ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2017
Entry 8th June 2017: Post: 03
Atari 800
Hi
Digging around the plastic tubs having reviewed the status of the Apple
II and dug out the Atari 800. I have three of these machines but was
pretty confident the one in deepest store was working last time I
checked. Plugged into the SONY TV and couldn't get anything on the
screen. The power light was on and the machine looked to be working.
Next I then pulled an old black and white TV that I have with an actual
rotating knob for tuning so I could better tune the Atari in... like we
used to do all those years ago. In no time I was able to see the Star
Raiders screen from the inserted cartridge. Odd that it has two
cartridge slots and all cartridges say Left Cartridge.
Back to the tubs and finally found my BASIC LANGUAGE cartridge and
plugged in and switched on. All worked fine. When you plug in without
any cartridge you get an Atari memo pad on the screen.
This was a pretty expensive unit to build given that the cards slot in
vertically into the base motherboard. Amazing quality given the age of
this machine. We are now venturing into the late seventies in terms of kit.
The link to the Amiga is that Jay Miner designed the computer....
Quote from the AUI Interview with Jay Miner - 'The father of the Amiga'
In 1974 after ten years of calculator, watch and computer chip design at
a lot of different chip companies, Atari was just starting up and needed
a chip designer. My friend Harold Lee was already there and he
introduced me to Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari). Harold had done
the chip for the first video game and Nolan Bushnell asked me to do a
chip for the video game twenty six hundred system. You probably know how
successful the twenty six hundred or the Video Computer system as it
became called, was, so in 1977 they asked me to design the new Atari
computer the 400 – 800 model. I directed the architecture and the chip
designing of this new machine and this too was a huge success.
[ PS See my earlier post today regarding the 2600 ]
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/amiga_scuzz366.htm
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/a_scuzz_sept20/a_scuzz_sep20_270.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_8-bit_family
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gA-euwYrAzw
https://retrocomputingnews.com/2015/05/31/the-aui-interview-jay-miner-the-father-of-the-amiga/
Has been a good couple of days mucking around with the much earlier
machines. You really cannot avoid the significance of BASIC in terms of
usage on the older computers and games were an important factor in the
drive to get computers into the home. The dawn of the home computer was
in full swing by the beginning of the 80's and certainly the explosion
of the vast number of models that would follow were very much in the
shadow of Atari, Apple, Commodore and TRS. Such an exciting time to be
mucking around with computers. We certainly had a Woody in those days
and whilst I moved to the Sinclair range my sister stayed with Atari
until Dad got the Amiga. Had I stayed at home I guess I would have moved
much earlier to the Amiga rather than have gone to Amstrad. My dream in
1981 though was to own a VIC20. I was so close to buying one but sadly
money pressures and being full time at college on a modest grant just
made it impossible. Saying that by the summer of 1982 I did shell out
around £45 for a new ZX81 which I still have in its original box. I
think the VIC was around £140 if I recall.
scuzz
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