In schools in the UK during the 80's, some BBC micro's would run Logo with actual "turtle" robots connected to them, that you drove around the class with the language. Some even had plotter pens connected so you could draw physical pictures on the floor with them. Very cool.
we had them too (uk) but not connected to computer - just entered on the pad on the turtle's back. we did have logo software on the RM Nimbus 186 machines and I'd imagine (being RM) that they could be interfaced?
I remember that too - in 1982 our school had a very rare Apple II ( rare for the UK, anyway ), and the logo / turtle / pen combination was my very first experience with a computer.
Adrian, I think we can deal with a little AC noise, lol. I live in South Texas and there is absolutely nothing that would make me turn off my AC when it's 105° outside. I'm also a dual US/Italian citizen and central AC (or the lack thereof) is the number one factor preventing me from moving my family back to Europe, lol.
I agree I have family in Italy as well. On my last visit it was swelteringly hot. All they did was open windows trying to get some sort of cross breeze in the house!
@@johnglielmi6428, my dad is American and my mom is Italian so I grew up in the States during the school year and usually spent my summers with family in Sciliy. Do you know how bad it sucked to grow up with central AC and then have to spend the hottest part of the year in a warm and humid climate with nothing but a stand fan and some open windows, lol. But hey, at least I can speak multiple languages (I learned Spanish when I moved to South Texas and I grew up speaking both English and Italian equally) and I can choose where I want to live.
24:11 - if you have to replace a cable on an old joystick, don't use some regular 9pin d-sub connector with some random 6-7 wire cable but look for 9pin joystick extension cables. They still make those, they have male connector on one end and female on the other, just snip off the female end, tone out the pins and you can hook up to your joystick, good as new and it won't cause issues with the joystick port not fitting in the machine.
That audio test sequence is the first six notes of Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition by Modesto Mussourgsky! (This orchestral piece was notable for being written in time signature 11/4). It might be an interesting project to reverse engineer a PCB for the membrane keyboard to replace it with mechanical switches... Take care of yourself while still recovering, man. Get plenty Vitamin C, zinc, and lots of clear liquids. It will help mitigate symptoms and "hang-over" stuff from the initial infection. Stay safe, get well, and enjoy that new Atari!
The Atari 1200XL was a beautiful, if flawed, machine. To support the Help function and self tests it boasted a new OS. Unfortunately it was incompatible with some programs. Atari would mail out for free a Translator Disc that had two versions of the original Atari 800 OS. I was surprised that when the 800XL was released it STILL had the less than compatible OS and the Translator Disk was needed. The 1200XL did have a better keyboard than the later 800XL.
The later 130XE was more compatible than the 1200XL had been, so I guess Atari did finally try to fix at least some of those issues in the ROMs. I know that because KoalaPainter didn't work for crap on my XL but was fine on my XE.
What would you do with it? I had a C64 for about a year, before my dad got us an 8086 pc and like that 8-bit computers instantly became a child's toy to me.
Fantastic! That 1200XL is a gorgeous machine... 😊 In around 1982 I was working as very young man, in a small privately owned computer store in Banbury, England, where we sold Atari, Sinclair, Commodore, BBC, Texas, Oric, Lynx, etc...... As far as the UK went, the computer-wars were with the ZX Spectrum and C64....sadly the Atari machines never came close, even though they did still have good coverage in the monthly magazines at the time, and plenty of amazing games were constantly being released for them...for a few years anyway... 😉 We saw the transition to the new 400/800XL computers before the other huge retailers in the country like the Dixons group drove our little independent out of business.... 😡 We never - obviously - got any 1200XLs, but they looked so amazing at the time! 😃 Wonderful to see one here in such incredible condition after ALL these years.... "Thank You" to whoever sent it in to Adrian, and thank you for showing it off...and hopefully fixing that slightly poorly keyboard?? 😆 👍
On my 1200 it had some water damage and nothing worked on the keyboard. For the hell of it I figured I’d see if I could revive the original membrane. It was a nerve wracking endeavor but managed to peel the original membrane back and carefully clean it and the PCB. Put it back together and it worked flawlessly. But it is a very delicate procedure.
The Atari PSU you are talking about it the one known as the Ingot and yes, most folks won't even bother to use them and instead replace them with a modern switching type or use one of the later made PSUs that don't have the issues. I use one of the later made XL style PSUs with my 130xe.
I’ve found that the keyboard membrane tends to “stick” to the PCB underneath if it isn’t worked regularly. You can use a hair dryer to loosen it up and gently peel the membrane off and reapply it. I love the keyboard feel on my 1200xl (it’s the best Atari 8-bit keyboard feel IMO)
Yeah, I remember them using the physical robot on the TV programme (It's as easy as falling off a log-o!) but we just used the on-screen turtle on our BBC micros :)
At elementary, we had VIC-20s and 800s. Where I started. My first home computer was a 1200XL. I programmed a great deal on it and played a lot of games, and never had compatibility issues. The later 600/800XLs which my friends had, just felt cheaper quality. I think that's what happened, they cut corners as the 1200 was made well. I also later had a 130XE which was nice, the extra memory was kind of useless, but it was fun too. It looked modern. I still have a Vic 20 and an 800, but would love to get a 1200XL one day for the memories. I still play Infocom games on my Mac. Great video.
The 1200XL was my first (and for a long time, only) machine! (Name checks out, right?) It's funny, I never saw one with these multiple LED colors; mine was just red, red, red. (I got mine during the "clear this inventory out" phase, as it had a pretty hefty mail-in rebate attached.) And, yes, there were some incompatibility issues due to developers using tricks they weren't supposed to in the 400/800 days; to fix this, you would use the "translator" disks, which would load the older ROM images into the banked RAM to more closely simulate the older machines.
Dang! I'm over the moon to hear that you bought an Ultimate 1 Megabyte! Hopefully you bought the FJC version with FlashJazzCat's firmware upgrade. If not, I'm sure you would be able to flash the U1MB with FJC firmware easy enough. I suppose it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: MOAR ATARI PLEASE! :D
My first computer was an 800XL. I used it with one of those old tape recorders for years (the kind with the integrated speaker) until we finally got a 5.25" floppy drive. That held me for a long time until we traded it for an Apple IIc clone. Seeing (and hearing) that diagnostic screen really brought back some memories.
I recall some of these computers having compatibility issues and thus it was hard to consider it. I did go from at 800 to a 130 XE in college due to my damaging the keyboard during a final paper. The 130 XE was great. The 800 was repaired and still works. Not sure if I kept the 130 XE. I did purchase the disk drive with this styling and never had an issue with that. PS Would love to see you do more Atari 8 bit videos. Thank you for your great content!
When I got my Atari 1200XL from a thrift store, the keyboard was totally unresponsive. Then I found out that the plunger that contacts the membrane have softened over the years that it would not put enough pressure for the contacts to work. After some disassembly to access those plungers, I used 1/32 heat shrink tubing and cut little pieces of 1/32 of length and put it on all the key plungers. DON'T HEAT SHRINK THEM! After a couple of tries, changing the length ever so slightly, I got all the "freaking" keys to work. You have my permission to mention me for this. Douglas
Always like to see vintage computers up and running. The latter Atari 8bits never really saw the the light of day in the UK. Can take a long while to recover from C19, depends on the individual. Last year It took a couple of months for some of my symptoms to completely disappear. So don't rush things, look after yourself.
I remember using Logo on the Apple IIe at school as a kid. Funny thing is they used it to do anything besides those turtle graphics drawings. But it was a functional programming language and you could do a lot more with it (if there was a teacher in the school who actually knew the language and could teach it).
@@richard.20000 - How could it be? Again, the Atari's design predates the Amiga by almost a decade. And both were based on design concepts of Jay Miner's engineering team. But the Amiga was designed to be the next-generation "Atari" computer. NO. It's not comparable at all.
@@Randy.Wuerger I ask because my 3 years old MacBook Air M1 is still much faster than any today's new Intel laptop. So it is possible to design future proof computer. Especially when legendary Jay Miner was involved. I guess the Atari naming is what confused me (1200XL, 800XL, 130XE etc.).
I can't speaker for everyone, but a lot of the time I don't even notice your AC when it has kicked on in the past! It's relatively quiet and I watch using headphones.
I have two things I want to say: 1. The Atari 8-bit family, especially the 800XL, 600XL and the XE series were really popular in Poland. When searching "Atari 800XL" on UA-cam, I find a couple videos in English, and then many in Polish. 2. We also had Logo in Poland, but it wasn't on Apple IIs or BBC Micros, but on Timex Sinclair computers (mainly the Timex Sinclair 2048 and Timex Sinclair 2068, both of which are clones of the ZX Spectrum). The oddest thing of all? Most of the time, the commands were translated to Polish.
I started with Logo when I was 9, then Pascal... kept going and I now work as a software developer... I've worked for IBM, Novell, Amazon, etc. and now I moved to banking and investment software. You've probably used something I touched if you've ever ordered something online with next day delivery. I couldn't finish university due to life circumstances, but I'm thankful for being able to play around with these as a kid. We need to bring curiosity back into kids' lives.
Adrian you can probably get a free replacement membrane from Best Elec since they offer a lifetime replacement warranty on their membranes. Congrats on your 'new' 1200XL! They made about 110,000 of them in total. I'm thinking someone replaced the stock red LEDs with the green and yellow ones, but they did it tastefully with ones of good brightness and not super bright modern ones. There is an updated bugfix OS for the 1200XL that Atari developed and they even made a bunch of updated OS chips *before* the 1200XL first released but were for some reason not installed and Atari used the more buggy OS chips I think merely for cost reasons. The updated OS will show (R) on the power-on Atari screen to denote Atari as a registered trademark. Best Electronics may still have a few of these remaining 1200XL 'B' ROMS at about $30 for a set (new old stock) or you an burn the updated OS onto eproms. The 800XL has an updated version of the 1200XL's B ROM that includes support for more things like PBI bus etc. The key to the right of HELP is often called 'inverse key' on XL's or on the 800 it was called the Atari key. To keep your cart tunnel looking nice, be careful how you insert cartridges into it. They can get very scuffed with long black lines from cartridges. Looks bad... There two slight variations of 1200XL's. About 1/6th use 28 pin sockets for the OS ROMS while most have 24 pin sockets. The 28 pin sockets are preferred because they make installing a U1MB upgrade or standard 800XL ROMS much easier. The other variation is that some will use a flex cable for the cartridge port while most seem to use rigid wires (preferred) for the 90 degree angle to the motherboard. Another variation might be that the factory used 300ns or maybe 200ns RAM (I think). All of the main and custom chips I think should face one way (notch on left I think) and one socket (Antic I think) on my 1200XL was installed backwards so verify socket vs chip orientation with a photo before you pull chips. It looks like your machine might be missing the RF shield, which is a nice thing to still have in there. Yes the 9v A/C adapter from my experience is very safe. The A8bit FAQ says they can drift in voltage but I've never seen that and I think the 400/800/1200XL/1050/810/XF551 can probably take a good bit of drift anyway but you would know better than I how much. 1200XL video quality can vary greatly. There are simple and more modern upgrades for the video. They have a unique color saturation circuit that gives the 1200XL a unique quality that other models do not have. If you install a modern video solution like UAV-D that will bypass the saturation circuit. The angled joyports are not as nice as the straight ones IMO. Note: you said the 800XL power supplies are bad but they did make good ones that can still be used. The ingot is very common (epoxy filled) and should be thrown away. However the ones with the XL vent styled cases can be fully serviced (replace caps etc) and used and are safe if they have been serviced. There is a black and white one of these. Enjoy your new machine! Loved that it gave you a joyface!
I have bought some replacement parts to refurbish the notoriously flaky Atari 5200 controllers from Best Electronics (mentioned by Peter) and I can confirm they're a great shop. They are a bit old school and quirky but they're the only source I know of for quality replacement parts for Atari machines, and the stuff they sell is top-notch and much higher quality than what came with the consoles/computers originally. They advertise many of their flex PCBs and replacement buttons as "lifetime" parts and I believe it.
here in vancouver wa just over the other side of the bridge its been over 100 for several days. i recently moved to vancouver wa and enjoy it. now i got to find some computer recycle stores and used record stores to go to. love it here
Nice computer. Not released in Australia as we have PAL. Looking forward to more Atari videos. Before I got my 800XL in 1983, I saw a guy at high school with a 400. I got one of those now, its such a beautifully styled machine. I don't know where you find the time to do such great videos and work full time as well. Human Malware, that's a good one!!
Had an Atari 800 around the time this came out when I was a kid. Really wanted one of these but that was a lot of money in those days to sell to the parents, lol. A few years later, tried getting an Amiga but that too was shot down in flames ($$).
When I was a kid, I really wanted an Atari 1450XL. That model would have been cool. It of course it was cancelled. 6526 FPGA has been built, I don't think it's publicly available yet
The Atari 1200XL was my childhood computer and man I want one again! My Father got it when we lived in San Francisco when they test marketed it in late 82 That Ms Pac-Man was my Childhood! My Father got it for my Mom as that is her favorite game. There is a level start select and there is a level before Cherry that is easier that is Sugar Bear.
The Atari 1200XL case was used in the Brazillian computer TK2000 by Microdigital, though inside that was a clone of the Microprofessor II by Taiwan's Multitech (later Acer) which was mostly compatible with the Apple II. It didn't have the joystick ports on the side, however, nor the function keys.
Ah, now that you mention it, I have good memories of LOGO. But for me it was on the Apple ][e in the 3rd grade coding it to generate any regular n-gon via a procedure.
Thanks for another excellent smmc. I think it would be prudent to mark all good chips with a date or maybe year/week. Try testing chips while making sure you don't jinx the test by not grounding yourself.
The reason that Basic exists for the newer systems as well is that the basic that is in the rom is actually a limited version, I think they had to crunch it down to 4k of rom space, so some features are missing. Those cartridges are a larger, more feature-filled version of AtariBasic.
That was, because most parents back in those days could only afford one computer, and they had thought about following costs, so the C64 with copied cassettes and later Discettes was the most choiced computer...
"It's over 105F today..." Sitting here looking out the window at my rain-soaked yard, and forecast that isn't even projected to reach room temperature for the high....
My first computer was a 1200XL. I never ran into any compatibility issues. Although it had a new graphics chips so a couple of games had the color messed up. Dirty contacts. Clean them and it the keyboard should work better.
The 1200XL was my 2nd PC... I know there were compatibility issues with it but I never ran into them. The biggest "compatibility" issue was with the SIO port on it. It wasn't wired with power (like the 800/400 were) so printer interfaces were special for the 1200 and had a wall wart added. I think its an easy bodge fix but at 14, I didn't know about it. Eventually I got an 800XL + Rambo 256K + MIO + 30MB hard drive and that was /|\ bliss...
the 1200XL is a beautiful machine. I remember reading in magazines how it broke compatibility for some software that existed. The question I have is why is it so big?
It's so big because it wasn't a cost reduced computer. It was an update/refresh of the line, albeit not fully bugfixed nor ready for release. The 800XL was the more final bug fixed *and* cost reduced.
No no.. The 1200XL was released BEFORE the 600XL and 800XL in 1982, while the 600XL and 800XL came out in 1983. It was supposed to be the successor to the Atari 400/800 but the 1200XL was a flop. It had compatibility issues with existing Atari 800/400 software, and it was more expensive. Atari made a "translator" disk that allowed older software to run on the 1200XL to work around some of those problems, which these days aren't a big deal as most software is focused on XL/XE compatibility. The 800XL and 600XL was the "fix" for the 1200XL. The 800XL was cheaper, had built-in BASIC, and fixed most of the compatibility issues the 1200XL had, and those compatibility problems were mostly gone, or didn't matter. My 800XL came with a translator disk but I never had a need to use it for anything. The Fkeys were useless (the help key is still useless on the XL/XE machines). The 1200XL had the "inverse key" on the top row with the Function keys which on the 800/400 was the Atari Logo key that caused characters to appear inverted (all it did was set bit 8 to 1, since standard ASCII only did 7bit, thus doubling the number of characters you can have on screen for ATASCII). Normally this key is on the main part of the keyboard. the 1200XL was special in a awkward weird way, even the Break key is up at the top right along the silver buttons.
The L1 and L2 lights have the following meanings: L1 = Keyboard has been deactivated L2 = Keyboard is in the International Character set. (Control + F4)
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Yes, they are controlled by the second PIA port (PORTB at $D301), which also controls the memory access (RAM / ROM / I-O-area). Bits 2 and 3 switch the LEDs on when set to 1. While these two bits are without function on the 600/800XL they do control the RAM bank on the 130XE (together with bits 4 & 5). As you mentioned, the third and fourth joystick ports were the casualties of this. A good reference is "Mapping the Atari (Revised Edition)" as it covers the XL & XE models.
My first computer was the 800 around '83, came with third-party 48K RAM that failed on me. I upgraded to the 130XE. Had to make a floppy to downgrade the OS to 800 OS for a bootloader I wrote as I cheated in bypassing the vectors. Started with the single sided/single density Atari disk drive (that cost a pretty penny), eventually upgraded to third party double density disk drive. Eventually had 2.
Adrian, The 1200 keyboard may have a steel plate with a crap ton of tiny screws on the bottom. If so then make sure that you face the keys down when removing them as there are tiny springs which press on the membrane. THE WILL GO everywhere ! Stretching a spring will help on the ones that don't contact well... not to much or the key will stick on. Sometimes you can just tighten the tiny screws close to the intermittent key to fix them. Have FUN! Dave Faxon NH Seacoast Personal Atari Computer Enthusiast (NH SPACE) .
As a Texan, I would not even notice or care about the sound of an A/C going on in the background. It's just that for me...background noise. I don't doubt it's loud down in the basement, but eh, it's worse to shut off your A/C in that kind of heat and make it work to get back down to temp, than to just endure the noise it causes. Your energy bill definitely spiked for a good minute there. Don't doubt me. Born and bred in this weather. I know the struggle.
Whoa, a Logo with a literal turtle. I'm only familiar with the versions that used a simple triangle (that probably did a better job of representing the current angle).
All my brothers and I had Atari computers; mine was the 1200XL. I didn't think it was as useful as the 800. but it was still a lot of fun. Wasted a lot of time playing games with that thing instead of doing anything useful. I think Atari really screwed up not making the 1200XL backward compatible with 2600 and 5200 games.
@Adrian'sDigitalBasement Just checked, and you likely have already, but in case you didn't, yes, you're on the current version of the RetroTink5xPro firmware.
I really want a physical turtle to go with my Apple //e or //c - does anyone make a retro inspired kit (maybe using bluetooth instead of the long ribbon cable I remember?) or am I going to have to design and build it myself? Thanks for the video Adrian, hope you feel better soon
Truth be told, back when Usenet on the Web was still a thing, I remember seeing PLENTY of back and forth (if not outright trolling) between the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum groups. Regarding the AC noise, what about putting up a couple shower curtains between the main 'basement' and where you have your furnace to help muffle the noise? Anyway, hope you are well on the way to recovery from the human malware.
I had a UK Atari 800XL with a 5.1/4 inch floppy and a data cassette drive. I love it, was an upgrade from my Dragon 32 computer. My Atari 800XL booted right into Basic, so not sure if this was a difference with the USA 800XL?
The 600/800XL and later machines should always boot into BASIC unless you hold down the OPTION key which disables it. This applies to both NTSC and PAL machines.
@@bluetonic9538 Indeed AVG and SUB carts are the best solution for the 8bit machines, memory upgrade with the best compatibility, ROM choices, video and music playback, audio stereo upgrade (SUBcart) and all without the need of using "F" variety logic chips. They just work without ............soldering.
If you liked Commodore you were no friend of mine. Kidding, although back in the day it might have been closer to the truth. These days I've got 2 C64's which isn't quite as much as the 12 Atari's (2 1200XLs included) I've got. I'm looking to add to that with some other brands of computers and would love a C128.
In schools in the UK during the 80's, some BBC micro's would run Logo with actual "turtle" robots connected to them, that you drove around the class with the language. Some even had plotter pens connected so you could draw physical pictures on the floor with them. Very cool.
I remembered this watching this video, I'd completely forgotten it.
Yep my school had one of these.
People are usually confused when I try to explain it to them.
I am in NZ and we had those LOGO robots too. Great computers those BBC Micros 😁
we had them too (uk) but not connected to computer - just entered on the pad on the turtle's back.
we did have logo software on the RM Nimbus 186 machines and I'd imagine (being RM) that they could be interfaced?
I remember that too - in 1982 our school had a very rare Apple II ( rare for the UK, anyway ), and the logo / turtle / pen combination was my very first experience with a computer.
Adrian, I think we can deal with a little AC noise, lol. I live in South Texas and there is absolutely nothing that would make me turn off my AC when it's 105° outside. I'm also a dual US/Italian citizen and central AC (or the lack thereof) is the number one factor preventing me from moving my family back to Europe, lol.
This. Never put your well being in front of UA-cam.
We understand and will be with you regardless of any noise.
I agree I have family in Italy as well. On my last visit it was swelteringly hot. All they did was open windows trying to get some sort of cross breeze in the house!
@@johnglielmi6428, my dad is American and my mom is Italian so I grew up in the States during the school year and usually spent my summers with family in Sciliy. Do you know how bad it sucked to grow up with central AC and then have to spend the hottest part of the year in a warm and humid climate with nothing but a stand fan and some open windows, lol. But hey, at least I can speak multiple languages (I learned Spanish when I moved to South Texas and I grew up speaking both English and Italian equally) and I can choose where I want to live.
Came to leave this exact comment 😂
Damn right. I live in South MS and there's zero reason to turn the AC off.
24:11 - if you have to replace a cable on an old joystick, don't use some regular 9pin d-sub connector with some random 6-7 wire cable but look for 9pin joystick extension cables. They still make those, they have male connector on one end and female on the other, just snip off the female end, tone out the pins and you can hook up to your joystick, good as new and it won't cause issues with the joystick port not fitting in the machine.
Turn on that AC, It's too hot this week to go without. :) We will still love your videos.
Agreed.
That audio test sequence is the first six notes of Promenade from Pictures at an Exhibition by Modesto Mussourgsky! (This orchestral piece was notable for being written in time signature 11/4).
It might be an interesting project to reverse engineer a PCB for the membrane keyboard to replace it with mechanical switches... Take care of yourself while still recovering, man. Get plenty Vitamin C, zinc, and lots of clear liquids. It will help mitigate symptoms and "hang-over" stuff from the initial infection. Stay safe, get well, and enjoy that new Atari!
Being cool is more important Adrian, be safe!
The Atari 1200XL was a beautiful, if flawed, machine. To support the Help function and self tests it boasted a new OS. Unfortunately it was incompatible with some programs. Atari would mail out for free a Translator Disc that had two versions of the original Atari 800 OS. I was surprised that when the 800XL was released it STILL had the less than compatible OS and the Translator Disk was needed. The 1200XL did have a better keyboard than the later 800XL.
The later 130XE was more compatible than the 1200XL had been, so I guess Atari did finally try to fix at least some of those issues in the ROMs. I know that because KoalaPainter didn't work for crap on my XL but was fine on my XE.
@@kevinkeeney9418 Ι run Koala painter on my XL without issues. To be fair though, mine was the XLF version with the Freddie chip.
thanks for the F to C conversion on screen - 105/41° - wow thats really hot. And v3.0 unfortunately is the latest firmware for the RetroTink-5X
that's the first notes of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Promenade 1
The Atari 1200XL was the first computer I ever owned. I have no idea where that computer went but I wish I still had it.
Mine as well. I bought it with several years' worth of paper-route money.
I ran a 1200xl for years because I hated the 800xl after using an 800 for years.
What would you do with it? I had a C64 for about a year, before my dad got us an 8086 pc and like that 8-bit computers instantly became a child's toy to me.
I used mine to learn programming and for word processing. Got me through most of college.
If anyone was wondering, the audio test plays a short snippet of the Romantic piece Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky :)
I have received a couple of the J-CIA replacement 6526 FPGAs just this week, so they are available now.
Fantastic! That 1200XL is a gorgeous machine... 😊
In around 1982 I was working as very young man, in a small privately owned computer store in Banbury, England, where we sold Atari, Sinclair, Commodore, BBC, Texas, Oric, Lynx, etc......
As far as the UK went, the computer-wars were with the ZX Spectrum and C64....sadly the Atari machines never came close, even though they did still have good coverage in the monthly magazines at the time, and plenty of amazing games were constantly being released for them...for a few years anyway... 😉
We saw the transition to the new 400/800XL computers before the other huge retailers in the country like the Dixons group drove our little independent out of business.... 😡
We never - obviously - got any 1200XLs, but they looked so amazing at the time! 😃
Wonderful to see one here in such incredible condition after ALL these years.... "Thank You" to whoever sent it in to Adrian, and thank you for showing it off...and hopefully fixing that slightly poorly keyboard?? 😆 👍
On my 1200 it had some water damage and nothing worked on the keyboard. For the hell of it I figured I’d see if I could revive the original membrane. It was a nerve wracking endeavor but managed to peel the original membrane back and carefully clean it and the PCB. Put it back together and it worked flawlessly. But it is a very delicate procedure.
The Atari PSU you are talking about it the one known as the Ingot and yes, most folks won't even bother to use them and instead replace them with a modern switching type or use one of the later made PSUs that don't have the issues. I use one of the later made XL style PSUs with my 130xe.
I recently cracked my "Ingot" for my 800XL open and replaced the inside with a switching PSU and glued it back together.
the 1200 xl is awesome adrian!! 1982!!! the best year ever....
I’ve found that the keyboard membrane tends to “stick” to the PCB underneath if it isn’t worked regularly. You can use a hair dryer to loosen it up and gently peel the membrane off and reapply it. I love the keyboard feel on my 1200xl (it’s the best Atari 8-bit keyboard feel IMO)
I think in the UK, Logo was always accompanied by the physical robot, which made it far more appealing for kids.
Yeah, I remember them using the physical robot on the TV programme (It's as easy as falling off a log-o!) but we just used the on-screen turtle on our BBC micros :)
At elementary, we had VIC-20s and 800s. Where I started. My first home computer was a 1200XL. I programmed a great deal on it and played a lot of games, and never had compatibility issues. The later 600/800XLs which my friends had, just felt cheaper quality. I think that's what happened, they cut corners as the 1200 was made well. I also later had a 130XE which was nice, the extra memory was kind of useless, but it was fun too. It looked modern. I still have a Vic 20 and an 800, but would love to get a 1200XL one day for the memories. I still play Infocom games on my Mac. Great video.
The 1200XL was my first (and for a long time, only) machine! (Name checks out, right?) It's funny, I never saw one with these multiple LED colors; mine was just red, red, red. (I got mine during the "clear this inventory out" phase, as it had a pretty hefty mail-in rebate attached.)
And, yes, there were some incompatibility issues due to developers using tricks they weren't supposed to in the 400/800 days; to fix this, you would use the "translator" disks, which would load the older ROM images into the banked RAM to more closely simulate the older machines.
Dang! I'm over the moon to hear that you bought an Ultimate 1 Megabyte! Hopefully you bought the FJC version with FlashJazzCat's firmware upgrade. If not, I'm sure you would be able to flash the U1MB with FJC firmware easy enough.
I suppose it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway: MOAR ATARI PLEASE! :D
My first computer was an 800XL. I used it with one of those old tape recorders for years (the kind with the integrated speaker) until we finally got a 5.25" floppy drive. That held me for a long time until we traded it for an Apple IIc clone. Seeing (and hearing) that diagnostic screen really brought back some memories.
Hard to believe these 40 year old machines still work.
Pity about the 1200xl. Such a nice looking machine.
I recall some of these computers having compatibility issues and thus it was hard to consider it. I did go from at 800 to a 130 XE in college due to my damaging the keyboard during a final paper. The 130 XE was great. The 800 was repaired and still works. Not sure if I kept the 130 XE. I did purchase the disk drive with this styling and never had an issue with that. PS Would love to see you do more Atari 8 bit videos. Thank you for your great content!
When I got my Atari 1200XL from a thrift store, the keyboard was totally unresponsive. Then I found out that the plunger that contacts the membrane have softened over the years that it would not put enough pressure for the contacts to work. After some disassembly to access those plungers, I used 1/32 heat shrink tubing and cut little pieces of 1/32 of length and put it on all the key plungers. DON'T HEAT SHRINK THEM! After a couple of tries, changing the length ever so slightly, I got all the "freaking" keys to work. You have my permission to mention me for this. Douglas
Always like to see vintage computers up and running. The latter Atari 8bits never really saw the the light of day in the UK.
Can take a long while to recover from C19, depends on the individual. Last year It took a couple of months for some of my symptoms to completely disappear. So don't rush things, look after yourself.
The Atari 1200XL was my first computer as a freshman in high school. I still have it in storage.
15:10 The Atari XEGS also has angled joystick ports.
ATARI 1200XL = Fantastic computer!
I remember using Logo on the Apple IIe at school as a kid. Funny thing is they used it to do anything besides those turtle graphics drawings. But it was a functional programming language and you could do a lot more with it (if there was a teacher in the school who actually knew the language and could teach it).
As always, really interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Adrian, make sure you're storing that silver Sharpie cap down. If you don't, the tip dries out.
There's usually a small adjustable trim capacitor to fix that colour smear or character shadow etc.
Is this Atari 1200 XL comparable to Amiga 1200? Naming suggests it should be.
@@richard.20000 - The Atari 1200XL predates the Amiga 1200 by almost a full decade.
@@Randy.Wuerger Is Atari 1200XL faster than my Amiga 600?
@@richard.20000 - How could it be? Again, the Atari's design predates the Amiga by almost a decade. And both were based on design concepts of Jay Miner's engineering team. But the Amiga was designed to be the next-generation "Atari" computer. NO. It's not comparable at all.
@@Randy.Wuerger I ask because my 3 years old MacBook Air M1 is still much faster than any today's new Intel laptop. So it is possible to design future proof computer.
Especially when legendary Jay Miner was involved. I guess the Atari naming is what confused me (1200XL, 800XL, 130XE etc.).
Oh how I envy that 1200XL. It is in good hands at least.
Take care!
I can't speaker for everyone, but a lot of the time I don't even notice your AC when it has kicked on in the past! It's relatively quiet and I watch using headphones.
I have two things I want to say:
1. The Atari 8-bit family, especially the 800XL, 600XL and the XE series were really popular in Poland. When searching "Atari 800XL" on UA-cam, I find a couple videos in English, and then many in Polish.
2. We also had Logo in Poland, but it wasn't on Apple IIs or BBC Micros, but on Timex Sinclair computers (mainly the Timex Sinclair 2048 and Timex Sinclair 2068, both of which are clones of the ZX Spectrum). The oddest thing of all? Most of the time, the commands were translated to Polish.
I was taught Logo on the Apple IIe, but I never really understood it that well. Great video!
I started with Logo when I was 9, then Pascal... kept going and I now work as a software developer... I've worked for IBM, Novell, Amazon, etc. and now I moved to banking and investment software. You've probably used something I touched if you've ever ordered something online with next day delivery. I couldn't finish university due to life circumstances, but I'm thankful for being able to play around with these as a kid. We need to bring curiosity back into kids' lives.
Gotta love the design of that Atari. Looks like a museum piece. Cheers. 👍
Love this channel, always great content plus i have learned some things too, always good...keep up the great work Adrian
Adrian you can probably get a free replacement membrane from Best Elec since they offer a lifetime replacement warranty on their membranes. Congrats on your 'new' 1200XL! They made about 110,000 of them in total.
I'm thinking someone replaced the stock red LEDs with the green and yellow ones, but they did it tastefully with ones of good brightness and not super bright modern ones.
There is an updated bugfix OS for the 1200XL that Atari developed and they even made a bunch of updated OS chips *before* the 1200XL first released but were for some reason not installed and Atari used the more buggy OS chips I think merely for cost reasons. The updated OS will show (R) on the power-on Atari screen to denote Atari as a registered trademark. Best Electronics may still have a few of these remaining 1200XL 'B' ROMS at about $30 for a set (new old stock) or you an burn the updated OS onto eproms. The 800XL has an updated version of the 1200XL's B ROM that includes support for more things like PBI bus etc.
The key to the right of HELP is often called 'inverse key' on XL's or on the 800 it was called the Atari key.
To keep your cart tunnel looking nice, be careful how you insert cartridges into it. They can get very scuffed with long black lines from cartridges. Looks bad...
There two slight variations of 1200XL's. About 1/6th use 28 pin sockets for the OS ROMS while most have 24 pin sockets. The 28 pin sockets are preferred because they make installing a U1MB upgrade or standard 800XL ROMS much easier. The other variation is that some will use a flex cable for the cartridge port while most seem to use rigid wires (preferred) for the 90 degree angle to the motherboard.
Another variation might be that the factory used 300ns or maybe 200ns RAM (I think).
All of the main and custom chips I think should face one way (notch on left I think) and one socket (Antic I think) on my 1200XL was installed backwards so verify socket vs chip orientation with a photo before you pull chips.
It looks like your machine might be missing the RF shield, which is a nice thing to still have in there.
Yes the 9v A/C adapter from my experience is very safe. The A8bit FAQ says they can drift in voltage but I've never seen that and I think the 400/800/1200XL/1050/810/XF551 can probably take a good bit of drift anyway but you would know better than I how much.
1200XL video quality can vary greatly. There are simple and more modern upgrades for the video. They have a unique color saturation circuit that gives the 1200XL a unique quality that other models do not have. If you install a modern video solution like UAV-D that will bypass the saturation circuit.
The angled joyports are not as nice as the straight ones IMO.
Note: you said the 800XL power supplies are bad but they did make good ones that can still be used. The ingot is very common (epoxy filled) and should be thrown away. However the ones with the XL vent styled cases can be fully serviced (replace caps etc) and used and are safe if they have been serviced. There is a black and white one of these.
Enjoy your new machine! Loved that it gave you a joyface!
I have bought some replacement parts to refurbish the notoriously flaky Atari 5200 controllers from Best Electronics (mentioned by Peter) and I can confirm they're a great shop. They are a bit old school and quirky but they're the only source I know of for quality replacement parts for Atari machines, and the stuff they sell is top-notch and much higher quality than what came with the consoles/computers originally. They advertise many of their flex PCBs and replacement buttons as "lifetime" parts and I believe it.
here in vancouver wa just over the other side of the bridge its been over 100 for several days. i recently moved to vancouver wa and enjoy it. now i got to find some computer recycle stores and used record stores to go to. love it here
Nice computer. Not released in Australia as we have PAL. Looking forward to more Atari videos. Before I got my 800XL in 1983, I saw a guy at high school with a 400. I got one of those now, its such a beautifully styled machine. I don't know where you find the time to do such great videos and work full time as well. Human Malware, that's a good one!!
Had an Atari 800 around the time this came out when I was a kid. Really wanted one of these but that was a lot of money in those days to sell to the parents, lol. A few years later, tried getting an Amiga but that too was shot down in flames ($$).
Something similar to this LOGO is implemented in a modern school calculator designed specially for France, the Casio FX-92+ Spéciale Collège.
Oh boy LOGO! I miss this so much, I used it on the early 90's, was the first thing I learned on a PC
Thank you Adrian excellent video. Cheers
When I was a kid, I really wanted an Atari 1450XL. That model would have been cool. It of course it was cancelled. 6526 FPGA has been built, I don't think it's publicly available yet
The Atari 1200XL was my childhood computer and man I want one again! My Father got it when we lived in San Francisco when they test marketed it in late 82
That Ms Pac-Man was my Childhood! My Father got it for my Mom as that is her favorite game. There is a level start select and there is a level before Cherry that is easier that is Sugar Bear.
The Atari 1200XL case was used in the Brazillian computer TK2000 by Microdigital, though inside that was a clone of the Microprofessor II by Taiwan's Multitech (later Acer) which was mostly compatible with the Apple II. It didn't have the joystick ports on the side, however, nor the function keys.
Yeah! I was recently reading about the TK2000 and indeed, it's clearly a knock-off. (And I love it!)
Ah, now that you mention it, I have good memories of LOGO. But for me it was on the Apple ][e in the 3rd grade coding it to generate any regular n-gon via a procedure.
Thanks for another excellent smmc. I think it would be prudent to mark all good chips with a date or maybe year/week. Try testing chips while making sure you don't jinx the test by not grounding yourself.
The 1200XL is still my favorite Atari.
The reason that Basic exists for the newer systems as well is that the basic that is in the rom is actually a limited version, I think they had to crunch it down to 4k of rom space, so some features are missing. Those cartridges are a larger, more feature-filled version of AtariBasic.
(This version didn't have a basic rom, but the XE computers later on had only the stripped down rom.)
That was, because most parents back in those days could only afford one computer, and they had thought about following costs, so the C64 with copied cassettes and later Discettes was the most choiced computer...
I'll be interested to see the inside of that 1200XL, since someone has replaced two of the red LEDs with amber and green.
Deoxit and magic eraser! I'll remember that one!
"It's over 105F today..."
Sitting here looking out the window at my rain-soaked yard, and forecast that isn't even projected to reach room temperature for the high....
My first computer was a 1200XL. I never ran into any compatibility issues. Although it had a new graphics chips so a couple of games had the color messed up. Dirty contacts. Clean them and it the keyboard should work better.
The 1200XL was my 2nd PC... I know there were compatibility issues with it but I never ran into them. The biggest "compatibility" issue was with the SIO port on it. It wasn't wired with power (like the 800/400 were) so printer interfaces were special for the 1200 and had a wall wart added. I think its an easy bodge fix but at 14, I didn't know about it. Eventually I got an 800XL + Rambo 256K + MIO + 30MB hard drive and that was /|\ bliss...
the 1200XL is a beautiful machine. I remember reading in magazines how it broke compatibility for some software that existed. The question I have is why is it so big?
It's so big because it wasn't a cost reduced computer. It was an update/refresh of the line, albeit not fully bugfixed nor ready for release. The 800XL was the more final bug fixed *and* cost reduced.
As I recall I loved logo when I was in elementary school. I think we had it on the apple IIe back then. Fun times
@Adrian As of 2 weeks ago, the J-CIA is now available.
15:17 Angled controller ports remind me of the XEGS.
10:45 ... and interesting way of reduction 😉
No no.. The 1200XL was released BEFORE the 600XL and 800XL in 1982, while the 600XL and 800XL came out in 1983. It was supposed to be the successor to the Atari 400/800 but the 1200XL was a flop. It had compatibility issues with existing Atari 800/400 software, and it was more expensive. Atari made a "translator" disk that allowed older software to run on the 1200XL to work around some of those problems, which these days aren't a big deal as most software is focused on XL/XE compatibility.
The 800XL and 600XL was the "fix" for the 1200XL. The 800XL was cheaper, had built-in BASIC, and fixed most of the compatibility issues the 1200XL had, and those compatibility problems were mostly gone, or didn't matter. My 800XL came with a translator disk but I never had a need to use it for anything.
The Fkeys were useless (the help key is still useless on the XL/XE machines). The 1200XL had the "inverse key" on the top row with the Function keys which on the 800/400 was the Atari Logo key that caused characters to appear inverted (all it did was set bit 8 to 1, since standard ASCII only did 7bit, thus doubling the number of characters you can have on screen for ATASCII). Normally this key is on the main part of the keyboard. the 1200XL was special in a awkward weird way, even the Break key is up at the top right along the silver buttons.
My AC runs 24/7 here in Louisiana, it may be December before we cut off the ac
The L1 and L2 lights have the following meanings:
L1 = Keyboard has been deactivated
L2 = Keyboard is in the International Character set. (Control + F4)
But surely not while in the memory test?
Ah that's interesting. So some registers that be set to toggle the LEDs?
@@adriansdigitalbasement2 Yes, they are controlled by the second PIA port (PORTB at $D301), which also controls the memory access (RAM / ROM / I-O-area).
Bits 2 and 3 switch the LEDs on when set to 1.
While these two bits are without function on the 600/800XL they do control the RAM bank on the 130XE (together with bits 4 & 5).
As you mentioned, the third and fourth joystick ports were the casualties of this.
A good reference is "Mapping the Atari (Revised Edition)" as it covers the XL & XE models.
1200xl was my first computer.
"..more De-Ox-It in the socket."
Feel for you man, it's hot here in Louisiana
My first computer was the 800 around '83, came with third-party 48K RAM that failed on me. I upgraded to the 130XE. Had to make a floppy to downgrade the OS to 800 OS for a bootloader I wrote as I cheated in bypassing the vectors. Started with the single sided/single density Atari disk drive (that cost a pretty penny), eventually upgraded to third party double density disk drive. Eventually had 2.
Adrian, The 1200 keyboard may have a steel plate with a crap ton of tiny screws on the bottom.
If so then make sure that you face the keys down when removing them as there are tiny springs which press on the membrane.
THE WILL GO everywhere ! Stretching a spring will help on the ones that don't contact well... not to much or the key will stick on.
Sometimes you can just tighten the tiny screws close to the intermittent key to fix them.
Have FUN! Dave Faxon NH Seacoast Personal Atari Computer Enthusiast (NH SPACE) .
As a Texan, I would not even notice or care about the sound of an A/C going on in the background. It's just that for me...background noise. I don't doubt it's loud down in the basement, but eh, it's worse to shut off your A/C in that kind of heat and make it work to get back down to temp, than to just endure the noise it causes. Your energy bill definitely spiked for a good minute there. Don't doubt me. Born and bred in this weather. I know the struggle.
"How cool angled joystick ports look!"....until you try to connect your joystick on one of them. = )
I like the rainbow Atari logo
Whoa, a Logo with a literal turtle. I'm only familiar with the versions that used a simple triangle (that probably did a better job of representing the current angle).
All my brothers and I had Atari computers; mine was the 1200XL. I didn't think it was as useful as the 800. but it was still a lot of fun. Wasted a lot of time playing games with that thing instead of doing anything useful. I think Atari really screwed up not making the 1200XL backward compatible with 2600 and 5200 games.
I was a master Dig Dug player on the arcade version. I could play indefinitely on a single quarter.
@Adrian'sDigitalBasement
Just checked, and you likely have already, but in case you didn't, yes, you're on the current version of the RetroTink5xPro firmware.
I really want a physical turtle to go with my Apple //e or //c - does anyone make a retro inspired kit (maybe using bluetooth instead of the long ribbon cable I remember?) or am I going to have to design and build it myself? Thanks for the video Adrian, hope you feel better soon
"Hello to all my viewers in Indiana. Where is my knife?"
Truth be told, back when Usenet on the Web was still a thing, I remember seeing PLENTY of back and forth (if not outright trolling) between the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum groups. Regarding the AC noise, what about putting up a couple shower curtains between the main 'basement' and where you have your furnace to help muffle the noise? Anyway, hope you are well on the way to recovery from the human malware.
The 1200XL was such a strange system.
any advice on how to preserve the ram chips on a C64C short board?
Awesome marker upgrade!!!! 👍👍👍
I had a UK Atari 800XL with a 5.1/4 inch floppy and a data cassette drive. I love it, was an upgrade from my Dragon 32 computer. My Atari 800XL booted right into Basic, so not sure if this was a difference with the USA 800XL?
The 600/800XL and later machines should always boot into BASIC unless you hold down the OPTION key which disables it.
This applies to both NTSC and PAL machines.
The 1200xl isn't especially rare, it's just not common anymore. The 1400XL, however, is super rare and only a few prototypes are known to exist.
1200XL... Noice 👌
I live over in Beaverton and the coolest my room gets is like 85 ° F
A fun fact: Logo language is based on Lisp and is one of its dialects.
Some of the Ataris have Alps switches instead of the cheesy membrane ones.
10:43 ... ports were reduced from 4 to 2... :)
to anyone owning an 8-bit Atari Home Computer (400/800/XL/XE) you need the Fujinet device in your life
Happy with my AVG cart thanks
It really is an amazing peripheral. I have one am mulling over in my brain an upcoming video on it.
@@bluetonic9538 Indeed AVG and SUB carts are the best solution for the 8bit machines, memory upgrade with the best compatibility, ROM choices, video and music playback, audio stereo upgrade (SUBcart) and all without the need of using "F" variety logic chips. They just work without ............soldering.
I had DIG DUG on the 2600 as a kid.
6526 alao infamously known as CIAs
I'd really like one of those silver sharpies.
They're pretty common at most office supply stores and big box stores like Walmart or similar.
Adrian! You are molodchik! :)
If you liked Commodore you were no friend of mine. Kidding, although back in the day it might have been closer to the truth. These days I've got 2 C64's which isn't quite as much as the 12 Atari's (2 1200XLs included) I've got. I'm looking to add to that with some other brands of computers and would love a C128.