Bill Lange Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Who had an ATR8000 back in the day? Who has one today? I had one. It replaced my Atari 850 on my desk. I used it to hook up my Hayes 300 Smartmodem, my Gemini 10X printer and a couple of double-sided quad-density drive. I still have a dozen or so quad-density diskettes that I can no longer read. I also used the ATR8000 as a printer buffer. I think it had either 16K or 64K, I can't remember. I sold the ATR8000 and the drives off in the late 80s or early 90s. I'd like to get a replacement, but I never see them on eBay. Anyone have any idea how many of these units were manufactured? Regards, Bill 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACML Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I had two back in the day. They were both the 64K version and yes, I ran CP/M on them. I didn't intentionally want two, but a friend at my San Diego user group was running a BBS with one (four 77 track 8" drives) and it stopped working. I bought it for $20 (for parts). I started swapping chips with the good one and on my second swap, the Z80 was bad. I bought a new Z80 for $5 and I had two working ATR-8000's. My rig was two 360L DSDD and two 1.2Mb drives formatted as 77 track 8" (1MB formatted each). I was running a 2,400 baud modem and a Manesmann Tally dot matrix printer. The drives were housed in an IBM XT case and XT power supply. Eventually, I bought an XT mobo, CGA card and had my first IBM clone (~1988). I saw 3-4 last year on Ebay, but none in the last 6-8 months. The CP/M feature only works on the 64K version. I've thought about buying one, but then I always ask myself "why?". It was great back in the day, being able to run high cap drives and CP/M, but I've been there, done that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 Around '84 ish there was a BBS by the name of Psyclos Empire in Dallas that ran a BBS with a **10 MEG HARDRIVE** made possible by a ATR8000. It was a popular item that other users at the time lusted over. Another friend of mine, Ken Simone, won one at a Dal-ACE user group raffle, which he was promptly given an offer for the ATR 8000 and sold it that day. Sometime later I came across a collection that was given to me and in that collection was a weathered, and rusted ATR 8000. It was interesting. Wish I had taken pictures of it. By the time I got that I already had Mr. Atari's MyIde 800 for the beige 800, so the idea of using it to power up a MFM (LOL!!) drive was no longer needed. So I traded my ATR 8000 to Warerat for a XL memory mod for the beige 800 (which was a excellent move) and as I understand it he eventually got the ATR 8000 working again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I got one stored away in a box waiting to be unpacked sometime in the near future :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I have a 64k version that I bought from a friend back in '92. Hooked it up a few months ago after finding my cables and drives for it and it wouldn't read, write or format. After I replaced the FDC, it would read and write, but not format on either of the drives. There are still 2 chips I need to replace in order to check it further... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I had 2-1/2 (extra mobo), including the CP/M and MS-Dos versions. The MS-Dos version is not common at all. A8Maestro (hope that's correct) used to have a lot of docs and info on his web site: http://morethangames.a8maestro.com/ His web site has a lot on it, so you may have to look a bit, if you are interested. I never used these much and traded one for a 1200XL. But it is a neat bit of nostalgia. I always used the ATR8000 with a dual-drive Percom. Never could get the MyDos hard drive working since I could not find the right version of MyDos for it (3.13B or something like that). I always told myself that it didn't matter about the HD anyway, since it would have been dead slow running over SIO. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I acquired the ATR8000 around 1984 after being stuck with a 410 for 4-5 years. Picked up a DEC Robin drive subsystem for about $50. It had a power supply and two 180 KB drives in a convenient rugged case and I couldn't have assembled something equivalent for less than 3 times the cost. It's the only drive system I've ever used. I still have both the 800 and ATR8000. At some point I added 1.2MB drives and more recently 360K drives and I now use an 800XL as my primary. MyIDE, SDrive and SIO2PCs (many of them) replaced the floppies for daily use. -SteveS Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atari8bitCarts Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I believe eBay has had a few for auction in the last few years, I see them every now and then. I saw one just recently with an 800xl lot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 The serial number on mine is 1464 so probably at least that many made. Same kind of evolution as you: For a short time the storage was the next best thing to a HD. Then came the ICD USD drive modification with high speed sio and I found I would rather work within the constraints of fast 180k drive then a couple of slow 360k-720k drives. I continued using it as a printer interface for a while, then mostly went clone and kept my 8 bits as a hobby. I've tried but find it hard to get excited about anything floppy nowadays. Same holds true for Centronics printers and mostly for modems. I still need an occasional nostalgia fix with things like floppies, BBSs, and CP/M, but the relapses are coming less frequently as I get older. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam242 Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I bought one on eBay about 6-7 years ago, just because I always thought they were neat, but couldn't afford one in the 1980s... I fiddled with it a bit and briefly used it to run a 720K 3.5" floppy drive. The novelty wore off pretty quickly and now it's just part of my collection... They're a nifty bit of history and great for purists who only want to run hardware that was available "back in the day", but one would be better served with a SIO2PC, SIO2SD, etc for alternative high-capacity storage these days. Even if you still use a Centronics and/or RS-232 device, a P:R: Connection or 850 takes up a lot less desktop real estate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I sold one with the PC add on earlier this year. I got it years ago but never got around to using it. It's a neat item but limited in used these days unless you really want to run CP/M stuff. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I did and it ran two percom quad drives and a hard drive for BBS use. I still do it is in the garage awaiting clean up and repair. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeventura Posted November 14, 2014 Share Posted November 14, 2014 I still have one or two. No they are not for sale Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliecron Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I did and it ran two percom quad drives and a hard drive for BBS use. I still do it is in the garage awaiting clean up and repair. Did you run a hard drive off the ATR8000? If you did then you may have MyDOS 3.1b in your collection? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) Sound about right, I can see if it made one of the many moves, I know others here have run hard drives on it as well. and still have the add on cards and disks etc.. To use the hard drive it needs HARDDISK.SYS SET.BAS Set would set the drive up so you could get to your files... Your making my brain hurt because that's all I can remember about it is, you had to set it up in the atr 8000 then the Atari could access it. Edited November 15, 2014 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 it was 3.013, weird revision number, it had problems, I used sparta with the BBS, it solved the problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Subby Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 My current setup. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/227694-what-is-your-8-bit-daily-driver/?p=3033040 Got out bid for Fibrewire's Bit80 card the other day, really wish I had gotten it. 80col makes the CP/M much more impressive on display. I have a 16k setting around too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 looks like... 3.013b 3.13b 3.16b all MyDos revised ATR 8000 for use seem to have a b in the revision... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) OMG!! Mathy has the builder disks to make 3.013 3.16 and 3.18 Mathy RULEZ!!! You going to make me put the ATR 8000 Back together aren't you??? Arm twisting out of socket...... Found 8000 in storage building... top is off dirty components, caps etc, bent over... I will straighten them all up... blow the dust off with air pressure... followed by a light brushing... Cards are out, chips in a baggie... Very strange crap to discover. looks like someone has been in here and helping themselves cherry picking what they want. I am not a happy camper! Edited November 15, 2014 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 (edited) It's late, it's dark, and it looks like someone has been slowly ripping off stuff out of the building. I may be posting a list of items that are missing and by checking trigger information from the crappy entry/exit logs about when it may have grown legs... It's better to be p*ssed off than to be p*ssed on... right now I feel like both.... 3.012 was another version but it's not on Mathy's page. I will try to get the dos.sys and dup.sys, make a disk then and atr and upload it.... no really feeling up to it but might as well do it anyway Edited November 15, 2014 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I got one stored away in a box waiting to be unpacked sometime in the near future :-) So that means you have all the disks and such every one has been working to feverishly to restore etc. in a perfectly unused pristine form! NICE Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 I do have MyDos 3.012, I just formatted and wrote the dos to MIO disk 8 in MIO ram... swapped 8 to 1 Booted Success it works just fine booted off the MIO Does anyone really want or care for an ATR of this rev.? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Does anyone really want or care for an ATR of this rev.? Sure, please! I have 3.12 (thought it was at Mathy's, also), but in comparing these over the years, I've found small differences among copies with the same version number. So it is always interesting to check. There are a few of us "diehards" here who revere anything MyDos. ...And it's cheap to collect! In thinking about this (Atari) hard drive issue, I also seem to remember that there was only one bridge board that worked, and it was not the typical Adaptec 4000. So if you get your system up and running with the HD, please tell us what you had to do! -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 MyDos3012.atr I think it is limited to 720K, but does not throw the pbi away! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted November 15, 2014 Share Posted November 15, 2014 Thanks! -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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