Bill Lange

http://www.vintage.org/2015/east/

Pete, I also attended VCF East in 2014 and was underwhelmed by the Atari showing. I was also thinking of attending and exhibiting in 2015. I was thinking about showing: - an 8-bit hooked up to a PC with SIO2PC - a PC running an 8-bit emulator - an 8-bit doing something with an Arduino/Raspberry Pi Kind of a mix between old and new ways of doing things. Maybe also create some handouts with Atari resources: websites, podcasts, dealers, etc. Bill

That's great. Another 800 XL saved from the trash heap of history. Brad has lots of knowledge, parts and ships fast. Bill

The 1027 printer is probably worthless (as a printer) for the reason already mentioned. Its only good for parts for other projects. New pens for the 1020 plotter are available for a few dollars from Best Electronics. The pirated software is also mostly worthless as it can be all be downloaded (just add them in to the deal as a stack of used disks). If the computers and disk drives actually work, $200 is a reasonable price. To get the best price, clean and test the hardware.

Check with Bradley Koda at Best Electronics. He is the man with the merchandise. http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/ Regards, Bill

I finally got my voicebox working. I tried hooking it up to an Atari 800XL, which didn't work. The software would lockup when the box attempted speech. I then tried a couple of different TRANSLATOR disks to make the 800XL act like a 800. That didn't work either. The keyboard wasn't working on my Atari 800, so I ordered a new mother board from Best Electronics. Once I installed the new motherboard and my Atari 800 was working as it should, I hooked up the Voicebox through a 1050. With BASIC installed, I ran one of the Voicebox BASIC programs from the disk. This time everything worked. The speech came out through my Commodore 1702 monitor. I don't know if the Voicebox only works on the 400/800 because of the OS, but I do know that pin 12 on the SIO jack has +12v on the Atari 400/800, but not later models. That might be the difference. Bill

Before I decided to purchase the lot, I ask the guy a question and he referred the question to one of his sons, so I assume they knew it was all being sold. Bill

Just the normal Atari hardware stuff (800, 810, 1050, 800XL, XL catalog, 1020). There was one book title "Atari XL User's Handbook". Bill

Maybe they are moving or it could be the beginning of an estate sale. Who knows.

Here a picture of the older case that I like.

I saw this Atari Home Computers In-store display case on Craigslist in NJ this week: http://jerseyshore.craigslist.org/vgm/4627149887.html I don't know what kind of condition it is in but it looks like its been used as basement or garage storage. I'm not sure I'd pay $500 for it. Maybe $50. I actually prefer the older Atari Home Computers - Computer Demonstration Center In-Store Display case. Bill

I got the following controllers: 4 regular Atari joysticks in various states of brokenness 2 pairs of paddle controllers 1 pair of wireless Atari joysticks 1 Atari trackball controller 1 Epyx 500XJ controller 1 misc joystick controller

Yes, actually the 1702 with the front panel door is what caught my eye. I'll take a picture of the controllers in a bit. I did see a pair of wireless Atari controllers and an Atari trackball controller along with a bunch of others. Bill

I saw it on the local Craigslist for $500. I responded to the ad and offered $300 and the guy said come and get it. The guy was about 70. He said the Atari stuff was his two sons, but that he wanted to start cleaning out all the stuff from their house. I hung out and talked to the guy for about an hour or so. That was actually the best part. We talked about Jersey life, serving in the military, his butterfly "collection". He and his wife raise butterflies in their back yard, tag them, and then release them. If other butterfly enthusiast find his tagged butterflies, they can go to some website and enter where they where found. He didn't have much interest in the Atari stuff, but he was really interesting to talk to.

There are about a dozen controllers, including an Atari trackball and a set of Atari 2600 wireless controllers. There is also a Super Sketch device and related software on cartridge. Everything seems to work except the Atari 800 keyboard has no response. The option keys work but not the keyboard. I can play demon attack on it. Also the Atari 810 will boot, but it gets boot errors. I'll have to do a little cleaning and check to see if there any loose cables in the 800. Bill

For $300 and a 1/4 tank of gas, I picked up the following this evening: Commodore 1720 (in the box) Atari 800 (in the box) Atari 810 (in the box) (w/ Happy) Atari 850 Atari 410 (in the box) Atari 800XL Atari 1050 (in the box) Atari 1020 (in the box) The Programmer kit (in the box) The Entertainer (in the box) Printer cable Modem cable Hundreds and hundreds of floppies and cassettes Should have some fun going through it all. Bill

I see Zork I - III. How about the Enchanter Trilogy: Enchanter, Sorcerer and Spellbreaker.

Hey guys. I just download this. It's pretty slick. Right away, I see that two of my favorites are in there (Ultima 3, Universe). Only issue that I had was that Google/Chrome complained about the size of the file when it tried to scan it. Nice work. Bill

There are multiple announcements online. Most say that he wrote the basic game on his Apple II over a weekend while in college. A few say (including Albert's link above) that it was port to/available on the Atari 8-bits. He was only 53. Not really that old.

Sad news, Douglas Smith, creator of Lode Runner, died. https://news.yahoo.com/douglas-smith-creator-1980s-pc-160102650.html Bill

I was going to say Gold Rush from Compute! July 1982.

Enchanter series from Infocom: 1. Enchanter 2. Sorcerer 3. Spellbreaker Great games, great packaging. Bill

Here are some pictures of the Alien Group Voice Box. It uses a Votrax SC-01A speech synthesizer chip.

Here is the second part of the documentation that came with the Voice Box. These look like some of the original typed pages for the manual. There are ten pages of yellowing crinkly paper. I'm going to put these in some paper protectors and see if I can flatten them out. Next up, I'll open up the actual Voice Box unit and see what is inside this particular model. Bill Atari_Alien_Group_Voice_Box_Manual.pdf

I think there is still 19 pages to go.