PBI

[yorgle]

Just curious, in all of the Atari literature for my 800xl, there's a lot of hype about the Parallel Bus Interface port. Why aren't there more peripherals (either Atari or aftermaket or homemade) that use this port?

[JayoK]

Well I can only speculate - but connecting to the PBI was generally quite expensive as the decoding logic to support the PBI was involved. Additionally the PBI was realistically useful on the 800XL as the 600XL was 16KB, the 400/800 and 1200XL didn't have one. The to further complicate things the XE dropped it for an ECI! Talk about narrowing the market.

 

Probably wasn't worth the develpment effort.

[mos6507]

The fact that Atari Corp. didn't do much with it doesn't mean it wasn't worth the original R&D. Atari Corp barely supported the A8 in favor of the ST.

 

The PBI was designed during the Atari Inc. era. They had big plans for it back then.

 

3rd parties made good use of it and it was definitely a factor in the A8's longevity.

Edited August 24, 2007 by mos6507

[yorgle]

3rd parties made good use of it and it was definitely a factor in the A8's longevity.

 

I've seen that it was used for a memory upgrade on the 600xl, but what other devices were made?

[Mathy]

Hello Yorgle

 

I've seen that it was used for a memory upgrade on the 600xl, but what other devices were made?

 

Blackbox

MIO

Supra or KPI interface

 

Greetings

 

Mathy

[sup8pdct]

The fact that Atari Corp. didn't do much with it doesn't mean it wasn't worth the original R&D. Atari Corp barely supported the A8 in favor of the ST.

 

The PBI was designed during the Atari Inc. era. They had big plans for it back then.

 

3rd parties made good use of it and it was definitely a factor in the A8's longevity.

 

Atari developed the 1090XL pbi box. I have one here but no cards.

Have seen a Z80 card and a memory card. The guy I got this unit from worked for a HDD company and they where developing a HDD card for the unit.

The unit has 5 slots PC style but a bit wider. The box has what looks like 9V ac power in socket. Unit has Has buffering chips for the parrallel bus.

All memory address decode must be done on the inserted card them selves. Very nice unit. pity atari dropped it.

check out here http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/1090

James