Atari 800XE wierd one - Badge color and SIMM upgrade?

[Asure]

Found this one on Ebay, it's a bit wierd to me in several ways

- Mainboard looks like a real 130XE, but the bottom stickers say 800XE

- Attempts made to conceal country of origin (made in ...SCRATCH..)

- Atari logo is wrong color, it's normally red.

- Most importantly, that's a bit of a rat nest! What is this enormous hack job and is that a 30-pin SIMM from a PC? 

 

Also the RF shield appears missing

 

Thoughts?

 

 

[TheMontezuma]

The country of origin must be Poland ("PLOMBA GWARANCYJNA")

 

 

It does not have the original logo (you can buy it at E-Bay):

 

 

800XE was built using 130XE mainboards, but was equipped with 64KB only.

It was the end of 8-bit manufacturing, that's why damaged GTIA are very common in 800XE.

 

[Mclaneinc]

Yeah the badge is from a guy on Ebay, its plastic, I have one for a 130XE

[ClausB]

Looks like a 1MB SIMM upgrade. Careful: some of those modules require 9 bit refresh address and ANTIC only supplies 8. It's left to the upgrade chips to supply the 9th.

[Mathy]

Hello Claus

 

8 minutes ago, ClausB said:

Looks like a 1MB SIMM upgrade. Careful: some of those modules require 9 bit refresh address and ANTIC only supplies 8. It's left to the upgrade chips to supply the 9th.

Most of those SIMMs support auto-CAS (or whatever it's called, it's been a long time since I did the upgrade).  I've got one in my XEGS too, works as it should.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

[flashjazzcat]

Those SIMM upgrades are a real delight to debug when you get one which doesn't work.

 

[Rybags]

Yeah, as impressive as it would be to DIY one and get it to work, there's affordable and less frustrating alternatives around these days.

 

Ultimate 1 Meg for 65 US dollars - and it includes built in SpartaDos and extra OS and cart Roms.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Rybags

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

As Rybags mentions here:

 

1 hour ago, Rybags said:

... there's affordable and less frustrating alternatives around these days.

 

I developed my upgrade two decades ago, when internet was a thing for the happy few and having PCB's made was either expensive or impossible.  Unless you etched them yourself.  And PALs and GALs to most of us were friends and females.  :-) 

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

[Marius]

6 hours ago, TheMontezuma said:

It was the end of 8-bit manufacturing, that's why damaged GTIA are very common in 800XE.

This is some 'fact' that keeps repeating in the a8 scene, but it is actually not entirely correct. The 800XE is around since 1987, and the first 800XE's did not have the defective GTIA's. I have a few of these 'early' 800XE's. 

Of course you are right that there also do exist a lot 800XE's (and 65XE's) with the buggy GTIA, but those were from the a8 renaissance that happened in Eastern Europe in the early 90's

[ClausB]

But is it one of Mathy's? Looks like the CAS and RAS wires go straight to the empty RAM pads. Too bad the numbers aren't visible on the added chips.

Edited September 24, 2020 by ClausB

[TheMontezuma]

37 minutes ago, Marius said:

Of course you are right that there also do exist a lot 800XE's (and 65XE's) with the buggy GTIA, but those were from the a8 renaissance that happened in Eastern Europe in the early 90's

Now I can say the same This is some 'fact' that keeps repeating in the a8 scene, but it is actually not entirely correct 😉

 

800XE was not targeting Eastern Europe, but Germany. Atari hoped that 800XE will sell thanks to a positive connotation to the 800XL.

http://www.atari-computermuseum.de/pics/scans/800XE_0787.pdf

800XL was not that popular in Poland, so there was no reason to replace very popular 65XE with 800XE.

 

As I mentioned, the 800XE was the last 8-bit model and Atari used remaining stocks to manufacture the computers.

That's why common defective GTIA or keys from various production runs (some are more yellowed than the others).

 

[ironeagleuk]

3 hours ago, TheMontezuma said:

Quote

 

Now I can say the same This is some 'fact' that keeps repeating in the a8 scene, but it is actually not entirely correct 😉

 

800XE was not targeting Eastern Europe, but Germany. Atari hoped that 800XE will sell thanks to a positive connotation to the 800XL.

http://www.atari-computermuseum.de/pics/scans/800XE_0787.pdf

800XL was not that popular in Poland, so there was no reason to replace very popular 65XE with 800XE.

 

As I mentioned, the 800XE was the last 8-bit model and Atari used remaining stocks to manufacture the computers.

That's why common defective GTIA or keys from various production runs (some are more yellowed than the others).

 

 

Interesting, so this article is wrong?
 

Quote

Tramiel era: XE series

Tramiel, originally from Poland, retained strong links with eastern Europe. When these countries began to remove themselves from the Warsaw Pact, capped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he was able to use these relationships to open new business opportunities for the company. To address the need for a very low cost machine suitable for sales into these regions, where the economies were still post-communist and the exchange rates very high, Atari introduced the last machines in the 8-bit series to hit very low price points
<snip>
The 65XE was marketed as 800XE in Germany and Czechoslovakia, in order to ride on the popularity of the original 800XL in those markets. Being available on market from 1987, all 800XE units contained the ECI port

 

Source: https://en.wikipedia-on-ipfs.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family.html

 

Edited September 24, 2020 by ironeagleuk

[drac030]

22 minutes ago, ironeagleuk said:

Interesting, so this article is wrong?
 

Quote

Tramiel era: XE series

Tramiel, originally from Poland, retained strong links with eastern Europe. When these countries began to remove themselves from the Warsaw Pact, capped by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, he was able to use these relationships to open new business opportunities for the company. To address the need for a very low cost machine suitable for sales into these regions, where the economies were still post-communist and the exchange rates very high, Atari introduced the last machines in the 8-bit series to hit very low price points

This implies that Atari started to sell 8-bit machines in "eastern Europe" in late 1989, certainly after November 1989. However, the XE series was available in official (= government-run) retail network called Pewex at least since 1987 (I bought my 65XE there in February 1988) and there was also official support and service. The XE computers being sold then were 65XE (w/o ECI) and 130XE. BTW. you are surprised that wikipedia is wrong?

Edited September 24, 2020 by drac030

[+kheller2]

So they sold 65XE non ECI PAL units?  I thought the non ECI were sold in NTSC only.   

[Marius]

16 hours ago, TheMontezuma said:

Now I can say the same This is some 'fact' that keeps repeating in the a8 scene, but it is actually not entirely correct 😉

 

800XE was not targeting Eastern Europe, but Germany. Atari hoped that 800XE will sell thanks to a positive connotation to the 800XL.

http://www.atari-computermuseum.de/pics/scans/800XE_0787.pdf

 

800XL was not that popular in Poland, so there was no reason to replace very popular 65XE with 800XE.

 

As I mentioned, the 800XE was the last 8-bit model and Atari used remaining stocks to manufacture the computers.

That's why common defective GTIA or keys from various production runs (some are more yellowed than the others).

 

Most of my 65XE's though have the buggy GTIA. 

 

What you say is true: the buggy GTIA is in the last produced a8's, but it has nothing to do with 800XE. So more the production DATE is interesting. In USA you can buy PAL 130XE's with also the bugy GTIA. Those are probably 130XE's from 1991 (or 1992?).... I am surprised though that there seem no XEGS with buggy GTIA.

 

Another thing, not related to GTIA, is that in the 'youngest' XE's there is not a 6520 PIA but an 6821.