thousands of units made on the first run.

 

Ideally it'd be a machine that could largely be in kit form, like several of the Apple II's. With just the case, keyboard, SIO, board and any chips that aren't currently manufactured being all that gets made.

[Keatah]

Apple II kits?

[ryanmercer]

Apple II kits?

 

There's reproductions for several of the Apple I and II's. http://www.willegal.net/appleii/appleii-first_page.htmhas links to some of them. Some are just boards. The kits are mostly bare boards that you have to solder all the chips onto, most have PS/2 adapters for keyboards. For the most part it's only worth it if you want a Apple II Rev 0 board, for other Apple II models it is just cheaper to buy an Apple II still.

 

Edit: and this page http://a2central.com/category/clones/has clones of a lot of the accessory cards/hardware.

Edited December 27, 2016 by ryanmercer

[Keatah]

Ahh yes. I didn't know he was doing a REV 0 II mainboard. Carry on!