Huxley

Awesome! Thanks for sharing that info! I just did a (quick and dirty) Google search for the info you shared, but didn't find anything. Do you know of any additional information about this upgrade? Drawing on my experience with upgrading the CPU's of older Macs, they often need special software drivers to work properly - do you think that this would be the case here? Thanks again! Huxley

Well, put me down as being interested! As the others have said, if the price is reasonable, I'll bite. :-) Huxley

I should've posted a "before" picture - those pics were post-teardown. I do have the floppy, power supply, keyboard, etc., they'd just been removed prior to taking those pics. Huxley

That's awesome - thanks for the info! I did notice the beefed-up 68000 chip on the card, but again, being unfamiliar with the ST line, I wasn't sure if it was standard or not. You mention your suspicion that it's not running TOS when the card is active - what would be the alternative? I've got other machines (like a Commodore 128 and DEC Rainbow) that could switch operating systems, but again, I don't know enough about the Atari line to know what other options there were. Was the normal TOS not friendly with accelerated processors? Anyway, thanks again for the info - this should get interesting! Huxley

Hi guys, As I mentioned in this posting: "I've got an odd 1040STF!", I'm starting to play around with an odd, modded 1040STF, but I have nothing but the CPU itself. Do any of you have the needed bits to get this machine going? I assume I'll need a mouse (or mouse adapter), video cable (either to composite or to VGA) and some software. I'm open to any offers, and could either pay cash or possibly trade some other cool old cra-, er, fine vintage merchandise. Thanks! Huxley

Hi guys, So, last year I took in a massive haul of surplus computer equipment from the Los Alamos Labs here in New Mexico. One of the cool items that came in that batch was an Atari STF, which has been sitting in my garage all this time. So, just yesterday I finally got the itch to check this thing out, and I quickly noticed that this system seems to have had at least one modification - what appears to have been a user-installed 2-position toggle switch on the right hand side, which is wired with some very thin wires to the left side of the CPU daughtercard. Also, it's clear that whoever installed this switch mod started by drilling a hole in the case... and then decided to position the switch a bit lower and drilled a second hole. I'll attach some pics below. I'm a retrocomputing hobbiest (and have been for years), but I have almost zero experience with Atari systems. Is this type of mod a common thing on these systems? What would it be used for? I've seen one reference to a drive-switch on some ST systems, but wouldn't that be wired to the drive itself, rather than the CPU board? Anyway, I I won't know for sure until I fire this thing up. I'm in need of pretty much every accessory to make this thing work - a video cable, a mouse and some software. I guess I'll start poking around on the trading forums and eBay, unless anyone who reads this has any spares they could part with (for cash or trade!). Thanks! Huxley

I'm sure I speak for the whole community when I say that I'm sorry to hear about your wife's misfortune! I'll be looking at your auction, and I hope I can help support you guys through this difficult time. Best wishes, and keep us informed, Huxley

Hi guys, As my topic says, I'm hoping to find someone with a spare (hopefully working) disk drive for my 'new' Atari 800 system (see here for details). I'm going to be buying a SIO2USB adapter as soon as money allows, but in the mean time, it'd be cool to have a floppy drive for this beastie. Drop me a line (or a PM) if you've got a drive you'd like to sell or trade. Thanks! Huxley

Wow - I'm overwhelmed! Thank you all so much for the great info, and special thanks to Mimo for actually RARing two batches of .wav files and emailing them to me! You guys are awesome. Urchlay: Thanks for all the specific info! One possible advantage that I have that I didn't think to mention in my first post is a fully working Windows XP Pro installation via Parallels on my Mac. I also have a USB-to-Serial adapter (I use it to sync my Newton 2100 to the Mac), and I'm wondering if maybe I couldn't find a way to go from a virtualized PC operating system to the USB/serial adapter to a SIOtoPC adapter to the 800? Whew! That'd be pretty cool if I pulled that off... Again, thanks for all the awesome ideas and info, everyone. I've got my hands full now... :-) Huxley

Hi guys! I'm new around here (this is my first post), but I hope I can learn a lot from you all. I just recently rescued a pair of vintage computers from a local barn (found a listing on Craigslist that panned out for once) - a TRS-80 Color Computer (the original silver one - I had one as a kid and loved it!) and an Atari 800 (rev. II, according to the stamp on the motherboard). I'd owned a few Atari computers as a kid (I think I had a 130XE), but never put much effort into them, so I'm making up for lost time with my 'new' 800. I spent several hours last night tearing down the Atari 800, scrubbing the case in the kitchen sink, taking the keyboard completely apart and washing each key, etc. It was a lot of work, but the system looks MUCH better now (25+ years spent in a barn in rural New Mexico weren't kind to the case and keyboard) and is happily booting from the handful of carts that I have for it ("Beamrider" is cool!). I fully expect my grandkids to be banging out BASIC programs on this thing - it's built like a tank, and only needed a tune-up. Along with the 800 itself (and a power brick), the system came with a (crappy, worn out) joystick, 410 Cassette Drive, an 850 Expansion Module (with power brick, but no SIO cable to hook into the 800), and a small stash of game and program carts. I took some time tonight to take the 410 Cassette Drive apart, clean it out, and find out why it wasn't spinning the tape rotors (just making some sad grinding sounds). I'm sure this won't surprise anyone here, but it turns out that after ~25 years, those little rubber drive belts can get a little loose. After carefully swapping the old, sagging belt with a rubber-band my wife found in the kitchen, the drive seems to be happily spinning away. I don't have any program tapes to test it with, but if visuals are any indication, it's working much like it did when new. I knew all those hours spent watching MacGyver when I was a kid would pay off some day... Right now, I'm mostly interested in the tape drive (at least until I find a floppy drive or an SIO-to-PC cable) as a possible means for getting downloaded software and games from my MacBook Pro over to the Atari. I'm quickly learning about the various SIO-to-USB adapters that are available, but right now I'm curious if I can find a way to use the gear I've got to do some simple data transfers. So, here's the main question: Now that my tape drive is (presumably) working, is there a way that I could connect it to my Mac via a CD-to-tape adapter (I use one in my VW to listen to my iPod through the tape deck) and play back .wav's or .mp3's (or .cas?) of cassette programs into the 800? I did a little searching on google, but didn't find a definitive answer, probably because I'm somewhat unfamiliar with the Atari-specific terms I should be looking for. Any tips or pointers would be more than welcome - again, I'm new to the Atari world, but I'm heavily into the "retrocomputing" hobby and I'm not scared of getting my hands dirty (or greasy or scratched up...). Thanks! Huxley