fiscap

I also took the time to have a closer look as to how the Mosaic 64K expansion board was installed - in particular how the 800 was modified with the ribbon cables attached to the main board. Whoever did the installation did a fairly nice job.

For those that were wondering about the 3Bit Full-View 80 card, I finally ended up figuring out how it should be cabled and cobbled together a setup to test it. It does work and the output looks terrific, however my phone doesn't fully capture how nice it looks in person...

Thanks for the clarification ClausB - never having owned an 800 before, I was unaware of the appropriate numbering convention for the slots/sockets. The only reference I had is that on the 3Bit card labeling, they mentioned it should go in Socket 4, with the label towards the back of the computer.

I'm using only the monitor port on the side of the Atari - I don't have a separate CRT monitor that supports the output of the Bit3 card. As I mentioned in my other post, the only way I can get any video to display through the monitor port on the side of the Atari is to run with the 32K Mosaic card in slot-2 behind the 10K ROM. But even then, BASIC is reporting only about 13K available space. Despite game cartridges running fine in this configuration, I'm unable to use the SDrive-MAX - anything I try results in the video output being garbled.

Thanks for the replies guys - I'm starting to think my issue in getting the SDrive-MAX running is due to the memory configuration of my 800... http://atariage.com/forums/topic/286620-atari-800-96kb-and-3bit-full-view-80-card/

I picked up an Atari 800 off of eBay which didn't show any pictures of the included cards. I was originally hoping that it included the 10K ROM as well as fully loaded with the standard (3) 16K boards for a total of 48K - but figured it would be empty since the seller didn't show any photos. I was surprised at what I found inside and now I'm curious about the unique combination of memory cards along with the 3Bit Full-View 80 card. There are photos below indicating the configuration as it was shipped; Slot-1 with the 10K ROM, Slot-2 with a 32K Mosaic RAM board, Slot-3 with a 64K Mosaic RAM board, and Slot-4 with the 3Bit Full-View 80 card. There are also two small ribbon cables coming up from the main board inside the 800 which connect to the 64K Mosaic board. I don't have a monitor that would possibly work with the Full-View 80 card, so I'm unable to test if the system works with the configuration of cards as it was delivered. In fact, the only way I can get the system to come up is with the 10K ROM card installed in Slot-1 along with the single 32K Mosaic card directly behind it in Slot-2 - however, with the BASIC cartridge in the left cartridge port, the 'PRINT FRE(0)' command only shows about 13K of free memory available. All of the game cartridges I have function normally with this configuration. I picked up an SDrive-MAX, but so far have not been able to get it to work - I think it may be due to this unique combination of memory cards. As a first step into the retro Atari world, I'm just looking to use the physical Atari 800 with the SDrive-Max to play the vintage games I remember playing as a kid. Any thoughts on the best way to proceed - possibly just purchase the (3) 16K memory cards and try the system with the standard 48K? I think it's worth trying, but I'm a little concerned with the cabling running up from the main board and the customized modifications that may have been done to run the 96K configuration.

Is the SDrive-MAX compatible with the Atari 800 (non-XL), and if so is there a minimum RAM requirement?