Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
Search

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

Atari 800 XE Laptop

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Nov 16, 2005 12:06 PM
from the because-you-can dept.
Hardware Hacking Hardware
Lester Oats writes "Benjamin J. Heckendorn (of Atari VCSp, NES Micro, & PS2p fame) has been at it again! Summary from his site: "Of all the portable videogame devices I've ever built over the years one system has always been my 'Holy Grail' to make - my 'dream portable' if you will. (Yes, even more so than my Neo Geo arcade machine) And now after a couple years of tinkering it is complete! Without further ado - the Atari 800 XE Laptop!""
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Atari 800 XE Laptop 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Handy... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lastchance_000 (847415) * on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:10PM (#14044910)
    I love the error list right by the screen. Windows machines should come with that. Of course, it would need a bigger monitor...

  • Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

    by quark007 (765762) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:10PM (#14044918) Journal
    Without further adieu, the site crashed! Here is the mirror [mirrordot.org].
  • I want it, I want it, I want it!!!

    I just wish I could see the fscking website...

  • Best line (Score:5, Funny)

    by bobdinkel (530885) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:11PM (#14044926)
    From the linked-to page:
    Thankfully it hasn't been on Slashdot yet, I'd know as that usually tears my bandwidth a new one.

    Poor bastard

  • coral cache (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:11PM (#14044931)
    click click [nyud.net]

  • Just in case (Score:5, Informative)

    by Krast0r (843081) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:12PM (#14044940) Homepage Journal
    In case this gets slashdotted, here are the main features (from the website):

    Uses (what's left of ;) ) an Atari XE GS (Game System) the last model Atari 800 type computer from 1987.

    8" TFT active matrix display

    Compact Flash "hard disk drive" utilizing MyDOS 4.53 for maximum drive size of 16 megabytes. Card is removable for swapping.

    Built-in NiMH battery pack and charger (uses external plug like a normal laptop) Also battery is removable from base as with most laptops.

    Full (Atari 800) sized keyboard

    Built-in Player 1 & 2 controls, plus joystick ports. Built-in joypads great for playing Robotron 2084!
    bullet

    Brushed aluminum and wood grain everywhere! A weird combo style, sure, but I like it!
    bullet

    Cursor control knob - Allows you to move the cursor around the screen without pressing control+arrow keys. That's awesome if you're an old-school Atari programmer "from the day"
    bullet

    Slim (compared to an original SIO port) DB25 printer-style port for connecting to disk drives, printers or PC's using an SIO2PC cable.

    I have to see, it's looking pretty sweet.
    • "Slim (compared to an original SIO port) DB25 printer-style port for connecting to disk drives, printers or PC's using an SIO2PC cable."

      And let us not forget that the Atari SIO (serial input output) port is the forerunner of USB. The same engineer who created the SIO port is also the same gentleman who created USB for Intel if I am not mistaken. It was a great idea then, as it is today.

  • Ok.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MindStalker (22827) <jlarsen AT fsu DOT edu> on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:12PM (#14044946) Journal
    But how did he get it to support Dos or the flash drive????

      • Re:Ok.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by zakezuke (229119) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:59PM (#14045400)
        Even the 8-bit Ataris supported hard drives with later versions of DOS (I always liked SpartaDOS personally). The flash is just an adapter that makes the CF show up as a standard HD to the Atari. Nothing too terribly fancy there. And it only makes sense that an Atari would support its own DOS ;)

        These days you can even get ethernet and an IDE adapter for the things (though not cheaply).

        "MyDOS 4.53 for maximum drive size of 16 megabytes"

        I had an atari back in the day with a 15gig drive using a scsi to mfm controler... so I imagine with the right hardware anything ide could be supported. I recently saw an "ICD multi-io" with scsi and 1meg sold on ebay for $700ish. While the ram wasn't an expantion it could act as a printbuffer or ramdisk and was powered seperatly so it acted like a small hard drive. That's there and abouts of what they cost new in 1990 or so. Atari dos near as I'm aware never supported anything above and beyond 360k or 720k floppies... the largest drive Atari them selves came out with was 360k drive called an XF-551.

        I got the atari when the whole atari dos thing went crazy. You had atari dos 2.0 which supported only 90k floppies, but then they came out with some odd ball enhanced density dos which but shipped with atari dos 3 which wasn't compatable the old disks... not even the discs that shipped with the drive. It had a utility that would convert old disks to the new format... but not back again which was a problem as most disks that were shipped employed copy protection... so atari dos3 had a nice feature to render disks totally unreadable. And the only reason anyone knew this is if they had access to a handy dandy user's group... it's not like the places that sold them actually were able to support them.

        Eventaully I was able to get the newer dos 2.5 which was compatable with the new enhanced density yet could read the older single dos 2.0 disks... which was the standard of all boxed software. Most annoying was when they released a double sized double density drive and didn't ship it with a version of dos that supported it. Probally the most interesting were the various other DOSes that were on the market including SpartaDOS and MyDOS both of which could support hard drives and just about any disk standard available.

        There was lots of really good hardware for the Atari... the problem is that most games didn't support anything above a single drive, and those that did only used flippable disks and didn't allow you to say copy side B to another floppy and run the game flipless.

          • Re:Ok.. (Score:4, Informative)

            by zakezuke (229119) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @03:16PM (#14046637)
            Yeah, I got bit by the DOS3 thing a couple times. DOS 2.5 and SpartaDOS 3.2d were pretty much what I stuck with. I was mostly a kid during the heyday of the Atari and my family wasn't in a financial position to get the best of the goodies, so unfortunately I've never experienced the joys of mass storage. I lusted after a Happy Drive too :) We did have an R-verter and an 850 Interface, both of which are apparently somewhat rare today, as well as a couple of US Doubler'd 1050s

            Problem with SpartaDOS, while being a spiffy command line super duper useful that you can jump to to peform disk maintance or hell even enable basic was that alot of programs wouldn't work under it.

            For the most part... There was a very basic form of dos that acted as a bootstrap that simply presented a list of programs you could run. This was one of the few ways you could have your enhanced 180k or 360k floppies and run your games. Unfortunatly most of the offical user groups were so against piracy that they wouldn't even share this software, this freeware software. Quite sad as I saw no issue with having a stack of 10 to 20 games backing them up onto a single floppy for convenient access.

            I had no direct experence with happy enanced drives or US doubler drives... or that other odd ball disk drive that had the nice smoked plastic dust lid that foled down over the slot. But I did own a Percom controler that could accept standard PC drives... up to 4 per controler IIRC. Cost a pretty penny... but considering the time period it was worth it. It was a tad querky.. as all things for the Atari were.

  • Web site is /.ed (Score:3, Funny)

    by $RANDOMLUSER (804576) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:13PM (#14044957)
    I can't get to the web site, but they never found the Holy Grail either, did they?

  • Safe (Score:4, Funny)

    by 3CRanch (804861) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:14PM (#14044979)
    Interesting...

    and probably the only OS left that doesn't have exploits / virus' targeting it ;)
  • Thankfully it hasn't been on Slashdot yet, I'd know as that usually tears my bandwidth a new one.

    Consider it torn... ;)

    Coolest project I've seen in ages.

  • Odd Site (Score:3, Informative)

    by secondsun (195377) <gtg261s@mail.gatech.edu> on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:15PM (#14044992) Journal
    According to whois, the website is hosted by iPowerWeb. A quick shot over to their website and it seems to still be up with no hiccups. These guys appear to have both the bandwidth and the horsepower to survive a slashdotting so it would seem that something else is wrong with his site.

    Or it could be that they just pulled the plug when they got a slashdot referrer ;).
  • I love the double-wide "System Reset" key about where the F3/F4 keys would be.

  • Lucky guy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dada21 (163177) * <adam.dada@gmail.com> on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:17PM (#14045010) Homepage Journal
    This guy is a lucky builder.

    The Radio Shack LCD he buys just happens to have NiMH batteries in its base.

    The same LCD has a memory socket supplying enough 5V juice to run the 800.

    He cuts a chunk out of the mobo to fit a hard drive that he later cans. The aforementioned NiMH batteries fit perfectly in that space.

    Anyone think his tinfoil "mouse" will fail in short order?

    Great article though. I'd love to make a portable Aquarius (4K) with Utopia. Screw Civ4 Bugs.
  • Obviously he has plenty of free time. I'll give him the Atari 800, Atari 400, a couple drives, joysticks, manuals, tons of software that I bought off a co-worker for $20 about 5 years ago.
  • Where's a good place to get wood grain veneers and laser engraved plastic for making stuff like this?
    Not to mention the LCD and laptop assembly.
    • The LCD assembly he scavenged from a small LCD purchased at Radio Shack. This guy goes WAY above and beyond the average tinkerer - he's made several portable NES, SNES, Playstation and Genesis systems that he built from the original systems. He has access to CNC machines and built the lapto case himself, as well as wiring up each individual key on the keyboard. I caught the story yesterday before it was on Slashdot, and got to read the whole thing. Very interesting.

  • Pictures (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    For those that just want to see the pictures of the finished product:

    http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/9113/mainpicbig 3jx.jpg [imageshack.us]
    http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/1714/topandrear 2tc.jpg [imageshack.us]
  • But does it run Linux?
    • For once, I don't care if it runs Linux, just so long as it runs Gateway to Aphasi. I had so much fun playing that game back in the day...

  • Neo Geo arcade machine (Score:3, Funny)

    by GoodOmens (904827) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:39PM (#14045230) Homepage
    Further down the page ... his custom build arcade machine ... my favorite:

    It has all custom graphics, brushed aluminum side panels and a LED coin counting display that also computes how many cases of beer the money stash will buy.

    Awesome.

  • Was there really a game named BallBlaster???

    • Re:Really? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Urchlay (518024) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @01:38PM (#14045762)
      Was there really a game named BallBlaster???

      Yes.

      Well, actually, Ball Blaster was an early leaked version of Ball Blazer (which was one of the first games Lucas Arts ever released). Ball Blaster was leaked to the Atari BBS scene some months before Ball Blazer was released... it was playable, but lacked the computer player's AI (so it was two-player only). And yes, everyone thought the "Ball Blaster" name was hilarious back then, too...

      More than you really wanted to know, isn't it? :)

  • Even 10 pt bold arial/verdana font is very unreadable on his site... I feel like my monitor is doing 60hz on his site...

    Thank goodness for bookmarklets to make my eyes better. Just what I need after staring at emacs all day it to have my rods and cones gently shaved off the back of my eye with a scalpel.

    Thanks 1998 design. *rubs eyes gently*

    snif.

  • how to make an auto coral cache shortcut (Score:3, Informative)

    by 5n3ak3rp1mp (305814) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @12:52PM (#14045342) Homepage
    Create a link in your favorite browser that points to the following "location":

    javascript:location.hostname=location.hostname+".n yud.net:8090"

    (remove the silly space that slashdot puts in the "nyud" part)

    Then whenever you get to a site that is slashdotted or otherwise not very available, just hit your shortcut (ideally right on your top bar) and there you go!
    • I'm not sure of the required power/battery size, but I know he's using NiMH's, probably AAs. That's kind of surprising, since he usually uses Sony Camcorder batteries. Probably because his screen came with NiMH rechargables :)
    • Can you imagine pulling that out on a plane and plugging a 2600 joystick into it for some gaming goodness?

      Yes, I'm sure that will impress the honnies in first class.
    • "There was actually a plan to make a portable Atari 8-bit, which was even mentioned in Atari's literature after they were bought out by Jack Tramell. The plan fell through. Basically, the technology of the time could not make a portable machine with compelling graphics (The 8-bit Atari's niche); we did not get usable color flat screens for another decade after the end of the 8-bit Ataris."

      You must be referring to the 130XEP (?). It wasn't s***canned because of portability issues. It was canned because the Tramiel crew could not figure out the AMY sound chip coding. Tramiel had fired the majority of the Atari engineers after he purchased the company, and only they knew how to get the chip to function. Its a shame; the Atari 7800 could've really used the AMY sound chip added to a lot of its titles just as the POKEY (you may correct me if I am wrong - the standard soundchip of the 400/800/XL/XE computers) chip was added in game titles like *BallBlazer* to improve the sound capabilities. Hell, the ST computer line could've used the AMY chip as well.

         

    • Re:iPower dies from a slashdotting... (Score:5, Informative)

      by cLive ;-) (132299) on Wednesday November 16 2005, @02:56PM (#14046425) Homepage Journal
      Be fair dude - this is $7.95 a month web hosting in a shared environment, with set limits (and very generous they are too for the price). If you bought a car would you be surprized that it doesn't go as fast as an airplane?

      I called Ben up and said he had two options - suspension for going over bandwidth, or quick hack to keep the pictures up until we can work out a better solution.

      So, we hacked him on to an empty machine, and will work out a dedicated server for him soon so that this can't happen again.

      Last time he got slashdotted, he used over 130Gb of transfer in 24hrs (actually, for the first 3hrs we had a suspended page, so it would have been even more if we'd done this before (we left him on the host last time and watched the load *very* closely).

      No warning this time either, hence quick hack. By the time he next gets slashdotted, we'll have a solution in place so that we don't need to do this again.

      cLive ;-)
      ps - still damn funny point though.

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2009 Geeknet, Inc.