Can't believe my 800 still works.

[Tanman]

I have been bring out all my old computers lately. Tonight I got the 800 hooked up to the 810 drive and was amazed to find that it still works. Also, was shocked that all the floppies I have tried still work also. There is no way you could box up a modern day computer, store it away in a garage with no temp control and still expect it to work 20 years late.

 

Hats off Atari!

 

 

Also, does any one have a link to a website or discussion on how to better perservce games from old 5 1/2 inch floppies. I am guessing someone has made a flash drive or something that I can dump everything onto.

 

Thanks!!

[Ransom]

Yup, they don't make 'em like they used to. Especially the way they made 800s. Those things were built like tanks.

 

Here's a link you may find useful for preserving old software: Atarimax.com

[19Echo]

Yeah, i would check out atarimax.com and buy the sio2pc cable (usb). It allows you to hook up your pc or laptop to your atari and either archive your old disk or download some atr files and rebuild your connection. While i did find the lack of intensive instructions or help files when i bought mine, the guys here were more than helpful on helping out. I was even able to telnet from my 800xl.

[Tanman]

I have been bring out all my old computers lately. Tonight I got the 800 hooked up to the 810 drive and was amazed to find that it still works. Also, was shocked that all the floppies I have tried still work also. There is no way you could box up a modern day computer, store it away in a garage with no temp control and still expect it to work 20 years late.

 

Hats off Atari!

 

 

Also, does any one have a link to a website or discussion on how to better perservce games from old 5 1/2 inch floppies. I am guessing someone has made a flash drive or something that I can dump everything onto.

 

Thanks!!

 

 

Is there anything that would plug into the cart slot and act as a drive? Something that I could just dump all the games onto and then just put the cart in to play them?

[kool kitty89]

The main thing about modern computers is the HDD bearings going bad. Maybe not though, I'm not sure... Modern PCs with quality build should probably have about the same durability as a similarly built PC from close to 20 yeas ago. (dust and possible corrosion would be big factors) Except that the slower speed drives on older machines probably have a better chance to work with bad bearings that modern high-speed HDDs and optical drives.

 

Lack of moving parts and high build quality definitely put the 800 way up there though, the disk drive is more surprising, but slow drives like that have better chances of standing the test of time too. The fact that the disks work fine might be the most surprising though. (if they were cassettes, that would REALLY be something)

 

Pretty much the only thing to go bad with age on such systems (kept out of corrosive environments at least) is the electrolytic capacitors drying out or leaking, but given the number of 1977 VCS units still working fine and a fair number of contemporary computers (apple II and TRS 80 model 1), many of those are still holding up fine too.

 

Generally, the simpler device, the more resilient.

[19Echo]

MyIDE+Flash IDE Interface from atarimax allows you to hookup a hard drive/sd card/compact flash card and use them as a hard drive

[Velcro_SP]

I have been bring out all my old computers lately. Tonight I got the 800 hooked up to the 810 drive and was amazed to find that it still works. Also, was shocked that all the floppies I have tried still work also. There is no way you could box up a modern day computer, store it away in a garage with no temp control and still expect it to work 20 years late.

 

Unparalleled manufacture and materials are the 800. IMHO the XLs and XEs did not rival it in those criteria, though they had more memory and the later chipsets. Nor was the 400 as good, even when you changed out the membrane keyboard. Your 800 may well be operational 20 years from now.

[Tanman]

The main thing about modern computers is the HDD bearings going bad. Maybe not though, I'm not sure... Modern PCs with quality build should probably have about the same durability as a similarly built PC from close to 20 yeas ago. (dust and possible corrosion would be big factors) Except that the slower speed drives on older machines probably have a better chance to work with bad bearings that modern high-speed HDDs and optical drives.

 

Lack of moving parts and high build quality definitely put the 800 way up there though, the disk drive is more surprising, but slow drives like that have better chances of standing the test of time too. The fact that the disks work fine might be the most surprising though. (if they were cassettes, that would REALLY be something)

 

Pretty much the only thing to go bad with age on such systems (kept out of corrosive environments at least) is the electrolytic capacitors drying out or leaking, but given the number of 1977 VCS units still working fine and a fair number of contemporary computers (apple II and TRS 80 model 1), many of those are still holding up fine too.

 

Generally, the simpler device, the more resilient.

 

At the bottom of the box I found my old 300 baud modem. Man, that was the $hit at the time. But I do remember that it was so slow that when you were downloading the sectors of a program, it was able to print each sector on the screen as the came across.

 

 

Man, playing all the old games has brought back memories.

[Tanman]

MyIDE+Flash IDE Interface from atarimax allows you to hookup a hard drive/sd card/compact flash card and use them as a hard drive

 

Cool, and the 800 can access all the programs on it? Basically, I just want to dump everything onto it and not have to worry if the next time I try to load a floppy might be it's last.

[19Echo]

should work for you as long as you set everything up correctly then do a search for some atr files to downloa

[HiassofT]

MyIDE+Flash IDE Interface from atarimax allows you to hookup a hard drive/sd card/compact flash card and use them as a hard drive

Cool, and the 800 can access all the programs on it? Basically, I just want to dump everything onto it and not have to worry if the next time I try to load a floppy might be it's last.

Sorry, but the MyIDE+Flash cart won't work on an 800 (it's really XL/XE only). The code in the cart installs it's own "soft" OS in RAM (at $C000-$FFFF) which isn't available on the 800.

 

Another possibility would be the Atarimax Maxflash cart, you can store up to 1MB of COM/EXE/XEX files in the 8mbit cart. Storing "real" disks in the cart isn't easy, though: at least the old command-line Maxflash software also installed a soft OS in RAM when you used the "diskpacker" option (and IIRC it allowed only for one disk to be stored in the cart, and - of course - the disk in the cart will be read-only).

 

so long,

 

Hias

[frogstar_robot]

MyIDE+Flash IDE Interface from atarimax allows you to hookup a hard drive/sd card/compact flash card and use them as a hard drive

 

Cool, and the 800 can access all the programs on it? Basically, I just want to dump everything onto it and not have to worry if the next time I try to load a floppy might be it's last.

 

As pointed out by Hiassoft, MyIDE isn't an option for you but you can still use something like APE or SIO2PC to archive your old stuff. Basically, APE and APE-like software allow you to use a PC as a virtual stack of SIO peripherals. You can get acceptable performance out a simple cable you can build for about $10 in Rat Shack parts and you can also buy better ones from a number of suppliers that hang out here on AA. One of the beauties of this is that even a crufty old laptop can suffice for this and that old laptop or PC can very capably mimic a stack of floppy drives, be a virtual printer, and even function as a gateway to the Internet by simulating a modem. This business can work in the other direction as well. Emulators running on a PC can access real Atari disk drives and printers through these cables. So if you just want to archive, a working disk drive, a cable, and the software suffice.

[atariksi]

The main thing about modern computers is the HDD bearings going bad. Maybe not though, I'm not sure... Modern PCs with quality build should probably have about the same durability as a similarly built PC from close to 20 yeas ago. (dust and possible corrosion would be big factors) Except that the slower speed drives on older machines probably have a better chance to work with bad bearings that modern high-speed HDDs and optical drives.

...

No, older PCs still last longer than modern ones. Some of the Thinkpads go bad once the RTC battery stops working or some battery inside leaks or CMOS corruption. Older PCs had dip switches and no CMOS crap. Hey, even if they use CMOS or FLASH to store set-up/BIOS, at least have a procedure to get out of a corrupt state. Also some security chips pose problems as once you buy a machine from Ebay that's password locked, you basically have to use it as paperweight as the security chips are surface mounted and requires an electron microscope to desolder and replace.

 

Lack of moving parts and high build quality definitely put the 800 way up there though, the disk drive is more surprising, but slow drives like that have better chances of standing the test of time too. The fact that the disks work fine might be the most surprising though. (if they were cassettes, that would REALLY be something)

 

Pretty much the only thing to go bad with age on such systems (kept out of corrosive environments at least) is the electrolytic capacitors drying out or leaking, but given the number of 1977 VCS units still working fine and a fair number of contemporary computers (apple II and TRS 80 model 1), many of those are still holding up fine too.

 

Generally, the simpler device, the more resilient.

 

Yeah, definitely the electrlytic capacitors are the only chance of A800 going bad on its own. Then again, I had this Atari Pong from the 1970s that was working fine until I sold it recently.