Is anyone into "retro-computing"?

[wgungfu]

That bit about the Atari 800 architecture and display concepts is pretty interesting as it somewhat matches the stories that circulated between the ST and Amiga folks that the Amiga architecture was the real follow on to the Atari 800 with a discreet blitter graphics chip etc and the ST was more Commodore like in it's initial design.

Well the idea of what became the Amiga was actually born at Atari, coming off the 400/800 PCS's and their concept (Three custom support chips for graphics, sound and other management, a display list manner of generating the screen, etc.). The 400 itself was originally supposed to be the "gaming console with keyboard attached" until Kassar decided it wasn't a good idea to possibly eat in to the 2600's profits (which at that time in the late 70's was still struggling), so the 400 was instead positioned as a lower end "entry" computer to the more serious 800. After they were done with the design work, Jay and Joe had wanted to move on to do the next generation of what they did with the 400/800, and move in to a 16-bit 68000 based machine. Kassar wouldn't do it and Jay quit, Joe stayed on to at least go up through the launch of the PCSs. Once Hi-Torro was started up, Joe joined Jay there (as badge number 2) and they continued as they would have at Atari. The irony is once he was done doing his design work, Joe contracted back to Atari to work on the expansion system for the XL series computers (1090 XL) and was there during the whole split. He had to keep publicly quiet for a lot of years about his involvement with the Amiga because of the lawsuits.

 

[coloumb]

I'd just want an A1200 simply so I could finally play Alien Breed 3d 2 🙂 [Looks like Amiga Forever Plus edition would work] 🙂

The Atari 2600/cartridges picture in this thread looks like what I had back in the day. I can remember getting Asteroids for my birthday and spending all day playing that game thinking "HA! No more quarters needed to play!"

 

[disappoint]

I wonder if any of those games from back then are available on steam for modern PCs?

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I wonder if any of those games from back then are available on steam for modern PCs?

You can play most, if not all, via a variety of emulators. Stella (Atari 2600) and UAE (Amiga emulator) come to mind. Xbox Live also has some ports of popular 80s arcade games.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

Well the idea of what became the Amiga was actually born at Atari, coming off the 400/800 PCS's and their concept (Three custom support chips for graphics, sound and other management, a display list manner of generating the screen, etc.). The 400 itself was originally supposed to be the "gaming console with keyboard attached" until Kassar decided it wasn't a good idea to possibly eat in to the 2600's profits (which at that time in the late 70's was still struggling), so the 400 was instead positioned as a lower end "entry" computer to the more serious 800. After they were done with the design work, Jay and Joe had wanted to move on to do the next generation of what they did with the 400/800, and move in to a 16-bit 68000 based machine. Kassar wouldn't do it and Jay quit, Joe stayed on to at least go up through the launch of the PCSs. Once Hi-Torro was started up, Joe joined Jay there (as badge number 2) and they continued as they would have at Atari. The irony is once he was done doing his design work, Joe contracted back to Atari to work on the expansion system for the XL series computers (1090 XL) and was there during the whole split. He had to keep publicly quiet for a lot of years about his involvement with the Amiga because of the lawsuits.

Sigh.....I miss the 80s. :wub:

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I still have this...it works, but the video is still pretty fuzzy though...

I went out in my garage last Saturday and found the Atari 2600 and power brick for it. Now, I just need to find the cartridges and I'll look it up to my man cave plasma to see if it works.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

More Amiga goodness -- I grabbed a SCSI Zip drive off of eBay and have that connected to my Amiga and successfully mounted PC Zip disks. So now I can easily shuffle files between the Amiga and the PC/Internet (I got a brand new, free USB Zip drive for the PC years ago and hung on to it). 😀

 

[Iron Woode]

I managed to get a Commodore MPS1000 printer still in its somewhat beaten down box for free. Not sure if it works.


I forgot that I have a spare scsi zip drive kicking around.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I am watching an Amiga IDE adapter on eBay now and if I can get it, I'll be able to stick a semi-modern hard drive in it.

 

[Iron Woode]

I just located some C128 software here in mint condition in the original packaging:

Paperback Writer for C128
Paperback Filer for C128

I wonder if they still work?

:awe:

 

[zzuupp]

C128, that's a nice old odd duck.

 

[Bird222]

Man it's cool reading these stories. I had an Apple IIe with the dual floppy drive and a color monitor. My mom spent over $2400 on all that stuff. For some reason, I couldn't get the mouse to work with it. I sold it sometime ago for like $160 and bought a 14400 modem which was like state of the art at the time.

 

[1LIR]

IndyColtsFan - this thread brought back a lot of sweet memories. I started with a Commodore 64 - then upgraded to an Amiga 500 - very "sweet" machine. I had an old Dot matrix printer and I was in heaven. Used a 15" TV for the monitor. lol Had just about every game there was compliments of my brother in law that was in the Air Force. 🙂 I finally got rid of it all around 1990 to my next door neighbor that would take anything people was throwing away. Bet she still has it in her barn! 🙂) Gonna have to give her a call. 😉

 

[CZroe]

I used a TI-BASIC and Macintosh Plus before I got an IBM PC clone. Dunno what I did with the TI-BASIC.