andylama

I would like two units, if and when they become available again.

I would buy a kit if available.

Hi Larry, I also have a Hakko 808, and bob1200xl covered it nicely. I echo what he says, and will add this testimonial: Prior to investing in the H808, I used one of those pathetic blue aluminum plunger-type solder suckers (useless!) The H808 was well worth the cost ($150 IIRC), as most good suckers are much more expensive (and in my experience, require more maintenance). This allowed me to 100% re-cap a vintage Teac 4-track reel-to-reel tape deck, containing countless dry and leaky electrolytic capacitors. The deck sounds better now than it did when it was new, back in 1974. I could not have done that job without the Hakko. I've had my Hakko for a few years now, used it for MANY hours (probably a few hundred hours of hot time), and it still works great. I'm still using the original tip. If and when it dies, I would happily buy another one. Great tool. I never want to be without one.

Agreed on all counts. Loved all of these. (pardon me for correcting the spelling of "Mar Tesoro")

Why not? It's not like that you'll have to buy it. Well, I won't. As a project it could be a nice thing. http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/atari800/ ^^^ at least I never had the gall to try to sell this to anyone. I wouldn't dare. Funny to see pics of that old case hack after all these years. That A800/ITX PC doesn't even exist anymore, as such (I do still have all the parts, scattered around my house) After seeing Benheck's masterful A800 laptop hack, I was thoroughly 'pwned', and gave up that little sub-hobby.

Thanks for the feedback, friends. I enjoying hearing various perspectives on the topic. For the record, aside from this silly hack, I still have loads of A8 gear, both stock and modded, and I treasure them all. I've been a huge A8 fan since I got my 800 back in...uhh...1982-ish? Unfortunately, I find very little time for them nowadays, but they will always be close to my heart. Who knows, maybe one day (when I find the time of course), I'll dig this heap out and finish the keyboard hack. It's worth doing. That PC was an excellent APE-Server. One other funny story of angry villagers with pitchforks and torches: I got one very angry lecture email from a guy in Germany who was disgusted, not about me 'desecrating' the 800, but about me about not being FCC compliant with regards to electromagnetic radiation (having removed the heavy aluminum chassis shield). Uhhh, okay...why the hell do you care about that even a little bit? He must have had a brain hemmorhage when Antec released their "skeleton" series of open-frame PC cases. People are funny...us included!

btw, I just looked up Benheck, and I forgot that I do know who he is. He is a genius! Wow, that guy does some beautiful hacks! I wonder if he gets cyber-threats too. He did make an A8 laptop!

Heh, I'm surprised this still exists in cyberspace! Allow me to 'splain. I am the evil so-and-so who perpetrated this atrocity against Atarihood. (yeah, I can prove it...I still possess the evidence.) But it wasn't totally wasteful or in vain. 8 or 9 years ago, I came into a VAST collection of 8-bit gear from a generous older gentleman who had some sort of zen epiphany and was shedding all his material posessions, which happened to include a vanload of A8 stuff. This collection included at least a dozen assorted A8 computers (mostly XL series), a few of which were non-functional. The A800 in the photo was one of the non-functional ones. Being an electronics kinda guy, I opened it up to see if it was feasibly repairable, and decided it wasn't. I seem to recall that the motherboard had a charred section, with several components burnt to a crisp. So I tossed it into a junkbox in my shop (along with an 810 drive and a couple of cartridges that wouldn't fire up) Some time later, there was a sort of fad for ITX PC hacks. I remembered the dead 800 and had an fiendish idea. Dremel, meet A800 case... Eventually it became a fully functional Windows PC with integrated APE interface. Actually, this new rig became a dedicated Atari Server of sorts. My only regret was never fully finishing the case hack. In the picture above, the keyboard is gutted and non-functional. My intent was to Dremel it further and adapt a mini USB Windows keyboard in its place. It would have been sweet, since the motherboard has an internal USB header. The sad truth is that I eventually lost interest in the entire concept of ITX motherboards and shelved the project. I still have it, but it hasn't been powered up in years. What's 'worse' is what I did to that poor Star Raiders cartridge...turning it into an optical mouse! I must admit, I still think that was mischievously clever...but that really pissed some people off. In fact, believe it or not, after this got 'slashdotted', I received some veiled threats via cyberspace about this. I wasn't even actively publicizing it--a friend just blogged about it, and it caught like a brush fire for a couple of weeks. This was both funny and sad, since (a) I am a lifelong lover of A8 gear and this was done out of fondness, and (b) I can't understand anyone getting quite that emotional/violent about such a thing. I mean, it's not like I was burning flags and bibles! I even pointed out the fact that these 'sacrificed' pieces were NON REPAIRABLE, but some people were still really upset with me. So anyway, it was something I did to amuse myself almost a decade ago, it enraged a bunch of fellow A8 enthusiasts and I'm very surprised to see it surface here, especially after so many years. I don't know who Benheck is, but it really should be called "andylama's Atari 800 ITX Hack". Please don't hate me; this was truly a labor of love. Cheers, all. Andy

Yep, I remember these. Neat for hardcore Atari collectors, but even when working, the video effects are not very impressive by modern standards. The seller knows the value of rarity. I'd bid on it myself as a fixer-upper project...if it were, say, $30.

I haven't visited that site in a long time, but I did exchange some emails with Holmes a few years back, and he told me he was getting 'out of the Atari 8-bit business', so I imagine that the website was abandoned.

Always loved this game. Would love to see a remake/update, using the incredible programming techniques all you code/hardware ninjas have discovered over the past couple of decades! I'd pay good money for J2P2 on a cart. Unfortunately, I'm in no position to offer useful assistance in this venture. I hope it happens!

I loved Journey to the Planets. I still have kind of a soft spot for it. True about it being kind of homely and having very little replay value, but it was a fun puzzle game with some truly weird (in a good way) design concepts. I got my money's worth out of it, back in the day. I agree with pretty much every other game cited in this thread. One wonders how that stuff got funded/published/distributed in the first place! The 8-bit port of Star Wars was maddeningly terrible.

Wow. I'm mostly a long-time lurker here, but when I saw the thread headline, I jumped on it. Mr. Boxell, I'm another Atari 800 old-timer, having obsessed over most of those Synapse games back in the early 80s, and I just wanted to say, for whatever it's worth to you: I always noticed and enjoyed your artwork, and I've known your name since I was a kid. I'm glad that you're still around, and that this stuff still matters to you. Best wishes to you. Andy

When I was still actively using 3.5" floppies, I'd throw away about 20 per month. That's one medium I don't miss at all. I've only had two or three CD-Rs 'go bad' ever, and even then, I suspect it was the fault of the no-name off-brand media I used. Your mileage may vary---well it sounds like it has.