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OK, here it is as a PDF file. I've cleaned the scans a bit, but there are some words which are partially faded - that's how I got it from that friend who gave me his 400 and disks, so there's not much I can do, sorry. If someone wants to attempt OCR'ing it, I have the scans available as PNG images, too (size is about the same). Page 5-2 is missing, it may be where the schematic should go. I believe that schematic I scanned a while ago may be the one corresponding to this manual, although I got it from a different person. (BTW, what does the message "Upload failed. You are not permitted to upload this type of file" mean? Got it when I attempted to attach a multi-part RAR file to this post originally...)

I have that one, but the quality isn't too good. Would it be worth scanning, anyway?

Here's that Atari 400 brochure I mentioned, I didn't touch up the scans this time because the holes aren't as bad as they were on the other one. I think I got this brochure even before I got my Atari 2600 VCS... around 1979 or early 1980 (same as the handheld brochures I uploaded elsewhere). I didn't get an actual Atari 8-bit computer until 1985 or 1986, though (my 800XL).

I've been scanning some old stuff, here's a 4-piece foldable brochure for the Atari 400 and 800, from 1981. I've touched up the scans a bit because I had made some holes in order to keep it in a binder, and in a couple of places some letters had been cut out by the holes. I also have an 8-page brochure for the Atari 400, from 1979. I'll scan that one next.

I found these today in a box upstairs, after having been looking for them all week everywhere in my room I finally remembered where I placed them some time ago... I don't think I've seen them around, so I thought you might find them interesting.

Sure. I have another card game that I didn't finish, I think. And an unfinished roulette game I abandoned when I found one that looked almost 100% as what I was attempting to do... and the ideas for several other card games. Reading about the Retro Challenge the other day, I've been thinking of completing the unfinished one and maybe a couple more. BTW, there's one Crazy Eights game (Ochos Locos) which I didn't really create, it's just a fixed version of one published in Antic (I don't remember now what I had to fix, only that back then I experienced some sort of errors with the program typed from the original listing). The description I included when I first uploaded it to the UMich archives back then explained that, but lately I've seen it elsewhere without that description - I don't want anybody to think I'm trying to steal the credit for that one.

Well, this is what they look like. I only bought them for the SIO connectors, if you want, maybe I could send them to you in exchange for a regular SIO cable, or just SIO connectors (from a broken cable).

ATARI BASIC came on a cartridge for the 400/800 models, the XL/XE had it in a built-in ROM (though you could still plug in a cartridge instead).

Hmmm, maybe they did... a quick search for "Phonemark" led me to this page, the Phonemark model shown there looks a lot like the Datamark and XC12. There's a much better picture here.

Hi Mathy Yes, it's a possibility, I remember seeing the Datamark in other guises too. Too bad neither the XC12 nor the XG12 have any production dates on their labels. There were also some GE cassette recorders with swappable cables for use with different computers, I bought a couple of those cables some years ago when I found them among other stuff a guy was selling downtown. Those only used 4 wires, while the 410 uses 5, and the XC12/XG12 use 6. I don't remember the model number of that one, though, but it was well known back then, I'm sure.

So... yesterday I got my late cousin-in-law's 130XE system (130XE computer, XC12 cassette recorder, 1050 disk drive, and several diskettes, plus a couple of booklets) from my cousin. Everything had been in storage for quite some time, the shielding in the 130XE shows some signs of rust, but I already tested it last night and it's working fine, apparently. Haven't tried the XC12 or the 1050 yet, the XC12 is in better shape than my XG12, the 1050 looks like it's OK although it power supply has a crack on one side, and it's not the usual "brick" I remembered, but instead appears to be (from what I can see through the crack) just a trafo with a plastic shell tight around it (code CO 60592-11, made in the UK but with German labeling). But what worries me is that the sleeves of the diskettes showed signs of heavy humidity, to the point that some of them had stuck together. I'm wondering what I could do to them before attempting to read them. How about blowing hot air with a hair dryer from a safe distance? (Yes, I know what heat can do to the plastic - long story involving my very first diskette, glue for PVC piping and a flatiron... and incredibly, the diskette itself still works) There are 3 disks labeled "BASIC TUTORIAL", numbered from 1 to 3, and one of the booklets possibly came with them; IIRC, back then, he also had one or more cassettes belonging to the same set (the cassettes included audio that would play while the program was executing, describing what was going on, controlling the recorder's motor by software). The rest is mostly games, with a few utils too.

Just wondering if this was familiar to anybody elsewhere... it was basically a clone of the Atari XC12. I believe the same company made clones of the Commodore Datasette, too. I've never seen it mentioned in any A8 FAQ or anything, but they were well known around here... here are a couple scans showing the XC12 and the XG12 next to each other. Except for the logo and labels, they are virtually identical.

I thought I had read something about that somewhere, but haven't found any datasheets indicating it. The 65C02 and 65C816 are limited to 14MHz only. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, or a yet-to-come version...

Oh, I know probably anything in that vein would have to be sold for no less than $200 and few (if any) people would buy it, I was only commenting that I had been thinking about that a few days ago, and then I come back here yesterday and see someone revived a (long) thread talking about right that... I haven't read through all pages of the thread yet, BTW. It's going to make an interesting read, seeing what people have proposed over time. Or maybe just a fun one. What got me thinking about this in the first place was that I was browsing the WDC site for documentation the other day, and found out they have a sample request form where they will send you free samples of their ICs if you intend to use them in developing some prototype that will use them and later intend to start mass production or something. I started to think who would be interested in using a 16-bit processor running at only 14MHz on a computer... that would have been an improvement back then (look at the Apple //GS), but nowadays it isn't much. I guess they're selling them for dedicated systems. Aside from those problems concerning the very low sales/high price and such, there's also the issue of trademarks and copyrights. You couldn't use the name "ATARI", in the first place, you couldn't use the original ROMs, nor the custom ICs (POKEY, ANTIC, GTIA, mainly), so what do you end up with? I agree that something implementing common mods "out of the box" would be a more interesting thing.

Hmmm... the oscillator in a 130 XE I just opened earlier is already clocked at 14.32 MHz, using a divisor to bring the frequency down to the 1.79 MHz used by the CPU, I guess. The 800XL does use a 3.58 MHz one, OTOH.

Now that you mentioned music and MID files... several years ago (10 or more) I was examining the MIDI file format, I even wrote a program that could read the contents of a MIDI file and display all the info, but I never got to writing a MIDI player for the A8. It can be done, I remember there's a player some Polish guys made, but their site was in Polish only and I couldn't understand more than a couple of words. Heck, there's even a MIDI player for the PC speaker (source cod eincluded) - the A8 has 4 voices, it sure can do something better than that. If someone's interested in further looking into all that, I could look for all the data I gathered back then. Then you could eventually use regular MIDI files for your programs...

Hmmm... just the other day, I was thinking, if someone would make an updated "A8"-clone, (1) would anybody be interested in buying it, and (2) what things should it incorporate? Something like using 65c816 @ 14MHz (actually, maybe a switch like the old "turbo" ones in the old PCs up to the Pentiums that would allow the original 1.79MHz or 8x faster - the A8s use a crystal at ~14MHz speed and a divisor to get it down to 1.79), with the 65x821 similarly for the PIA, dual POKEYs for stereo output as default, replacing the DIP RAM chips with SIMMs, providing decent video output circuitry, etc.

Take a look at those scans of Informática Creativa I did - in one of them (Issue #2, p. 41), in the "news" section, they were showing an ad that appeared in the German "CHIP" magazine (I believe) for the HP-48SX scientific programmable calculator...

You probably can use a 1.2MB drive as well. But you'll need to change some jumpers. Do you have the jumper map of that model? (and again, try it before on the PC, to make sure it is in working condition). I don't have the jumper settings, but I suppose I can look them up. And yes, I've tested it on the PC before. IIRC, the main problem is that the head of a HD FDD writes narrower tracks and that each step between tracks is also shorter. Not sure if there was also a problem with how much current they drain and how much the XF551's power supply can provide...

Thanks for the info. I tend to agree with what you've stated. In all probability, there never was anything released and the "sightings" mentioned in this thread, although sincere, were mistaken. Sigh... Well, there is a chance that it may have been just some other game with a hacked title screen reading "Gunship", but what could it have been? It wasn't Tomahawk, Super Huey or Infiltrator (I had seen those back then), and as I said, it looked very much like the C64 version of Gunship. I doubt it was an elaborate hoax with a Commodore computer and drive hidden inside Atari casings... One possibility is that it might be something like when another guy told me of a friend who had ruined an A8 version of Outrun (!) attempting to crack it - and then it turned out to be California Run, with this guy saying they both were basically the same. So, any info on someone programming a Gunship-lookalike in 1986 or earlier?

Given that the name of the girl is at the bottom of the picture, it's easy to find out...

Actually, the cables themselves won't be too useful, as they only have 5 wires. Better just unscrew the connector casing and pop out the contacts, keeping the connector itself only. Later you can replace the contacts with ones from these 12-pin board connectors (they are sold with the contacts on a strip, ready to be cut and crimped onto the corresponding wires):

That's why I've been trying to get my other XF551 working... my plan was to make DCM images of SD/ED disks and store them on DS/DD disks, then read those DS/DD disks with Hias' WriteAtr tool, or read the files directly with UTIL (I've always kept 5.25" FDDs on my PCs just for that - only the P4 I'm using right now lacks one, but maybe this Mitsumi mech I found the other day is short enough to fit). Anyway, I've had the pieces for a SIO2PC cable lying around for 10 years now, I never got to build it because having only a single MAX232 chip I couldn't decide whether to build the SIO2PC cable or an R-verter clone - I've always regretted not getting 2 samples from Maxim instead of just 1. I'm thinking of requesting a couple more samples, after 10 years I don't think they would mind... Time to go on and build that SIO2PC cable, I guess.

Well, they didn't compile under that old version of Redhat... apparently some needed files are missing. I tried the DOS format, but got a "track 0 bad" error with the drive. Also tried the old UTIL for Atari diskettes, it seems to format the tracks, but fails when attempting to write the VTOC and directory. Can't read a properly formatted diskette, either. So, it seems it's something with the head(s), not just misalignment... Among my old PC stuff I found a working Mitsumi/Toshiba mech that fits perfectly inside the XF551 's casing, but it's a 1.2MB drive. Attempting to use it with the 800XL will also give me an "ERROR- 163" when trying to read the directory. Damn, long ago one of my cousins had an XT computer with the same Mitsumi mech as the XF551, only that it had a black front instead of a grey one, I remember I even exchanged them to test it back then. I wonder whatever happended to that one... I guess if I can't get the drive to work again I may finally convert it into a 3.5" drive... I have the adapters from an old PC in a drawer, both for the data and the power cable. That still requires a new ROM, right? UPDATE: tested the film cable going to the heads for continuity, apparently no problems there. Maybe it's the connector where the film cable connects to the board...?

I still think the most useful application might be FTP, in order to download files directly to an A8... as long as there are still any FTP servers with content that would be of any use on an A8. How about a mail/news reader? I'd expect those to be simple enough... I've got it: network games over the Internet with an A8. But of course, there's no need to do anything like that... it would just be a fun experiment, maybe.