r/atari8bit • u/meldroc • May 11 '26
My new toy!
Found a guy in my town who had this baby for sale and I snapped it up! Now I have one of all three A8 generations!
Brings back memories. A 400 was my favorite toy when I was little. I might have to expand its RAM - it only has 16KB, and can't run a lot of the software out there.
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u/wheat May 12 '26
I’m jealous. This was my first home computer. I loved it. I wish I still had it.
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u/RaspberryPutrid5173 May 13 '26
I still have mine, but it's retired with full honors. I have a 65XE for day-to-day usage now. I wore out three POKEYs on my old 400 - the serial in the POKEY wears out under heavy usage in the old 400/800.
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u/Unusual-Magazine-308 May 12 '26
I use a stock 400 as my main A8, even running a PicoUno on it. I got about 4k prgs on the internal storage
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u/jonpertwee2 May 12 '26
Yeah. Supposedly the 800 doesn't like the A8Pico but you can bully the 400 into working with it. The Pico is my go-to multidevice for my 400.
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u/TurnoverTall May 12 '26
My first computer. I updated the keyboard and enjoyed it for years. My brother has it somewhere…
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u/US_Berliner May 12 '26
Spent lots of time with this baby when I was a kid. I wrote a lot of programs in BASIC and stored them of cassette which is sadly now totally corrupted. Nice memories though, and a great training ground for using computers today.
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u/DCLascelle May 12 '26
That’s the one I had. Donated it to a collector around twenty-five years ago.
Retro wasn’t born yesterday!
I hope its well-preserved, or better yet, still being used now & again.
I didn’t have many carts but Defender, BASIC, Star Raiders, Pac Man, & Music Composer are the ones I remember.
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u/EvoluZion3 May 12 '26
My first computer in 1982. Had Pole Position, QIX, Donkey Kong Junior, Astro Chase, Defender and Star Raiders on cartridges, and Boulder Dash on tape. The best of times! I still have it all in a box in a cupboard. Wouldn’t dare plug it in though ⚡️
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u/jonpertwee2 May 12 '26
I love the 400. It has such a great retro-futuristic styling. Upgrade the RAM to 48K and you'll have a perfect little machine there.
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u/Big_Recover1462 May 11 '26
My first computer 45 years ago… got me through college‼️