Cascade Crew

chevymad · Posted: Mon Jan 02, 2012 9:31 pm Post subject: More Atari stuff

So I'm still upgrading the old Atari computer.. even though I dont play it all that much. LOL The upgrading itself is whats fun.

Tonight I installed a 1mb memory upgrade, it also replaces the stock operating system chip so now I can choose from 4 different OS. Atari never came up with a standard for memory upgrades, so this can be set to 4 different common standards as well. It also contains a system clock (no such thing on the atari) The thing also prepares the computer for covox(speech chip) and stereo sound chips.

In the pic this thing is the part with the ribbon cables and wires in the right. A guy in Poland just started manufacturing these this year and I got in on the first run.

You can see several other mods i've done too.. upper left I removed the RF signal transmitter and now there's an rca sound pre-amp out connection. I also installed an s-video conversion in the top middle. I also deleted the stock video circuitry and replaced it with a mix of "ultra video" and "super video" mods. Picture is a whole lot better then the old RF signal. All this stuff still fits in the stock case too.

1mb of ram is a far cry from the 8k my first atari had.. this particular machine came with 64k. One has to remember that these old things didnt have hard drives.. so every program you ran had to completely load into the system ram. Now I need to d/l the new version of Space Harrier for it and give it a try.. its supposed to require 1mb to run. Smile

flea · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:46 pm Post subject:

I told my daughter that I used to have an Atari 2600. She said:
What is it? A car?
A lawn mower?
A Japanese kid that used to live with us?

Crying or Very sad

I had such high hopes for her too.

chevymad · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 5:48 pm Post subject:

2600 was originally called a VCS or Video Computer System. Sears also sold their own version of the machine. I wanted one badly at the time, but Dad had allready bought us a Roth Fairchild Channel F system a couple years before the 2600 came out. That was the very first video game to ever use cartridges.

flea · Posted: Sun Jan 08, 2012 6:49 pm Post subject:

When my dad bought it we played asteroids and frogger so much our thumbs would hurt all the time.
In fact the only time my thumb didn't hurt was when I was playing, then it just went numb.

I remember once we were gonna go somewhere as a family, my dad went out to the car to warm it up/melt the ice off of it. My mom and sisters went out to wait on us when the ice was all gone. Don't know how long they waited, but eventually they all came back in, my dad said it was time to go. Mom said forget it, they just got back. We never even knew they left.
But we got good at Asteroids.

TurdGen1989 · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 11:09 am Post subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pdQavn0Qy0

Smile

Schultzy89GTA · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:41 pm Post subject:

LOL... I can see Brandon rocking the gAtari solo @ next Cows Thumbs up

chevymad · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 7:04 pm Post subject:

Well thats something i've never seen before. Laughing

chevymad · Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 10:58 pm Post subject:

In the same vein. Here's an entire album of techno music made from Atari 2600 sounds.

http://mindflaremedia.bandcamp.com/album/return-of-the-bloop-beep-buzz

RSFreak · Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:45 pm Post subject: