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From: fisher@wsgate.DEC (Burns Fisher, MRO3-1/E13, DTN 231-4108.)
Newsgroups: net.micro.atari
Subject: A400 RAM upgrade
Message-ID: <746@decwrl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 8-Oct-85 10:13:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: decwrl.746
Posted: Tue Oct  8 10:13:16 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 10-Oct-85 06:07:38 EDT
Sender: daemon@decwrl.UUCP
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 33

<>
Bob Halloran asked about upgrading Atari 400 RAM to 64K.

I have not done this by replacing chips; I did buy a rather inexpensive
upgrade to 32K from someone on the net a few years ago.  I think he used
16K chips, but just added an extra bank of them and made the board very
dense.

In any case, though, I wonder if you have used the 400 very extensively?  If
not, you will find that if you are even a slightly reasonable typist, the
keyboard will drive you *>BATTY<* within minutes if not seconds!  This means
that you will need to buy a full stroke keyboard to make the 400 useful,
and these are getting harder to find.

I suspect that by the time you get a keyboard and buy the chips, you will
come pretty close to the now heavily discounted price of an 800XL, which has
already 64K and an OK (but not superior) keyboard.

I would keep the 400 for use in some future project as a burglar alarm 
controller (look at all those neat 4-bit I/O ports!) and get an 800XL or
even a 130XE (a bit more costly, but with 128K, I think).

Burns

P.S.  Oh, you say you just wanted to play with hardware?  Well, that's a 
different story.  Sounds like fun!


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