Atari Regrets?

[gilsaluki]

I saw a post today about retrobrighting a 400. I remember picking up a 400 at a thrift store (back when that was actually possible). I paid all of $2.49 for it. I didn't need a 400, it was there and I picked it up. I then basically gave it away at a yard sell. I regret that. It worked perfectly, I did not appreciate it for what it was...a piece of Atari history. Damn! Wish I had it now. What do you regret about mis-steps with your Atari history?

[jaybird3rd]

Fortunately, I still have most of my original A8 gear, and a lot more that I've acquired since, so no regrets there. However, I also once owned an Atari Falcon030, fully decked out with 14MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive. It developed a power supply problem that I could probably fix pretty easily now, but because I couldn't at the time (and was also short on funds), I sold it in early 2000 for about $150. I've regretted that in the years since.

 

I also regret that I lost my childhood Atari 2600 around the same time. I was getting ready to move and couldn't take everything in my car, so I had to stow some items in a storage unit with the intention of having them shipped to me later. The 2600 was one of them, and an original black-and-white TV from my Atari Pong coin-op was another (neither one was in working order at the time). We subsequently lost the storage unit and everything in it.

[SS]

I don't know that I have all that many A8 regrets. I do kind of wish that I had picked up more hardware in the later 1990s and early 2000s, though, when it was cheap and plentiful.

[+kheller2]

I regret selling a 1400XL with serial number 1 hand wired modem board.

[Rybags]

Bought a 600XL to replace my 400 with the plan to shortly after get the 1064 expansion.

The price was a joke and it ended up making more sense to just buy an 800XL.

 

Bought an ST instead of an Amiga in 1988. Good sense in that I scored a few programming tools and quickly got into 68000. Bad sense in that the games available were thin on the ground and even after 5 years I had less than 40 games and not many good ones. Got Amiga 500 in 1993 and had 300+ games in fairly short order.

 

Sold that ST about 15 years ago and shortly after bought an Apple Mac Centris (late 68K) from the same guy. That Mac had maybe 4 hours use by me and luckily I was given a 1040ST-FM that was identical to what I'd earlier had, and bought a 4 Meg 520STe later too.

 

Haven't done any significant Atari programming for about 6 years. Once I get some spare time would be nice to get into it again.

[Kyle22]

I also traded my 1400XL to (someone who I can't remember). I sure wish I hadn't...

[MeatWithGravy]

I do kind of wish that I had picked up more hardware in the later 1990s and early 2000s, though, when it was cheap and plentiful.

 

This. Exactly. Seems I'm always a day late and a dollar short. I got back into pinball and vinyl records too late too.

[chevymad]

Sold my original 800xl and my Indus GT along wtih a bunch of disks, cartridges and controllers for next to nothing in the 90s. At least I kept my original 400 and the parts 800xl I took apart in college(which now works).

[Alfred]

I wish I hadn't thrown away my 1090XL for scrap metal. Who knew there were nitwits on ebay would pay a boatload for it.

[+mytek]

I wish I had bought a bunch of Pokey chips back in the late 90's. Could have made a killing selling them in this era .

 

Seriously though, I too wish that I still had my first Atari, a 400.

[+David_P]

Two (at least):

 

Getting rid of my original 800 and 810; and

 

Getting rid of my pair of Indus GT drives.

[+Nezgar]

I dropped off an ATR8000 I inherited for electronics recycling... spoiled by Happy/USD floppy speeds and a 1MB MIO+hard drive, the thing was too damb slow even if it could use 720K disks... never could figure out how to do CP/M... there were disks with it (which I still have a few actually) which implies it had the 64K RAM upgrade too. Pains me reading all the threads where people recently have recreated disks with new copy techniques, and figured out all this stuff again.

 

Oh the guilt!!! Even worse than giving it away, where it might actually stay 'in circulation'...

[Sugarland]

I gave my 130xe and 1050 away and regreted it, yes. The 1050 had a USD. All replaced now.

 

To this day I regret the 1400's and 1450's were canceled by the Tramiel. Okay the motherboard-modem and voice synthesizer were bad ideas but still... The disk controller (if ever finished) would have been great.

[adam242]

Geez, where do I start... Sold my original 600XL my dad bought me, along with a 130XE I bought with paper route money to buy a used Amiga 1000 in '93 or so. Wish I still had both of those. Many eBay purchases that I resold. Sold a Sears heavy-sixer that was given to me by a high school friend on craigslist about 10 years ago. Lot of non-Atari stuff I wish I still had...

Edited October 28, 2018 by adam242

[Gunstar]

Selling off an 800 system with an 810 and a Rana 1000 and an Indus GT, 410 recorder, CX85 keypad about 12 years ago. And leaving behind a box full of about 50-100 original disks (not pirated) and about 25-50 cartridges when I moved from Wisconsin to California back in '96.

 

But I did sell off my original 130XE after getting a 1200XL and fixing & upgrading it. I much prefer the XL line. I only ever chose the 130XE over an 800XL back in '85 for 128K memory. If I'd known about Rambo or Compyshop upgrades I'd have gotten the better built 800XL for less and upgraded it.

Edited October 28, 2018 by Gunstar

[JR>]

I wish I hadn't thrown away my 1090XL for scrap metal. Who knew there were nitwits on ebay would pay a boatload for it.

 

Ouch! At least I sold my 1090XL for a few bills ......still my biggest Atari regret though.

[DavidMil]

I saw a post today about retrobrighting a 400. I remember picking up a 400 at a thrift store (back when that was actually possible). I paid all of $2.49 for it. I didn't need a 400, it was there and I picked it up. I then basically gave it away at a yard sell. I regret that. It worked perfectly, I did not appreciate it for what it was...a piece of Atari history. Damn! Wish I had it now. What do you regret about mis-steps with your Atari history?

 

I had a 1090 too. I traded it for (please don't laugh) a new toilet, because one of my preteen sons hit it with a baseball bat when he was supposed

to be in the shower. Now I wish I'd kept the 1090 and given the plumber my son... I never did find anything that would work with that 1090.

 

David

[+slx]

Giving away my FX-80 printer and not buying more stuff when EBay was young and Ataris were cheap and plentiful.

 

I liked my ST and TT and don‘t really regret not buying an Amiga (which I did not know to be the spiritual successor of the Atari at the time). I do however regret not getting into ST programming the same way I had gotten into 8-bit programming before. In retrospect I should have gotten myself a good C compiler and a good book as there seemed to be no magazine articles on programming like there had been for the 8-bits.

 

 

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[+Larry]

Quite the opposite. I've bought too much stuff along the way. A conclusion that I've come to -- it's a lot easier to buy stuff than to get rid of it later. (I did have a 400 that I got at a K-Mart blow-out, and never once regretted giving it away.) I got it for my then young daughter, and she complained daily about the "keyboard."

 

-Larry

[jowi]

I don't so much regret selling my 600XL back in the day, i just don't understand why i did it... i replaced it with a Commodore C16... weird choice. Later when i went to university i sold the C16 and it was replaced by an Atari PC3 (8086, great looking machine) university was primarily pc based, although some VAX/VMS systems were still being used.

 

What i do regret is that when i had the 600XL (and the C16) i tried to understand assembly, but i failed, lack of information, books etc. And i couldn't figure it out on my own. There was no internet or anything. Being able to program 6502 assembly would have given me such a headstart on tech uni later where they ran the lab's on 6809 (and 68000 later on).

[adam1977]

I regret selling my original 800XL to a friend at the time for £25 in around 1990, yes the 1010 cassette deck keys were broken, but it all worked and it had all those cassettes i'd struggled to find over the years and memories of where I bought them from

 

I also regret not buying more Atari stuff in the mid 90's, I used to go to the AMS at Bingley Hall in Staffordshire, where you could get software and hardware for next to nothing I once picked up a working 800XL without a power supply for £5 and the complete collection of Atari User magazine, including the binders also for £5! Those were the days

[Mclaneinc]

As a depressive I've found that focusing on what might have been actually can cause more problems in the future so I tend to have a view that it happened and its non changeable and move on, I dislike losing all my Atari, C64 and Amiga stuff (and it was a huge lot) in one go but the circumstances were beyond me then and unless I find a Delorean with snazzy powers of time travel I'm not going to be able to do about it. And that's the depressive key there, not that its gone but trying to think if you could have done something about it, that can with the right people cause all sorts of issues.

 

But, yes I wish I had it all back but I can't, there were things I regret not taking advantage of or throwing out but hey ho, its gone, I did it....Just never blame you or others, just brush it under lifes big old mat of things that never went to plan

[ivop]

and it was replaced by an Atari PC3 (8086, great looking machine)

 

Ah, there's my biggest regret. Ten years ago, I dismantled my Atari PC3 and threw away the Atari EGA monitor. Still have the harddisk and some small parts, but the housing and MB went in the trash, too.

[scitari]

I don't have many regrets. I still have my original 800 and 810 from the early 80s and most of my floppies and cartridges. I also have the 800xl and 130xe we picked up after that. I got into retrocomputing in the early 2000s when everything was plentiful and dirt cheap. I took full advantage and put together a really nice collection that I paid a lot of money to move all over the country. I am really happy now that I have this collection and kept all of it. I have a hardware list on my AA signature. I couldn't imagine trying to put together a collection today without serious cash to burn.

 

My only regret is that I didn't get into retrocomputing a bit earlier. I wish I had bought new software when you could still find it on the shelf in the late 1980s and early 1990s at bargain bin prices. I did pick up a few items at that time to play but wish now I had bought everything I could find. There were also a few items I disposed of along the way that didn't work. Probably could have repaired them today.

[ACML]

I had acquired a nice setup of 8-bit equipment in the 80's (2xATR-8000s, 1MB MIO). In the early 90's, I discovered that you could get 8-bit hardware dirt cheap. Bought a stupid amount of stuff. I think just because it was so cheap, I couldn't pass it up. Anyway, got married and had my first child. The 8-bit stuff was forgotten, sitting in boxes for years. In the process of relocating, I made the decision that all this hardware wasn't going to make this next move and sold it all on eBay in 2004 in several large lots. When I was testing all the hardware to sell on eBay, I was not going to fix anything and tossed numerous 810's and 1200XLs with bad keyboards in a landfill (no one knew how to fix them then). The biggest regret is still in that landfill. All my software, much I wrote, is lost to the maggots. I really wish I had the software I wrote today, just for nostalgic reasons. It's all good though. I rediscovered my interest in Atari back in 2010. I'm back to having a stupid amount of hardware again, except this time it's 1200XLs and SIO2SDs. When I recently modified my 1200XLs with ClearPic2002 and OS mods, I was using the solder spool I bought at Radio Shack in 1984 (its almost gone). Now when I part with something Atari, I think about it good and long, but I still do sell some stuff.