Found some fascinatingly different Atari 800 units, help?

[TheDrewster]

Hello everyone, just joined the forum and I don't dabble in vintage computers a whole lot, but my interest in Atari's early computers stem from my familiarity with Atari's coin op games of the 80s as I collect/repair arcade and pinball machines. Anywhoo, I found a huge stack of Atari 800 goodies at California Extreme this past weekend and the gentleman I bought it all from didn't seem to know (or care?) too much about these units. I got them all at a killer price and he also included a ton of 2600 goodies as well. I'll be the first to admit that I do not know a whole heck of a lot about Atari 800's. But when I was unloading my truck after returning home, some strange details about these consoles began to catch my eye.

 

So here's what I have. I have three 800 systems:

 

• The bottom unit looks to be a standard issue Atari 800, nothing crazy or different about it. This unit boots up and appears to work without issue.

 

• The top left unit has no badging, serials, labels, or anything identifying the console whatsoever, and not even the ROM/RAM carts have casings. There is also zero adhesive residue to suggest the badging was there at any point in it's life. The screws are also flat-head instead of phillips, which I thought was also interesting. This unit also boots up and works. But what fascinates me is the fact that there is a full set of peripherals with this same blank badging and flathead screws, suggesting they may all have came from the same place? I don't know.

 

• The top right unit has all the characteristics of a normal unit, but with one huge exception. There is a badge on the lower right corner that states "ATARI H.C.D ENG. LAB S/N - 1339". This unit comes up with either a black screen or scrolling red garbage, so it doesn't seem to work at the moment. There are only 3 slots filled on this unit, with one uncased card being what looks like a card full of 4116 RAM but made by "Intec Peripherals" and not Atari.

 

 

Being the newbie that I am to this world of vintage Atari computing, can anyone shed some light or possibilities as to what these consoles are and if they are of any significance beyond normal 800 units?

 

 

 

[+davidcalgary29]

Does the upper left have GTIA or CTIA? Can we get some pics of the inside of the units? Looks like you may have some prototypes, although the 1982 date on the RAM board seems strange...nice haul!

[Rybags]

Interesting... there's a thread elsewhere about a proto 800 - it has a different memory map to production machines.

Bare cards - normally a feature of later Ram modules in aid of cooling but perfectly feasible that a proto machine would have bare boards as well.

 

If you have a Basic cartridge then it'd probably be fairly easy to deduce if it's a non-standard machine.

[TheDrewster]

In the handful of 800 carts I got, I do in fact, have a BASIC cartridge. What should I do?

[BillC]

The INTEK RAM card has 16 - 4116 chips(U7 to U22), which would make it 32K.

It also has a copper etched MM1632 label by the upper left 4116 chip.

Edited August 1, 2017 by BillC

[Kr0tki]

TheDrewster,

 

The label "Atari H.C.D Eng. Lab" means the unit was used internally in the Atari Home Computer Division's facilities.

 

You should check version of the operating system that's in each of these machines. Go to BASIC and type:

 

? PEEK(65528),PEEK(65529)

 

and press Return. You will get two numbers, which allow to determine OS version:

 

* 221 87 -> NTSC rev. A

* 214 87 -> PAL rev. A

* 243 230 -> NTSC rev. B

* 34 88 -> PAL rev. B, PROBABLY DOES NOT EXIST BUT IF YOU HAVE IT THEN !WOW!

* the first number = 255 -> OS rev. 255, ULTRA RARE, CONGRATULATIONS

* anything else -> some non-stock OS, also interesting.

[Rybags]

Here's the old thread from ClausB http://atariage.com/forums/topic/122471-atari-800-engineering-serial-26/?hl=%2Bengineering

 

Chances are if your machine was like this, cartridges and in fact most software wouldn't work as the memory map is different from production models.

[sup8pdct]

The upper 2 don't have the black plastic side clips for the cards. They should have bare boards and small plastic retainer from front to back in the center.

 

There is another way to check rom versions. pull out rom card, remove metal cover and quote the numbers on the 24 pin chips. One should end with 399. that is the math rom. the other 2 are....?

 

James

[TheDrewster]

Just checked the versions of all the ROM carts, they all come up as NTSC Rev B. I've fiddled with the cartridges in the HCD console but still can't get the poor thing to boot. This is all I get:

 

[ClausB]

The one with the HCD placard is cool. It is marked underneath 041 on paper and 501 (maybe, hard to read) in the plastic, so it's from 1981. The Intec 32K RAM card is not uncommon.

 

The one stamped 332 is from 1982.

 

The blank one is odd, but the RAM cards inside look standard.

 

Please post your serial numbers at http://atariage.com/forums/topic/242227-calling-all-800s/page-1?do=findComment&comment=3311224.

Edited August 1, 2017 by ClausB

[+DrVenkman]

Just checked the versions of all the ROM carts, they all come up as NTSC Rev B. I've fiddled with the cartridges in the HCD console but still can't get the poor thing to boot. This is all I get:

 

 

Forgive me if you mentioned it above and I missed it, but have you tried booting this one with no cart to see if it goes to Memo Pad? And if not, try removing and reseating the ROM and RAM cards. It may also help to clean the contacts and card slot connectors with isopropyl alcohol or a good electrical contact cleaner before trying again.