Scored my first 800!

[Atari Creep]

Hey guys. I swooped up an 800 today for nothing. I can finally play the GORF cart @Willie!gave me so long ago. Lol This is (aside from an XEGS) my first Atari 8 bit computer. This unit did not come with a power supply, anyone know of an alternative for power?

 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by Atari Creep

[RickR]

SWEET!  The 800 is a beautiful thing.  Looks like you found one in nice shape. 

I'm pretty sure the 800 only needs 5V in, and I think 1.5A.  I've read elsewhere that people are using USB phone power cords, but you'll need to do some research on that.  If you do end up creating a power adapter, it will be much safer than using an old original -- much less chance of causing a failure on the system. 

I did something very similar for a Commodore 64, which has notoriously bad original power supplies.  The C64 needs both 9V and 5V, so I cut the DIN plug off an original power adapter and wired in two modern power bricks (one 5V, one 9V).  It looks crazy, but works perfectly. 

 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by RickR

[Atari Creep]

1 hour ago, RickR said:

SWEET!  The 800 is a beautiful thing.  Looks like you found one in nice shape. 

I'm pretty sure the 800 only needs 5V in, and I think 1.5A.  I've read elsewhere that people are using USB phone power cords, but you'll need to do some research on that.  If you do end up creating a power adapter, it will be much safer than using an old original -- much less chance of causing a failure on the system. 

I did something very similar for a Commodore 64, which has notoriously bad original power supplies.  The C64 needs both 9V and 5V, so I cut the DIN plug off an original power adapter and wired in two modern power bricks (one 5V, one 9V).  It looks crazy, but works perfectly. 

 

 

Haha what. As long as it works bro. I will look into putting together a power supply. I have plenty of barrel jack power supplies but do want to fry this thing. Haha

EDIT, I just contacted Best Electronics about purchasing one of their NOS power supplies. It's only $12. 

 

Thanks bud.

Edited September 7, 2019 by Atari Creep
update

[RickR]

Sweet!  Very cool that they still have them and they don't cost too much. 👍

[RickR]

Besides, my memory may not be so good. The 800 may use 9v. 

[Willie!]

get star raiders    I have lots of carts for my atari computers (130xe, 400, 800xl)  I also have  Atarimax cart for mine as well, best way to play alot of the games only on Disk or tape without having a tape or disk drive.

[Atari Creep]

On 9/7/2019 at 9:37 AM, Willie! said:

get star raiders    I have lots of carts for my atari computers (130xe, 400, 800xl)  I also have  Atarimax cart for mine as well, best way to play alot of the games only on Disk or tape without having a tape or disk drive.

Seeing how hard and expensive it is to collect for inhave been debating on an Atarimax then just let the games trickle in as they come. Lol I donhave exactly 2 games, and I think they are both from you. Lol

[RickR]

There are very inexpensive ways to go with the 8-bits.  The cheapest is an SIO2USB cable.  Less than $30.  It allows you to hook up a PC to the Atari as an emulated disk drive.  

The UNO cart is a very cheap SD card cartridge, but it only works on the XL/XE computers (with 64k), not the 800.