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Old pictures of our Atari 8-bit setups


chad5200

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I wish I had some. I might hit up my dad..he was a professional photographer back in the 70's/80's and took tons of family photos.  We had a family Atari 400 we got for xmas either 79 or 80. Then my brother got his own 800XL in 83, which i always had to beg to use.   I finally got a 520 ST in 1991 when I was in the Navy and had my own money. I bought it from my instructor at Nuke prototype school up in Idaho and toted it around for a while before bringing it home for long term storage to my parents house in 93 or so.  I *just* dug it out last year  from their house. 

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6 minutes ago, Max_Chatsworth said:

I have very similar landscaping outside my house right now..haha.  What state was that in?

Awesome. Those plants are painful to grab and neighborhood cats would often cross that hill garden. I would send our small dog to chase them away. He loved it. That is the northern Virginia suburbs outside the beltway. Where are you now?

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Just now, Sugarland said:

Awesome. Those plants are painful to grab and neighborhood cats would often cross that hill garden. I would send our small dog to chase them away. He loved it. That is the northern Virginia suburbs outside the beltway. Where are you now?

I live in Kansas City area of Kansas now, where I grew up from basically 71-89, when I joined the Navy and ended up in Hawaii from 91-2018. I just moved back last year with my wife(who was born and raised in Hawaii) and our kids to spend some time with my folks whom I haven't seen much of in the last 3 decades as you can imagine.  

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58 minutes ago, Sugarland said:

I can't yet find any photos of our A8 setup but here are my two older brothers playing the 2600 in around xmas 1981. Grandma as well...

 

1-2600.thumb.jpg.8658df49fcb94c5e20105bf9a640097e.jpg

Red shag carpet? Check. 
Dark wood paneling? Check. 
Latch hook rug? (Both working on one and one hanging on the wall.) Check and Check. 
Giant, complicated antenna with plastic base? Check. 
Wood grained, plastic TV? Check. 
 

Yes. This is an AUTHENTIC picture from BITD!

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1 minute ago, toddtmw said:

Red shag carpet? Check. 
Dark wood paneling? Check. 
Latch hook rug? (Both working on one and one hanging on the wall.) Check and Check. 
Giant, complicated antenna with plastic base? Check. 
Wood grained, plastic TV? Check. 
 

Yes. This is an AUTHENTIC picture from BITD!

Also..is the kid on the far side on the couch the older brother from E.T. the movie?

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41 minutes ago, Max_Chatsworth said:

Also..is the kid on the far side on the couch the older brother from E.T. the movie?

The blonde middle brother in ET... The scene when he is annoying that is my blonde middle brother almost exactly. I can't find the scene in ET on YouTube but he trolls Elliot exactly how my brother would annoy me. And yes Elliott at times reminded me of me and my situation being the youngest and having older brothers.  I was his age too.  Well spotted.

Edited by Sugarland
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although i dont have any pictures to prove it, my atari 600XL was in the living room hooked up to a 19" zenith television.  i had 12 cartridges that i bought from sears and a 1010 tape drive to save my basic programs.

 

the great thing about looking at these photographs for me, is that, although these machines only cost around $200 in 1983 and 1984, to us kids, they were the most important machines in the world.

 

sure, you can play video games on them, but the programming languages gave you so much more to think about.  

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7 hours ago, Max_Chatsworth said:

I live in Kansas City area of Kansas now, where I grew up from basically 71-89, when I joined the Navy and ended up in Hawaii from 91-2018. I just moved back last year with my wife(who was born and raised in Hawaii) and our kids to spend some time with my folks whom I haven't seen much of in the last 3 decades as you can imagine.  

That's a LONG time welcome back home!! Sounds like you had a good life in HI.

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I have one more from probably about 1987. It's funny that although I can't clearly see the screen, I can see enough to tell that I was playing Gyruss! And nice to see that grey/blue late 80's style sweater I was wearing!

 

atari3.thumb.jpg.f33c9054ac84b4d6e56ab49e94148dc0.jpg

Edited by DGS-Atari
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18 hours ago, Keatah said:

Interesting and amusing how most of us kept our printers to the righthand side of the setup.

It's interesting that you mention that, because despite what is shown in my picture, I distinctly remember having the disk drives on the right. Being right handed it I think it was just easier. In that picture I don't have the printer on a stand so I had to have it on the right so there was room on the floor for the paper. We eventually created a simple stand for it by putting dowels in the screw holes on the bottom to create legs. I think at that point I switch sides.

 

My Dad custom built that desk. Notice the custom made shelf for the 850 interface right under the TV.

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17 hours ago, toddtmw said:

Red shag carpet? Check. 
Dark wood paneling? Check. 
Latch hook rug? (Both working on one and one hanging on the wall.) Check and Check. 
Giant, complicated antenna with plastic base? Check. 
Wood grained, plastic TV? Check. 
 

Yes. This is an AUTHENTIC picture from BITD!

I just feel sorry for the person that wet themselves...      ;)

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19 hours ago, Keatah said:

Interesting and amusing how most of us kept our printers to the righthand side of the setup.

Mine was on the left, simply because there was no space to the right. IIRC I had the 810 to the right. When I got the 800 the setup was rather awkward as the TV was about 5 feet above the floor on top of a cabinet with a fold-out desk which resulted in a very uncomfortable head position. Later I got a larger cabinet where the TV and later monitor would fit inside (it was combined with a very small wardrobe that somehow still had enough space for most of a teenage nerd's meagre clothing requirements). I can't recall ever taking a photo of the setup or being photographed "on controls". 

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On 9/11/2019 at 7:06 PM, Bill Lange said:

desk83.thumb.jpg.0d8d7342b7f64cf2b649311043980084.jpg

 

Here is my rig from the summer of 1983. I built the desk in high school freshman year wood shop class. Atari 400 to which I added a switch to turn off the internal speaker. 

Love that underslung floppy compartment! Nice woodwork. And a nice juxtaposition between the space age looks of the 400 and that lamp...

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On 4/9/2020 at 3:31 PM, Keatah said:

Interesting and amusing how most of us kept our printers to the righthand side of the setup.

Wish I (or my parents) could find an old pic.. my setup was a 130XE and monitor on the far right of the desk (same desk I'm using today!) with two 1050s and Supra modem stacked in the middle to the left, and a generic Centronics printer and 1020 on the far left. Can still see it clear as day.

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9 hours ago, adam242 said:

Wish I (or my parents) could find an old pic.. my setup was a 130XE and monitor on the far right of the desk (same desk I'm using today!) with two 1050s and Supra modem stacked in the middle to the left, and a generic Centronics printer and 1020 on the far left. Can still see it clear as day.

 

If you were using a non-Atari printer with the 850 interface module, it made sense to have the printer on the left since the parallel jack on the 850 was on the left, although I easily solved that problem by flipping the 850 upside down. :)

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 9/11/2019 at 10:14 AM, Bill Lange said:

desk84.thumb.jpg.8db2b80e0171038d58a0b4a0359e1cee.jpg

 

Here is my setup from circa 1984: Atari 400 with full-stroke keyboard hacked in, 810 drive (with write bad sector switch), 850, Hayes 300 smartmodem, Gemini 10x printer. Notice the Ultima map pinned to the wall.

Bill, you rocked it with that hacked keyboard.

The rest of you Richie Riches with your 800's. 
I couldn't even get a 400. I started with a Vic-20, but at least I had a real keyboard and eventually a disk drive.

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