11 ms·

Atari 800XL Remake

205 points by gtirloni 4y ago

criddell 4y ago
The predecessor to this, the Atari 800, is the computer I wanted when I was 12. A TI-99/4A is the computer I got. It was still a wonderful gift that set me up for the rest of my life.
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  My uncle worked for TI, so we were pretty deep in the 99/4 world. But later in the 80s I saved my pennies and bought a 600XL and later an 800XL. On paper they were pretty similar, but there was definitely a different "feel" between the 99/4 and Atari 8-bits. Atari went to great lengths to remind people their 8-bit line were more than just game consoles, but at the same time I think they had the most flexible graphics systems and the best games.
  - criddell 4y ago
    I had big player-missile graphics envy. Every once in a while I find myself on eBay thinking about buying the system of my childhood dreams. That would be a TI-99/4A, the speech synthesizer, the peripheral expansion system (with floppy drive), the memory expansion cart, and a dot matrix printer. I don’t pull the trigger though because I know it would give me a weekend of fun and then it would sit gathering dust.
- cesaref 4y ago
  Yes indeed! I remember a store near me having B-17 bomber on the original 800, with it's synthesised voices and that was a glimpse into the future. I'll gloss over the ethics of a game about bombing cities, sold to children, but it was a more innocent age I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Bomber_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Bomber_(video_game)
  - plicerin 4y ago
    B-17 bomber was an Intellivision exclusive
    - cesaref 4y ago
      Well I never knew this. I guess the shop had an Atari 800 on the table and the game playing on the monitor and I put them together!
- garbagecoder 4y ago
  That's funny! I wanted an Apple ][ but my dad got me the 800xl. Looking back, it makes sense. The Atari was about $100 and the ][ was like $1000 and I was a little kid. I wouldn't buy my kids a $1000 computer now and that's 2023 dollars! But I am so glad I got the Atari. I learned BASIC, assembly, and Pascal on it. I would type in games from the back of the magazine. And here I am decades later!
  - grumpyprole 4y ago
    Yes the AppleII priced itself out of the 8-bit home computer market. I never saw one in the UK in the 80's. One could get the same tech (6502) with an equally good BASIC and OS for less than half (e.g. Acorn BBC Micro was my choice).
  - ddingus 4y ago
    I wanted an Apple ][ as well, but also got an Atari 800xl. It did make sense for cost reasons, same as you. A bit later on, I did end up with an Apple and have both today in working condition. I am glad I got the Atari first. There was a lot in the box, so to speak, and I learned a ton. Later, when doing more advanced projects, I found the Apple and it's expansion cards could make a very capable workstation.
fuster 4y ago
My first computer! Lots of fond memories. Loading programs from a cassette in particular sticks in my head.
naikrovek 4y ago
These days, lots of businesses seem to be based on Nostalgia as a Service, almost. Maybe it's not a new idea. I don't know.
- irdc 4y ago
  I’m thinking it’s a generational thing: people who grew up with machines such as the Atari are now of the age where they’d like to re-experience part of their youth.
  - hn8305823 4y ago
    Just like the resurgence of the Shelby GT500 in 2007. If you were 12 in 1969 and dreamed of owning/driving one, in 2007 you were 50 with $$$ and nostalgia.
  - hakfoo 4y ago
    I recall years ago reading a magazine article discussing the (at the time) market bubble for either Lionel-style toy trains or baseball cards. So this was probably early 1990s, and it pretty much tracked with when the kids of the late 1940s/early 1950s had reached career endgame and peak earning potential. They literally had a timeline predicting that eventually video game consoles would have a similar bubble. I want to say I think they predicted it in the 2000s though, so perhaps they were off, but maybe the infographic was just loosely designed.
- jasoneckert 4y ago
  If Nostalgia as a Service is a thing, this project could be considered an edge appliance for it...
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  The 8-bit computing renaissance has been going on for quite some time. I think it's a combination of 1. the age & experience of the original audience, 2. tech changes that make it much easier to design, build and supply retro-inspired computers and 3. the appeal of a stand-alone "computer" where an individual can hold the entire design in their head without massive abstractions. There's a lot of sad, negative, stupid things in the world today but the state of the NEW 8-bit scene is amazing. If you're a purist for original 8-bit gear it is not as great.
cstross 4y ago
On a related theme, here's the Spectrum Next, Issue 2: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectrum-next-issue-2 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectru... (Delayed about two years due to supply chain problems -- their FPGA was back-ordered for over a year -- but due to ship in 3-6 months' time: the ultimate Sinclair Spectrum revival.)
- blame-troi 4y ago
  I've got one of the first run. It's back in the box, I was always more of a Tandy guy. The RC2014 is also more my speed. CPM.
- DrNosferatu 4y ago
  Let's not forget the MSXVR: https://msxvr.com/en/tienda/msxvr-computer/ https://msxvr.com/en/tienda/msxvr-computer/ (even if not FPGA-based, still pretty cool)
alvarlaigna 4y ago
[dead]
hn8305823 4y ago
I always liked the original Atari 800 case design. I felt it was intentionally designed to not look like a boring computer, but something else.
- jghn 4y ago
  Then there was the Atari 400 with that awful membrane keyboard :(
  - hn8305823 4y ago
    I would say it was the worst membrane keyboard of all time but the Sinclair ZX was definitely worse.
  - ihatepython 4y ago
    It was awful, but it was still better than the 2016 Macbook keyboard.
    - retrocryptid 4y ago
      I would disagree. With an Atari 400, you knew you could upgrade to a real keyboard by buying an 800. But with modern mac laptops, your only option for a real keyboard is an external one, but you have to also carry a usb-c to usb-a adapter around to connect it. And it's hard to use as a laptop with an external keyboard hanging off it. I still prefer the Atari 400 membrane keyboard to the chicklet keys on modern macs.
      - ihatepython 4y ago
        Just for the record, I agree with you. I'm not sure if I worded my response correctly. I also think the keyboard on the Speak & Spell is better than the 2016 Macbook keyboard.
        retrocryptid 4y ago
        There's a nostalgia hit! SNS: SPELL MRGHHSHFG. Me: what? SNS: SPELL FHJFRJEBRBDN. Me: what ARE you saying!? Bit of trivia: my uncle was the executive at TI that green-lit the Speak-N-Spell. I was a tad bit older than the target market, but got invited to be in one of the early focus groups they used to gage reaction to it. I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread and saved my pennies to buy a speech synthesizer for my 99/4 after seeing it. But yes, it had a worse keyboard than even the original 99/4.
aNoob7000 4y ago
Here's a remake of the Commodore 64. With more advanced features. https://www.commanderx16.com/ https://www.commanderx16.com/
- Aloha 4y ago
  It's not - because it cant run C64 software (outside of basic) unmodified, the internal memory map and graphics hardware are very different
  - aNoob7000 4y ago
    You are correct, but I wonder if any new hardware is going to be able to mimic the old completely.
    - nickt 4y ago
      The Mega 65 gets pretty close, they say “highly compatible”. https://mega65.org/ https://mega65.org/
    - retrocryptid 4y ago
      Somewhere I saw a project where someone made a new motherboard for a 99/4A so it would fit in a mini-itx case and tweaked the ROM so you could add an external PS/2 keyboard. After buying the board, you bought an original 99/4, yanked the chips out and used them to populate the new board. I don't know if that really counts as "new hardware" but it was an interesting idea and was supposedly very compatible. Or maybe I dreamed that.
      - lproven 4y ago
        The Geneve? https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1208 https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=120...
  - 300bps 4y ago
    It's actually pretty easy to port C64 software - both Assembly and BASIC. It uses the exact same BASIC and same processor family as the Commodore 64, NES, Apple II and many others. Memory map, graphics and sound are the biggest challenges in porting because those are different. But code to translate between these will get better and better. Lots of ports from other systems already.
zabzonk 4y ago
i bought one of these ultra cheap when currys (dreadful uk electrics store) decided it didn't want to inventory or sell them any more - must have been mid-80s? yay, star raiders! very nice 8-bit computer.
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  I bought an 800xl explicitly to get star raiders (probably around the same time, I remember it was reasonably inexpensive.) I kept expecting my C64 to have something just as good, and though elite was good, it wasn't star raiders good. So... at least for me... Star Raiders was the Atari 8-bit Killer App. (And weirdly, I came to like SynCalc a bit later.)
Nokinside 4y ago
When I see picture of an old computer, I remember how it smelled. Very nostalgic feeling.
st3ve445678 4y ago
I would love to see a complete modern pc wrapped in a retro styled keyboard like this. With usb-c power and video output you could just plug it into a monitor with one cable.
- mydriasis 4y ago
  Raspberry Pi 400 might be a good halfway point for you!
  - st3ve445678 4y ago
    Yeah, I actually have one. Pretty cool little machine, but too slow, ugly and no ssd built in.
- agloe_dreams 4y ago
  I know it's not fully a modern computer, but that sounds like a Pi 400 to me.
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    Can confirm. Using a PI400 as my SDR rig. It does have a little of the old C64/994/800 feel to it. But the keyboard is pretty crappy.
    - wintogreen74 4y ago
      the keyboard is loads better than the Atari 400 keyboard though!
      - retrocryptid 4y ago
        Well, yes. That's definitely true. And I've been thinking about hacking a repurchased klacky-key keyboard into my PI400. It shouldn't be TOO hard.
- donpdonp 4y ago
justin66 4y ago
Atari 8-bit was a remarkable computer architecture. This is an odd target for a nostalgic clone, though. There are still a lot of used systems available, some lovingly restored by people who really know what they're doing.
- cduzz 4y ago
  I've got a pile of legacy hardware in the basement that's all in some way tedious to try to use. One of my sons watches "speed running" videos that spend endless amounts of time discussing how mario jumps here or there to put a sprite into the wrong slot resulting in a stack overflow allowing a goomba to set the level counter to a weird hex value. He loves to play 8 bit games on his chromebook in dosbox. I'd want to leave this thing in his room connected to a cheap 12in hdmi monitor and a reliable USB power supply to let him noodle with day and night, rather than his "has too many distractions" chromebook.
  - justin66 4y ago
    There's at least one fanatic who sells Atari 800XLs (and other Atari systems) on eBay, and he does things like test, refurbish, and update with HDMI interfaces, etc. I don't disrespect what the remake folks are trying to accomplish but I tend to think dealing with the refurb guy might actually be a more rewarding experience, with a simpler path towards getting support if it's needed.
angry_moose 4y ago
Have there been any attempts to truly revive 8-bit hardware? Every one I've seen (including this one) are some form of emulation, either FPGA or software. It's great, but I've always wanted a brand-new faithful recreation of something like an 800 or C64.
- codezero 4y ago
  Ben Eater has a nice 8 bit kit that uses real chips, he also has a great video series. https://eater.net/8bit/ https://eater.net/8bit/
- fredoralive 4y ago
  A true replica would probably involve spending a large amount of money on fabbing custom or otherwise out of production silicon.
  - sixothree 4y ago
    Most of the replicas have that issue when it comes to PLAs. They sometimes use FPGAs for those particular chips.
- reaperducer 4y ago
  You can buy new boards, cases, and components to make most of a C-64. I think there are just two chips that have to be replaced with drop-in FPGAs: the SID, and I think the CIAs. Unlike today's machines, 8-bits were usually made with mostly off-the-shelf parts.
- justin66 4y ago
  > It's great, but I've always wanted a brand-new faithful recreation of something like an 800 or C64. I'm fairly sure a full array of replacement parts are available for the C64, from the keycaps all the way down to the PCB. You could build a new one for yourself, theoretically (except for the 6502, etc.). I think one of the Commander X16 guys (not the balding white guy, the vaguely European guy) has done something like this.
- diydsp 4y ago
fortran77 4y ago
From the description: > Our engineers write code only in C and HDL languages. Hooray! No Rust in this box.
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  Or python. So there's a chance the code will still compile in two years.
CWuestefeld 4y ago
OP mentions "USB socket for connecting external memory, such as programs" I wonder if that means that there will be some internal interface for USB-based storage like a flash drive to be seen by the computer as a floppy disk? There really needs to be some way to get images of ancient disks mounted through modern hardware, since 40-year-old floppies are going to be very iffy, and it's pretty tough to source new floppy disks to re-write to.
- sixothree 4y ago
  I might be misunderstanding the question and treating you like you are dumb. If so I'm sorry. That has been the drive for pretty much all vintage computers lately - emulating floppy or hard drives allowing them to load and save disk images. I would assume and hope this USB interface is similar. Here are a few examples: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ https://scsi.blue/ https://scsi.blue/
  - CWuestefeld 4y ago
    Yeah, I think we're in agreement. It's just that the OP doesn't specifically mention this, and I think it's relevant.
phkahler 4y ago
So can it actually connect to an original floppy drive and read my disks? That would be super fun! Protector II here I come! Solfeggietto!
- HybridCurve 4y ago
  >So can it actually connect to an original floppy drive... Yup! >... and read my disks? You can try, little dove.
c0nsumer 4y ago
Not to take away from this thread, but here's a fun project I did a few years ago to make a SD based external floppy emulator for Ataris like the 800XL: https://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/SDrive_NUXX https://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/SDrive_NUXX I reused an existing OSS project and sold some kits and nice enclosures and stuff to make it more than a DIY PCB-based project. Was fun and a nice learning experience, and it also gave me a reason to start poking around with the old Atari hardware that I grew up with.
retrocryptid 4y ago
This sorta reminds me... whenever I have a bit of free time and I'm tired of commenting on HN, I daydream about what the next generation of Atari or Commodore 8-bit machines would be like (not STs or Amigas, but something still mostly 8 bit.) I was thinking you might get a windowing system where each window held a "Virtual 800XL" so you could run multiple apps simultaneously, and an OS that shared peripheral access to real devices. Definitely a faster SIO port. Maybe something like FujiNet to communicate between virtual XLs (and other, real XLs.) If I made such a beast today, it would definitely have a built-in SD Card reader. Maybe a built-in trac-ball and no mouse buttons since you could use the select and start buttons.
- kabdib 4y ago
  You might have wound up with something a lot like the Apple II GS. (At least one Atari engineer I know worked on the IIGS. Personally I thought it was crazy to work on 16-bit machines when 32-bit architectures like the 68000 were just coming into the marketplace).
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    Yes and no. The 6502 die size was tiny compared to most 16 bit and all 32 bit cpus. It was ALWAYS going to be cheaper. For quite some time (maybe even still) WDC had a great business selling 6502 family cores matched with semi-custom IO on the same die as device controllers. But the IIgs was a crazy machine. My mom brought one home for a couple months when the school district she worked at adopted them. It was surprisingly usable, though the screen resolution was a bit low.
    - nickt 4y ago
      I dunno. The 6502 looks pretty large with this version. https://monster6502.com/ https://monster6502.com/
      - retrocryptid 4y ago
        I'm sure there's a die-shrink coming soon
nickt 4y ago
It's great to see a real SIO port, as well as USB. SIO always felt ahead of its time, particularly its ability to attach multiple devices to the bus. Joe Decuir who did chipset design for the VCS and Amiga is well known for his work on SIO, USB, Fax Modems, ITU modem standards, Bluetooth. You could say his career has been a serial success! :)
- EvanAnderson 4y ago
  Joe spoke about SIO being used as prior art in a patent troll case re: USB. I believe it was in one of his VCF talks.
- snvzz 4y ago
  >serial success I see what you did there.
Lolaccount 4y ago
Man, I love this ... Atari 800xl was my first machine ... Thanks, bookmarked.
eschneider 4y ago
Ooooh, this is nice. I may have to see about getting one of these when/if my Atari 400 gives up the ghost. I still have a few games I like playing on it. :)
- christkv 4y ago
  M.U.L.E for the money.
  - huslage 4y ago
    M.U.L.E. is still one of the best games ever. I played that to death.
  - eschneider 4y ago
    M.U.L.E.'s great, but in my case it's Zaxxon (believe it or not, on cassette :) and a cart version of Joust.
    - the_af 4y ago
      The C64 tape version of Zaxxon was the "good one", right? I loved that game. Believe it or not, I never played M.U.L.E. I know everything about the creator and the game, and why it's a landmark, but I never encountered it back in the day!
  - bluGill 4y ago
    I keep hoping for one of the open source clones to become playable, but they never seem to get that far. Someday I'll have to contribute myself I guess.
mikerg87 4y ago
hopefully it will get something similar to fujinet built in or at least be able to support it https://fujinet.online/ https://fujinet.online/
- dillera 4y ago
  If it accurately emulates the SIO port and timings, FujiNet will just work on it. There is no need for something similar....
Keyframe 4y ago
Nice, but so far it's only future tense text and rendered images. Let's see it when it's out!
garbagecoder 4y ago
This was my first computer. Not the first one in my house, but the first one that was mine.
bitL 4y ago
What would be the benefit of these old clones beside learning to create hardware? RPi4 can probably replace them all with emulators. I'd rather see old games resurrected by improving graphics through stable diffusion and increasing refresh rates.
evo_9 4y ago
For my 55th Birthday last summer, I pulled my original Atari 800 out of storage and played Star Raiders and MULE non-stop for a weekend. Great fun. The most challenging part of getting the 800 running was finding an old enough TV that I could connect the game box too. I also couldn't get my 810 disk drive working, so I found a copy of MULE on eBay burned on a ROM, so that was a nice find. Great old machine, I think I'll buy one of these, the addition of HDMI and USB alone are worth it. Plus it'll be fun to write a game on that thing, something I dabbled in as a kid and was my start as a programmer so so long ago now.
- inoop 4y ago
  Maybe also take a look at the Mister project if you haven't already. Same idea of using FPGA to reproduce old hardware but broad support for many home computers, game consoles, and arcade boards
  - evo_9 4y ago
    Interesting, thanks for mentioning this. Pretty cool idea/project:https://www.theverge.com/22323002/mister-fpga-project-retro-computer-console-early-pc https://www.theverge.com/22323002/mister-fpga-project-retro-...
- dlevine 4y ago
  I'm a bit younger than you, but I was visiting my mom a few weeks back, and found my old NES in some boxes she had saved for me (along with a few of the better games). Thanks to the composite connector, I managed to plug it into a modern HDTV and it worked just fine. My old copy of Zelda somehow even had a working save battery. My mom made an offhand comment like "someone isn't sleeping much tonight." The new games are more complex and realistic, but there is still plenty of joy in those old systems and games, especially for those of us who grew up with them.
  - electrosphere 4y ago
    I started Zelda: BotW a couple of years back but the open world nature and sheer number of side quests make me think it will take another few years before I finish the main quest. I find there is little to draw me back except the joy of exploration. The sheer freedom kinda puts me off. It's not a criticism, just a different type of game to Zelda: A Link betwen Worlds which I adored and had that more linear old-skool structure.
sanity31415 4y ago
My parents got me an Atari 800XL for my 8th birthday in 1985. It came with a very terse list of Basic commands along with a few program listings from which I learned how to program. Stuck with Atari over the years, through an 520STfm, and even a Falcon 030 - before eventually switching to a PC running Linux in the late 90s while a student. Last year I went on eBay and bought one of these (I have no idea where the original one ended up), was so much fun.
- dberg 4y ago
  dude, same! Got mine in 1985 (i was 9, not 8) and it was THE machine that got me hooked on computers. BASIC coding, playing Missile Command, so classic.
- wintogreen74 4y ago
  When I think about what clueless Atari execs did to the machine and company, driven by ignorance and greed, it makes me really mad. It was such a good machine and they were desperate to not let any 3rd party make money, hence software, for it they essentially killed the company (amongst other bone-headed mistakes).
  - snvzz 4y ago
    You think Atari execs were bad? Don't even get me started with Commodore.
    - bilbyx 4y ago
      I started with a VIC 20, then a Commodore 64, then an Amiga 1000, before getting my first PC running DOS. The Amiga was the best computer hands down. Shame about the Commodore board idiots. Always love the work of Jack Tramiel and Chuck Peddle.
      - snvzz 4y ago
        Grew up with C64 then A500 all the way to Athlon K75. After that, I was an adult and I got a job and could afford more frequent updates. Yes, it hurts to think about CBM management, and what they did to the Amiga.
vhhn 4y ago
Fun story. My first computer too. Got it from my uncle without any manuals, we spend a whole afternoon writing down a code of a game from a magazine letter by letter. We thought we will just press the "Start" functional key on the right side. To our surprise, sadly, absolutely nothing happened! After few more hours, my dad came home and it took him few guesses to finally type "RUN" in the console...
tempodox 4y ago
The 800XL was my first Atari, before the ST. It was quite hackable, and within a few months I didn't need a disassembler any more. I could read the 6502 instructions directly out of a hex dump and could write them in hex, without an assembler (6502 has so few instructions, you can memorize them all). Fun times. Math functions in the ROM were all operating on BCD — there was no FPU, of course.
glonq 4y ago
Super cool. I had a 130xe as a teen, but I moved around a lot since then and travelled light so unfortunately it's in a landfill somewhere now :( I was always slightly envious of the c64 for getting more/better games, but cherished my atari for some of the great titles that were unique to that platform. I also credit my atari for getting me online at a blazing fast 300bps to some great local BBS's.
mdswanson 4y ago
Readers might also be interested in a MiSTer FPGA-based system to emulate many hardware devices from your childhood: https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html
- wkat4242 4y ago
  It's pretty great but the hardware has become crazy expensive in recent years :'(
drivingmenuts 4y ago
oh, how I miss that form factor.
gbourne 4y ago
The first program I ever wrote was on an Atari 800XL - in BASIC. It played the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
phendrenad2 4y ago
This is awesome, and I'd love to see more of it. Seems like Amiga and Atari get all of the love (because the company is defunct), but I still hold out hope that someone will make a recreated Macintosh II or something.
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  They get the all love because they were not only technically excellent for their time but also affordable, they are we what we had. The Apple Mac was something I only read about.
snvzz 4y ago
I'd be interested if this was open hardware. Otherwise, I'm better off with either buying an used Atari 800xl or with miSTer.
fernly 4y ago
Have we hugged to death? "revive-machines.com refused to connect."
mastazi 4y ago
Other 8-bit computers that have had modern re-issues: Commodore 64 -> THEC64 https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/ https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/ Commodore VIC-20 -> THEVIC20 https://retrogames.biz/products/thevic20/ https://retrogames.biz/products/thevic20/ Sinclair ZX Spectrum -> ZX Spectrum Next https://www.specnext.com/about/ https://www.specnext.com/about/ I would personally be interested if some of the iconic computers from the 16-bit era were also re-released (Amiga 500, Atari ST). (I am into electronic music and having modern re-creations would make them more viable in a live set-up as you wouldn't be too worried about reliability, which is an issue with vintage machines). Having said that, for anyone who is feeling nostalgic and doesn't want to spend a ton, a Raspberry PI 400 can emulate all of those and it's close enough in terms of form factor.
- zoenolan 4y ago
  Well.there is the MiSTer project. Which started off as an FPGA ST but had since branched out to support other systems including the Amiga. https://misterfpga.org/ https://misterfpga.org/
- gramie 4y ago
  The Commodore 64 looks like vaporware. The newest update says "Coming December 2019". The A500 Mini has release dates in 2022.
  - gramie 4y ago
    I stand corrected. The website has not been updated, but their FaceBook page indicates that the computers are out, but the C64 is sold out at least in North America.
    - mastazi 4y ago
      Yeah, all of these computers are manufactured in limited runs, and sometimes they go out of stock and all you can do is pre-order the next run and wait (this is currently the case for the ZX Spectrum Next for example). However in the case of THEC64, you can still find it at certain international sellers, so you can have it now if you're willing to pay a premium for international shipping.
mutagen 4y ago
Bought a refurbished Atari 600XL at a clearance store for less than $90 around 1984. Borrowed a tape drive from my older friend Richard in exchange for making him a video titling program for his fledgling wedding video business. All 16k of RAM was glorious, I already knew BASIC from the stack of Apple IIs in the library computer lab. Wrote some rudimentary generative art and music types of programs and was just starting to PEEK and POKE my way into machine code. Unfortunately my mother's mental health condition (now treated, thankfully) viewed the noisy machine as a threat and she disassembled and destroyed it. I found my way back to computing via electronics and an EE tech degree. DOS on the 8086 just wasn't quite the same a few years later. The nostalgia factor is powerful and getting something like this is tempting, although I've fired up emulators and dabbled a bit in the past and realize that I'm still looking to the future, not the past.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
wkat4242 4y ago
Oh wow, this was my first computer exactly. I wanted a commodore 64 which was way more popular in the Netherlands but it was 3 times the price so my parents couldn't afford it. But it was good, because the lack of software availability (locally) made me learn programming in short order. I still have 2 of these, my original one and another one I bought during the years. Both have dead memory chips though. For some reason these age poorly. They are all socketed but very hard to obtain these days. I'll probably buy this remake when it comes out.

205 points by gtirloni 4y ago

The predecessor to this, the Atari 800, is the computer I wanted when I was 12. A TI-99/4A is the computer I got. It was still a wonderful gift that set me up for the rest of my life.

retrocryptid 4y ago
My uncle worked for TI, so we were pretty deep in the 99/4 world. But later in the 80s I saved my pennies and bought a 600XL and later an 800XL. On paper they were pretty similar, but there was definitely a different "feel" between the 99/4 and Atari 8-bits. Atari went to great lengths to remind people their 8-bit line were more than just game consoles, but at the same time I think they had the most flexible graphics systems and the best games.
- criddell 4y ago
  I had big player-missile graphics envy. Every once in a while I find myself on eBay thinking about buying the system of my childhood dreams. That would be a TI-99/4A, the speech synthesizer, the peripheral expansion system (with floppy drive), the memory expansion cart, and a dot matrix printer. I don’t pull the trigger though because I know it would give me a weekend of fun and then it would sit gathering dust.
cesaref 4y ago
Yes indeed! I remember a store near me having B-17 bomber on the original 800, with it's synthesised voices and that was a glimpse into the future. I'll gloss over the ethics of a game about bombing cities, sold to children, but it was a more innocent age I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Bomber_(video_game) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-17_Bomber_(video_game)
- plicerin 4y ago
  B-17 bomber was an Intellivision exclusive
  - cesaref 4y ago
    Well I never knew this. I guess the shop had an Atari 800 on the table and the game playing on the monitor and I put them together!
garbagecoder 4y ago
That's funny! I wanted an Apple ][ but my dad got me the 800xl. Looking back, it makes sense. The Atari was about $100 and the ][ was like $1000 and I was a little kid. I wouldn't buy my kids a $1000 computer now and that's 2023 dollars! But I am so glad I got the Atari. I learned BASIC, assembly, and Pascal on it. I would type in games from the back of the magazine. And here I am decades later!
- grumpyprole 4y ago
  Yes the AppleII priced itself out of the 8-bit home computer market. I never saw one in the UK in the 80's. One could get the same tech (6502) with an equally good BASIC and OS for less than half (e.g. Acorn BBC Micro was my choice).
- ddingus 4y ago
  I wanted an Apple ][ as well, but also got an Atari 800xl. It did make sense for cost reasons, same as you. A bit later on, I did end up with an Apple and have both today in working condition. I am glad I got the Atari first. There was a lot in the box, so to speak, and I learned a ton. Later, when doing more advanced projects, I found the Apple and it's expansion cards could make a very capable workstation.

fuster 4y ago

My first computer! Lots of fond memories. Loading programs from a cassette in particular sticks in my head.

naikrovek 4y ago

These days, lots of businesses seem to be based on Nostalgia as a Service, almost. Maybe it's not a new idea. I don't know.

irdc 4y ago
I’m thinking it’s a generational thing: people who grew up with machines such as the Atari are now of the age where they’d like to re-experience part of their youth.
- hn8305823 4y ago
  Just like the resurgence of the Shelby GT500 in 2007. If you were 12 in 1969 and dreamed of owning/driving one, in 2007 you were 50 with $$$ and nostalgia.
- hakfoo 4y ago
  I recall years ago reading a magazine article discussing the (at the time) market bubble for either Lionel-style toy trains or baseball cards. So this was probably early 1990s, and it pretty much tracked with when the kids of the late 1940s/early 1950s had reached career endgame and peak earning potential. They literally had a timeline predicting that eventually video game consoles would have a similar bubble. I want to say I think they predicted it in the 2000s though, so perhaps they were off, but maybe the infographic was just loosely designed.
jasoneckert 4y ago
If Nostalgia as a Service is a thing, this project could be considered an edge appliance for it...
skeeter2020 4y ago
The 8-bit computing renaissance has been going on for quite some time. I think it's a combination of 1. the age & experience of the original audience, 2. tech changes that make it much easier to design, build and supply retro-inspired computers and 3. the appeal of a stand-alone "computer" where an individual can hold the entire design in their head without massive abstractions. There's a lot of sad, negative, stupid things in the world today but the state of the NEW 8-bit scene is amazing. If you're a purist for original 8-bit gear it is not as great.

cstross 4y ago

On a related theme, here's the Spectrum Next, Issue 2: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectrum-next-issue-2 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/spectrumnext/zx-spectru... (Delayed about two years due to supply chain problems -- their FPGA was back-ordered for over a year -- but due to ship in 3-6 months' time: the ultimate Sinclair Spectrum revival.)

blame-troi 4y ago
I've got one of the first run. It's back in the box, I was always more of a Tandy guy. The RC2014 is also more my speed. CPM.
DrNosferatu 4y ago
Let's not forget the MSXVR: https://msxvr.com/en/tienda/msxvr-computer/ https://msxvr.com/en/tienda/msxvr-computer/ (even if not FPGA-based, still pretty cool)

alvarlaigna 4y ago

[dead]

hn8305823 4y ago

I always liked the original Atari 800 case design. I felt it was intentionally designed to not look like a boring computer, but something else.

jghn 4y ago
Then there was the Atari 400 with that awful membrane keyboard :(
- hn8305823 4y ago
  I would say it was the worst membrane keyboard of all time but the Sinclair ZX was definitely worse.
- ihatepython 4y ago
  It was awful, but it was still better than the 2016 Macbook keyboard.
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    I would disagree. With an Atari 400, you knew you could upgrade to a real keyboard by buying an 800. But with modern mac laptops, your only option for a real keyboard is an external one, but you have to also carry a usb-c to usb-a adapter around to connect it. And it's hard to use as a laptop with an external keyboard hanging off it. I still prefer the Atari 400 membrane keyboard to the chicklet keys on modern macs.
    - ihatepython 4y ago
      Just for the record, I agree with you. I'm not sure if I worded my response correctly. I also think the keyboard on the Speak & Spell is better than the 2016 Macbook keyboard.
      - retrocryptid 4y ago
        There's a nostalgia hit! SNS: SPELL MRGHHSHFG. Me: what? SNS: SPELL FHJFRJEBRBDN. Me: what ARE you saying!? Bit of trivia: my uncle was the executive at TI that green-lit the Speak-N-Spell. I was a tad bit older than the target market, but got invited to be in one of the early focus groups they used to gage reaction to it. I thought it was the coolest thing since sliced bread and saved my pennies to buy a speech synthesizer for my 99/4 after seeing it. But yes, it had a worse keyboard than even the original 99/4.

aNoob7000 4y ago

Here's a remake of the Commodore 64. With more advanced features. https://www.commanderx16.com/ https://www.commanderx16.com/

Aloha 4y ago
It's not - because it cant run C64 software (outside of basic) unmodified, the internal memory map and graphics hardware are very different
- aNoob7000 4y ago
  You are correct, but I wonder if any new hardware is going to be able to mimic the old completely.
  - nickt 4y ago
    The Mega 65 gets pretty close, they say “highly compatible”. https://mega65.org/ https://mega65.org/
  - retrocryptid 4y ago
    Somewhere I saw a project where someone made a new motherboard for a 99/4A so it would fit in a mini-itx case and tweaked the ROM so you could add an external PS/2 keyboard. After buying the board, you bought an original 99/4, yanked the chips out and used them to populate the new board. I don't know if that really counts as "new hardware" but it was an interesting idea and was supposedly very compatible. Or maybe I dreamed that.
    - lproven 4y ago
      The Geneve? https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1208 https://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=120...
- 300bps 4y ago
  It's actually pretty easy to port C64 software - both Assembly and BASIC. It uses the exact same BASIC and same processor family as the Commodore 64, NES, Apple II and many others. Memory map, graphics and sound are the biggest challenges in porting because those are different. But code to translate between these will get better and better. Lots of ports from other systems already.

zabzonk 4y ago

i bought one of these ultra cheap when currys (dreadful uk electrics store) decided it didn't want to inventory or sell them any more - must have been mid-80s? yay, star raiders! very nice 8-bit computer.

retrocryptid 4y ago
I bought an 800xl explicitly to get star raiders (probably around the same time, I remember it was reasonably inexpensive.) I kept expecting my C64 to have something just as good, and though elite was good, it wasn't star raiders good. So... at least for me... Star Raiders was the Atari 8-bit Killer App. (And weirdly, I came to like SynCalc a bit later.)

Nokinside 4y ago

When I see picture of an old computer, I remember how it smelled. Very nostalgic feeling.

st3ve445678 4y ago

I would love to see a complete modern pc wrapped in a retro styled keyboard like this. With usb-c power and video output you could just plug it into a monitor with one cable.

mydriasis 4y ago
Raspberry Pi 400 might be a good halfway point for you!
- st3ve445678 4y ago
  Yeah, I actually have one. Pretty cool little machine, but too slow, ugly and no ssd built in.
agloe_dreams 4y ago
I know it's not fully a modern computer, but that sounds like a Pi 400 to me.
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  Can confirm. Using a PI400 as my SDR rig. It does have a little of the old C64/994/800 feel to it. But the keyboard is pretty crappy.
  - wintogreen74 4y ago
    the keyboard is loads better than the Atari 400 keyboard though!
    - retrocryptid 4y ago
      Well, yes. That's definitely true. And I've been thinking about hacking a repurchased klacky-key keyboard into my PI400. It shouldn't be TOO hard.
donpdonp 4y ago

justin66 4y ago

Atari 8-bit was a remarkable computer architecture. This is an odd target for a nostalgic clone, though. There are still a lot of used systems available, some lovingly restored by people who really know what they're doing.

cduzz 4y ago
I've got a pile of legacy hardware in the basement that's all in some way tedious to try to use. One of my sons watches "speed running" videos that spend endless amounts of time discussing how mario jumps here or there to put a sprite into the wrong slot resulting in a stack overflow allowing a goomba to set the level counter to a weird hex value. He loves to play 8 bit games on his chromebook in dosbox. I'd want to leave this thing in his room connected to a cheap 12in hdmi monitor and a reliable USB power supply to let him noodle with day and night, rather than his "has too many distractions" chromebook.
- justin66 4y ago
  There's at least one fanatic who sells Atari 800XLs (and other Atari systems) on eBay, and he does things like test, refurbish, and update with HDMI interfaces, etc. I don't disrespect what the remake folks are trying to accomplish but I tend to think dealing with the refurb guy might actually be a more rewarding experience, with a simpler path towards getting support if it's needed.

angry_moose 4y ago

Have there been any attempts to truly revive 8-bit hardware? Every one I've seen (including this one) are some form of emulation, either FPGA or software. It's great, but I've always wanted a brand-new faithful recreation of something like an 800 or C64.

codezero 4y ago
Ben Eater has a nice 8 bit kit that uses real chips, he also has a great video series. https://eater.net/8bit/ https://eater.net/8bit/
fredoralive 4y ago
A true replica would probably involve spending a large amount of money on fabbing custom or otherwise out of production silicon.
- sixothree 4y ago
  Most of the replicas have that issue when it comes to PLAs. They sometimes use FPGAs for those particular chips.
reaperducer 4y ago
You can buy new boards, cases, and components to make most of a C-64. I think there are just two chips that have to be replaced with drop-in FPGAs: the SID, and I think the CIAs. Unlike today's machines, 8-bits were usually made with mostly off-the-shelf parts.
justin66 4y ago
> It's great, but I've always wanted a brand-new faithful recreation of something like an 800 or C64. I'm fairly sure a full array of replacement parts are available for the C64, from the keycaps all the way down to the PCB. You could build a new one for yourself, theoretically (except for the 6502, etc.). I think one of the Commander X16 guys (not the balding white guy, the vaguely European guy) has done something like this.
diydsp 4y ago

fortran77 4y ago

From the description: > Our engineers write code only in C and HDL languages. Hooray! No Rust in this box.

retrocryptid 4y ago
Or python. So there's a chance the code will still compile in two years.

CWuestefeld 4y ago

OP mentions "USB socket for connecting external memory, such as programs" I wonder if that means that there will be some internal interface for USB-based storage like a flash drive to be seen by the computer as a floppy disk? There really needs to be some way to get images of ancient disks mounted through modern hardware, since 40-year-old floppies are going to be very iffy, and it's pretty tough to source new floppy disks to re-write to.

sixothree 4y ago
I might be misunderstanding the question and treating you like you are dumb. If so I'm sorry. That has been the drive for pretty much all vintage computers lately - emulating floppy or hard drives allowing them to load and save disk images. I would assume and hope this USB interface is similar. Here are a few examples: https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ https://www.bigmessowires.com/floppy-emu/ https://scsi.blue/ https://scsi.blue/
- CWuestefeld 4y ago
  Yeah, I think we're in agreement. It's just that the OP doesn't specifically mention this, and I think it's relevant.

phkahler 4y ago

So can it actually connect to an original floppy drive and read my disks? That would be super fun! Protector II here I come! Solfeggietto!

HybridCurve 4y ago
>So can it actually connect to an original floppy drive... Yup! >... and read my disks? You can try, little dove.

c0nsumer 4y ago

Not to take away from this thread, but here's a fun project I did a few years ago to make a SD based external floppy emulator for Ataris like the 800XL: https://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/SDrive_NUXX https://nuxx.net/wiki_archive/A/SDrive_NUXX I reused an existing OSS project and sold some kits and nice enclosures and stuff to make it more than a DIY PCB-based project. Was fun and a nice learning experience, and it also gave me a reason to start poking around with the old Atari hardware that I grew up with.

retrocryptid 4y ago

This sorta reminds me... whenever I have a bit of free time and I'm tired of commenting on HN, I daydream about what the next generation of Atari or Commodore 8-bit machines would be like (not STs or Amigas, but something still mostly 8 bit.) I was thinking you might get a windowing system where each window held a "Virtual 800XL" so you could run multiple apps simultaneously, and an OS that shared peripheral access to real devices. Definitely a faster SIO port. Maybe something like FujiNet to communicate between virtual XLs (and other, real XLs.) If I made such a beast today, it would definitely have a built-in SD Card reader. Maybe a built-in trac-ball and no mouse buttons since you could use the select and start buttons.

kabdib 4y ago
You might have wound up with something a lot like the Apple II GS. (At least one Atari engineer I know worked on the IIGS. Personally I thought it was crazy to work on 16-bit machines when 32-bit architectures like the 68000 were just coming into the marketplace).
- retrocryptid 4y ago
  Yes and no. The 6502 die size was tiny compared to most 16 bit and all 32 bit cpus. It was ALWAYS going to be cheaper. For quite some time (maybe even still) WDC had a great business selling 6502 family cores matched with semi-custom IO on the same die as device controllers. But the IIgs was a crazy machine. My mom brought one home for a couple months when the school district she worked at adopted them. It was surprisingly usable, though the screen resolution was a bit low.
  - nickt 4y ago
    I dunno. The 6502 looks pretty large with this version. https://monster6502.com/ https://monster6502.com/
    - retrocryptid 4y ago
      I'm sure there's a die-shrink coming soon

nickt 4y ago

It's great to see a real SIO port, as well as USB. SIO always felt ahead of its time, particularly its ability to attach multiple devices to the bus. Joe Decuir who did chipset design for the VCS and Amiga is well known for his work on SIO, USB, Fax Modems, ITU modem standards, Bluetooth. You could say his career has been a serial success! :)

EvanAnderson 4y ago
Joe spoke about SIO being used as prior art in a patent troll case re: USB. I believe it was in one of his VCF talks.
snvzz 4y ago
>serial success I see what you did there.

Lolaccount 4y ago

Man, I love this ... Atari 800xl was my first machine ... Thanks, bookmarked.

eschneider 4y ago

Ooooh, this is nice. I may have to see about getting one of these when/if my Atari 400 gives up the ghost. I still have a few games I like playing on it. :)

christkv 4y ago
M.U.L.E for the money.
- huslage 4y ago
  M.U.L.E. is still one of the best games ever. I played that to death.
- eschneider 4y ago
  M.U.L.E.'s great, but in my case it's Zaxxon (believe it or not, on cassette :) and a cart version of Joust.
  - the_af 4y ago
    The C64 tape version of Zaxxon was the "good one", right? I loved that game. Believe it or not, I never played M.U.L.E. I know everything about the creator and the game, and why it's a landmark, but I never encountered it back in the day!
- bluGill 4y ago
  I keep hoping for one of the open source clones to become playable, but they never seem to get that far. Someday I'll have to contribute myself I guess.

mikerg87 4y ago

hopefully it will get something similar to fujinet built in or at least be able to support it https://fujinet.online/ https://fujinet.online/

dillera 4y ago
If it accurately emulates the SIO port and timings, FujiNet will just work on it. There is no need for something similar....

Keyframe 4y ago

Nice, but so far it's only future tense text and rendered images. Let's see it when it's out!

garbagecoder 4y ago

This was my first computer. Not the first one in my house, but the first one that was mine.

bitL 4y ago

What would be the benefit of these old clones beside learning to create hardware? RPi4 can probably replace them all with emulators. I'd rather see old games resurrected by improving graphics through stable diffusion and increasing refresh rates.

evo_9 4y ago

For my 55th Birthday last summer, I pulled my original Atari 800 out of storage and played Star Raiders and MULE non-stop for a weekend. Great fun. The most challenging part of getting the 800 running was finding an old enough TV that I could connect the game box too. I also couldn't get my 810 disk drive working, so I found a copy of MULE on eBay burned on a ROM, so that was a nice find. Great old machine, I think I'll buy one of these, the addition of HDMI and USB alone are worth it. Plus it'll be fun to write a game on that thing, something I dabbled in as a kid and was my start as a programmer so so long ago now.

inoop 4y ago
Maybe also take a look at the Mister project if you haven't already. Same idea of using FPGA to reproduce old hardware but broad support for many home computers, game consoles, and arcade boards
- evo_9 4y ago
  Interesting, thanks for mentioning this. Pretty cool idea/project:https://www.theverge.com/22323002/mister-fpga-project-retro-computer-console-early-pc https://www.theverge.com/22323002/mister-fpga-project-retro-...
dlevine 4y ago
I'm a bit younger than you, but I was visiting my mom a few weeks back, and found my old NES in some boxes she had saved for me (along with a few of the better games). Thanks to the composite connector, I managed to plug it into a modern HDTV and it worked just fine. My old copy of Zelda somehow even had a working save battery. My mom made an offhand comment like "someone isn't sleeping much tonight." The new games are more complex and realistic, but there is still plenty of joy in those old systems and games, especially for those of us who grew up with them.
- electrosphere 4y ago
  I started Zelda: BotW a couple of years back but the open world nature and sheer number of side quests make me think it will take another few years before I finish the main quest. I find there is little to draw me back except the joy of exploration. The sheer freedom kinda puts me off. It's not a criticism, just a different type of game to Zelda: A Link betwen Worlds which I adored and had that more linear old-skool structure.

sanity31415 4y ago

My parents got me an Atari 800XL for my 8th birthday in 1985. It came with a very terse list of Basic commands along with a few program listings from which I learned how to program. Stuck with Atari over the years, through an 520STfm, and even a Falcon 030 - before eventually switching to a PC running Linux in the late 90s while a student. Last year I went on eBay and bought one of these (I have no idea where the original one ended up), was so much fun.

dberg 4y ago
dude, same! Got mine in 1985 (i was 9, not 8) and it was THE machine that got me hooked on computers. BASIC coding, playing Missile Command, so classic.
wintogreen74 4y ago
When I think about what clueless Atari execs did to the machine and company, driven by ignorance and greed, it makes me really mad. It was such a good machine and they were desperate to not let any 3rd party make money, hence software, for it they essentially killed the company (amongst other bone-headed mistakes).
- snvzz 4y ago
  You think Atari execs were bad? Don't even get me started with Commodore.
  - bilbyx 4y ago
    I started with a VIC 20, then a Commodore 64, then an Amiga 1000, before getting my first PC running DOS. The Amiga was the best computer hands down. Shame about the Commodore board idiots. Always love the work of Jack Tramiel and Chuck Peddle.
    - snvzz 4y ago
      Grew up with C64 then A500 all the way to Athlon K75. After that, I was an adult and I got a job and could afford more frequent updates. Yes, it hurts to think about CBM management, and what they did to the Amiga.

vhhn 4y ago

Fun story. My first computer too. Got it from my uncle without any manuals, we spend a whole afternoon writing down a code of a game from a magazine letter by letter. We thought we will just press the "Start" functional key on the right side. To our surprise, sadly, absolutely nothing happened! After few more hours, my dad came home and it took him few guesses to finally type "RUN" in the console...

tempodox 4y ago

The 800XL was my first Atari, before the ST. It was quite hackable, and within a few months I didn't need a disassembler any more. I could read the 6502 instructions directly out of a hex dump and could write them in hex, without an assembler (6502 has so few instructions, you can memorize them all). Fun times. Math functions in the ROM were all operating on BCD — there was no FPU, of course.

glonq 4y ago

Super cool. I had a 130xe as a teen, but I moved around a lot since then and travelled light so unfortunately it's in a landfill somewhere now :( I was always slightly envious of the c64 for getting more/better games, but cherished my atari for some of the great titles that were unique to that platform. I also credit my atari for getting me online at a blazing fast 300bps to some great local BBS's.

mdswanson 4y ago

Readers might also be interested in a MiSTer FPGA-based system to emulate many hardware devices from your childhood: https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html https://www.retrorgb.com/mister.html

wkat4242 4y ago
It's pretty great but the hardware has become crazy expensive in recent years :'(

drivingmenuts 4y ago

oh, how I miss that form factor.

gbourne 4y ago

The first program I ever wrote was on an Atari 800XL - in BASIC. It played the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

phendrenad2 4y ago

This is awesome, and I'd love to see more of it. Seems like Amiga and Atari get all of the love (because the company is defunct), but I still hold out hope that someone will make a recreated Macintosh II or something.

grumpyprole 4y ago
They get the all love because they were not only technically excellent for their time but also affordable, they are we what we had. The Apple Mac was something I only read about.

snvzz 4y ago

I'd be interested if this was open hardware. Otherwise, I'm better off with either buying an used Atari 800xl or with miSTer.

fernly 4y ago

Have we hugged to death? "revive-machines.com refused to connect."

mastazi 4y ago

Other 8-bit computers that have had modern re-issues: Commodore 64 -> THEC64 https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/ https://retrogames.biz/products/thec64/ Commodore VIC-20 -> THEVIC20 https://retrogames.biz/products/thevic20/ https://retrogames.biz/products/thevic20/ Sinclair ZX Spectrum -> ZX Spectrum Next https://www.specnext.com/about/ https://www.specnext.com/about/ I would personally be interested if some of the iconic computers from the 16-bit era were also re-released (Amiga 500, Atari ST). (I am into electronic music and having modern re-creations would make them more viable in a live set-up as you wouldn't be too worried about reliability, which is an issue with vintage machines). Having said that, for anyone who is feeling nostalgic and doesn't want to spend a ton, a Raspberry PI 400 can emulate all of those and it's close enough in terms of form factor.

zoenolan 4y ago
Well.there is the MiSTer project. Which started off as an FPGA ST but had since branched out to support other systems including the Amiga. https://misterfpga.org/ https://misterfpga.org/
gramie 4y ago
The Commodore 64 looks like vaporware. The newest update says "Coming December 2019". The A500 Mini has release dates in 2022.
- gramie 4y ago
  I stand corrected. The website has not been updated, but their FaceBook page indicates that the computers are out, but the C64 is sold out at least in North America.
  - mastazi 4y ago
    Yeah, all of these computers are manufactured in limited runs, and sometimes they go out of stock and all you can do is pre-order the next run and wait (this is currently the case for the ZX Spectrum Next for example). However in the case of THEC64, you can still find it at certain international sellers, so you can have it now if you're willing to pay a premium for international shipping.

mutagen 4y ago

Bought a refurbished Atari 600XL at a clearance store for less than $90 around 1984. Borrowed a tape drive from my older friend Richard in exchange for making him a video titling program for his fledgling wedding video business. All 16k of RAM was glorious, I already knew BASIC from the stack of Apple IIs in the library computer lab. Wrote some rudimentary generative art and music types of programs and was just starting to PEEK and POKE my way into machine code. Unfortunately my mother's mental health condition (now treated, thankfully) viewed the noisy machine as a threat and she disassembled and destroyed it. I found my way back to computing via electronics and an EE tech degree. DOS on the 8086 just wasn't quite the same a few years later. The nostalgia factor is powerful and getting something like this is tempting, although I've fired up emulators and dabbled a bit in the past and realize that I'm still looking to the future, not the past.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

wkat4242 4y ago

Oh wow, this was my first computer exactly. I wanted a commodore 64 which was way more popular in the Netherlands but it was 3 times the price so my parents couldn't afford it. But it was good, because the lack of software availability (locally) made me learn programming in short order. I still have 2 of these, my original one and another one I bought during the years. Both have dead memory chips though. For some reason these age poorly. They are all socketed but very hard to obtain these days. I'll probably buy this remake when it comes out.