Hoorah! 20 years later and its still alive... 600XL
Posted: Sat Jun 01, 2013 4:14 pm
Well, I gotta say that I'm extremely happy that the Atari 600XL I've had living under the house is alive and well. With everything sadly having lived in pretty damp and dank locations over the last few decades, I was feeling somewhat hesitant to turn it on.
It was taped up in the original styrofoam (I did have the box, but the dampness got to it and that was that). I got the 3 cartridges from eBay I'd ordered in less then a week (very good trader). I let it sit in the upstairs spare room over night (just to make sure it had a chance to "air out"). Plugged in this morning. Fired up - LCD TV tuned in very easily - and cartridges played just fine!
Very happy start to the long weekend, playing a couple of hours of Pacman, Digdug and Defender. I had to repair the Joystick I had found (it had the right leaf switch off-center so wasn't doing anything - manufacturers fault, not damage thankfully) but well, that's one old machine I can tick off as "in working order".
This is the FIRST time I've actually used it since I bought it about 20 years ago - simply because I had no software for it. I'm chuffed...
Now, while the wifes away I'm wondering if I can sneak the Speccy upstairs before she gets home and sees the mess? lol!
Here's a few piccies for anybody interested. Dropbox won't let me directly link to the images to embed them into the post itself, so here's the links as, well, links...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcl9dmvclb6lzr2/600XL_InGoodNick.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/do11hfb7jnlo2lf/600XL_Bluescreen_of_life.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/49qi27e4omzz2fs/Atari_Carts_from_Ebay.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qvooxs5yzpwinsp/600XL_Pacman.jpg
It was taped up in the original styrofoam (I did have the box, but the dampness got to it and that was that). I got the 3 cartridges from eBay I'd ordered in less then a week (very good trader). I let it sit in the upstairs spare room over night (just to make sure it had a chance to "air out"). Plugged in this morning. Fired up - LCD TV tuned in very easily - and cartridges played just fine!
Very happy start to the long weekend, playing a couple of hours of Pacman, Digdug and Defender. I had to repair the Joystick I had found (it had the right leaf switch off-center so wasn't doing anything - manufacturers fault, not damage thankfully) but well, that's one old machine I can tick off as "in working order".
This is the FIRST time I've actually used it since I bought it about 20 years ago - simply because I had no software for it. I'm chuffed...
Now, while the wifes away I'm wondering if I can sneak the Speccy upstairs before she gets home and sees the mess? lol!
Here's a few piccies for anybody interested. Dropbox won't let me directly link to the images to embed them into the post itself, so here's the links as, well, links...
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wcl9dmvclb6lzr2/600XL_InGoodNick.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/do11hfb7jnlo2lf/600XL_Bluescreen_of_life.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/49qi27e4omzz2fs/Atari_Carts_from_Ebay.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qvooxs5yzpwinsp/600XL_Pacman.jpg