Original "Sweet 16" Atari 1000 PCB found...

[Tempest]

What is the SIO2? A faster SIO port?

 

Allan

I assume it's just a second SIO port.

 

Tempest

[+kheller2]

Correct. From the first post Curt writes: "Giving the films a closer review I then noticed the next unusual item(s) where the 13 pin unique SIO connector footprint should've been were a pair of DB-15 connectors daisy-chained together with lines on the film. The ONLY device to ever make such mention was the original 1000 and 1000X "Sweet-16" prototype designs of what would eventually become the 1200XL's."

 

Then later: "dual DB15 connectors (the connectors had a VERY cool feature which was the extra two lines were used as a Power-on latch to signal to attached peripherals to automatically turn on and off when the computer was powered up instead the user having to turn it all on by themselves, it was a nice idea."

Edited March 10, 2009 by kheller2

[Defender II]

PS

I was going to also suggest that you consider changing the dimentions of the board. We don't have the origional cases so how about a more IBM PC style size (along with use of a PC power supply)? Also consider spacing out the primary four chips so the various existing extention projects can all fit? Just slap a Polish dual pokey (with PC keyboard adapter) in it to start off and it would be ready to go.

 

Great ideas, but FYI those are original Atari films. They just want to make a test run. The work to transfer the films to PCB layout software would be labor intensive, much less any modifications... Are you volunteering?

Edited March 10, 2009 by Defender II

[candle]

@kheller2: according to sio protocol specification such feature is present in 13 pin connector - 5V output is described as signal for external device to leave sleep mode and get ready to transmit, as computer was powered on

don't get me wrong - i'm not saying this is how things are done, but it was predicted back then when sio communication standard was developed

reference: atari home computer system, serial inout/output interface user's hadbook, part I, page 8:

pin 10: 5V/READY - Indicates that the computer is turned on and ready, restriced use as 5V supply

don't know if this was the first, but it refers to atari 400 and 800 machines, and this would be before sweet-16 era

 

One more thing, apart from films, is there any schematics attached to it? sorry if that was my ignorance not knowing there is!

Edited March 10, 2009 by candle

[+kheller2]

@kheller2: according to sio protocol specification such feature is present in 13 pin connector - 5V output is described as signal for external device to leave sleep mode and get ready to transmit, as computer was powered on

don't get me wrong - i'm not saying this is how things are done, but it was predicted back then when sio communication standard was developed

reference: atari home computer system, serial inout/output interface user's hadbook, part I, page 8:

pin 10: 5V/READY - Indicates that the computer is turned on and ready, restriced use as 5V supply

don't know if this was the first, but it refers to atari 400 and 800 machines, and this would be before sweet-16 era

 

One more thing, apart from films, is there any schematics attached to it? sorry if that was my ignorance not knowing there is!

 

 

http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/1200xl/1200.html

[candle]

@kheller2: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS..._PCB_RevX8A.jpg, look closly - pin #8 and #15 of db15 connectors are not connected! olny 13 pins are used!

[Rybags]

But it wouldn't have been un-Atari-like for them to have just soldered a wire from them to somewhere else during production.

[candle]

because they were so impatient on board design level and have not routed those connections? full schematics would be of use here - it would be quite simple to check if there is some power switching circuity for turning on anything

for my current state of knowledge - all there is is 5V/ready signal described in document i've quoted as possibility for signaling external devices to turn on/get ready to transmission

pins #8, and $15 unconnected, everything else would be speculation

beside - it is cheaper in long term to have connectors like db15 rather than atari properial sio connectors - this is industry standard, and exists outside atari world. its real shame they have continued in fitting atari properial connector, which i cannot buy, but back then they have their propertial connectors ready, self-made and stocked

[Curt Vendel]

I have the schematics for Rev X8A... I'll look later if I'm up to it.

 

One thing I need to sit down and spend some time with... and its a bit confusing and I need to sort out... in May-July of 1982 "Sweet16" was being worked on and this consists of at least Rev's 7-8, now here is the weird part...

 

Revs X9A-X11A are marked "Z800"... but here's the kicker.... they are dated March of 82 !!!

 

Two separate parallel projects side by side... just as Dave Sovey (former Atari 1200XL engineer) mentioned to me 5-6 years ago.

 

Curt

 

 

 

because they were so impatient on board design level and have not routed those connections? full schematics would be of use here - it would be quite simple to check if there is some power switching circuity for turning on anything

for my current state of knowledge - all there is is 5V/ready signal described in document i've quoted as possibility for signaling external devices to turn on/get ready to transmission

pins #8, and $15 unconnected, everything else would be speculation

beside - it is cheaper in long term to have connectors like db15 rather than atari properial sio connectors - this is industry standard, and exists outside atari world. its real shame they have continued in fitting atari properial connector, which i cannot buy, but back then they have their propertial connectors ready, self-made and stocked

[Math You]

Perhaps the Z800 and sweet 16 were two separate projects. The Z800 may have been the 800's replacement and the sweet 16 an enhanced 800 i.e 400, 800, 1600?

[Shawn Jefferson]

Two separate parallel projects side by side... just as Dave Sovey (former Atari 1200XL engineer) mentioned to me 5-6 years ago.

 

What! That doesn't sound like a company that would soon to be losing a million dollars a day.

[candle]

or exacly the reason why it had been loosing that million a day on the first place

[Curt Vendel]

Ask GM they burn through 1 Billion every couple of days, or even better - AIG, they burn through a billion a day.

 

or exacly the reason why it had been loosing that million a day on the first place

[candle]

just kidding

Curt, could You provide those schematics?

[+rdemming]

From a post long ago:

When you consider Silver & Gold, Amy, Rainbow and several other chips were already laid out and in simulations and also some had initial fab samples produced, architectures and designs were already spec'd out and some even breadboarded...

 

I know Amy was the ill-fated soundchip but I never heard about the "Silver & Gold" and "Rainbow" chips.

Is there some more info on that?

 

Thanks.

 

Robert

[+kheller2]

I still want one.

[_The Doctor__]

um

Albert, Curt?

 

This has to be accomplished

 

Can't believe this was recovered. Amazing.

[+Spaced Cowboy]

.

The amount of vaporware Atari Inc created was truly unprecedented and will probably never be equalled again in an american tech company.

*cough* Yeah... No.

 

I work in R&D at Apple, in PAE, which is a prototyping division. Any given year, a half-dozen or so projects cross my desk that don't ever see the light of day. Jobs' quote that he 'was most proud of all the things we say "No" to' was spot on.

 

Apple go through a *lot* of ideas, developing boards, firmware, integrating them before discarding them as not good enough by one criterion or another,

 

Apple is of course a far larger company, and maybe if you scaled Atari up it might be comparable, but in absolute terms it's barely a bit-player. The "R" in R&D is pretty important, and a lot of the time you have to have something to a certain finish level before problems or quirks become apparent. Sometimes they can be worked around with software, sometimes not. I don't blame Atari for trying hard, in this regard at least.

[Gunstar]

I wish I could "like" Spaced Cowboy's reply comment more than once...Atari was *the* stepping stone for most of the industry at one time...including Steve Jobs! (Wozniak too?) Would Apple even be what it is today if they hadn't worked at Atari first? In fact, the original Apple was probably an R&D project proposed and rejected at Atari, which is why Steve Jobs left to start Apple. And then Atari decided to create the 400/800 in response to Apple and others in the new personal computer industry.

Edited December 2, 2017 by Gunstar

[mos6507]

Funny to be in a position to revise a position I had 11 years ago, but here goes...

 

My opinion is that while R&D is good, indiscriminate R&D is something companies do when they feel they have cash (or credit) to burn and a lack of direction.

 

That was certainly the case with Atari. They tried to do too much, too fast, with too many redundant/overlapping ideas.

 

 

It's not that R&D is bad, but out-of-control R&D is the sort of thing most people associate with the wasteful government spending in the military industrial complex. For every SR-71 triumph you'll have another jet plane that just flushes tax money down the drain. I don't buy the idea that the hit to miss ratio is completely random. I know hindsight is 20/20 but there IS such a thing as a stupid idea.

 

In the case of Atari, they had a combination of ideas that probably never should have been worked on in the first place (the Sylvia 10-bit system, for instance) and others that should have been completed (the 1400 series and breakout box).

[+Spaced Cowboy]

Funny to be in a position to revise a position I had 11 years ago, but here goes...

[grin], yeah, I only realized how old the thread was after I posted...

 

The thing is, it's *really* difficult to figure out which are the insanely great ideas until you've done some work on them. I'm not disagreeing over the expansion box idea, that really was an obvious gaping hole, at least for me....

 

But even with this, let me play devils advocate for a second...

 

You have to ask yourself, am I representative of the target market ? I would guess that the vast majority of people that bought an Atari 8-bit computer were parents buying their kid what the kid wanted, and that kid (no matter what they *said*) *really* just wanted to play games. That wasn't me, I wanted the world, but Atari may have done the market research that said "this, though really cool, is not financially viable for our market". I don't know if they did or not, I'd hope they did, because you always want a business to be run well, but I have no insight into what really happened.

 

You can look at the IBM success, and you can say the Atari line could have competed with the machines of the day, especially if they had expansion slots, and I'd agree, but at least where I lived (the U.K. at the time), PC's were business machines, respectable, and serious. Ataris were games machines, for kids, and unsuitable for business. I can't overstate this: perception is *all*. Overcoming that barrier to entry, and making headway against an entrenched competitor on an established competing platform would be (a) enormously expensive in terms of marketing, and (b) require a change within Atari that was as difficult if not more so - transitioning into a company that could provide business-level support, business roadmaps, *and* work with other software companies to expand the market.

 

Given the difficulties you might expect breaking into the business world, and the lack of take-up you might expect in the home computer world, perhaps they did make the right decision, irrespective of my particular wishes - and to be frank, most of the people on this board are probably more inclined to "want more" from Atari than their target market would have supported - I certainly don't expect what I'm writing to be a popular viewpoint in here

 

You could also point to the fact that the PBI was never really exploited (although again, Atari could have done more to help, I only found any reasonable documentation on it years after it was out of date). The PBI may have been Atari testing the waters, and the lack of take-up was an indicator to them to give up the idea... just sayin' ...

 

One more point: the TI99/4a had an expansion box at the time, and they must have sold a fair few because you can buy them still on EBay, but it didn't really help the computer line, which died some time before the Atari ones did IIRC. I think most people bought the box to get the disk drive, or the extra 32k of RAM, which of course the XL (hell, even the 800) already had as options. There certainly wasn't a glut of plug-in cards available...

 

I'll finish by noting that even today, Apple is not seen as a real competitor to Microsoft, and that even after pushing billions of dollars into marketing and R&D, launching entirely new categories of product, and changing the game several times (not to mention redefining "courage", [sigh]), there's still a lot of software that I have to run a Windows or even Linux VM to use on my (very capable) Mac Pro. I'm not sure it's reasonable to have expected Atari to have succeeded there either. You could try the argument that the nascent industry would have been easier to stake a part in, my question is: would it have been easy enough ?

 

[/devils argument]

Edited December 2, 2017 by Spaced Cowboy

[+DrVenkman]

You have to ask yourself, am I representative of the target market ? I would guess that the vast majority of people that bought an Atari 8-bit computer were parents buying their kid what the kid wanted, and that kid *really* just wanted to play games. That wasn't me, I wanted the world, but Atari may have done the market research that said "this, though really cool, is not financially viable for our market". I don't know if they did or not, I'd hope they did, because you always want a business to be run well, but I have no insight into what really happened.

 

You really should read Curt and Marty's book (ATARI, INC.: BUSINESS IS FUN). There was a LOT of indiscriminate spending going on in several different types of R&D organizations over the lifetime of Atari, Inc. from the early 70's through 1984. The industry was brand new, lots of smart people had wild, inchoate ideas and wanted to try to bring them to life in hardware and software, with just the vaguest ideas of how AND WHY consumers would ultimately latch onto the concepts, usage patterns and interface metaphors that ultimately prevailed 20-30 years later ... Atari (via Warner's money and insane coin-op and home videogame profits) was throwing money at the wall and building shit will-nilly to see what would stick. As were many, many other companies (see, e.g., Xerox PARC, who had no idea what to do with what they'd created in the GUI desktop metaphor).

 

I was a typical American middle-class kid in the 70's and 80's. It was a wild time to be a nerdy kid.

[+Spaced Cowboy]

You really should read Curt and Marty's book (ATARI, INC.: BUSINESS IS FUN). There was a LOT of indiscriminate spending going on in several different types of R&D organizations over the lifetime of Atari, Inc. from the early 70's through 1984. The industry was brand new, lots of smart people had wild, inchoate ideas and wanted to try to bring them to life in hardware and software, with just the vaguest ideas of how AND WHY consumers would ultimately latch onto the concepts, usage patterns and interface metaphors that ultimately prevailed 20-30 years later ... Atari (via Warner's money and insane coin-op and home videogame profits) was throwing money at the wall and building shit will-nilly to see what would stick. As were many, many other companies (see, e.g., Xerox PARC, who had no idea what to do with what they'd created in the GUI desktop metaphor).

 

I was a typical American middle-class kid in the 70's and 80's. It was a wild time to be a nerdy kid.

I ought to read the book. If what you say is true, though, then trust me, not much has changed. The whole Silicon Valley culture is still very similar: get an idea, pitch it well, get funded, spend fast and hard, get to market quickly.

 

Established companies like the one I work for also spend a lot on R&D. I'd venture that Apple's yearly budget for R&D is more than Atari's cumulative total revenue. According to public figures, we're spending about $1B per month right now. The ideas are just as wild, trust me. Sometimes I look at my boss when I get a new project, and he just shrugs...

 

I was a working-class kid, growing up in a not-very-well-off Northern city in the U.K. I saved up for over a year to buy my Atari, and it's still set up (admittedly in the attic, but that's more to keep it safe from the 5-year old monster) 36 years later. Buying that computer meant a lot to me

Edited December 2, 2017 by Spaced Cowboy

[+DrVenkman]

Established companies like the one I work for also spend a lot on R&D. I'd venture that Apple's yearly budget for R&D is more than Atari's cumulative total revenue.

 

Of course. But you're also working 35 years past Atari, Inc.'s heydays, and looking for products for a much more mature industry and with a potential marketbase of consumers hundreds or thousands of times larger. My point is, Atari and its early Silly Valley competitors were inventing an entire market segment whole-cloth.

[_The Doctor__]

for sh*ts and giggles take a look at the pcb make sure it's solid, if it can be improved or if there are mistakes. Let's get some idea's or like it as it is and help get a run of these made. A good deal of satisfaction and fun can be had.. with the inexpensive options to produce boards today it looks very feasible and ultimately saleable.