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Mini-ITX PC in an Atari 800
tgeller writes "As case mods go, this one's not the weirdest, But it has its own retro charm. Musician and geek Andy Hutson slipped a Mini-ITX motherboard into an Atari 800 case... and used an old cartridge as the mouse! Too bad the original keyboard's not functional." This almost makes me want to tear apart my old Apple //c and see what I can make. Almost.
Man, as if using an Atari 800 to house your ATX wasn't bad enough.. but to use a game cartridge, Star Raiders nonetheless, and transform it into a MOUSE? MY GOD MAN, I'm dripping in geek just reading this page!
At least nobody will steal your computer! Well, at least not after they find out you ruined an Atari and put all the modern crap inside! ]:3P
Pretty Pictures!
For old machine cool case mods, surely you'd have to go the OTHER way.
I mean get an old PDP-11, gut it and put boards and extensions everywhere, imagine rebuilding the PSU as a set of USB access points, or as a beowulf cluster of Mini-ITX systems
Or put an old IBM Mainframe in the basement, wire up the lights and away you go.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
...so the graphics may be prettier, but it'll still run at the same speed.
Karma: Oldschool
Man puts ITX MB in old plastic box.
Sorry, but I would have been more impressed if he'd restored the Atari 800 to working condition.
Ok, so putting a modern PC in an old computercase is cool and all, but running modern style software on the actual old computer is much cooler! Check out the Contiki operating system for such old computers (including the Atari 800): it is a multi-tasking graphical operating system with full Internet access (web browser, telnet client, web server!) that runs on a a bunch of different old computers. They even have a web server running on a real Commodore 64.
http://mini-itx.cx ... guess where the mini-itx pc will be! ;o)
'Scuse my ignorance, but I'm curious as to just how incompatible the original keyboard was...
Would any of the people that know about hardware care to enlighten me on how hard a keyboard translater would be to build - something that would read the output of the Atari keyboard and spit out equivilent input that the Mini ITX's keyboard controller would understand?
There's a lot of really cool looking old gear out there (well, specifically, under the desk here) with built in keyboards that would make pretty nifty little machines for those of us who want to relive the days of sitting crosslegged on the loungeroom floor 3 inches from the TV screen tapping stuff into a machine like that, but with all mod cons...
You know they call 'em fingers but I've never seen 'em fing. Oh, there they go.
This is what I love to see. The hardware hackers. Sure it goes above the old Amiga hacks, but is great to see the creative mind put to use. Now all we nee is for someone to do a C=128D and use a bootable C=128 emulator like the Knoppix-thing. ;-)
This SIG pulled due to lack of funding. (This damn war is costing too much!)
The guy did not even bother to break out a multi meter and figure out how the oldkb worked.... btw all the good stuff is at www.mini-itx.org
Everything Zen;
Everything Zen;
I don't think so!!!
Even if you don't think the Atari 800 is a very pretty box, I think this conversion deserves full points for originality and style.
My only question is usability.
Simply sticking a modern computer into an Atari 800 case is a little sad. Surely there are more fun mods to do... for example:
- mod a C64 disk drive to hold a full PC, with HDD, and talking IEE844 correctly to the C64.
- mod a C64 printer to become a network interface, allowing the vital print-to-slashdot function
- mod a game cartidge to hold a PC running Linux, then allow the original system to act as a console for the Linux box
Just modding hardware is skillfull, but modding software is true art.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
Mini-ITX site has a lot of links to similar projects:
http://www.mini-itx.com
I had one of these.
;).
Load SCRAM into the cassette drive, and go ride the BMX bike (with mag rims!) around for 45 minutes while it loaded, return and scram the core
Seriously though, has anyone considered putting a PC into *gasp* a PC chassis?
This almost makes me want to tear apart my old Apple //c and see what I can make. Almost.
Why not just keep your old Apple IIc and spend the five bucks or whatever buying one on ebay? There are tons of "classic" computers on ebay that you can get for rediculously low prices (well, considering...) A while ago I almost got a lot of five sparc ipx's for $20. The winning bid was something like $25. Stuff like that is up there all the time.
Of course, I have some sort of weird ethical qualms with gutting old machines. Someone else usually has to throw them out. Why not try this mod on a nice toaster or even a cuisinart (double props if the thing still works without ruining the mobo)
just my two cents (adjusted for inflation)
that's what (one of) the guy behind jackypc.com did.
This website is the reference french-speaking site for moding PC.
Here you can see it (it is a 600)
#include "coucou.h"
I think it's sad to see old hardware ripped apart like this. It's just as sad as people ripping nice old cars apart to make butt-ugly hot rods...
Martin
Ummm isn't it a bit sad that a C64 can handle a minor slashdotting better than many commercial sites ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The Atari I/O chip (POKEY, for POrts and KEYboard), was fed a row/column matrix from the keyboard, and then read directly by the CPU.
In order to make the keyboard compatible with a PC, you would need a microcontroller that scanned the row/column matrix and then generated the serial data stream that a PC's 8042 keyboard controller wanted to see.
Not really a very difficult task for a hardware guy - a PIC would probably do quite nicely.
I wonder if the guy was able to use the interior potmetal shield of the Atari - the 800 was designed back when "Class B computing device" MEANT something - Atari took no chance that the computer would fail to pass FCC regulations. The 800 was the quietest (in the RF sense of the word) computer I'd ever seen - ANYTHING that could generate RF was on the inside of a eight-of-an-inch thick metal box.
But using a Star Raiders cart as a mouse?!?!
BLASPHEMER! SINNER! YOU SHALL BURN IN HELLFIRE ETERNAL!
www.eFax.com are spammers
I've been fooling around with a mini-itx board for a while, and tried to fit it into an Apple IIc. It will fit, if you forego a cd/dvd drive, full size hard drive, and use a laptop-style power supply with an external AC/DC adaptor.
My current plans are to put it into a wood box I purchased at a local artsy fartsy store, which will have plenty of room for a slot loading DVD drive, but will still need a laptop hard drive and the smaller power supply. DivX player, here I come!
-Ryan
HallmarkOrnaments.Com
Well, if I had a IIc, I'd make a macpack and ditch my regular ol' backpack.
"A good conspiracy is an unprovable one." -Conspiracy Theory
as someone who has owned every production 8-bit Atari sold in the US (800,400,1200XL,800XL,600XL, 130XE, 65XE, XEGS... other models that are out there that I haven't owned include the 1400XL, 1450XL, 800XE...) this is just WRONG. WRONG, I tell you.
The 800 is one of the very best of the Atari 8-bit line. Funky seventies industrial design, lovely keyboard, great video and audio quality out of the box (Atari boogered the video and audio amplifiers on the XL and XE models)...
They're built like tanks, too. Remember, the MSRP for them in 1979 was something like $2000. In 1979 dollars. 1/4" and 1/8" aluminum shielding in there to pass the old FCC regs from before Apple paid off the FCC to get the Apple II series passed... We used to joke that the 800 could probably survive the EMP from the inevitable nuclear war that was going to happen in the eighties...
About the only "case mod" I could understand on an 800 is gluing the Star Raiders cartridge into the slot, and even then, I'd use a 400 for that...
As for the comment "it's a shame they couldn't get the original keyboard to work", ya know, that's the only thing I didn't like about my 800. The keys didn't follow a standard layout, and I wasn't very fond of their feel.
:)
:)
The long nights I spent poking display list interrupts into the 1536 memory block, and making the 8k Atari basic do things it wasn't meant to do. Good old 6502 assembly language. My first tape drive. My first floppy drive. A geek's first love.
Any chance you still have the Microsoft Basic cartridge hanging around? I have mine. Oh the memories.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
Taking an old PC case and putting new hardware into it? Boring... been done before... and this one isn't even fully functional. It's little more than an attempt at something visually cool, and even then it has no visual appeal whatsoever.
Now the Telefunken 2003... a 45 year old radio upgraded to Internet Radio... that's a nice hack with unique artistic appeal!!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"