DanBoris

Based on the pictures in this auction, it appears that the auction the op posted is simply the box that goes inside the colorful sleeve. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Atari-800-home-computer-system-48K-Ram-With-Original-Box-UNTESTED/133384720606?_trkparms=aid%3D1110001%26algo%3DSPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D225086%26meid%3Dd3d54085d5434ad5b48063ca5bc2ccae%26pid%3D100623%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D5%26sd%3D402134754048%26itm%3D133384720606%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2047675&_trksid=p2047675.c100623.m-1

The light switch would work fine for the gear shift. The dimmer is a little more complicated. There is more electronics in a dimmer then just the potentiometer (variable resistor) so hooking it up directly would not work. You could potentially use the potentiometer inside, but it would have to be the same resistance value as the one in Pong.

That link will only show you your cart, no one else can see it.

I ran across this video the other day that shows the inner workings of Blip. Really cool piece of mechanical design...

Did you check if you are getting a good voltage from the power supply?

Since you are getting something on the screen the analog portion is probably working ok, so video is getting from the video chip to the TV, so this would leave a problem with the digital part of the system. In any other system I would say start with cleaning the cart connector, but since the internal games don't work either, that's not going to be an issue. If you have soldering skills you could try touching up solder joints.

If you were using a non-Atari printer with the 850 interface module, it made sense to have the printer on the left since the parallel jack on the 850 was on the left, although I easily solved that problem by flipping the 850 upside down.

I never had one personally, but back in the 80's my Dad brought one home from work along with a digital scale and we worked on interfacing the computer to the scale to do data collection.

It's interesting that you mention that, because despite what is shown in my picture, I distinctly remember having the disk drives on the right. Being right handed it I think it was just easier. In that picture I don't have the printer on a stand so I had to have it on the right so there was room on the floor for the paper. We eventually created a simple stand for it by putting dowels in the screw holes on the bottom to create legs. I think at that point I switch sides. My Dad custom built that desk. Notice the custom made shelf for the 850 interface right under the TV.

It's actually one of those computer printed portraits you get done at a kiosk in your local mall back then.

Me and my 800 from July of 1982.

Yeah, a dynamic RAM cell actually behaves a lot like a pixel in a modern CCD, so they were used in early video camera. There was a camera that used this technique demoed at last years VCF east. You can see it in this video... https://youtu.be/krSurGeloEo?t=182

I definitly remember these kiosks! Here is a picture of me from back in 1982 at my Atari 800 with one of the computer printed pictures of me on the wall.

There used to be a web site that had a lot of the Atari 8-bit firmware, but I can't seem to find it now. Don't remember if they had the 1020 firmware, but they had it for a lot of the peripherals.

The first system I programmed was my Atari 800 in Basic. I had two neighbor friends, one had a TRS-80 and the other an Apple 2, and we were all interested in programming so we all worked together to write programs. We actually submitted two to Softside Magazine's 1K program column, although neither was accepted. After Basic I eventually moved to Action!. I tried my hand at assembly but never got the hang of it. When I went to college I had a 6502 assembly programming class where we used the AIM65. I then got a job as a hardware technician at a company that manufactured data communications equipment a lot of which was based on the 6502, so even despite my struggles with it on my Atari 800, I eventually became very proficient in 6502 assembly. After the 800, I got an Atari ST and start using GFA Basic which I eventually used on the PC before selling my soul to Microsoft when I start with Visual Basic 1.0.

Thanks to James Read who made numerous improvements in the 2.0 version. Here are some of the highlights. See the release notes file for a full list. Support for Amiga and Apple II files Store contents are now accurate Palette colors and names now accessible from graphics viewer Can view players saved with the game A number of improvements to the room viewer All graphics are now shown in the graphics viewer You can get the new version from my web site http://atarihq.com/danb/acs.shtml

Very interesting page, I had never seen it before.

As you say, the savings comes from not having to switch back and forth. Since external RAM and the VDC cannot be on the bus at the same time, you would have to switch back and forth for every byte which saves a lot of instruction cycles.

MOV A,#randomness MOV R6,A

It's been a while since I have worked with the 8048, but I think you have a problem right away with this code: mov r0,#randomness mov a,@r0 mov r6,a ; randomness now in r6 Lets says randomness = 2. The first line moves 2 into R0. The second line gets the value in RAM that is at the address stored in R0, so in this case if will get whatever is stored in memory location 2 which is also R2. Line three moves that value in to R6. So randomness wouldn't end up in R6.

I can't imagine why something like this would get criticism. ;)

I have always been a fan of the Hard Hat Mack cover art. One of the few games I can think of that had a real photo graph as the cover instead of something drawn.

Bump

I have the cartridge storage items pictured below for sale. They are in pretty good condition except for the one with the lid which has a big crack in the lid. Vintage dust included at no extra cost. :) Private message me if you are interested. Not looking to get a lot for them, so make me an offer.

This sort of reminds me of the algorithm the Telengard uses to generate it's maze. It uses a algorithm based on your current location in the maze and three hard coded constants. They must have had to hand tune those constants until they got acceptable mazes. You can read the details here: http://atarihq.com/danb/Telengard.shtml