Atari 800 XE Laptop

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!""

Comments

Handy...

[lastchance_000]

I love the error list right by the screen. Windows machines should come with that. Of course, it would need a bigger monitor...

Re:Handy...

[Scoth]

But... he forgot 130! Probably the second most common error I ran into after 170.

Yes, I do love vague error numbers ;)

Scott

Re:Handy...

[aywwts4]

Well if they simply

• Have
  • to give me huge monitor just to list all the error codes, I Guess I wont complain, too much, Its worth the sacrifice. =)

Mirror

[quark007]

Without further adieu, the site crashed! Here is the mirror.

Re:Mirror

[fistfullast33l]

The mirrordot link didn't have any information for me (maybe it's too early?). A nice article with a picture of the thing is located here (coral cache).

Re:Mirror

[easter1916]

Nice pun there with 'adieu' (farewell!) instead of 'ado'. Was that intentional? :-)

Re:Mirror

[kmartshopper]

Hope it performs better than the site...

Re:Mirror

[jdeluise]

I notice that this is the same site that was reported yesterday on Digg about the portable N64. Interestingly, the site was not brought down by the Digg people.....so.....score 1 for Slashdot!

Re:Mirror

[Anonymous Coward]

D'you think he was making a pun?

OH MY GOD!

[Egonis]

I want it, I want it, I want it!!!

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

Re:OH MY GOD!

[krgallagher]

" I want it, I want it, I want it!!!"

Yeah tell me about it. There is a huge nostalgia factor here. I wrote my first program on an Atari 800. I was 15 at the time.

Re:OH MY GOD!

[rs79]

awright, so who's gonna do an A1000 tablet?

Re:OH MY GOD!

[Egonis]

I used to code bang on a VIC-20... I sucked, but I liked playing with it, when I was 8.

Best line

[bobdinkel]

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

[Anonymous Coward]

click click

Re:Atari 800 webserver?

[Howard Beale]

No, his webserver is a Commodore 64.

Just in case

[Krast0r]

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.

Re:Just in case

[TopShelf]

Not just pretty sweet, this is a piece of art! Coming from a guy whose first computer was an Atari 400 back in December 1979, all I can say is it's too bad he didn't use the keypad from a 400 rather than the more conventional keyboard of the 800. But that's quibbling...

Re:Just in case

[The Lynxpro]

"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.

Re:Just in case

[Threni]

> In case this gets slashdotted, here are the main features (from the website)

You're also missing out on some classic `black on dark blue` and `white on white` text! Why do people do that?

Ok..

[MindStalker]

But how did he get it to support Dos or the flash drive????

Re:Ok..

[Scoth]

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).

Re:Ok..

[zakezuke]

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..

[Scoth]

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. I remember when I saw my first hard drive attached to an ST when I was probably 7 or 8 and thought it was the coolest thing. Sadly, by the time my family was in a position to replace the ol' 130XE, the 386 era was already solidly underway and we ended up with a used 286. The Atari stuck around for games and word processing well into the 90's though, and was really only fully replaced around '95 or '96 when I bought my own new computer that the family also used (AMD K5-133 it was), which relegated the 486 they'd replaced the 286 with to backup status.

Ahh, memories...

Re:Ok..

[zakezuke]

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.

Re:Ok..

[Anonymous Coward]

I think "that other odd ball disk drive that had the nice smoked plastic dust lid that foled down over the slot" was the Indus GT. I remember seeing it in Antic Magazine and wishing I had one... Ended up with a 1050 floppy drive in the end for my Atari 400... better than the 410 tape unit I had to endure for a few years.

Re:Ok..

[zakezuke]

I think "that other odd ball disk drive that had the nice smoked plastic dust lid that foled down over the slot" was the Indus GT. I remember seeing it in Antic Magazine and wishing I had one... Ended up with a 1050 floppy drive in the end for my Atari 400... better than the 410 tape unit I had to endure for a few years.

That was it. I do remember having a bit of drive envy. Reality was you could get by with just a 810 as everything that was worth talking about was released on single density disk, much to everyone's annoyance. While I was pleased to have full 360k.... no bugger had the ability to read the disks.

There were some others too the ASTRA 1620 double drive springs to mind, a bargan costing only a little more than a single 1050.

Web site is /.ed

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I can't get to the web site, but they never found the Holy Grail either, did they?

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[morgan_greywolf]

Why is it so hard to use coral cache? Coral Cache is blocked by a lot of corporate firewalls as being an 'anonymous proxy'. So those of us at work right now can't use it.

purty!

[BushCheney08]

Wow, that thing is beautiful. Can you imagine pulling that out on a plane and plugging a 2600 joystick into it for some gaming goodness? The dual thumbpads are a nice touch too...

Re:purty!

[Average_Joe_Sixpack]

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.

Re:purty!

[zxnos]

i know this is waaaaaaay offtopic but i couldnt help but commenting on your username... ...BushCheney08 implies to me that you think they will buck the system and try to run again as pres/veep. since many times the veep runs for president (elder bush, gore) do you think they might run as cheneybush08? personally i am looking foward to a hillary vs. condi duel.

Re:purty!

[BushCheney08]

My original sig was something along the lines of "Repeal the 22nd amendment. Give Bush and Cheney a few more chances to get it right." Take what you want from that...

Re:purty!

[Skye16]

"Don't change horses mid-apocolypse!"

I always liked that bumper sticker.

Safe

[3CRanch]

Interesting...

and probably the only OS left that doesn't have exploits / virus' targeting it ;)

Re:Safe

[zlogic]

You need 540 Kb lowmemory (or whatever the first 640Kb were called) in order to run MyDoom.exe; you have 539Kb free. Free more memory and try again.

Can't wait to see the bill......

[thatshortkid]

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

[secondsun]

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 ;).

Re:Odd Site

[GeckoX]

Probably bandwidth throttling on that particular site.

Re:Odd Site

[cliveholloway]

Goddammit he needs to give us warning ;-)

Bastard - I used to like Wednesdays...

I'll work something out so he'll be ready next time.

cLive ;-)

Re:Odd Site

[ckaminski]

Probably a vhost that just clobbered 10 of their OTHER customers.

Re:Atari 800 webserver?

[KiloByte]

This one?

Works best if you run an emulator full screen...

Here's an idea for PCs

[$RANDOMLUSER]

I love the double-wide "System Reset" key about where the F3/F4 keys would be.

Lucky guy

[dada21]

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.

Re:Lucky guy

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

He has money to waste on stuff, thats it. None of his stuff is all that impressive other than he had the money to waste on doing it. His "skills" are nothing any of tons of other geeks couldn't do if they had the cash to waste on the LCDs and other parts/services required to build the stuff.

No more of a waste than spending money on any other hobby or pasttime (be it hardware hacking like this, drinking at the bar, smoking, skiing, or whatever). This guy enjoys building things, and chooses to spend his disposable income on the necessary parts. What's the problem? If you can build something better, please show us, or quit yer bitchin'. It is a "waste" of bandwidth.

Re:Lucky guy

[AragornSonOfArathorn]

Oops, I think I replied to the wrong comment. Oh well, its quoted in its entirety.

Where is this guy when I need the leaves raked

[aCapitalist]

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.

Re:ugh

[CoderBob]

After a few seconds, I got a white background to appear. Perhaps a little patience is in order?

sweeeet

[m0rphin3]

That looks very, very nice. I couldn't find any specs as to what kind of battery he's using or how much power it drains.. Anyone want to hazard a guess?

If you can't have a 6-hour gaming marathon on it, I don't want it.

Re:sweeeet

[spongebue]

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 :)

Re:sweeeet

[Jozer99]

You probably couldn't. The system itself probably uses almost no power whatsoever, since it is an ancient processor and has no moving parts on it. The screen, however, would be a power hog, and I imagine the battery life the the screen alone would only be 2 hours or so, so somewhat less for the whole system. I could be wrong though, you should e-mail him.

Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

For those like me who can access the site or the morros... enjoy

I didn't see a supplier list anywhere?

[artifex2004]

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.

Re:I didn't see a supplier list anywhere?

[Omicron]

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.

Re:I didn't see a supplier list anywhere?

[Jozer99]

Ya, don't think this is a regular hobby project. This guy has Illustrator skilz, CAD experience, and mysterious access to CNC routers, and professional printing equiptment. Not to mention a serious working knowledge of computers and electronics. Do you have any idea how hard it is to cut a chunk out of a motherboard and wire it back together?

Re:I didn't see a supplier list anywhere?

[Omicron]

Kinda what I was thinking - can't seem to recall the last time I sawed a chunk off a PCB just because I didn't like how it looked.

Okay, maybe I can remember when I did it last...but I certainly don't remember when I did it and it ever worked again :)

Pictures

[Anonymous Coward]

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

http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/9113/mainpicbig 3jx.jpg
http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/1714/topandrear 2tc.jpg

Re:Pictures

[HTH NE1]

Nice. Pity about the typo on error 5 though.

Re:Atari 800 webserver?

[bhtooefr]

Actually...

There is a C64 that has been subjected to a slashdotting. Running a web server serving dynamic pages (heck, many modern servers have trouble with that one), a RealAudio server serving audio off of a cassette, and two VNC servers.

And it SURVIVED. If there were more bandwidth available, it would have been faster.

I think it was in some article about IP-enabled light switches a couple years back...

But

[joeybagadonuts]

But does it run Linux?

Re:But

[letxa2000]

More importantly, I wonder if it locks up like my 'ol Atari's did (yes, that's plural).

I loved my Atari 400, 800XL, 1200XL, 130XE (and eventually 520ST, though that wasn't part of the 8-bit line). I still have a 1200XL lying around and was thinking of doing something similar to what this guy did: I couldn't imagine trying to make the old 1050 disk drive work (they were barely reliable when they were new, and now you'd have to find 5.25" disks which is probably difficult). So I was going to make an SD card adapter so I could use SD cards instead of floppy disks.

Wasn't planning on making it portable, but that's pretty cool. :)

Re:But

[AceCaseOR]

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...

Re:But

[Thud457]

You might be able to get LUNIX running on it.

I doubt you'll get any of these to run on it, though.

Re:But

[ch-chuck]

I still have a 1200XL lying around and was thinking of doing something similar to what this guy did: I couldn't imagine trying to make the old 1050 disk drive work

While the laptop version is a cute hack I wouldn't bother. I still have an 800XL connected and running with a 1050 (it still works too - they, and 5 1/4" disks are plentiful on ebay and other sources) but you would want something called APE for real storage - it uses your PC serial port and emulates all kinds of devices. And the interface is near trivial - you can solder one together from Radio Shack parts. Tons of Atari software will fit on one CD. I just startup APE, turn on the 800XL and have more games at my fingertips (all w/o bothering with floppies) than I know what to do with.

Re:But

[ncc74656]

Imagine what we could do with a beowulf cluster of these!

Has anyone figured out a way to cluster Ataris yet? You can cluster Apple IIs, but a search on "Atari cluster" turns up nothing useful.

Re:But

[Dogtanian]

I couldn't imagine trying to make the old 1050 disk drive work (they were barely reliable when they were new

Speak for yourself; my one was in use for years, and I never had a problem with it. It even kept working after I knocked it off the desk onto the floor once (it still makes me wince to think about that.) Unfortunately, one of the case "fins" got slightly damaged, but that was purely cosmetic.

Re:But

[letxa2000]

I just know that a friend and I couldn't reliably transfer data between our two machines. If we wanted to take software from one machine to another, we'd usually save it on two or three disks to increase the chance of at least one of them working. Surely an alignment problem, but a problem nonetheless.

Still orders of magnitude better than the cassette recorder though. I can't remember how many programs I lost to the cassette recorder even after saving every program on two different tapes.

Re:But

[letxa2000]

I still have an 800XL connected and running with a 1050 (it still works too - they, and 5 1/4" disks are plentiful on ebay and other sources) but you would want something called APE for real storage - it uses your PC serial port and emulates all kinds of devices.

Yeah, as if my dang laptop actually has a serial port! :)

Re:But

[Dogtanian]

I seem to remember seeing quite a few things about alignment in Atari magazines, so it was probably an issue.

Personally, I never had trouble loading commercial disks or my own stuff. I rarely transferred stuff to other peoples' drives (because where I live, there were very few people with 8-bit Atari machines), but the one time I did, it worked.

And in the UK, the budget software market was cassette driven (although Atari XLs were commonly available with disk drives at a competitive price, the same wasn't true for the more popular formats, and I assume it wouldn't have been worth introducing disks into the supply-channel equation for what was overall a small niche; bear in mind that budget software- £2 to £3 was very popular with kids, so they were less likely to have a disk drive).

Anyhow, I had *loads* of Atari games on tape for that reason, and I *hated* the damn things. Especially as the Atari had such a slow baud rate >:-(

Coral Cache works fine.

[cbiltcliffe]

http://benheck.com.nyud.net:8090/

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[AKAImBatman]

That's because it was already posted over at AtariAge. (A huge site in of itself.) This story just freaks me out, because I was just looking at this over there, then refreshed Slashdot and found it here. Weird.

The laptop itself is pretty cool, though. Reminds me of when I used to play with the Atari computers in the library. (We had Frogger!) I have to wonder how cheaply someone could produce such a device as a kids toy? I mean, the Atari Flashbacks (1 & 2) were both reasonably successful at $30. All that's needed is to add an LCD screen, a cart port, Atari BASIC, and sell it for $50. Voila! A retro-development platform! :-)

(That's right kids, real BASIC, Old-Skool style!)

Re:Ouchy

[spongebue]

Wait for the whole site to load, it's pretty slow. When it's all done, it should be fine. If all else fails, you can usually highlight the text... not ideal, but a lot better

Wow!

[spect3r]

This has got to be one of the coolest thing's I've seen in ages. I want one.

Re:ugh

[OakDragon]

Hmmm... looks fine on my Atari 400. :)

Re:Atari 800 webserver?

[msdschris]

Here?
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/29/211521 0&tid=159

Neo Geo arcade machine

[GoodOmens]

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.

Really?

[tolkienfan]

Was there really a game named BallBlaster???

Re:Really?

[TheLoneGundam]

Yes.. and it was brought to you by LucasArts. When it came out it was pretty innovative for its dual-view game play, in perspective. It was fast, too... never managed to beat anyone at it though - I, unfortunately, was not that fast.

Re:Really?

[Urchlay]

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? :)

Re:Really?

[tolkienfan]

Candidate for most answered rhetorical question? Perhaps not.

Remove alternating colour background!

[tod_miller]

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.

Re:Remove alternating colour background!

[erikharrison]

Actually, that's a bandwidth artifact. There is a white background that takes some time to load, due to the site being Slashdotted

Re:Remove alternating colour background!

[Thud457]

Actually, that's just Ben's website accurately reproducing that genuine old-skool experience with a NTSC-o-vision(tm) website plugin applet.

Re:Remove alternating colour background!

[Kazoo the Clown]

The site looks better on a 40 column display...

Re:Created in years...

[Spy der Mann]

Destroyed in seconds by slashdotting.

Thankfully one of the readers (not me) used Coral Cache, so I was able to view the coralized version instantly. And yes, the images were cached, too!

Anyway, how about re-doing the circuitry like the C64-in-a-joystick? That'd be cool.

Re:Created in years...

[kmartshopper]

Did you try http://benheck.com/$sys$index.html?

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[Thud457]

Is this work related?!
You lucky sumbitch.

I just gotta say that laptop is mad '133t! He's even got an enormous 16 mega-byte gragantuan on that puppy! (What is the total size of all the Atari SW ever written? Would it fit on a CD? Or would you need a whole DVD?)

how to make an auto coral cache shortcut

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

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!

Re:how to make an auto coral cache shortcut

[joecr]

This might be a bit off subject, but no more so then the post I'm replying to. This has a problem on Both IE 6 & Netscape 7.2, In Internet Explorer it adds a :80 thus making it so the computer has no idea what port to talk on, while Netscape decides the page can't exist as it ignores the port number.

My JavaScript books are at my parents house right now..

Any ideas on how to fix this. Also what browser(s) did you test this on?

Re:how to make an auto coral cache shortcut

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

I only tested it on Safari. All the resources I found indicated that location.hostname was a read/write property in all modern browsers. I suppose the port addition might have thrown some for a lurch.

I guess it just goes to show that web development has a long way to become an exact science when a single line of javascript that appears to conform to "the books" needs to be tested on multiple browsers... ;)

Re:ugh

[ds_job]

Appalled though I am to say this, but it renders fine in IE. It renders fine in Opera too. Same goes for Mozilla. It seems to be bust in Firefox. Why this might be, I'll leave as an exercise for the reader...

The reason why the site is /.ed

[Matarick]

Slashdoter: I want to see what you made.

Ben: Ah don' wanna talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food-trough wiper! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

Slashdoter: Well, is there someone else up there we could talk to?

Ben: No! Now go away or I shall taunt you a second time!

No offense to Ben but I had to do this Python reference.

Re:The reason why the site is /.ed

[$RANDOMLUSER]

> food-trough wiper

Thank you so much! I never could make out that part :-)

Reply to sig

[QMO]

IMO, using the Stellar Converter to make a new asteroid belt is more fun.

straight to heck

[sbrowning]

ben hecks' site is going straight to heck...

Re:straight to heck

[n6kuy]

And what's with the black text on dark blue background?
I had to highlight the text in order to read it.

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[RandoX]

...and it was on Digg two days ago

What about Atari 800 games?

[TheLoneGundam]

Some of the old Atari 800 games ought to be re-released on the GameBoy platform, especially the Micro! Not via emulator, but just recode them. I, for one, would like to see Star Raiders and Star Raiders II for the GBM - it had the essentials: good game play, interesting graphics. And since the chips on the 800 were designed to work in basically a 320 x 240 layout, the graphics ought to be pretty portable without scaling.

Re:What about Atari 800 games?

[fishbowl]

Star Raiders was a gestalt of game greatness that has yet to be matched by anything.

Slashdotted

[secolactico]

I tried to access the site and all I got was:

Boot Error
Boot Error
Boot Error
Boot Error
Boot Error
Boot Error

Boy, do I feel nostalgic. But should it be called an Atari 800 system? There was an Atari 400 before an Atari 800. And a 600XL, 800XL, 65XE and 130XE afterwards.

Now, where did I left my "backup copy" of Spelunker...

I'll take it for $20 + Shipping.

[UncleRage]

If you're serious, email:

tburrell

@

completepc.biz

Picture Posted to Google Base

[AngryNick]

I knew Google Base would come in handy for something.

You can view the picture here too.

Go Ben!

[legomaniaboy]

Wow, you've been slashdotted again ben! Congratulations. Fortunately I was able to see this before it was slashdoted. Great work! You're truly given me inspiration, again. Now to complete my SNESp, and then onto my next portable.

Re:ugh

[ncc74656]

Appalled though I am to say this, but it renders fine in IE. It renders fine in Opera too. Same goes for Mozilla. It seems to be bust in Firefox.

Works for me in Firefox (1.0.7 on AMD64 Linux, x86 Linux, and Windows).

Another way

[Craig Davison]

Try this:

javascript:location.href=location.protocol+'//'+lo cation.host+'.nyud.net:8090'+location.pathname

Works in Firefox.

Re:Another way

[Ctrl-Z]

You should also add location.hash and location.search to that string or else it might be incomplete.

Re:Another way

[Craig Davison]

Good call.

javascript:location.href=location.protocol+'//'+lo cation.host+'.nyud.net:8090'+location.pathname+loc ation.search+location.hash

Where's the Portable Commodore 64?

[TheZorch]

I'd love to see a C64 laptop! Now that would be a ultimate geek's toy! I love the C64, I still load up and play "Miner 2049'er" or "Maniac Mansion" from time to time.

Re:Where's the Portable Commodore 64?

[Zedrick]

It was done in 1983, you can get one for about $50-$100 on Ebay. See:

http://oldcomputers.net/sx64.html

Re:Where's the Portable Commodore 64?

[Rico_Suave]

Dude, that is NOT a laptop by any stretch. Portable as in it has a handle, but it's not battery powered, nor is it something you could use in your lap.

Re:Where's the Portable Commodore 64?

[LSD-25]

I'd love to see a C64 laptop! Now that would be a ultimate geek's toy! I love the C64, I still load up and play "Miner 2049'er" or "Maniac Mansion" from time to time.

That should be easier, since you can now buy a "direct to TV" Commodore 64 clone. It's built inside a joystick, runs on batteries, and it includes 30 games on a ROM. They put places on the circuit board where you can wire up a keyboard and peripherals like a disk drive. See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/26/161522 4&from=rss.

Joypads

[VGR]

Nice, but... plus-style joypads suck for diagonal movement. And a lot of Atari 800 games depended on diagonal movement. He mentions playing Robotron: 2084 with them. Considering how difficult diagonal movement (and firing) would be, I expect it won't be very enjoyable.

At least he had the good sense to put in regular joystick ports for those times when whoever uses the machine doesn't want to make do with those plus-pads.

Re:Joypads

[iluvcapra]

plus-style joypads suck for diagonal movement. And a lot of Atari 800 games depended on diagonal movement

I thought that was the point ;) -- Make it really hard to do something with the controller, and then make every game depend on it; call it a matter of "player skill" or "dexterity". Even better, sell a Diagno-rific controller for $20 extra. Just like the NES and rapid-fire.

Nice.

[TheSpoom]

Now that is cool, moving him to a dedicated server so his site survives the Slashdotting. /me notes you guys down if he needs hosting in the future.

Not to mention...

[ickeicke]

Not to mention the "SYSTEM RESET" button, Windows machines should come with that. Who cares about error codes when you can just press a button?

Re:ugh

[ds_job]

I'll chalk it up to a stray electron or something. The OP can just select everything and it'll appear in inverse anyway so I (and hopefully everyone else) won't be fretting over this too much.

Re:There was a plan to make a portable Atari 8-bit

[The Lynxpro]

"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:Slashdotted

[The Lynxpro]

"Boy, do I feel nostalgic. But should it be called an Atari 800 system? There was an Atari 400 before an Atari 800. And a 600XL, 800XL, 65XE and 130XE afterwards."

Because the *800* was considered the best models of the Atari 8-bit line. The 800 was better than the 400 because it didn't have a membrane (sic) keyboard and had more standard memory and better upgrade options. The 800XL was considered the best of the XL line, and even better than the follow-up 65XE which was its direct replacement. Thus the *800* is the sweetspot for naming an Atari 8-bit revival computer after. Think Pontiac and *GTO* in comparison.

Of course, this illustration does not count the superior 8-bit computers that never officially hit the market; those being the Atari 1400XL and the 1450XLD, thanks to the Tramiel family takeover.

Re:520ST

[The Lynxpro]

"I still have my entire 520ST system, what to do.... Car mod? maybe....."

Just keep it running! (I still have my Falcon; wish I wouldn't have sold my 1040ST).

Maybe give it a graphics card upgrade; a TOS upgrade; or pop in a higher grade Motorola 680*0 chip and a math co-processor for kicks... :)

Too bad he didn't do a straight 800...

[taradfong]

99.9% of the Atari games work with the 800. But a small but fair number of games did not work with the XL/XE series. Other thing is, with the 800 you got 4 joystick ports. If you can't play 4 player M.U.L.E., you are missing out on the biggest reason for having an 800.

I am in awe of his craftsmanship nonetheless.

iPower dies from a slashdotting...

[mattyohe]

and yet they want you to stick arround and buy webhosting from them.

Re:iPower dies from a slashdotting...

[cliveholloway]

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.

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[The Lynxpro]

"The laptop itself is pretty cool, though. Reminds me of when I used to play with the Atari computers in the library. (We had Frogger!) I have to wonder how cheaply someone could produce such a device as a kids toy? I mean, the Atari Flashbacks (1 & 2) were both reasonably successful at $30. All that's needed is to add an LCD screen, a cart port, Atari BASIC, and sell it for $50. Voila! A retro-development platform!"

I'm really surprised that the current incarnation of Atari Inc. hasn't simply open-sourced the Atari 8-bit operating system and BASIC. I mean, the patents/IP probably would only still be good on Atari DOS 2.5 at this point. Hell, even TOS 1.0 - 1.2 on the ST side of Atari platforms should be able to be open sourced if the rights holder of Digital Research's GEM/GEMDOS would consent.

I like this bit...

[Molochi]

FTA "Note the hole in the bottom of the keyboard - this is where I intended my "Cursor Mushroom Button Knob" to go. In the olden days we didn't have "mice" to move the cursor around the screen, no sir-ee! We had to use KEYS, and sometime we'd have to press a couple keys even! (Then walk to school barefoot uphill through the snow fighting dinosaurs) With the Atari you had to hold "Control" then press one of the direction keys (which are normally +, -, etc) This worked but was clunky."

This has to be one of (if not the best) mod articles I've seen to date. This mod addresses tons of issues that occur with many other "turn a clunky dinosaur into a shiney portable" mods. Like the LCD. I have always wanted to be able to convert old notebook lcds, but long ago gave up the notion because of the the way notebook lcds are controlled. It is (as he notes) far easier and more economical to just reuse the guts of a modern lowrez (something with a composite input) lcd monitor. At the same time he knew which parts of the A800 circuitboard were ok to saw off. While I'm not a fan of sandblasted aluminum and laminate burlwood; it is well done, professional, and has that retro "Atari" look.

But can it run OS X?

[netglen]

Cool project but can it run OS X?

My first PC was a 1200XL

[n0w0rries]

My first PC was an Atari 1200XL. 64k of ram! Loved the fact he mentions ballblazer--that was an awesome game. Rescue on Fractulus was great too. I had a 1200 baud modem, and I remember there was a cool terminal program (can't remember what it was called)--but you couldn't use it unless you soldered a couple of pins on the mobo. I was probably 12 years old, and on all kinds of local BBS (can't pay LD charges!). One of the websites was called "The Freak Brothers". Anyhow, these guys said they'd come over and solder my mobo for me. I was shocked when these guys showed up at my house (typical southern california suburb). They looked like a couple of hippy bums... long scraggly hair, yellow jacked up teeth, probably smoked a dooby on the way over. They soldered my Atari and it worked--and my dad offered them a beer and then they left. Really cool guys--but man was I shocked when I saw them!

Re:My first PC was a 1200XL

[narcc]

I was probably 12 years old, and on all kinds of local BBS [...] ne of the websites was called "The Freak Brothers".

Any particular reason you used the term "website" to describe a BBS? You DO remember the BBS days don't you?

Re:My first PC was a 1200XL

[n0w0rries]

Didn't want to confuse the youngsters! LOL. I tried googling the Freak Bro's and I guess it's also a comic strip... about hippies... go figure! I taught myself how to program in Turbo Pascal by modding a BBS called WWIV. When I got to High School I took a computer class that taught Turbo Pascal and me and my buddy were constantly correcting the teachers programs. I created a Turbo Pascal program that the school used to track detentions. They used to have a secretary type up a list every day and make copies to pass around to all the teachers. My program had the secretary enter all the info from the detention, and then it would print the list for the teachers. It would also let them print reports based on student (receiving detention) or teachers. Some teachers didn't like it because it showed that some of them gave an excessive amount of detentions. Of course if I was smart I'd be rich right now because I would have charged them for it and sold it to schools across the country, but somebody else did that. I also remember my buddy had a 300 baud modem on his Apple IIe, and one BBS we called would just say "300 baud detected--F*** off l0ser!" When I got my 1200 baud modem it was the first BBS we called... and it turned out it was a Commodore 64 site!! Being Apple and Atari guys we hated Commies! Never had a modem with an acoustic coupler though. There was a guy that ran a BBS called The Swamp I believe (he was swampman)--it ran wildcat and he somehow got it working over telnet. It was pretty cool. No idea where it is now though. I couldn't imagine how fast my A64 3800+ X2 would compile a Turbo Pascal program!

Re:Slashdotted

[SStrungis]

Boot Error...LOL I remember all of my Atari games quite fondly. We were always an Atari house. First a 400, then an 800, then an XE series machine. We still have all that stuff--though I suspect it's not long for this world as my Dad is cleaning out the house.

AstroChase, BallBlazer, The Eidolon, Crush, Crumble and Chomp, Archon, Zombies and Realm of Impossibility, Telengard, Miner 2049er.

That wretched Tape Drive! The Carts rocked!

Great job!

[kimvette]

Wow, that is just incredible! Hmm, this gives me ideas for the Commodore-One system if it ever comes to market.

Where do people find the time?

[sstidman]

Does this guy have a job? This guy is writing a book, working on a movie, making various portable game devices and who knows what else he is working on. Where do people find time to do all this stuff?

I assume this guy does not have a girlfriend/wife.

Best Advertisement Ever for Hosting Ever!!!!

[kwpulliam]

From the link...

hello /.

Much as we love our shared hosting solutions, they can't survive a death by slashdotting.

But, we love Ben so, rather than suspending him for bandwidth abuse, we've quickly moved his site to an empty machine.

So, head on over to Ben Heckendorn's site (or use the Coral Cache - if it's working). Or, why not stay around and buy some web hosting from us. You know you want to :)

cLive ;-)

ps - this is a quick hack, so only the static parts of the site will work - but heck (sic), it's better than a "site suspended" page ;-)

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[Dogtanian]

I mean, the Atari Flashbacks (1 & 2) were both reasonably successful at $30.

If you mean the Atari 7800 flashbacks, they weren't genuine emulators; they'd simply reprogrammed the game IIRC, and there were apparently quite a few differences between the Flashbacks and the "real thing". I think it was built on a Nintendo emulator or something(!). So don't hold your breath on that count, as they took the easy way out (i.e. cost-effective, but not nearly so worthwhile from the point of view of what we want).

If they released a *genuine* (a la that Commode-64-in-a-joystick thing that's out just now) Atari 400/800/XL/XE on a joystick (or whatever) at a similar price to the Commodork all-in-one I'd snap it up in a minute. A few "simulated", not-quite-right games, probably not.

Though wasn't the Crappydore one based on a "universal" design (the C= One or something IIRC, there were several /. stories about it)? Sounds promising if they can get it to do an Atari too...

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[AKAImBatman]

If you mean the Atari 7800 flashbacks, they weren't genuine emulators; they'd simply reprogrammed the game IIRC, and there were apparently quite a few differences between the Flashbacks and the "real thing"

This was true of the Atari Flashback 1. The Flashback 2.0 (still suffering from supply problems) is a true 2600 that runs the original games, has original styling (including the joysticks!) and even has the pins for a cartrige slot (if you're good enough with a solder). Head over to AtariAge.com sometime and read all about the latest version.

You can get the actual device at Amazon, but you'll have to use one of their third-party stores. Amazon themselves doesn't have it in stock yet. (Though QVC does? WTF?)

I was wondering what it was!

[noidentity]

I'm glad the device has "LAPTOP" in large type printed on it, otherwise I'd never figure out what it was. Electronic briefcase? Typewriter? By jove, it's a laptop!

Now how about a Commodore 64 laptop?

[znmeb]

Well gee ... if you're gonna do an Atari 800, why not a Commodore 64?

Are there even more homebrewed laptops?

[wehe]

I would like to build my own laptop, too. But it seems difficult to research this topic at Google. Are there any other resources besides Make Yourself a Laptop or Notebook: BareBones and DIY Machines?

Re:There was a plan to make a portable Atari 8-bit

[zakezuke]

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.

This is where I get confused... I think it was the 65-XEM (M for Music) that was going to have the AMY chip. The 65-XEP (P for portable) would have been a luggable like the Commodore 64-sx and would have also sported a 3.5inch drive. Both protoypes, near as I'm aware only one of each was ever built. I'm sure there might have been a 130 version of these planned... just the only ones that existed were the 65.

http://www.atarimuseum.com/ahs_archives/archives/p df/computers/8bits/amy1.pdf

All very good ideas... but what did atari produce last? The XE game system! Basicly the same bloody thing at the XE except with a detachable keyboard and huge pastel colored buttons. I have no clue what the hell Trammel was thinking... because this thing was released in 1987... carried a heavy price tag... and the library of games they re-released for the sucker were circa 1981-1983... games you could run on an atari 800... then there was Nintendo actually creating NEW games. It would have been spiffy keen in 1985... but this was 1987 and cartridges were that annoying overpriced technology that took up way too much space.

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[Dogtanian]

From what I can tell, the Flashback 2 only includes 2600 games, though.

Anyhow, I want an Atari 400/800 version or nothing! I'm not really bothered whether or not it's an emulator *internally*, so long as externally it is (to all intents and purposes) a 400/800/XL/XE (a la Commodore64 thing), and it's hackable. :)

Re:There was a plan to make a portable Atari 8-bit

[The Lynxpro]

"This is where I get confused... I think it was the 65-XEM (M for Music) that was going to have the AMY chip. The 65-XEP (P for portable) would have been a luggable like the Commodore 64-sx and would have also sported a 3.5inch drive."

I take that back. You are right about the 65XEM; the model number. But I am correct that the reason why it was canned is because the Atari Corp./Tramiel Technology crew could not figure out how to work the AMY sound chip.

They also did want to shift the software on the 8-bit line to the 3.5" disc drive but there wasn't hardly any support from the software industry. Had they done so, it would've been a single sided drive like the ST's SF354 drive and not the higher grade SF314 double sided double density disc drive because there's no way the Tramiels would've allowed the 8-bit line (which was created by Atari Inc.) to have anything more powerful than the ST line (created by Tramiel's Atari Corp.). Player/missile graphics aside... :)

"All very good ideas... but what did atari produce last? The XE game system! Basicly the same bloody thing at the XE except with a detachable keyboard and huge pastel colored buttons. I have no clue what the hell Trammel was thinking... because this thing was released in 1987... carried a heavy price tag... and the library of games they re-released for the sucker were circa 1981-1983... games you could run on an atari 800... then there was Nintendo actually creating NEW games. It would have been spiffy keen in 1985... but this was 1987 and cartridges were that annoying overpriced technology that took up way too much space."

Okay. This one I can explain. Prior to the XEGS debuting, the software industry had scapegoated the Atari 8-bit line for being a pirate's den/cave of software and decided to make an example out of the platform by cutting releases. The real problem was in the Commodore64 land but it had too large of an installed base of users to halt development at that time. The XEGS partially was a response to this by shipping games that had beforehand only existed on floppy disc as a cartridge and thus harder to "crack" and pirate. So the Tramiels thought this might be a way to successfully shore up the XE line a little longer. It also allowed popular titles to be purchased by people who only wanted to buy a console and not a $150 floppy drive.

The Tramiels also thought the XEGS would score as well against the NES as the Commodore64 did against the Atari 2600 once the price cuts dramatically dropped the C64 close to most of the game systems price levels. They thought a fully functional computer would be a bonus to concerned parents who might not want to waste money on strictly a game system. But people wanted the NES more than a computer at that point. Plus, the Atari 7800 had better graphics than the XEGS, although inferior sound, and about 50k less memory...not to mention any computing options. By 1988, Atari Corp. had stripped the 7800 of its expansion slot that Atari Inc. had created on the machine to hook in a keyboard/computer upgrade that would've made it compatible with the XL line of computers, not to mention the Atari MindLink controller.

The pastels were trendy. Miami Vice still had an impact on fashion/design at the time.

Re:Was the Atari his webserver as well?

[AKAImBatman]

From what I can tell, the Flashback 2 only includes 2600 games, though.

Correct. As I said, it's a true 2600. :-)

(Actually, there are a couple of compatibility problems with more obscure cartriges - that being why the cartrige port isn't installed by default - but otherwise the system is very close to the original.)

Anyhow, I want an Atari 400/800 version or nothing!

Which comes back to my original point. An A800 laptop sold for around $50 with the original BASIC and purchasable games would... RULE!