Next Meeting
Our next Zoom meeting will be on the next non-first Tuesday, 7pm, West Coast, U.S. time. Members receive invitations each week. If a guest would like to attend a meeting please contact Robbie Bridges.
Our next live, hybrid meeting, at the San Leandro library, and on Zoom, will be held on the first Tuesday of the month, from 6:45pm-7:45pm, West Coast, U.S. time. at the San Leandro Public Library, 300 Estudillo Ave., San Leandro, CA 94577. Contact Robbie Bridges to confirm you're coming.
The "Shelter in Place" order made necessary by the Covid-19 outbreak, has caused our meetings to be weekly, using Zoom virtual meeting software (free) starting in May, 2020. As of Aug. 2021, we began hybrid meetings, on the 1st Tues. of each month. The other weeks are Zoom only,.
News
A 30 minute audio (.wav) file was generated summarizing our Oct. 1 - Dec 10, 2024 meeting notes here.
Kirk Edwards forwarded this link to a YouTube video that discusses the Atari series of 8-bit computers
Our collection of Disks of the month from 1983 to 1995 have been made available on the Internet Archive. When you arrive at the site, where it says, DOWNLOAD OPTIONS", click "SHOW ALL" to see links to zipped .ATR files for each group of SLCC Disks Of The Month. Many thanks to Kevin Lund who uploaded all these files as well as our past SLCC Journal newsletter archive.
Claim to fame: We won the 1st Place Award at Computer Festival West 2018, for the best booth. This is the 2nd year in a row we've won it. Details and photos in our Facebook post and just-uploaded (Oct 24, 2021) photo gallery.
We upgraded our photo albums producing a 2017 and 2021 record of our attendance at the Vintage Computer Festival West
Meeting Notes
May 13, 2025 - Hybrid - In attendance (in person) Kevin, Robbie, and Ron, (Zoom) Don, Bob, Scott, and Mariano. Discussion of ram extensions, Games and game cartridges, Non-functioning Atari 600 troubleshooting, Newly found 3 1/2" disks, of the months, Atari 800 and 600 fixes and much more. See detailed meeting notes.
May 6, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Lenore, Don, Bob and Scott. Discussion of early days of computing with TRS-80 and Atari Computers, also Apple and Atari, project to test Atari 1250 XL board prototype and then start a 3D scanning project of Atari 8 bit cases. See detailed meeting notes.
April 29, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Scott and Bob. Prepare working Atari 600XLs & fix Chroma Signal Issue, Test Photography eq with Atari 800, system backup to program the Pals and Gals and much more. By the way, other topic like 3D printing, bee keeping and household repairs are discussed extensively. See detailed meeting notes.
April 22, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Mariano, Michael, Bob, Don, Richard, and Ron. Recovering OS Plus Operating system (ed. OSA+ from OSS?), and comparison with other Atari OS like Warp Plus, Attempting repair of XF551 drive board, AI generated Atari action figures and much more. See detailed meeting notes.
April 15, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Bob, Scott, and Lenore. Started off Bob's garage fille to the brim with various Atari-related items, Bob discussed fixing a broken keycap and challenges trying to repair one's own machine and much more. See detailed meeting notes.
April 8, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Scott, Ron, Bob, Scott, Richard, and Don. Started off discussing a jack hole size from 800 XL, How to install video mod circuitry and monitor jack on 600 XL, plans to work on a video MOD on a 600 XL, adding circuitry and a monitor jack and concerns about drilling a hole in the old plastic of his Atari 800 XL. See detailed meeting notes.
April 1, 2025 - Hybrid - In attendance (library) Kevin, Robbie, Ron, (Zoom) Scott, Richard, Bob, Don. Kevin attended a large garage sale at the Brewing Academy, where he acquired numerous vintage computer and gaming items, including Atari systems, laser discs, and manuals. He met several people from the retro computing community, including Bob and a woman who designed a 1450 XLD board. Kevin plans to invite her to speak at a future meeting. Kevin shared his experience with the Atari 5200 and its 2600 game module design. See detailed meeting notes.
March 25, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Robbie, Don, Bob, and Scott. Discussed YouTube video about Atari games, Atari STE emulator, Atari 8 bit to STs, history of Atari and connection to Steve Jobs, Atari 2600, clocking the 65C02 microprocessor to 20mhz and the purchase at a California computer sale event of several Atari 800XLs, drives and books for under $300. See detailed meeting notes.
March 18, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Ron, Michael, Bob, Richard, Scott, and Don. Discussed bringing a TRS-80 for a potential raffle, old Atari games, 320K RAM upgrade for Atari with a case for the memory and a new board with Fuji Net and Midi player. See detailed meeting notes.
March 11, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Bob, Ron, Mariano, Michael, and Garrett. Discussed recovering data from damaged disks, Terrie's 1450XL build project, sine wave oscillators on Atari 400 & 800 and how sine wave travels through GTIA's internal circuitry. See detailed meeting notes.
March 4, 2025 - Hybrid - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Ron, Scott, Bob and Don. Using a rubber band as drive belt for a 1050 and an SD Card Adapter for Atari Computer. See detailed meeting notes.
February 25, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Scott, Richard, Ron, Bob. Rivalry of Atari, Apple & Commodore, classic arcade games, Atari projects book, and Richard's Librascope computer and Baby Pac Man. See detailed meeting notes.
February 18, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Bob, Richard, Scott, Ron, and Michael S. Discussion of recent Vintage Computer Fair West in Southern California Feb 15-16, 2025 (https://www.vcfsocal.com/).
- Pico Cart problems on Atari 800XL,
- Custom built Atari 65XE Laptop
- Atari Project Book and website
- Much more SCAL discussion... read the notes)
Also discussed new "Atari product", Atari cartridges, Necromancer. Note: There's a lot more discussion. Just the Atari topics are summarized here. See detailed meeting notes.
February 11, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Richard, Scott Bob, and Michael. Richard to email Atari cartridge to Scott. "Kevin was struggling with a Sidecar T for STs that emulates cartridges, floppies, and a hard drive." and "Kevin mentioned having a Noctua fan in his Falcon." See detailed meeting notes.
February 4, 2025 - Hybrid - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Scott, Bob, Don, and Richard. Discussed retrofitted Atari 800XL Computer & monitor, removing dried tape from a joystick with peanut butter and oil, thermal cameras used for testing old Atari boards. See detailed meeting notes.
January 28, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Don, Michael, Bob, Scott, and Bill. Discussed project that tracks these meeting summaries, history of the Atari 800, 6502 microprocessor, an add-on board for the 800 that "might support the latest AI." Kevin discussed an Atari ST program (ST.ME) MS Dos 6.22 Emulator. An Atari 800 Basic program to run Tic-Tac-Toe, produced by Meta.ai and ChatGPT was reviewed. Not sure if it would run. Some discussion of Atari Basic ensued. See detailed meeting notes.
January 21, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Robbie, Richard, Scott, Bob, Don: Talking about whether feet on the Atari 800 were square or curved and Atari 410 recorders being easy to repair and others machines having problems due to hardening grease. See detailed meeting notes.
January 14, 2025 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Robbie, Don, Scott and Bob: Talked of a new Atari trackball, box of Atari games and a new 2,600 game found in Atari backup tape. See detailed meeting notes.
December 30, 2024 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Richard, Mariano, Don, Scott and Bob. Discussed an Atari VCS, miniature Atari version received by Bob as a Christmas present, an Atari 1200 XL extender, and an installation of a Sofia 2 in an Atari 65XE. See detailed meeting notes.
December 23, 2024 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Robbie, Bob, Scott, Don, Bill, Garrett. Kevin acquired a unique Atari 800 board which protects the memory and allows for the transfer of ROM from a cartridge, discussion of expanding Zoom meetings to include Facebook folks, Kevin shared his discovery of a unique Atari 800 software
package and finally discussed a book titled "Dr. C. Wacko presents Atari Basic and the
whiz, bang! Miracle machine" found on Craigslist. See detailed meeting notes.
December 17, 2024 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Robbie, Scott, Ron, Bob, Garrett. Atari topics discussed were foot replacements on Atari 800s, repairing Atari 800s, a box of Atari 800 books and a misleading "Atari Excel" named book. See detailed meeting notes.
December 10, 2024 - Zoom - In attendance: Kevin, Robbie, Don, Garrett, Mariano, Bob and Scott. Atari Bot that accepts code and runs on a simulated Atari 800, Atari item prices on Ebay and an Atari was damaged during shipping and Kevin received full refund. See detailed meeting notes.
December 3, 2024 - Hybrid - In attendance Kevin, Robbie, Garrett, Bob, Scott, Ron, Michael S., Michael. New OS Incognito board for Atari 800 , 800 vs 1200 discussion, Power requirements of 600, 800 XL models. See detailed meeting notes.
Recent Meeting Note URLs
- December: 3, 10, 17, 23, 30
- November: 6, 12, 19, 26
- October: 1, 8, 15, 22, 30
- September: 3, 10, 17, 24
- August: 6, 13, 20 and 27
As of July 30, 2024 we began creating Zoom Summaries and listing them as "detailed meeting notes"
July 30,2024 - We had a good Atari SLCC meeting tonight on Zoom with 10 in attendance. Discussed the upcoming Vintage Computer Festival West that's occurring this weekend (Aug. 2-3, 2024) at the Computer History Museum in Menlo Park. We will be represented by several members including Kevin Lund. Richard Diaz demonstrated ATR cartidges he's building with his 3D printer using inexpensive Raspberry Pico boards. He's bringing over a half-dozen to our in-person meeting next Tuesday at the San Leandro Public Library. See also, detailed meeting notes.
2023 Atari SLCC Meetings are held on Tuesdays, on Zoom and, as of August, 2021, the 1st Tue will be Hybrid, being held both at the San Leadro Library and on Zoom.
October 5, 2021 - Held Hybrid Zoom meeting at San Leandro library
September 7, 2021 - Held Hybrid Zoom meeting at San Leandro library
August 7-8, 2021 Had a booth at VCFW. See our Facebook Post and photo gallery.
August 3, 2021 - Had another super meeting, setting a since-Y2K record attendance with twelve attendees. Two were pre-k, but still that's ten Atari grown-ups, a recent record. (On-site Kevin, Robbie, Garrett, on Zoom Bob, Rod, Richard, Scott, Edison, Don and Bill). Main topics were the upcoming VCFW and Kevin's Fujinet setup. It was a hybrid meeting too, with 3 live people at the Library and 9 on Zoom!
July 6, 2021 - We had a super meeting tonight on Zoom, nine Atari enthusiasts. Farthest away was from Santiago, Chili, others from Florida, Texas, Northern California. Attending were Kevin, Robbie, Rod, Bob, Michael, Bill, Kevin, Don and Scott. The magic of Zoom! Kevin showed his copy of the just published Atari Fan magazine from https://atarifan.xyz
June 1, 2021 - We have been having meetings on Zoom, weekly, 7pm, PST for better part of the previous 12 months. Discussed tonight, the possibility of having a booth at the Aug 7-8 Vintage Computer Festival West. Also reviewed our recent haul of Atari gear. In attendance were Robbie, Kevin, Richard C, Richard D, Scott, Bob, Bill, Mike and Don. Felt like an electrician's convention, as we discussed one members work shop requiring 3/0 gauge, 200 amp wire pulls and the high cost of copper wire.
June 2, 2020 and onward - Kevin, Robbie, Ralph, Bob, Garrett, Edison, Bill all attended the Zoom-based mtg. Best (virtual) meeting yet! Even had an agenda. Homework assignment was to install the Atari800MacX Emulator. We're having in-between meetings on Tuesdays. Contact Robbie Bridges if you want to participate. Nice to have such enthusiasm. On June 9th, Edison attended and demoed 8-bit utility and game software he authored.
May 5, 2020 - Kevin, Robbie, Ralph, Bob and Bill conducted a Zoom meeting where we reviewed this web site and the Jan-Jun, 1984 uploaded SLCC newsletters. January, 1984 newsletter describes how the club started.
April 21 & 28, 2020 - Kevin, Garrett, Robbie, Don (from Florida), Bob and Bill conducted a Zoom meeting on the 21st and with Garrett absent on the 28th. We hope to meet in person in the near future. The ext Zoom session will be on May 5th.
February, 2020 - Kevin, Garret. Robbie, Bill interogated Robbie's Atari 1010 tape drive and found that it's WORKING! Kevin won door prize of two cans of compressed air. See the FB post.
December, 2019 - Kevin, Bob, Robbie, Garrett, Tom. Garrett. Garrett attempting to demo his WEFAX Decoder, 8 Bit hardware/software. Bob won the final doorprize of the year, Sony Wireless Headphones (also wired). Happy Holidays everyone!
November, 2019 - Kevin, Bob and Bill in attendance, with Kevin's recent find of an Atari 815 dual disk drive.
October, 2019 - Four in attendance. Bob, Bill, Robbie & Kevin
September 2019 - Six in attendance. Garrett brought a children's keyboard, interfaced to an Atari 8 Bit (see Facebook post for details and photos). Robbie brought an Altair 8800 S-100 bus computer, "The spark that spawned the microcomputer revolution" that he's helping repair. Also we tinkered with an Atari 130XE/Floppy from Robbie. .
August 2019 - Five in attendance, still a little tired after the VCFW last weekend. We did win the Best Atari Booth award. See a writeup about it in Atari Age. There are photos on our Facebook Page too.
July 2019 - Five in attendance, ironing out last details of VCFW. See you in Mountain View.
June 2019 - Five in attentance. VCFW is going to be great, Aug. 3-4, 2019. Going for a 3-peat.
May 2019 - Four in attendance.
April, 2019 - Five in attendance. Continued discussion of Vintage Computer Festival West, 2019.
March 2019 - Five Vintage equipment brought by Garrett & 1 Techtronix Scope returned to Bob.
February, 2019 - Four in attendance, Kevin, Bob, Robbie & Bill. Discussed upcoming computer Vintage Computer Festival West, 2019.
January, 2019 - Meeting held, but no report.
December, 2018 - Seven in attendance, Bob brought a couple Techtronix Oscilloscopes and Robbie an Atari Jaguar computer..
November, 2018 - Six in attendance: Bob, Tom, Kevin, Robbie, Garrett and Bill. Group had fun viewing an Editor Assembler on an Atari 800.
October, 2018 - Five in attendance: Kevin, Garrett, Robbie & daughter, Jim and Bill. Garrett broght some Petsters by Axlon (see old video ad for Petsters) & couple photos on our Facebook Page.
September, 2018 - Seven in attendance, one a visitor, Robbie, Bill, Garrett, Kevin, Edison, Rob and Garrett's daughter. Our main activity was getting a vintage Apple II working and showing off our 1st place ribbons from 2017 and 2018 Computer Festival West shows.
August, 2018 - Three People, Robbie, Tom and Bill. Others exhausted after creating and populating our SLCC booth at Vintage Computer Festival West, Aug 4-5, 2018 and winning the prize for best Booth. Took down the booth & were on our way in less than an hour. See our Facebook post.
July, 2018 - Nine people attended - Rob, Garrett, Kevin, Robbie, Jim, Don Safer, Edison, Phil and Bill. Discussed the VCFW coming up August 4-5 and worked on the Atari 1400XL that will be displayed in our booth. This is it for Don Safer, moving to Florida in a few weeks. He'll keep his web site up he says. Real estate is very affordable, it turns out, in Florida. Group photo uploaded to our Facebook page.
June, 2018 - Bob, Kevin, Jim, Don Safer attended. July will be the last meeting for Don who's moving to Florida. Discussed the upcoming Vintage Computer Festival West for 2018, August 4-5. We will have a booth, & one more month to plan for it. Bob will bring an Atari Store Display Kiosk with a working computer. May also have a 1400XL to demo.
May, 2018 - Bob, Kevin, Garrett (with kids), Robbie, Jim, Don. Bob worked on a 1050 drive, a cheer went up when an XM8801 Atari printer test page was produced. Jim won the door prize (bunch of AAA batteries). See more detail & a photo on our Facebook page.
April, 2018 - Good meeting with Jim Bob, Robbie, Garrett and Bill. Robbie brought a reel to reel tape recorder for Garrett to play and copy a recording of his father. Kevin and the group decided to again take part in the Vintage Computer Festival West at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California (see photos from last year) on August 4-5, 2018. Jim won the door prize, a USB Wifi Adapter. Kevin showed his working Atari printer (same as model 822 Atari-branded printer). Kevin also showed a Kickstarter book, "Breakin' The Borders", translated from a German version. See the uploaded Facebook photos.
March, 2018 - Decent attendance with Jim, Bob, Robbie, Garrett, Edison, Bill & Tom. Played with 800XL & went through box of old Atari stuff. See Facebook post for details & photos.
February, 2018 - Slow Month, Bob and Jim attended
January, 2018 - Bob, Robbie, Kevin and Bill were in attendance. We had a quiet meeting.
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Updated
May 19, 2025
