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Offtopic--but hey, its an Atari PC-1!


charliecron

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I thought some of you folks might enjoy a few pics of a nice PC-1, there arent very many pics of the PC-1 the net. The last owner took these pics just before he shipped me the machine.

 

The monitor is a Datatrain V252A. The story goes there were not any Atari branded monitors available in Canada..but this is the same model Atari was branding. It even came in an Atari box.

 

The original owner installed a switch to disable the keyboard click.

 

Pretty sweet eh?

 

Charlie

 

Edited to inlcude thumbnails rather than the big photos..

Edited by charliecron
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Wow, thanks for sharing!

 

That machine is in remarkably good shape. The Atari PC-compatibles were such slick-looking machines, especially the PC-1, and very well-made too. I've only got a PC-4 in my collection, but I'd love to get a PC-1 of my own someday. I've tried to keep my eye out for them on eBay, but trying to search for "Atari PC" yields nothing but garbage, and I don't know where else one would find them these days.

 

I'm wondering if anyone has tried installing a 3.5-inch drive mech in a PC-1. It looks like the data cable can be replaced with a new one, and I'm sure a mounting bracket would fit, but I'd be curious to know if the BIOS even supports a 3.5-inch drive (in double or high density mode).

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I'm wondering if anyone has tried installing a 3.5-inch drive mech in a PC-1. It looks like the data cable can be replaced with a new one, and I'm sure a mounting bracket would fit, but I'd be curious to know if the BIOS even supports a 3.5-inch drive (in double or high density mode).

 

Well he also threw in an external 3.5 drive that he said his friends built, works on an ST too. It's a very nice drive. I'll try and get some pics. You can boot the machine off it by holding F2 at power on. I'm not sure what modes it works in though. I can probably do some testing, I'm pretty sure it's a 720K drive.

 

Here is it running GEM booted of an external 3.5.

 

Edited to inlcude thumbnails rather than the large photos. Also added a photo of the desktop after the splash screen.

Edited by charliecron
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Here is it running GEM booted of an external 3.5.
NICE!!! :lust:

 

That looks like a Hercules-compatible amber monochrome monitor, which is still among my favorite type of computer displays: I found them very easy on the eyes, especially for prolonged reading or writing (I occasionally use an amber monitor with my Atari XEP80 to get a similar display today, albeit at a much lower resolution). That's a nice-looking keyboard, too: the one that came with my PC-4 was just a rebranded Mitsumi keyboard with no Atari name or logo anywhere on it except for a sticker on the bottom. You mentioned a switch that the former owner added to disable the keyboard click. Just out of curiosity, does the click come from inside the keyboard or inside the computer?

 

I had forgotten that the Atari PC series could use external ST floppy drives, in which case yours is almost certainly a 720K drive. Let me know if you need any 720K disks as I've got some extras (Atari brand, no less!) :)

Edited by jaybird3rd
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Now that is a nice machine. It wouldn't look out of place next to some of today's PC's either.

 

That's the first time I've seen close up picture of any of the Atari PC's. In fact it was only a few years ago that I even learnt that Atari made PC compatibles.

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I just thought...

 

Has anyone taken one of these (non-working) and gutted it and replaced the innards with modern components?

 

There's an upgrade project for someone :D

 

You'd need a onboard sound and gfx, but a branded Dual Core with 1GB memory, etc :cool:

Edited by Pengwin
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It's not a joystick port, it's a mouse port, it uses an ST mouse. Not sure if it's a standard serial port otherwise.

 

Oh boy even broken I don't think I would gut one these. I know they arent exactly rare, but they are hard enough to come by. And they are built really well, probably could be fixed if it was broke. I guess the case is the same as a Megafile44, that would not be so bad to gut, but still painful. Heck, I felt so bad just yesterday gutting a 1010 tape drive for it's SIO port, still feel raw about it, but at least it's SIO port is carrying bits again!

 

They keyclick comes from the case...here is a pic of the mod, and 1 more of it running "Police Quest".

 

How can I include thumbnails instead of the actual pic?

 

edit:--thanks Albert

 

Charlie

 

Edited to inlcude thumbnails...

Edited by charliecron
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oh btw Jaybird3rd, thanks for offer on the 720k disks.

 

also, I've seen some of the Atari PC line a few times on ebay, but not on the American site. Like check this out..this one is actually going on now at the German ebay. I suppose the hard part would be finding someone willing to ship it to you. You can also check the french ebay site from time to time.

 

A link to an Atari PC for sale on German ebay

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Has anyone taken one of these (non-working) and gutted it and replaced the innards with modern components?

 

There's an upgrade project for someone :D

The problem with that idea is that the Atari cases use a proprietary layout that isn't too friendly to modern motherboards. I removed the components from my PC-4 case in the hope that I could find a way to fit a modern motherboard and drives inside it. It's not too hard to get a modern ATX power supply or drives inside it, but the power supply and the 5.25-inch drive cage overhang the top half of the motherboard, and there isn't enough clearance underneath for a modern CPU or even RAM. I suppose it's possible to fit a Mini-ITX board in there, but a tiny board like that would be wasted in a bulky Atari case.
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oh btw Jaybird3rd, thanks for offer on the 720k disks.

 

also, I've seen some of the Atari PC line a few times on ebay, but not on the American site. Like check this out..this one is actually going on now at the German ebay. I suppose the hard part would be finding someone willing to ship it to you. You can also check the french ebay site from time to time.

 

A link to an Atari PC for sale on German ebay

Thanks for the tip. I guess the PC line sold better in Europe than in the US. I'll keep my eyes open in the hope that I find a seller who offers international shipping.
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If anyone is interested in a PC1, let me know I've got several dozen of them. A few with HD addons as well.

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

oh btw Jaybird3rd, thanks for offer on the 720k disks.

 

also, I've seen some of the Atari PC line a few times on ebay, but not on the American site. Like check this out..this one is actually going on now at the German ebay. I suppose the hard part would be finding someone willing to ship it to you. You can also check the french ebay site from time to time.

 

A link to an Atari PC for sale on German ebay

Thanks for the tip. I guess the PC line sold better in Europe than in the US. I'll keep my eyes open in the hope that I find a seller who offers international shipping.

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Wholey Smoley... got lots of PM's all of a sudden.

 

 

Okay, I'm bringing all of the units into the office this week, let me go through them and check them all out, make a listing of each config and then I'll email this out to all who PM'd me. Just so everyone knows, I only have a few keyboards. The units use a standard PC DIN 5 keyboard, you can get an adapter and use just about any PS/2 pc keyboard you want, also check B&C Computervisions - www.myatari.com and Best Electronics - www.best-electronics-ca.com as they may have some Atari PC keyboards available, though they may be a little pricey.

 

Try places like mpja and mcm Electronics, they both liquidate out PC components and have stuff dirt cheap.

 

 

Give me until Tuesday so I can thoroughly go through all of these. Some of them are Test Samples from the labs, so some cases are grey, others are white, some have different labels on them, others even have the Atari Test Lab paperwork still attached to them.

 

 

Karl Heller --- Dude?!?!?! I thought you got out of Atari a few years back when I came by and bought out a carload of stuff from you. You get the Atari itch again? :-)

 

 

 

Curt

 

 

Karl raises his hand...

Edited by Curt Vendel
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Karl Heller --- Dude?!?!?! I thought you got out of Atari a few years back when I came by and bought out a carload of stuff from you. You get the Atari itch again? :-)

 

Curt

 

Karl raises his hand...

 

Itch? More like a virus.... it comes back every few years. I still have a bunch of stuff I need to unload... mostly boxes of floppies and several 800XLs in various states... oh and lots of 2600s too. Man I have too much.

 

I completely blame your VAX posts, AtariMax for coming out with things I have to buy every year, and this darn AtariAge site. :D

 

I'm a sucker for Atari history.. sick disease I have.

Edited by kheller2
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Itch? More like a virus.... it comes back every few years. I still have a bunch of stuff I need to unload... mostly boxes of floppies and several 800XLs in various states... oh and lots of 2600s too. Man I have too much.

 

I completely blame your VAX posts, AtariMax for coming out with things I have to buy every year, and this darn AtariAge site. :D

 

I'm a sucker for Atari history.. sick disease I have.

 

 

I'm with ya man!!! I'm with ya......

 

I just purchased a load of Atari 8bit stuff this weekend. It included an Atari 800 with a Scott Peterson memory mod in it that was built and installed by Scott himself (thanks Charles!!) Also had the Atari Store Demo Cartridge in the lot

Edited by Guitarman
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The keyboard and the casing for the PC-1...looks suspiciously like Mega St/e or TT series to me

 

Looks like jacky and sammy were 'cost cutting' again

 

Yeah it's a Megafile case. But they were not cost cutting, actually this machine was quite expensive. Atari made the motherboard, it included 4 types of video output, everything built in, rs/232, parallel, mouse, external floppy, IBM built keyboard, plenty of video memory. They cost cut later on other PC models, and used off the shelf stuff, but this machine is all Atari.

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I wonder if I could use some sort of parallel storage device on this thing...
If I get one from Curt, I plan to use a Xircom Ethernet adapter that connects to the parallel port. I've used it in the past to get an old laptop onto my Netware network, and it should work well with the PC-1. All I'll need is a boot floppy containing DOS and the network drivers; everything else will run right off of my server!

 

I'll probably use the machine as an APE host (provided it's fast enough), and for burning EPROMs for Atari cartridges. And to play Atarisoft's DOS titles, of course. :)

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