Atari BBS Museum · Exhibit 001
Before the feed,
there was a phone line.
Mike Hoydich was Overlord. Frank was Freddie. A little Atari became a place to meet.
Enter the ATASCII boardA personal archive. A playable tribute. A new computer club ↗
The next connection
Choose a handle. Share a memory. Make something small and strange. The board is open.
Meet the Death Star Computer Club ↗01 / The line is open
A small taste of dialing into somewhere. Read the museum notes, then try your hands at 38-column dash.
The museum terminal is ready. Connect to browse the archive. No login. Just a little curiosity.
Type HELP for commands, or use the menu.
Door game / New recreation
Alternate A and L, or tap the two buttons. Each switch moves one column. Reach 38 as quickly as you can.
Inspired by Freddie’s and Jolly Joe’s recollections. This is newly written museum software.
Press either key to start. Then alternate.
02 / The collection
128K of RAM, with extra memory reached through bank switching. ANTIC’s July 1985 report captured the promise of Atari’s new 8-bit computer.
Reference specimen. Photo: Multicherry · CC BY-SA 3.0. Retouched by the photographer; displayed unchanged.
Read the 1985 report ↗
Letters, lines, little shapes, and their inverse forms. This ATASCII reference shows the compact visual vocabulary of the Atari screen.
Modern emulator rendering by Kim Slawson, corrected by Dpla-fr · CC0. Displayed unchanged.
03 / A connection across time
At a BBS, the person running the system was a sysop. Here, the names were Overlord and Freddie.
Mike and Frank launch Death Star: Overlord and Freddie, a 130XE, and less than 1 MB of storage.
Mike publishes his recollection and a list of caller handles. Old friends begin finding the thread.
Frank recalls modified FoReM software, 38-column dash, archery, and a simulated conversation.
PointCast gathers the story and photographs, builds a new ATASCII tribute, and opens Death Star Computer Club.
04 / The reading room
Personal memories, a real photograph, contemporary reporting. Every exhibit has a way back to its source.
Michael Hoydich · WordPress · September 10, 2013
Primary personal account; caller recollections appear in the comments.
Y Combinator · Think Gaming
Also names Deathstar and the 130XE, but gives 1988 and 2400 baud. The detailed WordPress account supplies this exhibit’s launch date and speed; the discrepancy remains unresolved.
Jack Powell · ANTIC · July 1985
Contemporary coverage of the 130XE’s 128K RAM and bank switching.
Southern Amis · preservation community
Explore preserved Atari BBS culture, including Alcatraz. External boards are operated independently.
In 2018, Mike clarified that the Apple Death Star list on textfiles.com belonged to another board. It is excluded here. Percom-drive and Avatex-modem identifications in the comments are tentative.
The terminal and game are new interpretations. No original Death Star program or screen capture has been recovered for this exhibit.
Mike’s BBS rig: From Michael Hoydich’s personal WordPress archive. Source. Personal archive; no open license asserted. Original archive image; exact photograph date unconfirmed.
Atari 130XE: Multicherry / Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC BY-SA 3.0. 2011 retouched hardware photograph, displayed without further editing. This is a reference specimen, not Mike’s individual computer.
ATASCII character matrix: Kim Slawson; corrections by Dpla-fr / Wikimedia Commons. Source. CC0. Modern emulator rendering of normal and inverse characters, displayed without editing.
