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Personally, I'm holding out for one of those crazy low specials like Gamestop's $99 sale on the VCS, so this doesn't grab me, but some of you may wish to take advantage of the new Atari special on the VCS Speakerhat Bundle. It's now showing available for $227.99. https://atari.com/products/atari-vcs-speakerhat-bundle Enjoy!

Personally, I'm a big opponent of any case modifications. Still, it's your machine, so you can do as you please. That being said, you did a really great job with it and it looks really nice. I figure I can appreciate it even if I wouldn't want to do it personally. Great job!

That's funny. I see what you did there. It's also the only Atari console in almost three decades, so it would have to be the best. Of course, it would have to be the worst as well!

So, it's a cartridge, possibly homemade, definitely not commercial, full of pirated software. Why would anyone consider this rare?! Just because there aren't many of them, or even more than one doesn't make it rare. If that's the case, I have a ton of "rare" pirated menu disks that are worth hundreds! I know they're rare, as I made them, and each is the only one in existence! 😉 It would be worth however much the plastic and components that make it up are valued at, nothing more. You never know though, some naive collector that doesn't know any better may offer you but bucks. Just because someone that doesn't know any better offers a lot of money for it though, doesn't mean it's really worth that much.

Can't say as I've seen a torrent for them, at least not in recent years. They are readily available from AtariMania and archive.org

Probably shooting in the dark here, but are you certain that cartridge worked before? Do you have another unmodified 5200 you can try it on or did you try it on this one before you opened it up and modified it? Just trying to narrow it down to the 5200 or the game cartridge.

PM Sent

So, since my poking around and stalling has cost me my opportunity to pickup a Hercules cable, what are the going opinions on the second best cable available? Is anyone out there currently producing anything even remotely close to similar build and image quality?

Granted, it is a an extremely easy upgrade to do. Still, I'm glad yours went well. It definitely sounds like you're 5200 upgrade will be a little different just because of the existing AV mod. Hopefully, you'll have just as much luck with it. Good luck.

I've seen someone making quite a few for the ST line, but I've never ran into any for the 8-bit line.

Best no longer has them. His addendum changed the status to Sold Out some time ago.

Well, I've never seen a TV that had an auxiliary audio input for an HDMI source, so you'll either have to come up with some device to inject the audio into the HDMI stream, or use a set of external powered speakers. The easier and cheaper route would be to use external speakers. Most modern TVs have crap for built-in sound anyway, so you'll likely get much better audio using external, powered speakers anyway.

You don't need a RetroTink at all to connect your Sophia 2 equipped 8-bit to an HDMI capable monitor or TV. DVI and HDMI are both fully digital signals. No conversion is required. All you need is a simple adapter or a DVI to HDMI cable. I've used this one with the original Sophia without issue: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Basics-Adapter-Cable-1-Pack/dp/B014I8UQJY/

I can't vouch for others, but I typically check ebay for comparable items and look for completed sales to see what a particular item seems to be going for over the past few months before setting a price.

Aww man, that bites. I'd been meaning to order a cable and never got around to it. Now, I guess I never will.

No problem at all. We can't just play along nicely with our Ataris, blind to the world and pretend that life, as wonderful as it is overall, doesn't just suck sometimes. If piping in about your problems dealing with the loss of your dad, and me reading it and commenting can help in any small way, what else can we hope for? How else can we really be helpful to each other? Neither my wife nor I have lost either of our parents yet, but they're all in their eighties, so let's face it, it's only a matter of time. I try not to think about it or take the time that we have for granted, but to some degree it's human nature. I hope you can find that spark again, knowing your dad likely would've loved seeing anything that you'd done and would be happy knowing that you're still finding some small amount of joy in your hobbies, even if he isn't here to show anymore.

It's doubtful that he'll see it. That post was from '14 and his last ever post to any of the forums was in '15. Still, stranger things have happened. It would be interesting to see this one revived. From the year that his dad passed and him mentioning that he was 13, that'd have him around 37 now. He could very well be highly involved in career and family raising. We all went through those stages and found our way back to our Atari's, maybe he'll do the same.

Well, this thread was from before I really dove back into real 8-bit hardware and had done much more than dipped my toe in the ocean that is the AtariAge forums. It's kind of sad that this one sort of died off without Charlie having much luck accessing his Dad's old stuff. Still, it was a very interesting and heart-warming read.

Wow! That's a lot of work for a new member with only four posts to their name, two of them in this thread. Usually, it takes a handful of posts just for people to get around to inquiring about what sorts of upgrades they should consider. Excellent work!

I don't know. All I can speak to is myself, but I found something very off-putting about your post asking about preserving items that are still actively produced, sold, and supported. It just seems like a very strange request that might possibly have less than positive ulterior motives in mind. I worried that I may have really misread your post but looking at the other responses I can see that I am far from the only one to get the same impression, mistaken or not. At the end of the day, I agree with the others, who cares if the item is open source or "preserved" if it is being actively produced and supported? By all means, feel free to reverse engineer one of the devices that you've purchased, but don't try to get a team together to assist you. The last thing in the world we need is someone doing something to tick off the few modern developers that we have still developing and producing new items for our 8-bits.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the hard working, intelligent individuals that developed and created these devices still own the rights to them and, as such, I'm not sure of the legality of reverse engineering these devices. Also, if these individuals wish to leave their devices proprietary and closed, your desires to have them otherwise are irrelevant. Most of them are members here and fairly regular visitors, so maybe they can comment to your concerns.

I didn't know Stephen personally, but it's always sad news when we lose one of our own. RIP Stephen and my condolences to his friends, family, and loved ones.

Yeah, I was gifted a 400 about a year ago. I cleaned it up and have been restoring it. I purchased an SCCC and a 48/52K card for it. Somehow, in the process putting it back together once, I broke a hinge pin off as well. I as planning to try to super-glue or epoxy it back on, but haven't done anything with it yet. I'd have bought a replacement door from Brad at Best Electronics, but he's pretty much sold out of anything case related for the 400/800 line.

Thanks again @Beeblebrox! Tons of useful information that will undoubtedly help me get up to speed on my new device. I look forward to getting my original 800XL going again, getting it upgraded, and starting to use my Side3. For years I've used SanDisk cards exclusively and, as a result, I've had very few issues with any device, though I know even SanDisk runs into compatibility issues occasionally. Thanks again for the wealth of information. I look forward to watching through the videos at work tonight, on breaks and lunch, of course. 😜

Thanks @Beeblebrox. I appreciate your reply. I don't see myself ever getting into pdm music or anything along those lines. I'll mainly be using it as a cart emulator, for xex files, and as an 8-bit hard drive for atr storage, though I have a Fujinet v1.5 as well, so either are sort of redundant when it comes to atr storage/access. I'm not sure of the number of hd partitions or the size of each that I can access from the Side3, so that's probably the main reason I curious about size limitations. Either way, it sounds like we can use fairly large capacity cards, which allows me to be just about as lazy and unorganized as I care to be and still have plenty of storage space.