Atari XL/XE Modern hardware upgrades and peripherals

[pedgarcia]

Hi all,

 

I am doing a research (for my birthday  but also for an article ) of modern hardware upgrades and peripherals  I could buy for my Atari machines. I've found some around the Internet, but sometimes they are sold out batches, etc so it is hard to come up with things one could buy nowadays.

 

I wonder if you all could mention what comes to your mind that is still current available for purchase and if possible the reference link (or person here on Atariage).

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

 

[Justin Payne]

1 minute ago, pedgarcia said:

Hi all,

 

I am doing a research (for my birthday  but also for an article ) of modern hardware upgrades and peripherals  I could buy for my Atari machines. I've found some around the Internet, but sometimes they are sold out batches, etc so it is hard to come up with things one could buy nowadays.

 

I wonder if you all could mention what comes to your mind that is still current available for purchase and if possible the reference link (or person here on Atariage).

 

Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks

 

 

I've been working on such a list for quite sometime for this very reason and I've sorta dragged my feet (shame on me). First off, you probably want a modern storage system; one that plays carts as well as floppies and cassettes. If you want to get by on the cheap, you can make a cable that goes from your PC to your Atari and floppies/cassettes that way. I, personally, have a Sdrive-max which I put together using off the shelf parts and it works great and has I nice little touch screen display.
As far as carts, I'm using the Ultimate Cart and am very happy with this but there is also the SIOCart, Uno Cart, AVG Cart, and Z-IDE, myIDE-II, Side 2, and The!Cart. I don't have a ton of information, yet, on these, but I really need to rectify that and soon. Again, dragged my feet way too long.
Lotharek (http://lotharek.pl/) sells a ton of great upgrades for your Atari but some will require a bit of soldering and probably a lot of these things are more for hard core Atari fans who want to be able to extend their Atari's past the point that they were originally intended for.
I know this isn't a complete list of things, and I'm sorry for that, but it might help get your started.

[mimo]

Some great info here 

 

[cwilbar]

There are lots of good updates.  You don't indicate which Atari you would be looking into upgrading... There is the classic 400 and 800, then the XL and XE lines.

 

Ultimate Atari Video upgrade is a great way to get great standard monitor performance (including separate Chroma/Luma (S-Video)) on any Atari.  There is also the Sophia upgrade which can give you RGB output or DVI output.  A new Sophia 2 upgrade is being worked on that is more flexible than the few that need to be chosen from now depending on output requirements.

 

For XL/XE the Ultimate 1MB is a powerful addition.  Coupled with the SIDE2 (soon SIDE3 too) you get 1MB RAM, 'hard disk' capability (via compact flash (SIDE2) or SD card (SIDE3)), support for .ATR files, and the usual .XEX and .CAR files (executables and cartridge roms).

 

There is also The Ultimate Cart, the UNO cart, AtariMAX carts, etc.  Ultimate cart gives you .CAR and .XEX capability. 

 

For the classic 800 there is the Incognito (think of it like a Ultimate 1MB/SIDE2 on a card). 

 

Classic 400 has a Super Color CPU card, 52K RAM card, modification upgrades such using a 16K ram card to upgrade to 48K, etc.

 

Ultimately it all depends on what you use your Ataris for, what you want to do with them, and what features you want.

 

The Ultimate 1MB, SIDE2, and Incognito (and other things) are available from @lotharek (https://lotharek.pl/).

 

The Ultimate Cart is available from The Brewing Academy (https://thebrewingacademy.com/).

 

There are of course other products and other vendors.

 

If you can give some idea of what you think you'd like to do, and what you plan to do with the systems, people can give more specific advice and recommended updates and their experiences.

 

I have U1MB, SIDE2, Ultimate Cart, UAV and a vew other bits.

 

 

 

 

[+Philsan]

Don't forget AVGCart, that besides XEX and CAR compatibility (and limited ATR compatibility), now has full ATR compatibility when connected to SIO port.

[pedgarcia]

Thanks for the great tips. I am checking them all! Also, glad to learn about the "Topic for Newbies" - Great source of information!

 

Cheers

 

[tschak909]

Don't forget #FujiNet, the peripheral to replace them all http://fujinet.online/ 

[+CharlieChaplin]

1 hour ago, tschak909 said:

Don't forget #FujiNet, the peripheral to replace them all http://fujinet.online/ 

 

We are now sending two hobbits on a journey to avoid this...

 

[Gavin1968]

I suggest one of my high-quality SDrive-MAX's https://www.vintagecomputercenter.com/product/atari-1050-sdrive-max

But I am bias. 

 

[Justin Payne]

On 7/5/2020 at 10:17 AM, tschak909 said:

Don't forget #FujiNet, the peripheral to replace them all http://fujinet.online/ 

Yes, Fujinet does look very promising and might be worth holding out for.

[+DrVenkman]

I’m a recent convert (as of this past week, having tried it in Altirra and now tonight on real hardware) to VBXE. Holy damn, guys, if RGB was more common in the US this would be on everyone’s must-have list for A8 machines. 

 

 

[pedgarcia]

I am still slowly going through the list and I see a lot of mass storage devices (which is good!) but as far I could see only one option for video upgrade, the VBXE. Or I am missing something?
 

The VBXE looks very cool, although I honestly don't care too much to make the A8 do more than it was capable to do back in the day (my personal preference, but I understand why some like that though! ) so the only thing there that attracts me is the ability to show better video for the regular atari screen and resolutions. Are there other options out there on that regard?

 

The multicarts are also nice and I might go that route as well.

 

I am already on the #Fujinet waiting list

 

My plan now is to compile a list and add where to order it and if it is still available, things like that. Sites like lotharek makes that part easier for a lot of the options.

 

 

Thanks!

 

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, pedgarcia said:

Or I am missing something?

You missed a few above: UAV, which gives you much better-than-stock Composite and S-video output, as well as SOPHIA, a GTIA replacement that provides RGB or DVI output. The new SOPHIA 2 has been announced which will offer both outputs active at the same time and several other tweaks and enhancements over the first version. Currently there's a pre-order thread you can get on - Simius will contact people when they're ready.

[pedgarcia]

14 hours ago, DrVenkman said:

You missed a few above: UAV, which gives you much better-than-stock Composite and S-video output, as well as SOPHIA, a GTIA replacement that provides RGB or DVI output. The new SOPHIA 2 has been announced which will offer both outputs active at the same time and several other tweaks and enhancements over the first version. Currently there's a pre-order thread you can get on - Simius will contact people when they're ready.

Oh, thanks! I did missed that! That's also interesting. Crazy how the Atari "scene" has so many options. I feel like it beats the ZX Spectrum and C= options out there in terms of options!