Atari 2600 Mac Mod

XxtraLarGe writes "MyMac.com has videos of a couple of guys modding an Atari 2600 case to a Mac OS X System. The cool thing is, it looks like the 2600 can still play cartridge games too!"

Comments

Coral Cache links

[pavon]

Hmm, their site does not have any images, just movies and mentions that they were already having bandwidth issues before it was posted on slashdot. So you probably want to use the coral cache links below. I managed to get the first three links primed before the story went live.

Article
Movie 1
Movie 2
Movie 3
Movie 4

I'm keeping my atari 2600

[The_Mr_Flibble]

I mean in a few yours it might be worth something.
It's still in it's box.

Re:I'm keeping my atari 2600

[RikRat]

Hardware doesn't get worth more over the years. I used to think that also. But hardware only gets worth less.

Re:I'm keeping my atari 2600

[Chess_the_cat]

Unless the hardware is an original Apple I. One went for 50 grand. But you can expect between 20 and 30 large.

Re:I'm keeping my atari 2600

[AmberBlackCat]

Don't forget those Sony video cameras that can see through people's clothes. And old DVD burners will probably skyrocket in value as soon as copyright protection becomes standard in the new ones.

I was worried...

[Spytap]

I was worried that this was going to be another story about peopel cramming shit into a Mac Mini Case. Not because I think they're desecrating the mini, just because if it becomes a trend, it's an incredibly boring trend to read about.

Nice.

[PopeAlien]

Finally a Mac for gaming!

Re:Nice.

[b1t r0t]

Wow, so now in addition to Breakout and Super Breakout, you can play Photoshop on your 2600 too!

Well apple did the same!!

[Saven Marek]

That's nothing, Apple managed put a G4 mac into a Sonos case!!!

question about atari 2600 naming

[suso]

Was the atari 2600 named so because of the captain crunch toy whistles? After all, Steve Jobs worked there in the 70s, and also was one of the ones involved with those blue boxes.

Re:question about atari 2600 naming

[curtisk]

From here

The Atari 5200 Supersystem was named for its part number in the Atari catalog, CX5200. Following this trend, Atari renamed the VCS the 2600.

It was called the Atari VCS until the 5200 came out...and the 7800 is just a continuation of the 2600 mulitples

Re:question about atari 2600 naming

[suso]

Ok, that's an acceptable explaination I think, but its just weird. Especially considering the timing. I mean, if you look up Steve Jobs in wikipedia.com, it has this paragraph:

"In the autumn of 1974, Jobs returned to California and began attending meetings of the "Homebrew Computer Club" with Stephen Wozniak. He took a job at Atari Inc., designing computer games with his friend, Wozniak. During this time period, it was discovered that a slightly modified toy whistle included in every box of Cap'n Crunch cereal was able to reproduce the 2600 Hz supervision tone used by the AT&T long distance telephone system. Jobs and Wozniak went into business briefly in 1974 to build "blue boxes" based on the idea which allowed for free long distance calls.

Which almost links the two together. Were did the catalogue number come from? Did Atari make 2,599 items before they made the 2600? Also, seeing as Jobs and Wozniak liked to hide numbers in their products, like the Apple I's price being $666, I would think that they could have done the same with the Atari VCS. Perhaps only they know the answer to this.

Re:question about atari 2600 naming

[soft_guy]

The Apple I was priced at $666.66, not $666.00. I also remember that this price was arrived at via some formula involving the price of all the parts, not picked arbitrarily. When they discovered that the formula produced this number, someone suggested they change it, but Jobs wanted to leave it alone because it was a memorable number.

That said, I think its pretty doubtful that Jobs and Woz had influence over the part number designations at Atari. First of all because Woz never worked for Atari. He designed breakout as a favor to Jobs, but its was work that was assigned to Jobs. At the time Woz designed breakout he was working at HP.

So, did Steve Jobs have the power to influence the product designation of the 2600? I think its pretty doubtful, considering the various descriptions of his work at Atari that I have read. It seems like he was Nolan Bushnell's "eyes and ears" into the engineering department. During the period when Jobs worked there, Nolan had been asked not to visit the engineers and "bother them" because often his suggestions were taken as orders of how things should be done. So, he was asked not to drop in anymore. Because he was a curious person and wanted to know how things were going, he had Steve Jobs give him reports about what was happening. From what I have read, this was Jobs's main role at Atari and he was otherwise not very popular there.

Yea

[mao che minh]

And we just tried to jam 20,000 http requests into their Atari 2600 case. Didn't work.

Uhhh...

[Gruneun]

So, after realizing the 2600 games are no longer being produced, they chose OSX for it's extensive list of titles?

Re:Uhhh...

[bonch]

As opposed to what? Putting Linux on it? :P

Re:Uhhh...

[Urchlay]

> So, after realizing the 2600 games are no longer being produced, they chose OSX for it's extensive list of titles?

Funny, yes... but not strictly accurate

Re:Uhhh...

[ip_fired]

It's a good thing that somebody has actually already listed a ton of games that you can play on the Mac.

Unfortunately, it appears that Enemy Territory never made it to the Mac. But RTCW did. The only game I really miss from my PC is HL2, which doesn't play in Linux either (at least, I can't get it to work) :(.

Obligatory comment

[CTO1]

They managed to triple the number of games that their new Mac can play!

Re:Obligatory comment

[JohnHegarty]

but half the number of games their 2600 can play...

since it was down the first 2 times i tried

[booyah]

MacMod - The Atari 2600 Macintosh

Building the iAtariMac

What the heck is this? Actually, it is the LONG overdue, been sitting in development hell purgatory, first MacMod.

What is MacMod? An idea and concept that sprung to life in the minds of Tim Robertson and Chad Perry way back in the summer of 2003. The idea? Wouldn't it be cool if there were a video show online that was like a combination of American Chopper and Junkyard Wars, but about Macs?

What? You don't think that is a cool idea? Obviously, we did, so we actually did it. We created a show, named it MacMod, and filmed the whole thing over a six-week period starting October 2003 and finishing December 2003.

The goal? Turning a vintage 1970's Atari 2600 game consol into a Macintosh computer, running the latest and greatest Mac OS X. The catch? Try and keep the Atari looking stock, up to a point.

The problem? Neither Chad nor Tim had ever done anything like this before. Not just "how to build it" but "how to film and present it" were questions they pretty much made up the answers to as they went along.

Firstly, they had to obtain both an Atari 2600 and a Macintosh. The first was easy, Tim already had two Atari 2600's, and they used one of those. The second was not as easy. Neither Tim nor Chad wanted to part with a perfectly good computer to use and, probably, destroy. Neither was confident that the build would be successful, and it was asking too much for either of them to give up a working Macintosh for this show.

The solution? A sponsor! Enter Tekserve! Who is Tekserve? Only one of the best Macintosh resellers in the world, located in New York City, but servicing clients worldwide. They started out as a Mac service company, but have grown well beyond those humble beginnings. Today, they sport over 125 employees!

Tekserve became the silent partner during filming MacMod. Without them, this project could not have happened. It was Tekserve who supplied us with the needed Macintosh to use for this project. Please visit their website today for more information, and be sure to tell them it was MyMac.com who sent you.

This project should have been online a year ago, but it was not meant to be. We ran into many more problems after filming wrapped than we want to go into here. Suffice it to say, we did finish the project, but not alone. Special thanks go to Jim Allard, who was present every day during filming. While you the viewer never see or hear Jim, he was the invisible third man of the show. This would not have happened without him. Tad Scheeler was the talent behind our animated opening, as well as helping film during day two. MacMod would not look the same, or have whatever polish is present, without Tad. Adam Karneboge lent his help in technical matters, as well as providing a part we sorely needed. And Chris Seibold stepped in at the last minute to provide the over-the-top narration the show needed. Without these people, MacMod would never have happened.

Now you can watch, in four parts, the entire build process. There is both a large and small version of each episode. If you are bandwidth challenged, view the smaller one. If you don't mind downloading a large file, enjoy the better detail in the larger ones. And if you would rather have a DVD copy of all four episodes, email us and we can give you more details. (Detail may be posted here in the future if there is enough interest.)

Warning! You will either think this is either really neat, or really stupid. If you think it is stupid, that is Tim and Chad's fault, not those who helped us.

QuickTime is required to view MacMod

Sweet

[Sheepdot]

... it looks like the 2600 can still play cartridge games too!

<Napolean>Sweet...</Napolean>

Can it play Duke Nukem Forever too?

Oh, wait...

Re:Sweet

[breon.halling]

Can it play Duke Nukem Forever too?

Yeah. It can.

Just like the mini-atx guys

[kiwidefunkt]

Proving once again that x86 nerds with too much time are not the only nerds with too much time. There's PPC guys, too.

video??

[jxyama]

>MyMac.com has videos

i think the submitter should be requested to use past tense ("had") when linking to a video. ;)

Modified Atari "rap commercial" tom the 80's

[chipster]

Today it's;

"The...twen-ty-six...hun-dred...please-slash-dot-m e!"

Mouse or Paddles?

[RackinFrackin]

Does it have a mouse, or do you move the pointer using one paddle for x and the other for y? That might suck, but you'd have two mouse buttons!

Disclaimer: I didn't read the article.

Re:Mouse or Paddles?

[DLWormwood]

Does it have a mouse, or do you move the pointer using one paddle for x and the other for y?

Since the modded 2600 is using Mac hardware internally, the paddles probably ended up looking like this...

Re:Mouse or Paddles?

[RackinFrackin]

Yes, it came with two joysticks and a pair of paddles. Actually, the paddles were cool in that both plugged into the same port, so you could connect four to the console. The 2600 doesn't get enough credit for being an early four-player console.

If you're *really* into this stuff..

[cliveholloway]

... then check out Ben Heckendorn's Book that was due to be published this week (the guy behind the portable PS2, Ben Heckendorn).

Surprised no-one on /. has reviewed it yet :) Time to hassle Ben for a review copy...

cLive ;-)

disclaimer - I work for company that hosts his web site (so I must be a masochist by inviting slashdot visitors ;-)

Wow

[BrK]

So, this story is all about how people took some hardware and stuck it in a case that wasn't originally intended to hold that hardware?

Oh, gee. What an original concept.

Historic consoles

[tie_guy_matt]

I don't think moding historic computers/consoles is a good idea. Now they are just old and kindof cool, but in several years they will be truly historic and of great value. When most 2600s will be greatly increasing in value the modded ones will be worth much less. After all by then a G5 running Mac OSX won't really be that great. I guess it is ok to do the mod as long as you don't damage the original console and can bring it back to the original condition. But people please don't destroy antique or very soon to be valuable antique hardware. I'd rather see it restored to the way it was brand new in the 70's and 80's!

Re:Historic consoles

[RipTides9x]

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the Atari 2600 to be worth much more than its original MSRP in my lifetime.

As it stands, it was a system comprised of off the shelf parts. I would speculate that in the future just the empty shell alone would be fetch as much as a complete working unit, considering the shell was the only original part of the unit. Also with the two different shell types, Atari and the Sears "Telegames" with fake woodgrain, one might be worth a bit more than the other. Not including the 1990's 2600 re-issue.

BTW when was the last time you went to an old-school trashy flea-market? Last time I visited one, you could pick up a box full of (50 or so) Atari carts for around 5 dollars. Also saw boxes containing about 8-10 Atari 2600 units, in various disarray, with accessories spaghettied in the bottom, for 20 bucks. Even as recent as 1999 one vendor had unopened boxes of early 80's Atari units in his booth for 20 bucks a box.

Things that people find are worth so much now-a-days, were never mass produced items. I don't know what the actual numbers are regarding total amount of 2600's produced, it has to be in the 10's of millions, if not hundreds. As i said in the beginning, it will long after my life is over before the 2600 is worth much more than what it sold for brand new.

depressing.

[ScouseMouse]

This sort of thing depresses me.

The only thing that keeps me going is that some day one of these people is going to put a PC board into something like a Vax or a Sun 1/2, and then all the aincient bearded ones will descend on them and murder them all and use their entrails to grease an old Fujitsu Eagle (Look it up).

Then you could argue there lifes wont have gone to waste. :-)



(Note for those of you with no sense of humor, i am Joking but only mostly)

Re:depressing.

[HarveyBirdman]

I get depressed because it makes me wonder where my life went wrong so I don't have time to do dumb, pointless stuff like this.

Great!

[DorkFest]

Now my ActiVision titles can live again! Megamania River Raid Freeway Pitfall I'd play these games until I had blisters from the joystick!

The important question

[Nine Tenths of The W]

Can it play ET? Mac fans need something to compensate for the fact that Daikatana was PC only.

Re:Modified Atari "rap commercial" FROM the 80's

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

What?

Too Late - been done

[mkmoose]

http://polara.whirlpool.com/ I guess someone is buying this. So when you try to mod your oven - do something new and original.

Re:Too Late - been done

[BrK]

Interestingly enough, I saw the prototype for that Polara range about 3 years ago. The story line then was that they would have a whole line of kitchen appliances that communicated over a bluetooth like network. There was going to be a co-marketed deal with Kraft and other food companies to have these "meal" concepts and the UPC codes would be recognized by the appliances. The idea was that you stick the various components of dinner in the appliances (range(s), microwave, convection oven, etc) and you tell it when you want dinner to be ready, then they all work together to get the portions done at the same time (ie: the range might signal the micro when the meat is almost done to start nuking some sort of vegetable side dish).

Atari console naming

[WebCowboy]

The official name of the 2600 was the "Video Computer System" (VCS) and that was indeed the official name until the Atari 5200 came out. However, the catalogue/part number for the VCS was CX2600 right from the start, and that is where the name came from. When the Supersystem was announced/introduced (part #CX5200) the part numbers became official model names probably to emphasise the difference between the two.

Atari was known to employ some engineers with a twisted sense of humour and perhaps a history of cracking/phreaking activities (Steve Wozniak for example). Given that they allegedly code-named their products after well-endowed female coworkers it wouldn't surprise me that the original product number was inspired by the frequency in Hz that opened up the telephone system to phreakers.

In any case, I believe there was no real marketing angle to the choice of model numbers apart from simply using multiples of the number 2600 to indicate successive generations--1st gen = 1*2600, 2nd gen = 2*2600, 3rd gen = 3*2600. No compatibilty was impled, as a base 5200 couldn't play 2600 games and a base 7800 couldn't play 5200 games.

Re:Atari console naming

[soft_guy]

Steve Wozniak was not an employee of Atari. He did some work that ended up being for Atari, but he did it as a personal favor to Steve Jobs who was an employee at Atari.

Re:Atari console naming

[ArmpitMan]

But the 7800 can play 2600 games.

WOW

[Reo Strong]

Apparently, neither of these guys had the time to actually google for instructions on how to disassemble a powerbook...

btw, http://www.pbfixit.com/Guide/?p=Pismo*00 is a nice place with good pics and step by step instructions for taking Apple Laptops apart... it has already helped me twice this year...

Interview

[whitlock]

Meh, I interviewed Tim about the mod a few days ago. Here is a link: http://macmod.com/content/view/219/

Netbsd

[espergreen]

OR they could have simply ran netbsd on the orginal hardware :D