My Atari 8 bit Computer Collection! | Tara's Vintage Videogame Corner

[@taraemory]

I think one thing i wanted to say in the video but didn't- is how the angles and trapezoids on the Atari 400 kinda resemble the snowspeeders in Empire Strikes Back. That whole computer looks like it could be in a 1980 star wars movie and not seem out of place

[@KrautRockt]

hey, great collection! and the pad its so awesome!....the dustcap for the 800xl..VERY NICE!! and so on. i became a smile..when i see this great parts a question: have do a original C65 from commodore? i have this computer, but.. i dont understand not this system....no software and co.🙂can you help me, with a clip? sorry for my lousy english and i wish you a nice springtime, very time a good time and respect for your retro coletion/work!...your "RoboTronic64" from Chemnitz/Germany...

[@KrautRockt]

32 mb for the 400?...wow, this its so good! 🙂I've never heard of that before. thank you for the great tour...

[@AndrewTubbiolo]

Christmas 1982 I got an Atari 400. I learned a lot on that computer.

[@djholcomb]

Thanks for sharing! It's a lot of fun seeing what others have in their collections.

[@Stanley_A._Hunt]

3:48 Paint! 😄 Anyway, we had a 130XE, 1050 disk drive, touch tablet, XM301 modem and 1027 printer.

[@DrForbin001]

Yes Tara, I know you are an Apple enthusiast. Looking forward to seeing that video

[@toqertv]

Ah this is cool. Subbed. I grew up in San Jose, about 5 miles south of Atari HQ Sunnyvale. I was born in 1973, so I got to see all of it. Atari was always kind of the hometown team and I always rooted for them during the console wars. Got to go to the first Chuck E Cheese's the year it opened. Had Atari's growing up, got rid of Atari's growing up. Got Atari's again during the 90's, got rid of Atari's again during the 90's. Recently picked up an 800, and I'm going to do some mods to it. The Incognito board which adds 1mb of RAM, a microSD hard disk, and Selectable OS's (Either original 800 or XL/XE) I'm also adding a mechanical keyboard, there's a guy that makes them. I got all the hardware, now it's just a matter of cleaning my room lol. Super cool you managed to collect all this stuff. I made the mistake during the 90's of letting my wife convince me it was junk I needed to let go of.

[@jrherita]

Thanks Tara for sharing your Atari 8-bit collection!. Would be really cool to see you do a video of playing M.U.L.E. sometime :). Your other content looks cool too - I hope you ended up getting somewhere with your passion project.

[@jcchaconjr]

I absolutely LOVE my Atari 800XL! I still have mine, along with my 1050 in their boxes. It’s crazy that even when kept in their boxes when not in use, the 800XL’s case has yellowed a bit. Of course, I got an S-drive about a year ago, which allowed me to copy over all my original floppies, except for the few games friends copied for me years ago because they had Happy drives. I think that someone still offers a Happy Drive mod for the 1050, so I definitely want to get that to completely digitize my floppy collection. It’s amazing that my disks still work after almost 40 years, but I can’t imagine how much longer they will. I really should think about buying any floppies that might still be available for purchase today, if at all. Great collection!

[@taraemory]

yeah i really need to invest/investigate into the more solid state ways of storing all the games on something. I'm a bit vague on it but i recall something that basically went SIO to IDE and then in place of an IDE drive you're use a compact flash card (which apparently is more or less the same thing), and that way you could have like all the games ever made on one tiny card. I'm a bit vauge about all that because i don't know anything about PCs (no really, i don't) so it's going to involve a bit of learning on my part

[@jcchaconjr]

You should totally look into the S-Drive Max! It’s an SIO to SD card solution - built on Arduino, very compact, and utilizes micro SD cards to read floppy disk images in .ATR format. In my case, I was also able to copy my old disks from my 1050 into .ATR format so that I don’t have to read the old disk anymore. Very convenient, and helps me preserve the 1050 for when I really need it! As mentioned previously, I just need a Happy Drive mod for my 1050 so that I can copy the two or 3 disks I still have with error sectors, since the Happy drive mod can read/write thise sectors. You can’t read a disk protected with error sectors otherwise. It was the crude but effective copy protection method on commercial floppies back then.

[@MaxFleye]

I had that Oki printer when I was a lad, it was fun to print in color but it ran through those ribbons fast. I'd love to have an Atari 800!

[@wimwiddershins]

Gotta love that 1970s design. The star wars aesthetic is right on.👍

[@greatwhiteretro]

When I started researching the Atari XL systems I learned that Atari barely missed the Christmas season for the 600xl and 800xl machines. You might have gotten lucky.

[@tony92506]

I loved my 800xl, besides the casual gaming, I used the word processor a lot to write stories and scripts. I had a koala drawing tablet which caused my girlfriend at the time to breakup with me as I spent more time drawing on my computer than spending time with her. LOL. I still have my 800xl, not sure what I am going to do with it, but I do want to keep it. I just do not have much room to set it up. I would like to mod it, to upgrade it and maybe get the side car 3, and connect to an HDMI monitor. Probably not this year though. Thanks for a fun video!

[@tiacd3780]

Growing up the first computer that was in my family home was an Atari 800XL, we had Flight Simulator II, boulder Dash, Spy v Spy & Stockbroker. Dad also got the Light pen too, but i always remember my dad had all of the maps for FS II printed on A3/A2 paper. I always remember finding a copy of strip poker buried in the disk box too haha

[@footguy215]

I'm in my early 40s, so I remember playing Atari, but I never knew it had all those accessories.

[@8bitrocketstudios]

This is an awesome collection! Long Live Atari! The 800XL most likely arrived in January as the 600XL and 800XL just hopped off the boat about Dec 15th of 1983 and didn't make it to stores until Dec 23rd, giving the C64 a winning advantage as Atari had heavily marketed computers that didn't exist sending buyers to the stores to only find the C64. The c64 was/is a fantastic computer, but the 800XL should have been a decent competitor.

[@nyyommm9640]

I was about 4 years old when I got a copy of E.T. It was my first recollection of video game rage. My mom promptly dropped the Atari off at goodwill.

[@thevegedout]

Hello Tarable, hope all is well. great collection of PCs. That story about the 1970 car was a little steamy. Keep up the great work.

[@jons8607]

Very impressive collection.

[@louisolachea1076]

Excellent video and a very impressive collection, Tara. You had mentioned that you did artwork on one of the computers. Do you anything on print to show us?

[@rottmanthan]

i want a atari 800 but ppl want to much for them. so im in no big rush, i will keep looking.

[@andrewfroedge8227]

I'd love to get one of these that no longer works and make a sleeper build. Probably a Ryzen 7000 APU ...etc

[@lovemadeinjapan]

No XE's? I think those are cute, and the best looking models after the mighty granddaddy: the 800. I also love CRT's with my 8-bit machines, but I don't mind them being a tad newer, a mid nineties Trinitron with RGB SCART/S-video input....

[@Screwfacecapone]

I'm jealous. My dad has the intellivision growing up, and my brother and I moved on to the NES.

[@ithyphal]

Nice collection 👍

[@fredflintstone505]

The Capacitors on the 810 disk drive most likely need to be replaced.

[@SaltyFlats]

Just picked up an 800 with a 1050 drive.

[@GeorgiaGrowGuy]

NASA will probably contact you for spare parts for the space shuttle. LOL. Most people don't realize how these were cutting edge at the time.

[@dirkcrossi6574]

wow a color thermal Printer ,,never seen such thing ,,i had a Monochrome Thermal printer ..i thik the Ribbon was very Expencive for the Thermal Color Printer ..or did exist any Special Thermal Paper ?? (Color)

[@rottmanthan]

a couple of my computers use tv's, i would like to find period correct ones.

[@JimLeonard]

I think you buried the lede: Most of the games you played were prototypes and unreleased games? Did I miss in the video where you explain how/why that was? If you have free time, the next time you're tinkering with your collection, you may want to try dumping some of those games and uploading them somewhere; there's a very large Atari 8-bit community who would love to see them.

[@taraemory]

the prototypes or games i have are all readily available. "Ballblaster" instead of "BalllBlazer". "The Last Stargfighter" instead of "Star Raiders II". "Jaggi" instead of "Rescue on Fractalus". That might be the extent of it. Essentially back in the mid 80s people did disk copying parties and meetups and what i got back then came from those (though i myself never attended a meetup). Now it IS possible i have something in myu collection that is rare, but yes, I will have to take a deeper dive. I was thinking of making a video just about the software end (with some reviews of my favorite games). and i do want to make a seperate video about the consoles, as i do have a large collection of pre-NES period consoles. I don't know if i have enough to do one just of Atari consoles and varieties, or if i woud include other brands like Colecovision and Intellivison. I also would LOVE to make a video focusing on the industrial design of the machines and the graphic design of the packaging of the games, because back then, you got so much more for your $27, usually to make up for the fact that you were just pushing a square across your TV screen..

[@JimLeonard]

@@taraemory Copyparties does explain that :-) Agree with everything else you said.

[@b213videoz]

You have too many! Can you send me a floppy drive ? 😊

[@CapnSaltine]

I don't know what "vaporware" is but I want some

[@taraemory]

Vaporware is generally the term to describe computer software or hardware that is announced and it supposed to come out, but ends up never being released

[@nickolasgaspar9660]

lol...not possible.

[@Кирилл-п2э4д]

Сначала сын играет в атари а потом.... 😂😂😂

[@fanatp0stpanka]

дочерью станет))

[@cdstefany]

That's so cool (hey, I'm an old computer geek)