Atari 8 Bit Laptop Project

[GamerTheGreek]

Im attempting to do an atari 8 bit laptop hand held system for when I go to work. Like with all good ideas I went to ebay to see if there was any forsale and came up empty. Second step was to do a little research to see if anyone has done it before and how it looked and if they sell them. Ben Heck did one and would do it but would run in the area of 3 to 5000. While I know this would take alot of time effort and such to make 5000 is out of my price range. However looking at his pictures on how he did it , I feel its possible maybe I can tackle this project with a little help ( or alot in some areas).

Anywho Im starting to try to aquire some items now another Atari XEGS an Atari 800 right off the bat. Im thinking what to do with the hard drive situation, do I want to do that or a flash drive or memory card instead ( since all 3 would hold alot of data ).

The challange is figuring out all the wires when I move the controllers cart slot reprogramming chips and adding speakers screen and the memory device. Since Ive never done any of this before this should be a very hard task to say the least.

Has anyone attempted any of these things on any other systems that can give any friendly advice?

[Niku-Sama]

The speakers and screen are going to be the easy part, i always find portable dvd players that dont read discs for cheap but the screens still work.

and if they are clam shell type it would be easy to make it into a portable nes or genesis or the sort. how ever i havent done any thing atari computer wise, you might be able to work an old housing to your advantage like i have tried but at the same time it would only be part of it because i imagine they are pretty big systems. as far as storage i am pretty sure you can find adapters to go from atari hard drive or floppy or what have you to a flash type but they are going to take up alot of room.


the bigest thing that i would worry about before embarking on it all is how are you going to power it?

you want it to be portable, that suggests batteries or internal neuclear power plant. maybe focus on being able to power a screen and a stock system on batteries, see how many it takes, see how long it lasts as a standard system and then go from there.

i say power an origonal system with a screen because thats going to be the highest power draw. when you start taking drives and such out, even if your replacing them with a flash memory solution, your power consumption will go down.

so just think, batteries batteries batteries, and then how the hell am i going to charge this?

[GamerTheGreek]

I was thinking about that last night. Being in the EMS field we use tough books. They use batteries that last 8 hrs. Now how much more power will an atari xegs laptop pull out compared to a tough book with wireless data streaming is beyond me at the moment but Id think less. Also trying to mimic a tough book set up is having an AC power plug that you can plug it into a wall or car outlet as you go. I think building an atari 8 bit laptop from a tough book might be the easiest way. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Panasonic-Toughbook-CF-29-1-2GHz-Touchscreen-LCD-Windows-Laptop-40GB-XP-Pro-/390542013069?pt=Laptops_Nov05&hash=item5aee1e328d

I dont know if the body would be wide enough to accommodate an atari mother board. and like Heck's example I would like the atari 800 keyboard installed.

[Niku-Sama]

its entirely possible that your tough book uses less power than your atari 8 bit.

power consumption has come a long way since then

[GamerTheGreek]

Well first thing ive canned was an idea of a 5.25 drive. I liked the idea at first but to do it wouldnt be practical. I have a photo of the battery pack used for the other system. The thing I dont care about on it is a plug in which has no place to recharge on the go. I might need a cheap laptop ( dell or something ) to see how those long battery packs work cause they have outlet ports to plug into and charge via car or wall on the go. This is better than unplugging and replugging again after charging.

I would think the bigger challenge is getting the wiring figured out. I can wait on the power aspect and run my xegs via the normal plug in way while i figure out the 800 keyboard connection, HD installation or USB port for a flash drive ( which might be good to bring down weight) .

I went ahead and contacted the original builder to see if there was any plans on the wiring to help me along , but there was no support on prior projects available and any support available would be found on his site. So i saved all the pics i can. Reading up on pin out info on the chips and reading up on making PCB boards ( via etching ) that might work for making daughterboards for the controller ports.

When I get a little $ saved ill look into the MyIDE. That way i can hook the hard drive up to it.

[GamerTheGreek]

Ok still working on the battery problem. My tough book idea is out cause its a 16.9 volt system to the atari 5 volt system. way too much power for my little atari. Dell laptops still have way to many volts for what I need. I did find a psp power adapter that will give me just enough volts to run it (5 volts ). My issue is still power storage and how to manage that. Still kicking the idea of a monitor or a small flat screen TV. The TV i like better BUT the issue becomes again powering it/ how much power will it draw. I think if i get a wider screen the base will be wider and give me more room for speakers on the base. That might not be such a bad idea. Like I said before still thinking about this battery problem and NOT coming up with many solutions. ( I dont think ive found anyone locally who i can really dig into this with.

[Niku-Sama]

if your handy you could rewire a battery pack running 16v (average laptop battery) to be a bunch of batteries in series in a paraelle circuit so your supplying 5v with the same ammount of batteries but the life on them will increase over the previous configuration at 16 volts....


wow thats a confusing sentance, i'll try and fix it if you cant figure out what i am saying after i sleep some

[GamerTheGreek]

if your handy you could rewire a battery pack running 16v (average laptop battery) to be a bunch of batteries in series in a paraelle circuit so your supplying 5v with the same ammount of batteries but the life on them will increase over the previous configuration at 16 volts....


wow thats a confusing sentance, i'll try and fix it if you cant figure out what i am saying after i sleep some

I think i see what you mean, charging a battery that is a 16 volt but sending the power out to other batteries at 5 volts so it can be used and might last longer than the original battery.

If that is true ( and can be done) would that mean plugging the system in for quick charging would be the regular 16v since I am charging the main battery or would the main battery need to be charged separate outside of the unit.

[Niku-Sama]

you could charge the battery internaly with the system, the charging circuit would have to change. in my mind though i dont think it would take any longer than it would have when it was charging the same batteries in a 16 volt configuration but then again i have never done such a thing using the same housing rewired. i have how ever used laptop batteries seperatly in other projects. its easy but like the rest of everything you just need to make sure you have the right charging circuit with the right voltage.

i happened on a score of laptop batteries when i closed a store down and also when i was sumpster diving i found a bunch then, all of them were new too. the ones from the store were from display laptops, they never get put in incase some one steals the display, its one more thing that can act as a deterrant

[GamerTheGreek]

I was thinking earlier today. Is it possible to just do a regular laptop set up for the battery and charging ( taken from an old laptop) then just run a device to regulate the volts from the battery to the unit. and from the battery to the screen display? Im thinking if its possible doable and all i can also marry a 12 volt tv screen to this beast and have a nice set up while at the same time no disrupting the 5 volt CPU system. Just a thought wanted to throw my naive thought of which i have no knowledge to back it up with out there.