Floppies? Ya all came late to the party. Audio tape in a cassette deck.

But the very first computer I used, but didn't own, had front panel switches and a core, yes magnetic core, expansion from 4k to 8k, a disk pack about the same capacity as a 8" floppy, a card reader and a line printer in addition to a terminal. The O/S was called "monitor." It was built by IBM.

Uh oh, I'm dating myself.

The Atari 400 I had in 1980 came with a 410 Cassette Tape drive, anyone remember the CLOAD command? But then I didn't have an 810 5.25"(90K per side) SSSD floppy disk drive yet or a Rana 1000 or another fdd(an Indus GT, I have 1) that was in black that was used for the Atari and the C64 that has a door to protect against dust.

400 w/aftermarket keyboard like I used.

A 410 cassette drive, an 810 5.25" fdd and an 850 interface(DB9 serial and DB25 centronics)...
All these had their own psu bricks and they all had to be powered up before the computer was, then Atari DOS could load from the 810 drive on the 13pin SIO port(daisy chained).

I remember fussing with a cassette tape player to get it to load a program. I was left to load the current state of the program while everyone else went off to get pizza.

In basic I think I only had to type in CLOAD and press play, otherwise I'd power the 400 on and press play on the 410 at the same time and the 410 would load the program into memory(this was 32 years back, so it's been a while).

The blasted thing was finicky. If the volume was wrong on the player or the tape fluttered slightly, it would not read correctly and you would have to start over. Getting a 16KB program to load took around a half an hour...

From what I remember a 410 didn't have a volume knob, each part of the Atari SIO daisy chain was it's own computer, the 410 could only be at the end of such a chain.

I was working with a TRS80 Model 1, and it DID have a volume knob as it was a pretty standard Radio Shack cassette recorder that was being used for data storage. The correct position was about 2/3 volume if I recall correctly.

Saw one in Radio Shack once, in Adult School they had a Model 3, it was nice.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Floppies? Ya all came late to the party. Audio tape in a cassette deck.

But the very first computer I used, but didn't own, had front panel switches and a core, yes magnetic core, expansion from 4k to 8k, a disk pack about the same capacity as a 8" floppy, a card reader and a line printer in addition to a terminal. The O/S was called "monitor." It was built by IBM.

Uh oh, I'm dating myself.

The Atari 400 I had in 1980 came with a 410 Cassette Tape drive, anyone remember the CLOAD command? But then I didn't have an 810 5.25"(90K per side) SSSD floppy disk drive yet or a Rana 1000 or another fdd(an Indus GT, I have 1) that was in black that was used for the Atari and the C64 that has a door to protect against dust.

400 w/aftermarket keyboard like I used.

A 410 cassette drive, an 810 5.25" fdd and an 850 interface(DB9 serial and DB25 centronics)...
All these had their own psu bricks and they all had to be powered up before the computer was, then Atari DOS could load from the 810 drive on the 13pin SIO port(daisy chained).

I remember fussing with a cassette tape player to get it to load a program. I was left to load the current state of the program while everyone else went off to get pizza.

In basic I think I only had to type in CLOAD and press play, otherwise I'd power the 400 on and press play on the 410 at the same time and the 410 would load the program into memory(this was 32 years back, so it's been a while).

The blasted thing was finicky. If the volume was wrong on the player or the tape fluttered slightly, it would not read correctly and you would have to start over. Getting a 16KB program to load took around a half an hour...

From what I remember a 410 didn't have a volume knob, each part of the Atari SIO daisy chain was it's own computer, the 410 could only be at the end of such a chain.

I was working with a TRS80 Model 1, and it DID have a volume knob as it was a pretty standard Radio Shack cassette recorder that was being used for data storage. The correct position was about 2/3 volume if I recall correctly.

Saw one in Radio Shack once, in Adult School they had a Model 3, it was nice.

The Model I wasn't so nice. It used 2 components that you might have lying around the house (the TV and the cassette recorder) and the rest was packed into the keyboard. So, it was a low res display, and a finicky and slow program load or save. I hated the thing (fortunately, it wasn't mine, unfortunately, the program was mine).

---

BOINC WIKI

Floppies? Ya all came late to the party. Audio tape in a cassette deck.

But the very first computer I used, but didn't own, had front panel switches and a core, yes magnetic core, expansion from 4k to 8k, a disk pack about the same capacity as a 8" floppy, a card reader and a line printer in addition to a terminal. The O/S was called "monitor." It was built by IBM.

Uh oh, I'm dating myself.

The Atari 400 I had in 1980 came with a 410 Cassette Tape drive, anyone remember the CLOAD command? But then I didn't have an 810 5.25"(90K per side) SSSD floppy disk drive yet or a Rana 1000 or another fdd(an Indus GT, I have 1) that was in black that was used for the Atari and the C64 that has a door to protect against dust.

400 w/aftermarket keyboard like I used.

A 410 cassette drive, an 810 5.25" fdd and an 850 interface(DB9 serial and DB25 centronics)...
All these had their own psu bricks and they all had to be powered up before the computer was, then Atari DOS could load from the 810 drive on the 13pin SIO port(daisy chained).

I remember fussing with a cassette tape player to get it to load a program. I was left to load the current state of the program while everyone else went off to get pizza.

In basic I think I only had to type in CLOAD and press play, otherwise I'd power the 400 on and press play on the 410 at the same time and the 410 would load the program into memory(this was 32 years back, so it's been a while).

The blasted thing was finicky. If the volume was wrong on the player or the tape fluttered slightly, it would not read correctly and you would have to start over. Getting a 16KB program to load took around a half an hour...

From what I remember a 410 didn't have a volume knob, each part of the Atari SIO daisy chain was it's own computer, the 410 could only be at the end of such a chain.

I was working with a TRS80 Model 1, and it DID have a volume knob as it was a pretty standard Radio Shack cassette recorder that was being used for data storage. The correct position was about 2/3 volume if I recall correctly.

Saw one in Radio Shack once, in Adult School they had a Model 3, it was nice.

The Model I wasn't so nice. It used 2 components that you might have lying around the house (the TV and the cassette recorder) and the rest was packed into the keyboard. So, it was a low res display, and a finicky and slow program load or save. I hated the thing (fortunately, it wasn't mine, unfortunately, the program was mine).

Now John here's something you won't see every day...



These are pics of the Atari XL expansion box, a prototype from Years ago.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Floppies? Ya all came late to the party. Audio tape in a cassette deck.

But the very first computer I used, but didn't own, had front panel switches and a core, yes magnetic core, expansion from 4k to 8k, a disk pack about the same capacity as a 8" floppy, a card reader and a line printer in addition to a terminal. The O/S was called "monitor." It was built by IBM.

Uh oh, I'm dating myself.

The Atari 400 I had in 1980 came with a 410 Cassette Tape drive, anyone remember the CLOAD command? But then I didn't have an 810 5.25"(90K per side) SSSD floppy disk drive yet or a Rana 1000 or another fdd(an Indus GT, I have 1) that was in black that was used for the Atari and the C64 that has a door to protect against dust.

400 w/aftermarket keyboard like I used.

A 410 cassette drive, an 810 5.25" fdd and an 850 interface(DB9 serial and DB25 centronics)...
All these had their own psu bricks and they all had to be powered up before the computer was, then Atari DOS could load from the 810 drive on the 13pin SIO port(daisy chained).

I remember fussing with a cassette tape player to get it to load a program. I was left to load the current state of the program while everyone else went off to get pizza.

In basic I think I only had to type in CLOAD and press play, otherwise I'd power the 400 on and press play on the 410 at the same time and the 410 would load the program into memory(this was 32 years back, so it's been a while).

The blasted thing was finicky. If the volume was wrong on the player or the tape fluttered slightly, it would not read correctly and you would have to start over. Getting a 16KB program to load took around a half an hour...

From what I remember a 410 didn't have a volume knob, each part of the Atari SIO daisy chain was it's own computer, the 410 could only be at the end of such a chain.

I was working with a TRS80 Model 1, and it DID have a volume knob as it was a pretty standard Radio Shack cassette recorder that was being used for data storage. The correct position was about 2/3 volume if I recall correctly.

Saw one in Radio Shack once, in Adult School they had a Model 3, it was nice.

The Model I wasn't so nice. It used 2 components that you might have lying around the house (the TV and the cassette recorder) and the rest was packed into the keyboard. So, it was a low res display, and a finicky and slow program load or save. I hated the thing (fortunately, it wasn't mine, unfortunately, the program was mine).

Now John here's something you won't see every day...



These are pics of the Atari XL expansion box, a prototype from Years ago.

I haven't seen a Koala Light pen in years. I have never seen the Atari expansion box.

---

BOINC WIKI

Floppies? Ya all came late to the party. Audio tape in a cassette deck.

But the very first computer I used, but didn't own, had front panel switches and a core, yes magnetic core, expansion from 4k to 8k, a disk pack about the same capacity as a 8" floppy, a card reader and a line printer in addition to a terminal. The O/S was called "monitor." It was built by IBM.

Uh oh, I'm dating myself.

The Atari 400 I had in 1980 came with a 410 Cassette Tape drive, anyone remember the CLOAD command? But then I didn't have an 810 5.25"(90K per side) SSSD floppy disk drive yet or a Rana 1000 or another fdd(an Indus GT, I have 1) that was in black that was used for the Atari and the C64 that has a door to protect against dust.

400 w/aftermarket keyboard like I used.

A 410 cassette drive, an 810 5.25" fdd and an 850 interface(DB9 serial and DB25 centronics)...
All these had their own psu bricks and they all had to be powered up before the computer was, then Atari DOS could load from the 810 drive on the 13pin SIO port(daisy chained).

I remember fussing with a cassette tape player to get it to load a program. I was left to load the current state of the program while everyone else went off to get pizza.

In basic I think I only had to type in CLOAD and press play, otherwise I'd power the 400 on and press play on the 410 at the same time and the 410 would load the program into memory(this was 32 years back, so it's been a while).

The blasted thing was finicky. If the volume was wrong on the player or the tape fluttered slightly, it would not read correctly and you would have to start over. Getting a 16KB program to load took around a half an hour...

From what I remember a 410 didn't have a volume knob, each part of the Atari SIO daisy chain was it's own computer, the 410 could only be at the end of such a chain.

I was working with a TRS80 Model 1, and it DID have a volume knob as it was a pretty standard Radio Shack cassette recorder that was being used for data storage. The correct position was about 2/3 volume if I recall correctly.

Saw one in Radio Shack once, in Adult School they had a Model 3, it was nice.

The Model I wasn't so nice. It used 2 components that you might have lying around the house (the TV and the cassette recorder) and the rest was packed into the keyboard. So, it was a low res display, and a finicky and slow program load or save. I hated the thing (fortunately, it wasn't mine, unfortunately, the program was mine).

Now John here's something you won't see every day...



These are pics of the Atari XL expansion box, a prototype from Years ago.

I haven't seen a Koala Light pen in years. I have never seen the Atari expansion box.

The box plugs in via a ribbon cable I've read, to the pbi bus on the back of any 600XL or 800XL computer, or with an adapter to some Atari XE computers.

---

The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's

Looks like a failed attempt to turn an atari into a full blown desktop machine. Not bad.


I remember there was driver support for that koala lightpen in my C64 GEOS OS.

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#resist

Looks like a failed attempt to turn an atari into a full blown desktop machine. Not bad.


I remember there was driver support for that koala lightpen in my C64 GEOS OS.

I remember the guy sitting next to me writing a driver for the Koala for PC Paint Brush.

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BOINC WIKI