Parallel/Serial expansion board for the Atari 800

[Curt Vendel]

I bought out Dave Sheppard's remaining Atari items from when he worked there. Some very interesting oddities such an 8" Disk Drive controllers for the SIO bus (will be posting photo's in next week or some onto Atari Museum.

 

I'm in the middle of a major overhaul of Atari Museum and adding a lot of information on various 3rd party upgrades and such. Well, Dave worked on the side and was the engineer for a company called California Microlink Corporation and one of their products was going to be the Easy I/O board. Again, another board that used that magically well pinned Slot #3 and provide a Parallel and Serial port to the Atari 800's.

 

Dave said they never sold any and he only built a few and they are long gone in a landfill, but a mailer does still exist, so at least that is something to prove it at one point existed. You can click on the image and download a 300dpi PDF of the mailer.

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/3rdparty/ExpansionBoards/Other/CMC/index.htm

 

If anyone wants their 800 expansion board upgrade posted on the Atari Museum section, please send me a PM and we can discuss getting it posted up. Thanks.

 

 

So you can make all but one chip from the mailer... So looks like this would've been directly addressing... maybe its time we started to look into recreating a modern version of this?

 

 

[Shawn]

maybe its time we started to look into recreating a modern version of this?

 

 

 

I'd strongly suggest putting 100 percent priority into finishing the XM before starting into yet another venture please.

[TGB1718]

Like this one I did for the 130XE (only a prototype, but it worked)

 

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/288632-heres-one-i-made-earlier/

[Curt Vendel]

Shawn... I wasnt implying that I was going to do it.

[xrbrevin]

Im liking the 400/800 theme of your revised museum site.

Are you going to do the same for the XL and the XE ones too?

[_The Doctor__]

I bought out Dave Sheppard's remaining Atari items from when he worked there. Some very interesting oddities such an 8" Disk Drive controllers for the SIO bus (will be posting photo's in next week or some onto Atari Museum.

 

I'm in the middle of a major overhaul of Atari Museum and adding a lot of information on various 3rd party upgrades and such. Well, Dave worked on the side and was the engineer for a company called California Microlink Corporation and one of their products was going to be the Easy I/O board. Again, another board that used that magically well pinned Slot #3 and provide a Parallel and Serial port to the Atari 800's.

 

Dave said they never sold any and he only built a few and they are long gone in a landfill, but a mailer does still exist, so at least that is something to prove it at one point existed. You can click on the image and download a 300dpi PDF of the mailer.

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/3rdparty/ExpansionBoards/Other/CMC/index.htm

 

If anyone wants their 800 expansion board upgrade posted on the Atari Museum section, please send me a PM and we can discuss getting it posted up. Thanks.

 

 

So you can make all but one chip from the mailer... So looks like this would've been directly addressing... maybe its time we started to look into recreating a modern version of this?

 

 

Thank you for this, I have had a few bickering fests over just such a thing, even backed up and explained our Sears store had an Atari hooked up to an 8 inch drive and I posted about it in my ramblings. I was told that Atari nor any third party ever did such a thing and the closest would be an ATR8000, and that is cheating blah blah..

I am glad you have the goods , and we can put yet another issue to bed.

Edited March 6, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Curt Vendel]

Im liking the 400/800 theme of your revised museum site.

Are you going to do the same for the XL and the XE ones too?

Yes, each section is going to tricked out it into own Motif to match the computer styling. The XL's I start beginning of April with the new main menu for them and the 1200XL gets the first round of attention and receive a major new set of pages for it.

 

The XE's I'm looking very much forward to, going to have a LOT of creativity fun with those. Thanks, glad you like the new look.

[Curt Vendel]

Thank you for this, I have had a few bickering fests over just such a thing, even backed up and explained our Sears store had an Atari hooked up to an 8 inch drive and I posted about it in my ramblings. I was told that Atari nor any third party ever did such a thing and the closest would be an ATR8000, and that is cheating blah blah..

I am glad you have the goods , and we can put yet another issue to bed.

Dave sold me everything - about a dozen 8" disk drive controller boards, the schematics and the source code, so I'll be posted those all up. I gave a board to John Hardie at the National Videogame History Museum so they have one for reference too.

[Sean39]

Thanks

Edited March 2, 2020 by Sean39

[tschak909]

Am guessing that the 8" controller was SSSD?

 

-Thom

[jamm]

2 hours ago, tschak909 said:

Am guessing that the 8" controller was SSSD?

 

-Thom

a Super Solid State Drive?!

[DjayBee]

Nah, Super Small Single Density

[tschak909]

Single sided, single density, which for 8 inch disks is 256K, which is right at the limit for a standard DOS 2.0 filesystem disk. OS/A+ 4.1 would break past this by using a different filesystem. SpartaDOS is at least two years away at that point, and MyDOS hadn't made it off of Charlie Marslett's desk.

 

-Thom