Questions about Atari 810 drive I just got.

[Armageddon Potato]

I just recently picked up an Atari 810 drive, and 40 cib Atari 400/800 games at a thrift for a great price. I wanted to try to playing them on my Atari 800, but I am waiting for the I/O connector in the mail(it didn't come with that part.) I recently talked to someone who has a lot more knowledge on this stuff than me, and he told me that my Atari 810 drive was a model of it that will ruin the disks if you leave the disk in while powering it on and off because it sends a pulse through the disk. He also mentioned there's an earlier version that doesn't have this problem.

 

He mentioned the 1050 drives don't have that problem, but don't play all the games.

 

Is any of this true? How should I go about trying to play these games as I don't want to damage them! 0_o

[Rybags]

Plenty of drives can potentially zap disks in such a way, 1050 probably no exception either.

 

To prevent it, you can just eject the disk (can still leave in drive).

Drive power is independant of computer so you only need to do it once.

[BillC]

I just recently picked up an Atari 810 drive, and 40 cib Atari 400/800 games at a thrift for a great price. I wanted to try to playing them on my Atari 800, but I am waiting for the I/O connector in the mail(it didn't come with that part.) I recently talked to someone who has a lot more knowledge on this stuff than me, and he told me that my Atari 810 drive was a model of it that will ruin the disks if you leave the disk in while powering it on and off because it sends a pulse through the disk. He also mentioned there's an earlier version that doesn't have this problem.

 

He mentioned the 1050 drives don't have that problem, but don't play all the games.

 

Is any of this true? How should I go about trying to play these games as I don't want to damage them! 0_o

The Happy user's manual mentions this problem, nothing about it not affecting an early version of the drive.

http://www.atarimax....happy/users.pdf

 

Plenty of drives can potentially zap disks in such a way, 1050 probably no exception either.

 

To prevent it, you can just eject the disk (can still leave in drive).

Drive power is independant of computer so you only need to do it once.

The Happy User's manual also states that the 1050 drives have circuitry that prevents this problem.

[Bryan]

Yeah, Atari tried to squelch any erroneous head output during power up/down but their original approach didn't work all the time. Just remove the disk before turning it on/off. Or, you could get a 1050 drive and not have the problem. So what games did you get?

[Roydea6]

 

Is any of this true? How should I go about trying to play these games as I don't want to damage them! 0_o

 

Don't use any of them keep them stored away .... Get a SIO2PC .... or other method of getting games for your Atari. Check out the Newbies thread..

[Armageddon Potato]

Yeah, Atari tried to squelch any erroneous head output during power up/down but their original approach didn't work all the time. Just remove the disk before turning it on/off. Or, you could get a 1050 drive and not have the problem. So what games did you get?

Everything is 100% cib, minus 1 game. I got:

MULE

The Seven Cities of Gold

One-on-One

Age of Adventure

Pinball Construction Set

Trail Blazer

Lords of Conquest

Super Boulder Dash

Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory

Preppie 2

Pathfinder

Gauntlet

Oil's Well

Boulder Dash Construction Kit

Aliants

Sacacen

Spitfire 40

Moon Shuttle

Castle Wolfenstein(disk/manual only)

Pacific Coast Highway

Zorro

Winter Challenge

F-15 Strike Eagle

Koronis Rift

Six-Gun Shoot Out

Sons of Liberty

Tomahawk

Saigon: The Final Days

Silicon Dreams

Trains

 

There were a few more games: 3 TRS 80 games(Frogger, and 2 game packs), Rise of the Dragon, and some others. Although none of those are 400/800 games.

 

Is any of this true? How should I go about trying to play these games as I don't want to damage them! 0_o

 

Don't use any of them keep them stored away .... Get a SIO2PC .... or other method of getting games for your Atari. Check out the Newbies thread..

 

I'll check that out! Part of the fun for me is using the actual hardware/software, but if I have to I'd imagine I could just make backup disks, and that way there's no risk to the actual disks? Right now I have all the 400/800 games on my hacked PSP slim so I do have a way to play them emulation style right now.

Edited June 14, 2012 by Armageddon Potato

[BillC]

Yeah, Atari tried to squelch any erroneous head output during power up/down but their original approach didn't work all the time. Just remove the disk before turning it on/off. Or, you could get a 1050 drive and not have the problem. So what games did you get?

Everything is 100% cib, minus 1 game. I got:

MULE

The Seven Cities of Gold

One-on-One

Age of Adventure

Pinball Construction Set

Trail Blazer

Lords of Conquest

Super Boulder Dash

Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory

Preppie 2

Pathfinder

Gauntlet

Oil's Well

Boulder Dash Construction Kit

Aliants

Sacacen

Spitfire 40

Moon Shuttle

Castle Wolfenstein(disk/manual only)

Pacific Coast Highway

Zorro

Winter Challenge

F-15 Strike Eagle

Koronis Rift

Six-Gun Shoot Out

Sons of Liberty

Tomahawk

Saigon: The Final Days

Silicon Dreams

Trains

 

There were a few more games: 3 TRS 80 games(Frogger, and 2 game packs), Rise of the Dragon, and some others. Although none of those are 400/800 games.

 

Is any of this true? How should I go about trying to play these games as I don't want to damage them! 0_o

 

Don't use any of them keep them stored away .... Get a SIO2PC .... or other method of getting games for your Atari. Check out the Newbies thread..

 

I'll check that out! Part of the fun for me is using the actual hardware/software, but if I have to I'd imagine I could just make backup disks, and that way there's no risk to the actual disks? Right now I have all the 400/800 games on my hacked PSP slim so I do have a way to play them emulation style right now.

Some of the disks probably have copy protection that would make creatiing backup images difficult with a stock 810, it would be simpler to use ATR images available from sites like Atarimania, Fandal and others.