80's Atari 8bit Gamer
Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 3:13 pm
Hi All,
I have been interested in computers ever since I saw my friends ZX81 in about 1982 and starting bugging my parents for one. My parents eventually bought our first home computer in 1985 which was an Atari 130XE. It came with a Atari 1050 Disk Drive, a 1010 Tape Recorder and the old trusty Commodore 1702 Monitor. I have always had fond memories of gaming on the 130XE and with a significant birthday coming up at the end of the year I have been getting a bit nostalgic, so I recently decided to pull the 130XE out and getting it up and running again as a project. The 130XE unit powered on fine but was the plastic was almost dark yellow! The 1050 disk drive unfortunately seemed to be a complete lost (just the power light comes on) and the 1010...well it had had a rough life before put in storage so it was a no go and the Commodore monitor works like a charm.
I was going to try and remove the yellow of the 130XE using the methods that Tezza describes on this site but since the logo was really faded too I opted to get a new casing off ebay and put the system in to that and it looks great Since the disk drive and tape deck were a dead lost I decided to try something different and managed to source a XC12 Tape recorder and XF551 Disk drive to get a set of peripherals that match the XE colouring. The XC12 works perfectly and I even managed to get my old ZAXXON tape to load . THe XF551 appears to work as I have manage to get one of my disks to load but most of them do not work. It could just be that the drive needs a clean or that most of the disks are too far gone . I did read on a forum that the SIO plugs are prone to getting cracking in the solder where they connect with the main board so maybe it's that. Anyway all in all I'm just happy to have it back up and running
I have recently also acquired an 800XL which is in really good condition and I hope to get hold of a 1050 and 1010 for this
Anyway I have rambled on enough
Catch ya later
Rel
I have been interested in computers ever since I saw my friends ZX81 in about 1982 and starting bugging my parents for one. My parents eventually bought our first home computer in 1985 which was an Atari 130XE. It came with a Atari 1050 Disk Drive, a 1010 Tape Recorder and the old trusty Commodore 1702 Monitor. I have always had fond memories of gaming on the 130XE and with a significant birthday coming up at the end of the year I have been getting a bit nostalgic, so I recently decided to pull the 130XE out and getting it up and running again as a project. The 130XE unit powered on fine but was the plastic was almost dark yellow! The 1050 disk drive unfortunately seemed to be a complete lost (just the power light comes on) and the 1010...well it had had a rough life before put in storage so it was a no go and the Commodore monitor works like a charm.
I was going to try and remove the yellow of the 130XE using the methods that Tezza describes on this site but since the logo was really faded too I opted to get a new casing off ebay and put the system in to that and it looks great Since the disk drive and tape deck were a dead lost I decided to try something different and managed to source a XC12 Tape recorder and XF551 Disk drive to get a set of peripherals that match the XE colouring. The XC12 works perfectly and I even managed to get my old ZAXXON tape to load . THe XF551 appears to work as I have manage to get one of my disks to load but most of them do not work. It could just be that the drive needs a clean or that most of the disks are too far gone . I did read on a forum that the SIO plugs are prone to getting cracking in the solder where they connect with the main board so maybe it's that. Anyway all in all I'm just happy to have it back up and running
I have recently also acquired an 800XL which is in really good condition and I hope to get hold of a 1050 and 1010 for this
Anyway I have rambled on enough
Catch ya later
Rel