"Candy" prototype

[JamesD]

The January 1979 issue of BYTE has a TRS-80 16K Level II BASIC system listed at $988.

A 3rd party 16K upgrade of the 4K TRS-80 is listed as $140 a few pages later.

A 32K upgrade for the PET was $595

S100 16K RAM boards were $295

8 16Kx1 DRAM chips were $90

I think the 64K upgrade for my CoCo was $100 in 1983.

 

This same issue also talks about the revolutionary 6809 CPU, and the editorial talks about making UCSD Pascal available on the Apple II as Apple Pascal.

It made Pascal education possible for around $3000 per machine. Which is probably how Apple originally got it's foot in the door of education.

There is a machine advertised as a Pascal Computer for just under $3000.

Other compilers are just being introduced for 8 bits based on advertisements..

 

*edit*

I'm sure home users weren't buying 64K of RAM, but schools, universities, and businesses might have.

Edited October 6, 2017 by JamesD

[ClausB]

In the middle of 1978 when the 800 and 400 were designed, 16K DRAMs sold for $30 a chip, $240 for 16K bytes. That's why Atari, like Apple and Tandy, designed in the option to use 4K chips, only $4 each. By 1979 though, 16K chips had fallen to $8 each and Atari redesigned their RAM boards for 8K and 16K chips. (Prices are from BYTE ads of the day.)

Edited October 6, 2017 by ClausB

[ClausB]

Star Trek was a large BASIC program, and most machines used printable graphics (semi-graphics).

I think hi-res graphics were a major contributor to the drive for more RAM.

 

We played Star Trek on 16K Altairs (10K taken by MS BASIC), so it wasn't that large. Atari made a graphical version, called Star Raiders, which ran in 16K of ROM and RAM.

[JamesD]

In the middle of 1978 when the 800 and 400 were designed, 16K DRAMs sold for $30 a chip, $240 for 16K bytes. That's why Atari, like Apple and Tandy, designed in the option to use 4K chips, only $4 each. By 1979 though, 16K chips had fallen to $8 each and Atari redesigned their RAM boards for 8K and 16K chips. (Prices are from BYTE ads of the day.)

Given the fact that there is about a three month lag time for advertisements to appear in a magazine, the prices I cited would have been from October or November 1978.

And those are retail, not quantity pricing.

 

We played Star Trek on 16K Altairs (10K taken by MS BASIC), so it wasn't that large. Atari made a graphical version, called Star Raiders, which ran in 16K of ROM and RAM.

Super Star Trek from 1978 required 24K.

Star Trek III.3 was also 1978 and it was pretty large but I can't find the exact size.

 

The point was what was available when the Atari was being developed.

Not much required over 16K. Star Trek (like those above, not the original) were large program for the time.

 

[tschak909]

Star Raiders only needed 8K of RAM (and ROM)

 

-Thom

[ClausB]

16K total RAM + ROM is what I meant.

[ClausB]

The OP has disappeared. Does anyone know the fate of this artifact?

[Curt Vendel]

The OP has disappeared. Does anyone know the fate of this artifact?

Hi Claus,

 

We exchanged a few emails early on, but he has not responded to any others in recent months when I had asked several questions and wanted to compare some images with him. So at this point it is unknown, I will try to call him and see whats up, maybe his email is off-line.

[ClausB]

Here's my best guess for a schematic of this early 400 motherboard, based on the photos upthread, on DeCuir's notes, and on my dissection of my pre-production 800. Putting that all together, I found four extra gates, so I drew them in a circuit which avoids the RAM / ROM conflict, allowing the full 16K of RAM. Without better photos though, that's just conjecture.