Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!van-bc!rsoft!mindlink!a344
From: Tom_Klok@mindlink.bc.ca (Tom Klok)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: Re: Old Atari Trivia
Message-ID: <6269@mindlink.bc.ca>
Date: 14 Jun 91 03:15:34 GMT
Organization: MIND LINK! - British Columbia, Canada
Lines: 20

> nicki@hpsmo100.rose.hp.com writes:
> 
> Another interesting factoid...  You probably knew of six slots that the 800
> had for expansion.  There were two cartridge slots, one OS slot, and three
> memory slots.  But did you know that there was a seventh slot buried deep
> inside the machine.  And plugged into that slot was the processor card that
> contained the 6502 and it's support chips.  Rumor was that the reason for
> putting the processor on a card would be to allow future versions that used
> the same bus, I/O, and graphics, but a different processor.

But there's an 8th slot (sort-of), which is even _more_ interesting.  It's the
long card-edge connector on the very back of the 800 motherboard, behind the
CPU card.  It's normally covered up by the shielding, completely inaccessable
unless you remove the shielding or cut a slot through it.  The connector
carries just about the entire bus, and was used for factory testing.  As far as
I know, nobody ever developed a device that would hang off it and do something
practical.  Some large RAM expansion cards required jumpers run to it, though.

Tom Klok
a344@mindlink.bc.ca