Category Archives: Atari

It’s a MIDI Christmas With the Atari ST for “Holiday Music Week X”

Posted on December 23, 2022 by Blake Patterson

As I type this we are in the middle of the tenth annual Holiday Music Week over at r/Retrobattlestations. For this season’s contest, I decided to interface my wife’s Radio Shack music keyboard with my Atari 520ST using its built-in … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Holidays, r/Retrobattlestations | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

An Archive of Newsletters from My Users’ Groups Past

Posted on April 5, 2019 by Blake Patterson

A computer geek all my life, in my youth I was a member of several different local computer users’ groups in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia. In 1983 I joined my first, becoming a member of the Peninsula ’99ers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

A Look at the Short-Lived 3-Inch Compact Floppy Disk

Posted on February 25, 2019 by Blake Patterson

I was recently listening to the latest episode of Retro Computing Roundtable podcast during which there was mention of a 3-inch floppy disk. No, not 3.5-inch, but 3-inch. These disks are known as Compact Floppy Disks (also “CF2”) and were … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, Atari, DOS / Win PC, Multi-Platform, Tandy / TRS-80 | 7 Comments

As God Is My Witness, I Thought Turkeys Could Fly

Posted on November 19, 2018 by Blake Patterson

When it comes to the holidays, I get rather sentimental as well as nostalgic, these days. Holidays as a kid are some of the best memories any of us have, really. And having been an avid computer geek during the … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, Atari, Holidays, TI-99 | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Putting the Atari ST and TI out Front for “Modern Touch Week” at r/Retrobattlestations

Posted on September 24, 2018 by Blake Patterson

Just a quick post here to share a bit of what I was up to this past weekend. It was “Modern Touch Week” over at Reddit’s r/Retrobattlestations which was a competition to show a vintage system using recent / modern … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, r/Retrobattlestations, TI-99 | 1 Comment

Brief Encounters of the Home Computing Kind

Posted on June 19, 2018 by Blake Patterson

Back in the “home computer” days, I was something of a serial platform jumper; the list of systems I’ve owned is long. I would have a certain system and be happily using it and then become intrigued by a different … Continue reading →

Posted in Amiga, Apple II, Atari, Commodore 64/128, Multi-Platform | 3 Comments

Remembering an Atari Computer Lab in Hampton, Virginia

Posted on May 19, 2018 by Blake Patterson

Recently, I’ve been playing with Atari 8-bit computers for the first time ever, really. I purchased a bundle including an 800XL and 130XE through eBay back in 2002 but I never really did anything with them. What with the recent … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane | 3 Comments

Four Colors Into Sixteen: Terminal Innovation on the Atari ST

Posted on June 18, 2017 by Blake Patterson

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the growing telnet BBS world lately and it’s really been a blast. I’ve been “dialing” in to my favorite BBSs by way of Paul Rickard’s WiFi232 Internet Modems (which I covered in … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, BBS, Serial Terminal | 6 Comments

The Year that ‘Starglider’ and the Atari ST Saved Halloween

Posted on November 10, 2016 by Blake Patterson

(The U.S. presidential election took place yesterday, and today I am greatly in need of some serious distraction, so I thought I’d write a post about a particular computing memory from decades past that’s been on my mind lately, but is not … Continue reading →

Posted in Atari, Down Memory Lane, Gaming | 9 Comments

Computer Printout Photo Album from 1986

Posted on July 28, 2016 by Blake Patterson

I got such a positive reaction from my last post about the 33 year old recovered photos of my first home computer setup that I became motivated to finally get a photo album I had spoken of in an earlier … Continue reading →

Posted in Apple II, Atari, Multi-Platform | Tagged , , | 4 Comments