This mini forum is intended to provide a simple means of discussion about the Atari  800 computer. If you want to share your own experience or memories, or add relevant information about this system: post a message!

Thanks for the memories

Here is a work in progress of a game/demo which shows that the
Atari 400/800 etc (48k) computers are still a wonderful computer system
that can completely dazzle and charm people today,
even though it may be 30 odd years later on...

Here is the actual demo you can download and run:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/214476-gtiablast-wip-demo/

Here is a video of the game demo running...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$4FSpBW7iRa4$feature$c4-overview$list$UUuS_WWw8gMxmjZSvzbNCElQ

I made a Slideshow, of my Atari 800 with some cool details : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v$Njte9HpjHUs

Just played MULE last night. I love my old Atari 800, it makes a great conversation piece for visitors. The more games you have the more memories you share.

A great test of the sound system was M.U.L.E. God forbid you ever had the time to play it, but it had an epic sound track. The unfortunate NES version sound track is an Easter egg of SPORE.

now this brings back memories, i remember my atari 400 which had a tape disk drive to install its programs. i remember playing logic games with it that didn''t have graphics but you would type in what you wanted to do and if you did it right you got to go on. what a blast

I have one of these and a long time ago my dad made a extra altair 88XX type box to just act like a ATARI
800 disk drive it had 2 5¼ disk drive units and a altari bus cage card cage and a power supply no screen no screen pcb and a specail cpm boot disk witch booted to cpm Atari emulation disk emulator file and then acted like a atari disk drive I have the connections still for the Atari SIO to disk box connections still on my atari800 but snipped it off when i got a 810 drive LAME I WISH I NEVER DID THAT BUT DID my dad probably threw the box away but it might still be in the basement if it is I will get it back and probably try to get it to work again! it was cool to have this wooden box that acted like two atari drives I could copy files on the Atari from drive 1 to drive 2 fast and could put the 810 on drive 3 and have 3 drives whopdtido anyway it was cool.
I also have finnaly figured out how to use ultra copy and APE shareware to get all my ORIGINAL Atari basic files onto a CD rom! .. now I can use a laptop as my Atari DRive or use a emulation file as Atari or VS VERSA its cool now I only need a STELLADAPTOR..! $$9786$ have fun.

Amazing to see such great information about this fantastic machine. After progressing from a lowly ZX-81, this was another world being entered in 1983, with colour graphics and an amazing 16k of memory. After buying upgrades to make it 48k and also a floppy disk drive (the original 810 5 1/4" drive), it truly made it an amazing bit of kit and the envy of my friends with their Vic 20''s and C64''s and a tape machine.

Having said that though, early days, although fun, were also frustrating and time consuming. I remember waiting 20minutes for Apple Panic to load on cassette and nearly an hour for Jumbo Jet Pilot (which wasn''t worth the wait!!), which is why we bought the disk drive (for another £400!!). Mind you, the worst bit was developing what i can only describe as ''Atari Ankles'' after sitting on them for hours on end playing ''Miner 2049''er'' and Bounty Bob Strikes Back.

I used to sell Computers back in the dim and distant past and no matter what came along, my benchmark was this Atari 800 - competing against BBC model B''s, Acorn Electrons and Amstrad CPC464''s etc...Carried on being an Atari fan, buying a 130xe and a 520STFM afterwards, before converting to the ''Dark Side'' and getting an Amiga A600 when Atari finally gave up being popular.

My parents still own the Atari 800 and, believe it or not, we had it out the other night. I have an 8 year old son who was fascinated by this ageing technology, but had great pleasure in attempting to play Zaxxon, Pac-Man, Preppie, Mr Robot''s Robot Factory, Rescue at Fractalus (we have the ''pilot'' called Behind Jaggi Lines), Pole Position, Claim Jumper and all of the brilliant games that we still have a box-full of sitting in the cupboard.

Best memory has to be my mother sitting playing Centipede one Sunday afternoon and getting over 10million points - must have been some bug in the game, as she managed to find a spot for the little character to sit and all she had to do was keep the fire button pressed to rack up the points, only giving me the joystick when she needed the loo....

The biggest surprise though? I actually managed to get my mother''s telly tuned in to find the Atari!! And here was I thinking modern technology would have simply passed it all by....

Great machine, great memories - bring ''em back and more to the point, bring back some healthy competition between computers that all ran different operating systems and different software.....whoops, we''ve got it - they''re called games consoles nowadays though!

Yesterday was the anniversary of the shutdown of the last Multics machine! Multics was the first operating system to use a hierarchical file system, and the first OS to use the now-standard practice of per-process stacks in the kernel. For a brief retrospective, check out this story on CR4: The Engineer's Place for News and Discussion.

http://cr4.globalspec.com/blogentry/3784/October-31-2000-The-Last-Multics-Machine

And don't be shy about leaving a comment, especially if you've worked with Multics!

Hi,
If you are a fan of MULE, have a look to my decompilation and reverse engineering page of this wonderful game. You'll find a lot of informations about the hidden rules used and secrets . http://bringerp.free.fr/RE/

I am sure that a lot of you Atari users once had an Atari 8-Bit computer back in the day. Maybe you still do. You might remember a classic game called M.U.L.E. A game that you wish would have been ported over to the PC but never was.

If you are a M.U.L.E. fan like I am, you probably used to have hordes of your friends over your house to play the best 4-man multi-player game ever written! After playing this game for hours upon hours, days upon days, years upon years, finally everyone grew up or grew apart and stopped getting together to play.

If you are a M.U.L.E. fan like I am, you probably have done a bit of M.U.L.E. re-searching on the internet, in hopes for one day someone to create an internet capable version of this great classic.

Well, I have some very good news for you. If you run Windows (98/XP) operating system, THE WAIT IS OVER!!!

Thanks to the authors of the Atari800WinPlus (http://atariarea.histeria.pl/PLus/index_us.htm) and Kaillera (www.kaillera.com), you can now play the greatest multiplayer game ever made with 4 players OVER THE INTERNET! This is not a clone, it is the ORIGINAL M.U.L.E. un-modified! Same graphics, same sound, same game! The only difference is that it looks a lot better on your computer than it did on your TV back in the day!

If this interests you, please hop on over to http://atarimule.neotechgaming.com where M.U.L.E. fans from around the world have been gathering and playing online!

Some of our members include the authors of the most popular M.U.L.E. web sites such as World of Mule (http://www.worldofmule.net/index.htm) and Extreme MULEing (http://mule.eichberger.net/index.php) and M.U.L.E. Fans (http://www.100hosting.com/mule/). Even the creator of the recent M.U.L.E. clone game Space HoRSE (www.gilligames.com) has joined up with us!

Ahh, the feeling of playing with 4 human players again is quite exhilirating! SO, what are you waiting for? Join us now!! http://atarimule.neotechgaming.com.

See you there!

Adam

I did my masters final in finance on my Atari 800 in 123. We were supposed to reconstruct the records from a burned out factory. I turned it in and got a "B"! I was at first livid, but the professor didn't know anything about the power of spreadsheets. I walked up and chatted with him, and told him, you don't understand, this is from a program, and I can operate the entire factory as CFO with this. The lights went on and I got an "A". I just found the old box! No power supply, no games, but I also found and remembered that I had modified it with a special chipset that allowed me to hack game code. The first game code I hacked was "Oils Well". In those days you could rent programs. I rented it, viewed the machine code (using this modification) viewed the assembly program, figured out what they were doing and broke the copy protection, and had my own copy. I was pretty proud. I can't even remember what the chipset is called.

Here's my tribute:
From this computer I learned the fundamentals of computers. Bits, bytes... On my own at 15yrs. I'm forever indebted to the Atari for having the right balance of high and low level home computing. BASIC one day, Assembly on another; just change the cartridge! Thank you Atari.

The Atari 800 was my first home computer - when I could finally afford it at the tail-end of its life. I created a pong game using the BASIC cart and then pulled the plug - nice! So, since my Mom sold it at a garage sale with the proverbial baseball cards, I am buying another one on eBay today - WITH the accessory tape recorder (program recorder)!

So - to answer some parts questions below - Check out eBay. . .

i have an 800 that i picked up at a resale shop
and it didn't come with any AC adapter.
i had an AC laying around and when i pluged it into the 800,when i pressed the keys it would make some beeps though it gave off a overheating smell
after about 1min.what do i do?

ps.no monitor

I have an Atari 800 computer and an Amdek monitor. My question would be what cable would I use to connect the single cable coming out of the back of the Atari to the RCA type connection on the back of the Monitor I know how to hook it up to a TV with a box but not the two audio and Video plug-ins on the back of the monitor any info on what the part or cable is called or where I could source it would be greatly appreciated Thanks

My one uses a 9VAC at 3.4A unit. Hope that helps

Does anyone know what kind of power supply this computer uses?

Poke 559,0

Instant turbo boost. Came in quite handy when running my BBS at 480 Baud!
Of course, ANTIC gets turned off if you do that, so you do not get a display.
However, a Poke 559,38 turned the screen back on again, and well, your performance was reduced by a good 40%.
Or you could do:
LDA #0
STA 559
RTS

WOW, been a while since I did that sort of thing!

What type of AC adapter is used for the atari 800... i

The 800 was an exciting machine--it could do things the other micros of the time could not, especially in the area of grpahics. But, in NONE of the ads was a single cable ever shown! They would show one or two external drives, a tape unit, monitor and cpu and not one cable. In fact, each component had its own power suppy and plug. When you got it all plugged in, you would have wires running everywhere!! I remember having two 800's for development purposes and having to have extension cords and power strips everywhere.

I have an Atari 800 XL, i did not see it in the museum. I can send to you pictures and information if you want.
M@rcos

hi'i was wanting to know if a800s basic cartridge can still be found?