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OLD-COMPUTERS RESTORATION SITE
A reuploaded version of all that which was once hosted at old-computers.com, which is now inaccessible.
Archive by Hal at Holopleather.
ATARI 400 & 800
The Atari 400 and 800 were the first home computers to use custom coprocessors and the first to use "sprites" and special video interruptions like display lists, features that will be implemented later on the Commodore 64 and Amiga (Atari 400/800 and Amiga were designed by Jay Miner). It offered high graphic resolution, lots of colors and great sound capabilities, more than other computers could do then ! The two models had same characteristics, the 400 is the low-cost version, it has only 16 KB (instead of 48 KB), one cartridge port (two for the 800) and a membrane keyboard (a typewriter style keyboard one for the 800). Originally, the 400 was sold with 8 KB RAM, but later most 400s were shipped with 16 KB. The 800 was expandable to 48 KB by adding cartridges, as the case opened upwards to reveal 3 slots behind the program cartridge slots. The expansion in the 400 (which had an identical motherboard) was only available by removal of the top half of the case, as it did not open past the (single) program cartridge slot, and was only possible through a registered Atari dealer. The Atari 400 was known inside Atari as code name "Candy".
ATARI 4160 STE
The Atari 4160 STe is an Atari 520 STe with 4 MB of RAM. It was never marketed and was built by Atari for the developpers. It had a special version of TOS, version 1.6 (the Atari ST Operating System), with less bugs than in the final version!
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION 4000 AXP
In the early 90s the DEC 4000 model 710 AXP was a member of the DEC 4000 AXP family aka "cobra" (including the model 610, 620, 710, 720) which was based on the Digital's Alpha AXP architecture and the IEEE's Futurebus+ profile B standard.
This family was the output of an initiation in Digital to built the industry's most cost-effective and highest-performance departmental server computing system. To achive this goal Digital changed over from VAX CISC to Alpha AXP RISC architecture, and from Q-bus I/O system to Futurebus+. The DECchip 21064/21064A microprocessors were some the first microprocessors implementing the Alpha AXP architecture.
The True64 Unix v5.1 has buried the old Alpha systems. It was the last release which supported those old system buses, like TurboChannel in DEC 3000 series and Futurebus+ in DEC 4000 series.
Thanks to Kiss Laszlo from Hungary for information and pictures.
AMSTRAD 464/6128 PLUS
These Amstrads were the successors of the Amstrad CPC 6128. Amstrad tried to prolong the life of the old 8-bit Amstrads, which suffered from competition with the new 16-bit home computers (like the Amiga and Atari ST). Amstrad made some important modifications to maintain the level of its machines, the CPC 6128 Plus became 95% compatible with the CPC 6128 (using the same operating systems AMSDOS and CP/M 3.0). However, some software did not run on the plus range and amstrad official statement was that the programmers where lazy and used bad programming in some software resulting in crashes on this machine. Several new features were added: hardware scrolling, increased color palette, an enhanced sound chip, a cartridge port, and a redesigned keyboard. Some of these features were not even present (yet) on certain 16-bit computers (Atari STf didn't have hardware scrolling or sprites). Regardless, this new version of the CPC didn't last long. The system offers 16 hardware sprites at a size of 16x16 pixels. The sprites are using 15 other colors than the 16 of the palette, and have x/y zoom. The soundchip is the same AY as on the CPC, but controlable with a DMA. As Atari did with the 65-XE when it reached the end of its life, so Amstrad made a game console from the Amstrad CPC Plus hardware called the GX 4000. This console used the same programs as the computer but were supplied on cartridges.