I was talking with my parents a while back and my mom mentioned my old Atari 400 (http://www.oldcomputers.net/atari400.html for the low down on the specs). That 6502 at 1.8Mhz, geeeeeeshe Louise! And 16k of RAM to boot!
We both wondered if it was still around Or had gone by the way side. Guess what? The computer that started my computing journey!!!
Well, heavens to Betsy if a package didn’t arrive yesterday. And yes, that is the way the box was found, open and the lid wouldn’t close, but I was surprised at that it all survived. It even had the fancy keyboard, not the that awful plastic sheet of plastic with bubble switch keys. My friend Phil had the Atari 800 with floppy drives. Well, la’ dee da’! Another friend Nick had an 800 with all the bells and whistles and ran a local BBS from his. Every Saturday morning there was a group that hung out at the local computer shop trading tips, tricks, and software.
And with most people from this era, we could send hours busily typing in programs from whatever magazine you could buy, find, trade, or borrow. And the magic of trying to save it and retrieve it from tape. I think I lost as much as was saved in the end.
I remember when I got it, it was for Christmas. Of course being the young, excited lad I was, one afternoon when my parents were out, I pulled it from the closet, ever so carefully pealed back the tape, unboxed it, set it up, and had fun for a couple of hours. They were surprised at how quick I had it setup. I didn’t let them in on the secret until on so many, many moons later.
I am playing around with a new gallery plugin, so check out the pictures of the unveiling. Much like the NeXT Cube, I am going to see if I can get this one up and running as well. I was really hoping that Xaxon was going to be in the cassette player, but I wasn’t lucky on that note. I am going to have to track down some pieces and parts to get it displaying something once I get it put back together again. Westley was poking around the box and getting curious, so maybe I can get him to help me with this let-me-put-it-in-the-queue project list – LOL.
And there was a bonus!! All of the screws for the case were still in the box. They are laying inside the bottom of the case.
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