What is this thing?

[towmater]

Courtesy of the thrift store, I bought this after spotting the SIO ports. Opening it, there seems to be a set of mystery boards, I suspect this is a copy protection thingy. Can I do anything with this, or should I seal it up for the Indiana Jones-style artifact warehouse?

 

[JR>]

looks like a re-cased 810 drive with the Happy enhancement, which was used to enable the drive to copy protected disks.

[+Nezgar]

Atari had excess warehouse stock of 810 disk drives that was cleared out to resellers, but most of them without the plastic cases. So these resellers (B&C computervisions I've heard a few times), or the end customers made their own cases to put the mech and boards inside. There's a few mentions of this on FAQ's and stuff. I'm sure others will chime in before I find one specific.

 

Electronically, they ARE an 810.

Edited April 28, 2018 by Nezgar

[towmater]

Is the Happy rom backed up somewhere? If not I'll throw it in the eprom reader.

[Rybags]

Happy Rom variants I think are commonly available but it might be worth grabbing yours just to verify what you have.

[BillC]

B&C/myatari.com still sells 810 Happy upgrades for $99, and also upgrade ROMs for older Happy 810 upgrades for $24.95(2 versions depending on Happy PCB serial#).

ACA008    HAPPY 810 UPGRADE              99
Turns a stock 810 into a 810 Happy drive
ACA009    HAPPY 810 ROM UPGRD >5000      24.95
ACA010    HAPPY 810 ROM UPGRD <5000      24.95
Upgrade Rom for original 810 Happy Drives

Edited April 28, 2018 by BillC