A thrift store find! I know nothing about it... :D

[Cebus Capucinis]

Hi everyone! I wanted to share my thrift store find today and ask a couple questions. This is my first foray into 8-bit computing so I'm really new at this stuff, but it looks like a lot of fun and yet another way the Atari bug can bite me

 

So I was shopping at the local Goodwill today and I spotted an Atari 1200XL bundle for $65. I won't show pictures, as you all probably know what an 1200XL looks like , but it came with the computer and all necessary hookups, 2 Slik Stiks (as if I didn't have enough of those!), an Atari 1010 cassette drive (which is one of my questions, the cassette drive is broken at the play button), a TON of manuals and books, and the following games CIB:

BASIC

River Raid

Apple Panic

Kingdom

Space Invaders

Mickey in the Great Outdoors

Pitfall II

Galaxian

Qix

Star Raiders

Defender

Ms. Pac-Man

 

So question 1, just because I'm curious: $65 for all this? Is that a great steal? Is there anything of a particular rarity in here that makes it even CRAZIER of a steal? I'm not going to offload this bad boy at all, I'm just curious as to whether I got anything super-special-awesome out of it. The computer itself is fun for what I've played so far and I'm really happy to have it, just getting that would have been really cool.

 

Question 2: The Atari 1010 cassette drive has a broken play button. All other buttons have fine tension but the play button has problems. I cracked 'er open and took a look and the little plastic nub on the play button has broken. (Pictures shown down beneath post). I haven't tested the cassette drive to see if it works aside from this, but it broke right where the nub tapers off and hits the striker post to push the mechanism. How can I repair this? Will some super glue applied to the plastic seal up enough for me to be able to use the play button? I'm sure if I kept it cracked open I could just manually push in the post, but that's no fun and hazardous to the mechanism. Could I order another plastic button piece somewhere? (If that's the case, how do I get the buttons off so I can replace it?) Apologies in advance if these pictures are too big, I resized them but wasn't sure if it would work.

 

 

EDIT: Also ignore all the smears on my glass desk

 

 

EDIT#2: I don't know anything about this system and I was looking at the XL multicarts on the front page. Will those work in this system?

Edited October 22, 2009 by CebusCapucinis

[Retro Rogue]

So question 1, just because I'm curious: $65 for all this? Is that a great steal? Is there anything of a particular rarity in here that makes it even CRAZIER of a steal? I'm not going to offload this bad boy at all, I'm just curious as to whether I got anything super-special-awesome out of it. The computer itself is fun for what I've played so far and I'm really happy to have it, just getting that would have been really cool.

 

The 1200xl alone is worth it, all the rest is a bonus.

 

Question 2: The Atari 1010 cassette drive has a broken play button. All other buttons have fine tension but the play button has problems. I cracked 'er open and took a look and the little plastic nub on the play button has broken. (Pictures shown down beneath post). I haven't tested the cassette drive to see if it works aside from this, but it broke right where the nub tapers off and hits the striker post to push the mechanism. How can I repair this? Will some super glue applied to the plastic seal up enough for me to be able to use the play button? I'm sure if I kept it cracked open I could just manually push in the post, but that's no fun and hazardous to the mechanism. Could I order another plastic button piece somewhere? (If that's the case, how do I get the buttons off so I can replace it?) Apologies in advance if these pictures are too big, I resized them but wasn't sure if it would work.

 

You can try some kind of strong resin, but it'd probably be easier just to grab a cheap 1010 from ebay (doesn't matter if it's working or dented to hell) and swap out the broken button.

 

 

 

EDIT: Also ignore all the smears on my glass desk

 

Umm...yah...that's just gross - I'm not going to even ask what it is.

Edited October 22, 2009 by wgungfu

[Cebus Capucinis]

Sounds like a good idea. How do I get that locking bar off? Is it just that clip-pin on the side and then the bar should slide out?

 

As to the smears I believe it's actually glue from a glue stick. I'm not going to experiment to find out though!

Edited October 22, 2009 by CebusCapucinis

[shadow460]

I'd try glue on it first. If you've got an old credit card, you can cut pieces of it to size and glue them on the sides of your repair to strengthen it, so it looks kind of like this: |i| where the i represents the repaired nub and the | represents the pieces you add in. I did this with a Yamaha keyboard of mine, and that gets a lot more abuse hammered on a lot more than a tape drive would. It has held on like that for three years and through more live performance than I can count.

 

Just don't smear the glue on your glass desk, though. It probably won't come off. :!:

[Rybags]

The 1010 puts way too much pressure on the little plastic extensions that push the actuators.

 

Gluing them back on would be a very temporary fix... mine had a broken button or two, the "proper" fix is to drill some small holes and put appropriate length screws in place of the plastic rubbish. Mine's like that and lasted the 2 years or so that I used it before getting my first 1050.

 

Not sure on average 1200XL prices, but I'd guess anything under $100 or so is a bargain.

[Cebus Capucinis]

The 1010 puts way too much pressure on the little plastic extensions that push the actuators.

 

Gluing them back on would be a very temporary fix... mine had a broken button or two, the "proper" fix is to drill some small holes and put appropriate length screws in place of the plastic rubbish. Mine's like that and lasted the 2 years or so that I used it before getting my first 1050.

 

Not sure on average 1200XL prices, but I'd guess anything under $100 or so is a bargain.

 

That's a pretty good idea. I might think about it. I'll look for a donor to get some keys from first, though -- I'd like to keep it as original as possible. As for the credit card thing, I think I'll try that out first -- that sounds like it would work at least for a couple days until I can get a replacement key for it.

 

Woohoo! I'm really happy I got a great bargain price on this little computer. I never had any Atari computers growing up (my first computer was my dad's PC Jr, one of which I am getting tomorrow ) and was really curious as to what the fuss was all about. Honestly if my parents could have afforded it I would have much rather grown up with an XL than a 2600! This thing is so cool!

[adam242]

mine had a broken button or two, the "proper" fix is to drill some small holes and put appropriate length screws in place of the plastic rubbish.

 

That's very similar to what I did to my 1010 years ago... I took a small nail, got it good and hot and pressed/melted it into bottom of the non functioning button to replace the plastic finger. Worked well for me until I, too, graduated to a 1050.

[+therealbountybob]

Maybe you could use replace the play key with the pause key as this is seldom used?

 

[Then prop up the broken key as a cosmetic pause key]

Edited October 23, 2009 by therealbountybob

[Cebus Capucinis]

Maybe you could use replace the play key with the pause key as this is seldom used?

 

[Then prop up the broken key as a cosmetic pause key]

 

That's a wonderful idea! I think I'll do that after work today. Thanks for the help!

[Cebus Capucinis]

Alright, the unit is fixed! Ironically I went ahead and did the repair I said I wouldn't do and put a screw in it. I didn't do it through the top, however. I found a small drill bit that would put a hold through the tapered piece from the botton and used one of the outside case screws (which fit PERFECTLY!) on the button. The unit is now working great!

[+doctorclu]

Just the 1200 in that lot would be cool!!!

[Cebus Capucinis]

So by "working great" apparently I jumped the gun! The button worked fine, but the drive mechanism for the tape doesn't work It rewinds, fast forwards, and pauses fine, but won't play.

[+Stephen]

So by "working great" apparently I jumped the gun! The button worked fine, but the drive mechanism for the tape doesn't work It rewinds, fast forwards, and pauses fine, but won't play.

The tape won't "play" unless you issue a command on the Atari to tell it to. You can either do a CLOAD from BASIC, or power on the machine while holding START.

 

Stephen Anderson

[+therealbountybob]

So by "working great" apparently I jumped the gun! The button worked fine, but the drive mechanism for the tape doesn't work It rewinds, fast forwards, and pauses fine, but won't play.

The tape won't "play" unless you issue a command on the Atari to tell it to. You can either do a CLOAD from BASIC, or power on the machine while holding START.

 

Stephen Anderson

... then press return

[Cebus Capucinis]

No, no, no I meant I did that and pushing play didn't do anything. I was trying to play the Mickey game I got to test the drive. I'll go try it again but it wouldn't play when I CLOADed.

 

EDIT: Got it to work. The tape was not getting completely set in the mechanism, as I didn't line the case up when I put it back together! Lining it up and it played, but it won't load the data. I keep getting Error 138 & 143 messages, which means the tape is not reading data right? I know it's the leader, and I FF-ed it to get it to the data, but doing that it only has ERROR 140 & ERROR 21 messages. What now?

Edited October 24, 2009 by CebusCapucinis

[kenfused]

Maybe you could use replace the play key with the pause key as this is seldom used?

 

[Then prop up the broken key as a cosmetic pause key]

I remember doing that long long ago before I got a 1050. Then it broke again and then I think I used the rewind or fast forward key (which required flipping the tape over to do the missing function)

[Cebus Capucinis]

I've tried all my cassettes in it and keep getting constant error messages. Usually it's a 143 at load but once or twice I got the programs to start and they would throw a 143 at line XXXXXXX problem. The most typical is an error 21. I cleaned the 1010 but nothing. Could it be that the tapes have just lost data over time?

[kenfused]

I've tried all my cassettes in it and keep getting constant error messages. Usually it's a 143 at load but once or twice I got the programs to start and they would throw a 143 at line XXXXXXX problem. The most typical is an error 21. I cleaned the 1010 but nothing. Could it be that the tapes have just lost data over time?

What are the cassettes? If they are boot cassettes, you would load them by holding start down when turning the machine on vs loading them from BASIC (and you wouldn't usually need the BASIC cartridge in this case) I think error 21 is bad load file which means it isn't a BASIC program.

 

--Ken

[Cebus Capucinis]

I've tried all my cassettes in it and keep getting constant error messages. Usually it's a 143 at load but once or twice I got the programs to start and they would throw a 143 at line XXXXXXX problem. The most typical is an error 21. I cleaned the 1010 but nothing. Could it be that the tapes have just lost data over time?

What are the cassettes? If they are boot cassettes, you would load them by holding start down when turning the machine on vs loading them from BASIC (and you wouldn't usually need the BASIC cartridge in this case) I think error 21 is bad load file which means it isn't a BASIC program.

 

--Ken

 

The cassettes I have are:

Apple Panic

Mickey in the Great Outdoors

Kingdom

Space Invaders

 

You're right about Space Invaders! That one should just boot. Kingdom loads to just before the game begins and then throws an Error 143 at line XXXXX message. Mickey just throws random error codes. Apple Panic also appears to be a boot cassette.

[papa_november]

65 dollars? At fucking Goodwill?

 

I've been noticing that they've started looking up prices on eBay when they price things. That pretty much spells the end of getting the kind of bargains from them that we used to enjoy.

[Cebus Capucinis]

65 dollars? At fucking Goodwill?

 

I've been noticing that they've started looking up prices on eBay when they price things. That pretty much spells the end of getting the kind of bargains from them that we used to enjoy.

 

Agreed on that note -- although I still think $65 was a good deal for this system, I think a couple years ago I probably could have gotten it for $20 or less, which is a little frustrating. But unfortunately I'm in quite a remote location so I would never even see one of these in the wild for less price, let alone $65.

Edited October 25, 2009 by CebusCapucinis

[mimo]

have you tried to wind the tape forward by hand a little, usually to the end of the clear plastic leader?

Also, have you cleaned the head (use a q-tip and some alcohol)

Have you tried typing in a basic program and then saved it to cassette (and then try to re-load it)?

[Cebus Capucinis]

Yep. Still has problems. Cleaned it last night and the boot loading Space Invaders now works, but the other still have 143 errors. Haven't tried saving then loading.

[mimo]

EDIT#2: I don't know anything about this system and I was looking at the XL multicarts on the front page. Will those work in this system?

 

yes, although you may want to consider an SIO2xx solution such as an SIO2PC, SDrive etc etc

[Cebus Capucinis]

EDIT#2: I don't know anything about this system and I was looking at the XL multicarts on the front page. Will those work in this system?

 

yes, although you may want to consider an SIO2xx solution such as an SIO2PC, SDrive etc etc

 

What would be the differences? I was looking at some SIO2SD and SIO2PC devices vs. the multicart and it seems like they all essentially do the same thing, but the multicart is $20 less and I like the feel of having an actual cart. I'd just have to load the games on the cart instead of direct hookup, right?

 

Is there any other benefit to the SIO2xx solutions?