+DrVenkman Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 ... subtitled, "Why You Should Always Disassemble Your eBay Purchases" I bought this 400 on eBay at least 11 or 12 years ago. It came with a couple joysticks and a few carts. My wife and I played PAC MAN and ASTEROIDS with it on and off for a few months and after a year or so it went back into storage as I bought other systems and added to the A8 collection. Last Christmas, one of my oldest friends surprised me with a second complete-in-box "The Basic Computer" 400 system, and a full Programmers Pack with a never-used 410. So today, with time to kill, I decided to take both 400's apart for a good internal inspection and cleaning. The newer (to me) 400 has never been touched inside before - it was almost as clean as the day it left Sunnyvale in August 1982. The other one, the one I got on eBay so long ago, was a Hong Kong-made unit that, inside, was a mess. Filthy with dust and decades-old nicotine residue, it took some work to get cleaned up. But in so doing, I found an intriguing little surprise. Under the bottom RF shield, I see some sort of hackery ... Where the wires are routed around to the top of the motherboard, I see a small "dead bug" IC glued to the board and jumped in several places. Examining the personality and RAM boards reveals more hackery afoot! Yes, this little thing has a hacked-in 48K upgrade mounted on the original Atari 16K board. I've had this thing for over a decade and never even thought to check the memory capacity. So here's something you rarely if ever saw back in the day, and probably see even more rarely today: a 1982 Atari 400 running a pair of floppy drives. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobotech Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 That's awesome! All it needs is a full keyboard and a composite mod and it would be nearly the perfect 400. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Hey! That's one of mine: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/123207-expanding-the-400/?do=findComment&comment=1488304 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 (edited) Hey! That's one of mine: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/123207-expanding-the-400/?do=findComment&comment=1488304 Awesome! I was hoping someone here would recognize the fell digital sorcery involved and tell me more about it! I can't get over how funny (ironic really, not humorous) it is that I've had this for so long and never even thought it was anything more than a run-of-the-mill 16K 400. I don't know if I've ever even had a BASIC cartridge inside it until today. Edited August 2, 2014 by DrVenkman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gozar Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 I had the same find with a 1200XL I purchased over 10 years ago. I never used it, and finally got it out to see what's up. It wouldn't start, so I opened it up to reset the chips and found out it had a Newell 256K upgrade. Very nice.... Wish the previous owner had done the video mod too, but I guess I can't be too choosy, lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tregare Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 is there one like this for the 800? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 is there one like this for the 800? There were the Byrd & Windhover upgrades for the 800, which modified a 16K card to 256K, but they weren't supposed to be 100% compatible with the commercial Axlon/Magna memory cards. They were supposed to work as RAM-disks, but wouldn't necessarily work with software supporting Axlon/Magna extended memory. The attached ZIP file contains both the 400 64K and 800 256K Windhover upgrade instructions. Windhover-400-800.zip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 The Windhover 400 upgrade is a complete rip-off of the one I did for MACE in 1982. He claims MACE ripped him off in 1979. Was MACE even around then? Their 800 upgrade may be a rip-off of the Byrd mod, I'm not sure. I talked to Byrd on the phone in 1985 and he seemed like a good guy. Whereas Torres claims he got his 16K 800 in 1978. Right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted August 2, 2014 Author Share Posted August 2, 2014 Well I don't know anything about that, but I'm glad your development made its way into my little 400. This particular upgrade on mine looks like it uses Hitachi 4864-2 64kb DRAMS, so I guess it's 64K board. With the memory required for the OS ROMS and housekeeping, how much does that leave usable to programs under the usual Atari OS/B? Around 52K or so? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted August 2, 2014 Share Posted August 2, 2014 Just 48K. The article shows a way to access the other 16K but not as in an XL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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