Good job? Now have a cold one and boot up some Defender. Fortunately these are quite reliable compared to a C64 which has a 50/50 chance of being DOA.
>>12465598put that thing back in the garbage where you found it. there's no worthwhile games pre-Nintendo, OP.
>>12465636nintoddlers are mentally ill and brainwashed
my dad bought one in 81 it was his first computer
>>12465636He didn't post about a ZX Spectrum, so it's ok.
>>12465598Atari spared no expenses with the 400/800 they were built like tanks compared to later, cheaper models.
>>12465598Nice machines - would love to have one.
>>12465662I shipped an 800 once, was rather awkward to pack but damn it was solid.
>>12465598it seems PAL C64s are more reliable than NTSC ones. like you can find them advertised online for sale in Germany quite often and most of the time they just work.
>>12465687The more reliable redesigned models sold a lot more units in Europe so that makes sense
>>12465687Most PAL models were later versions especially the C64C while NTSC units were most commonly earlier and more buggy hardware revisions.
>>12465697>while NTSC units were most commonly earlier and more buggy hardware revisionsthe biggest issue is the shitty thermal environment in the case
too bad the A8 market in the US died in 1985 and many late 80s games like Maniac Mansion, Pirates, and Ultima V never got to it.
>>12465598You've made a wojak thread and now you've made a Twitter screencap thread. How will you shit up the board next?
>>12465636>put that thing back in the garbage where you found it. there's no worthwhile games pre-Nintendo, OP.Bait
SMASHED and SLAMMED
>>12465649It's good for work
>>12465598Nice! My first PC was an 800XL.What types of drives do you have?
>>12465598Its impressive how this computer is almost 4 years earlier than the C64 and competes with it pretty well. It was massively expensive if you included the disc drive so people were willing to wait for the c64 which was seen as a better deal.
>>12468029by 1986 the atari 8bit line had very few titles released for it. i feel bad for those that went out and bought one a year before or same year the c64 came out.
>>12468196the epic fail was that developers inexplicably refused to put out games for the 64k XL line and stuff was outgrowing the 48k 800
>>12468204it's a shame how atari 8bit lines ended. yet another victim of jack tramiel's mission to drive prices down and competitors out of business. really nice machines. the ANTIC chip was so far ahead of its time in 1979 that it was unreal to witness.
It was late 70s hardware and had a lot of limitations.>color placement>char sets only 128 characters>only 5 monochrome sprites>disk storage was very skimpy>scrolling is at 160 pixel resolution and thus choppy
>>12465756as this proves. you weren't going to get Maniac Mansion to work on an A8, at least not without it looking incredibly ugly.
>>12465827Bait is the only thing keeping this board alive at this point
>>12465636The Atari 8-bit computers were well supported even after the release of the Famicom
>>12468236>as this proves. you weren't going to get Maniac Mansion to work on an A8, at least not without it looking incredibly uglyI mean, the game has an Apple II version
>>12468271it uses the DHGR mode to have 16 colors. the Atari 8-bits can't display more than 4-5 colors at once.
>>12468273>Atari 8-bits can't display more than 4-5 colors at once
>>12468292that is a shitty port of Arkanoid, go play the C64 one instead
>>12468273>the Atari 8-bits can't display more than 4-5 colors at onceTechnically it has 128/256 colours and the 5 colour limit is per scanline but the display list system, while neat, took too much memory to really be used to its potential. In any case it can't do a full 16 colours onscreen like the C64 could do.
>>12465598Looks like that atari 800 had a 100% chance of being DOA. Hence all the fixing.
>>12465636lmao, I know this is bait but anything older than SNES isn't worth playing for me.
>>12465636Based.
>>12468516Based on nintendo faggotry
>>12468325Such wasted potential.Are the Ataris with souped up modern ram extension able to make use of the system's potential?
>>124682734-5 colors PER SCANLINE. >>12468325Memory isn't the limitation. Small singular memory bus shared by both the CPU and GPU, and the CPU time it takes to create each scanline (whereas other systems like NES spent only one CPU instruction to draw 8-line sprites, C64 could do like 21 iirc) are the real limitation. Basically the CPU can only work during hblank/vblank because there's no RAM/VRAM/ROM separation, the DMA takes all memory access away from the CPU while copying bits. Unified memory is also the reason C64 CPU only runs at 1MHz. NES CPU could run at 1.8 MHz thanks to its dedicated memory channel.If only they spent more money on adding more memory channels in Atari 7800 just like Nintendo did it wouldn't have been this bad. >>12468715Atari Jaguar fixed it by giving the sprite/object controller cache and even its own programmable RISC CPU. Too bad the RISC isn't fully programmable and still needs to read instructions from the slow 68000 CPU.
>>12468735Wasn't there a 6502 thing where the CPU only used the memory bus during half of a cycle so other components could use it during the other half without slowing the CPU down?I'm not an expert so sorry if I'm getting this wrong, but I remember reading about something like this
>>12468750Yeah but that means the GPU has to finish operations during half of that CPU clock, which is not enough time, unless you're a BBC Micro with 4MHz RAM and low color graphics.
>>12465716That would killed some of the major chips and was an issue. But, having fixed 7 bad C64s, I can tell you that bad RAM and bad PLAs seem to be the major cause of failures in early USA models. Micron RAM (identified by an MT stamped on the chip) has a very high fail rate and it was used heavily by 8-bit computers of the era because it was cheap. I've also had to replace a few bad MT chips in an Atari 800 XL. As it had a few non-original chips in it already I suspect it was originally a 100% MT machine. If so, it has a 62.5% fail rate. The MOS engineered PLA also has an extremely high fail rate. It replaced the original PLA after a few revisions and was used until the redesigned motherboards were introduced.>>12468029In the USA, the price was comparable at the time it was released to other color systems. $1,050 in 1979 versus the TI-99/4's $1,150 and the Apple II Plus's $1,195 of the same year. Only later did systems like the TRS-80 CoCo and Commodore VIC-20 come in and cause prices to drop. That of course kicked off a price war that everybody but Commodore and Apple lost. Apple retreated to the business and educational markets while everyone else tried to duke it out with Commodore. As Commodore had designed their machines to be as cheap as possible from the start this mostly went poorly for everyone else.>>12468715Look up the Atari VBXE upgrade. It also gives you RGB output.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYF0bGOc0Vc
>>12468793>That would killed some of the major chips and was an issuethe VIC-II, SID, and ROMs especially the kernal ROM all get quite hot and should be heat sinked. they used outdated 5 micrometer process nodes from the 70s. the breadbin case was also poorly ventilated.
>>12468793Micron DRAMs in other capacities did not have reliability issues, it was specifically their 64kx1 chips that were affected and who knows why?
>>12465598>Fortunately these are quite reliable compared to a C64 which has a 50/50 chance of being DOA.This 100%. Sure the C64 is more famous and has a much larger software library, but any you buy today is likely to require major repair work before you can even make it to the BASIC prompt. In contrast, most of the Atari 8-bits I've seen here in the U.S. function just as well as they did 40 years ago with little fuss, though I don't have any experience with the post-Tramiel XE models to say if they're still reliable. One big contributing factor to this is the absolute shit power supplies that Commodore provided all the way up to the C64C, which is liable to induce a voltage spike at any time and fry half your chips. Plus, they provide a non-standard combination of both 5V DC and 9V AC and replacements are expensive to purchase.Ataris had a similar PSU issue but only for one model (circled in pic) that was being shipped with some early 800XLs for about a year. Fortunately they tend to be less lethal in general than their C64 counterparts and it's trivial to replace it by soldering the old connector to any old USB 5v power supply.
>>12469734>though I don't have any experience with the post-Tramiel XE models to say if they're still reliablethey are not. the PCBs have very thin traces that are easily lifted if you do any repairs and most have Micron RAM chips in them.
>>12469742The one 'nice' thing about Tramiel's relentless cost cutting was the latter revisions of the 65XE used the same circuit board as the 130XE. To upgrade your 65XE to a 130XE all you needed to do was acquire the components and solder them to the board. The picture is a 65XE with the 'missing' RAM for the 130XE clearly visible on the left.
>>12469001MOS logic chips were also unreliable, although Commodore usually used reputable brands like TI and their own logic chips only when they were out of stock of other brands.
>>12469001way outdated fab with equipment from the Ford Administration so they had issues with low yields and wafer contamination. they only produced chips for their own use though, so they didn't need to compete in the free market and offer the latest cutting edge tech like Intel or NEC or one of those guys.
>>12469012Micron were a little upstart fab back then and had no clue what they were doing. Think they also had some outdated/secondhand fab equipment.
>>12469742>and most have Micron RAM chips in themApple used a lot of those dratted MT4264 chips as well because they were cheap.
Jay Miner's team were better engineers than the MOS guys, they for one split the graphics system into two ICs instead of one busy, hot-running chip like VIC-II. the Atari 2600 was quite well-engineered as well, it didn't have overheating issues like Intellivision or Bally Astrocade.
I still have an Atari XEGS, working flawlessly. I only had to replace the microswitches on the start-select buttons because they were worn out.Also my country makes a lot of peripherals and add-ons for the system. People even managed to port SF2 to the systemhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1XTl1qBWdCM
