Atari 800XL Used For Heart Diagnostics 121
fuxoft writes: "Even today, 8-bit Atari can save your life! This article (with photographs) reports that Atari 800XL is still used in one of the biggest Czech hospitals, for diagnostics of children with heart problems. Even here, in the Czech Republic, where the technology is not always 100% up-to-date, this is very weird indeed."
Re:Pictures mirror. (Score:1)
those damn c [utoronto.ca] z [utoronto.ca] e [utoronto.ca] c [utoronto.ca] h [utoronto.ca] s! [utoronto.ca]
woot! (Score:1)
from a couple articles below, Java runs on 8-bit machines
This all adds up to one thing: coffee can and will save your life. (I knew it all along..)
This makes a lot of sense (Score:1)
What kind of machine do you think this program needs? A P4 at 1.5GHz? Come on, reaction times in the seconds range are completely sufficient. It's much more important that it runs reliably and is never down when it is needed. Why replace such a machine?
The other part is interfaces. It is extremely difficult and expensive to get hold of data from medical devices. So when you have managed to build such a system, you want to keep it alive as long as possible in order not to have to pay for expensive new devices and --- on top of that --- a means of getting to the data, instead of only having it displayed or printed out.
So this doesn't really surprise me at all. And it is a nice example of real good an economic use of ressources. I would really like to see much more of this kind.
Who volunteers to port this to Linux? (Score:4)
I understand and sympathize with the view towards old hardware of "don't fix what's not broken." We all get more than a little sentimental for the hardware we used in the "old days," however long ago that may be.
However, the author was contacted because the equipment was malfunctioning. Since Intel hardware is so inexpensive, running this application on a P90 with Linux makes much more sense than using such an "exotic" piece of hardware.
The Free Software/Open Source community should step up to the plate and port this application - it would be hard to conceive of a more valliant effort for our talents. I'd certainly be willing to do it.
Re:So what does this indicate? (Score:1)
Re:If it works... (Score:1)
Re:Czech resident counterstrike/comment (Score:1)
Re:Just a though guys... (Score:1)
Does the site have banner ads? No.
Is the site highly likely to get slashdotted? Yes.
I have read the faq. Just a very long time ago.
Re:Who volunteers to port this to Linux? (Score:2)
They joystick ports on an atari 800xl were pretty complex for their time. Each one had 5 binary I/O channels, and 2 8 bit DAC/ADC channels.
It sounds to me from the story that the sensors they are using are dependant on the behavior of the ADCs in the atari's joystick ports. To port the system to a more modern machine, you would have to find hardware that can duplicate that function.
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The latest isn't... (Score:1)
Remember the recent Slashdot discussion of the 486-based computer used in the Hubble telescope? Quite a few people seemed amazed at NASA's use of such "obsolete" technology -- but indeed, the 486 was a reliable, trusted tool for the job.
If the hospital in question is getting good reesults from an Atari 800, why on Earth should they upgrade? For that matter, why do so many tehcnical people insist on living at the bleeding edge, when they could get just as much done (and maybe more?) with yesterday's tested tools.
I drive a 15-yo truck, because it works well and doesn't cost me much. Yeah, I could go blow $25-45,000 on a new Suburban -- but my old truck does just fine, thank you, and I'd rather spend my money on something better. I'll bet that hospital doesn't have the money or technical resources to "upgrade" to a Linux box and a new solution -- what they have works, so why change it?
Don't buy into the Microsoft mentality. If Windows 95 is working, why upgrade to Win ME? If I'm going to upgrade the kernel on my Linux box, I need to have a defined reason (USB support, for example) -- but it makes no sense to compile a new kernel simply because the version numbers have been incremented!
If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Re:woot! (Score:1)
Re:Who volunteers to port this to Linux? (Score:1)
Find hardware to duplicate it? Look in your (insert favourite electronic supplier) catalogue!
Re:lol (Score:1)
<flamebait>
I think it's spelt PUERTO rico,dumbass.
</flamebait>
Re:That's nothing! (Score:1)
25 years? Since when is 2000 - 25 = 1981?
Re:Stat (Score:1)
--
Re:It's not weird (Score:1)
--
Re:If it works... (Score:1)
Point/Counterpoint... (Score:1)
Old computer: Wierd
Old CPU, OTOH: NOT wierd... actually, VERY common.
For something like medical data processing, you wouldn't hack an old Atari into the job. You'd build dedicated hardware with, perhaps, the same CPU as the old Atari at it's heart.
Since I was never a big Atari geek, I'll use another example I'm more familiar with, myself.
You VERY rarely see an Apple II, or a Mac 128 in common use anymore; especially not in anything mission critical (I'd call hospital equipment pretty mission critical).
BUT...
Crack open half of the embedded systems in the world, and I can all but GUARANTEE that you will find the venerable MOS 6502 (CPU for the Apple II), and Motorola 68000, all over the place still.
john
Resistance is NOT futile!!!
Haiku:
I am not a drone.
Remove the collective if
Re:This is great (Score:1)
I could load up anything into the Disk On Module and have something that would survive a hard boot without fans, hard drives, fsck and a lot of power.
This is why I bought a c64 (Score:1)
Right afterwards my dad went and bought me a c64 with tape drive and everyone lived happily ever after.
Just thought I'd share that moment with everyone
Why Bother? (Score:1)
I used to program for the Atari 8-bits. It is plenty fast enough to do what they want it to do, and those joystick ports are extremely easy to program for. In fact the 6502 was very easy to program for in general if you don't mind only having two registers and an accumulator.
As far as replacement equipment goes, you can pick up a replacement 800XL (or 400, 800 or any of the XL or XE series, depending on the program's memory requirements) for less than $10 on e-Bay. $100 for some Intel equipment is a little pricey for a Czech hospital.
The only thing I don't understand is why they use a cassette player instead of a disk drive (a few $ on e-Bay). My only guess is that's the way DoDDS-Europe donated it and they never looked any further. I was part of donations of military equipment to hospitals former east bloc countries in the early 90s, and that is how it often went (no jokes about why hospitals need tanks, the military here had beaucoup excess medical and other equipment after the drawdown).
Atari trivia: did anyone else notice that the first Terminator's POV vision had 6502 assembler getting listed down the right side?
Re:It's not weird (Score:1)
Re:Why Atari / US Government Property (Score:1)
They origonally built this machine to work with the Atari, it died, grabbed one surplus when the US school tossed it and there it is.
At work we just retired an XT based system built in 1984 for in house testing. It was pushing product until the day we pulled the plug and upgraded the system. We actually kept an XT bone yard to keep the system running it's last few years. During the upgrade we kept the instrument and just replaced some of the dated electronics with the current product's [acton-research.com] brains.
Old computers never die, just leak PCB's everywhere...
TastesLikeHerringFlavoredChicken
Re:You are smoking crack. :-) (Score:1)
Once you factor this in the Atari looks good again. They probably have a very well defined procedure that steps them through this process. The amount of learning and un-learning involved in changing hardware is probably not worth it to them. They might very well consider a more capable machine a waste as it could do other things the Atari can't.
Re:This is great (Score:1)
There also was another nice feature. You could record audio on one track, and the tape data on the other. With a couple of peeks and pokes you could then listen to something while your data loaded from tape. Nice feature because the transfer rate was a brisk 300 baud.
The Atari also was one of the only machines that allowed you to hear the data transfer. Some part of the process went through the audio chip, and would pipe to the speaker by default. Cracked the copy protection on Ultima II because of this. They used the bad sector trick. Well on the Atari machine breaking this was easy. You put in the original disk, then listen for the bad sector. Remember the number of beeps. Do the same thing again with the copy (I wanted a backup that I could mod ok?), and just open the drive door when the right time came. Wait a second, then close it. Game loads fine. Guess they were not looking for a specific error, just any error.
Re:what will "old reliable machines" be in 10 year (Score:1)
Anyway, old machines 10 years from now will be those designed like the Atari machine was. Reliable, simple, and flexible. The cheap clones, and comprimise machines will be in the dumpster.
Re:I have a Atari 600XL.... (Score:1)
The 600xl was basically an 800xl with less ram. (16k i think.) You could upgrade it, but very few people did. The Xl series of machines featured cheaper hardware, greater addressable RAM, and slightly improved graphics chips. You could put the ROM, and the chips in the older (400 800) machines, and get everything but the bank switched RAM.
The xl machines also had fewer joystick ports. 2 instead of 4.
Re:Heart monitoring with Atari is fine... (Score:1)
What happens when it breaks? (Score:3)
The concern I have is what they do as these machines start to fail? Do they have a fallback plan? It seems that someone should be porting this key chunk of software to (say) a 386
So often, people wait until it's too late to do that port.
I once worked in a company that used a BASIC program on 8088-based PC's to do a key realtime control operation in one of their products. When 8088's became unobtainable, they simply moved the code onto a 286 and discovered to their horror that it didn't work. Because this software had been written many years ago - and had never needed to be updated, they didn't even have a software engineer in that part of the organization (I worked in another division). They struggled on for a while buying up old 8088's second-hand and refurbishing them - but in the end, they called me in to rewrite the code.
It turned out that the code had done all it's timing using empty 'FOR' loops (Ick!) - which of course ran faster on the 286's. That was a hard problem to fix because by the time they had me on board, they'd sold the very last 8088 they could lay their hands on and I had no way to figure out the lengths of those delays loops. In the end, I had to chuck out the entire program and develop a new one from scratch in C (using hardware timers
and not empty 'for' loops of course).
Re:So what does this indicate? (Score:1)
What never ceases to amaze me is that new, supposedly better OS like Linux turn out to be really sloppy, crawling crap, because someone along the line trashed the old remains fast and efficient on deprecated hardware - no need to have the latest Pentium slogan that initially pushed Linux to the forefront.
Today's Linux is slow, buggy and no longer runs efficiently on a 486 with 16 MB of RAM.
By contrast, my Atari TT030 runs MiNT [freemint.de]. Even though recent improvements of its programming library has made MiNT somewhat fatter than it was a year ago, it is still the most efficient hardware/software combination in my UNIX collection.
As for my Linux boxes, someone recently suggested that FreeBSD or OpenBSD would be more secure and more robust choices to upgrade to. I guess so, although I cannot help but wonder how long those OS will remain lean and mean, let along usable.
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Just imagine what they could do with a PS2 (Score:1)
Re:Old Computers Never Die (Score:2)
The OP was pointing out that quality control has slipped dramatically over the years. Today's hardware has become overtly complicated, leading to numerous teething problems, just to squeeze an extra 5% performance from the hardware. Most of this complexity would not be required if we didn't have the need to run excessivly complex software instigated by the latest programming techniques. OOP with late linking and bytecode interpreters have a lot to answer for.
Re:Atari 8-bits do well in Eastern Europe. (Score:2)
Good point. We've gotten into trouble by trying to have one machine for everything. That is, most people just want word processing and web browsing. The bulk of computers has come from needing to support high end applications, such as 3D modelling and magazine layout. Arguably it would have been better to have simple machines for most uses, then high-end specialized machines for those businesses that need it. This would be better than transferring unneeded R&D costs to the consumer every time something new comes along: MMX, Pentium III & 4, AGP, USB, SSE2, 3D-Now!, AMD 64-bit architecture, etc.
Re:Who volunteers to port this to Linux? (Score:1)
However, "modern" equipment malfunctions with unpredictability, and it gets outdated even more quickly, than its predecessors. We all like to exagerrate how inexpensive Intel PCs are nowadays, and how widely available they are. Forgetting that more than half of the World's population have never used a telephone before, let alone connect up to the Internet.
Forgetting of course that when the first PC came out they were 2000 (UK pound sterling) and today the standard PC you get from shops are still at least 1000 (UK pound sterling). Showing virtually no change in price. Where as the equivalent 8-bit machines have dropped from 200(?) pounds in price to 50?
Forgetting of course, because PCs are so expensive, cheap (and technically inferior) game consoles systems like Sony and Dreamcast can undercut PC games, and claim a Lion's share of the market easily.
Lets not forget that the PC CPU architecture pre-dates even the 8-bit machines, and is from the 1970s, hardly "modern". All the parts are a mish mash from different manufacturers, that the whole is less than sum of the parts.
The 8-bit computers layed the foundation on which the modern PC market is built on. You cannot cast aspertions on their character without casting them on the modern market which lives off the inheritance.
"A disciple is not greater than his teacher, but at his best will be like his teacher".
Modern PCs will be AT BEST as fun, as simple, as cheap, as plural, and widely availabe as their 8-bit benefactors. The fact that they fall short of this is part of the problem here.
Czech resident counterstrike/comment (Score:1)
Good Old Atari 800XL (Score:1)
They were useful machines, plenty for educational games. And they didn't crash. Neither did our PS/2's when we got them. We had to wait for Windows before we could experience crashing.
Re:Atari? Bah! We had 64K RAM to your max 48K! (Score:2)
I remember seeing an ad for a 4 meg upgrade a couple of years ago, but I can't find any trace of it on the web.
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DOD Sticker (Score:1)
Re:Stat (Score:1)
I guess you should travel by train instead!
Re:Stat (Score:1)
Re:What happens when it breaks? (Score:2)
Make backups of the tapes (just use a regular duplicator on slow speed), and you've got enough equipment to last until the software *needs* updating.
Problem solved.
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Re:So what does this indicate? (Score:1)
You are smoking crack. :-) (Score:2)
The original poster wasn't talking about buying a p4. He mentioned a p90. I know a place here in town where, depending on inventory, I could probably get a server-grade p90 (dual hot swap PS, SCSI , 32Mb ram (heh), typical corp. file server from 5 years ago) for USD$300 or so. A basic p90 machine I could probably find for $100. PCs _are_ very cheap, if you buy a few years back on the tech curve.
Where did you pull the 1970's-pc-cpu-arch rant from? yes, the i4004 and i8008 chips were from the mid 70s, but here's a news-flash dude: the i586 bears as much resemblance to them as my left asscheck bears to the Queen Mum (<-- same pasty white color but thats about it). "a mish mash from different manufacturers" -- so? as long as it works, so what? If anything, this is a good thing becuase parts are easier to find. I'm sure the Atari's cpu and an pentium can both do the required amount of data processing, so there is no difference on a user-spec level between them.
I don't think there is anything technically wrong with old proprietary hardware, but that's not the point. The point is: can it push the bits so the docs can use it (it can), and is it easily maintainable (Atari loses big here). How many repair shops are there for early 80s Ataris compared to x86 shops?
Regardless of how you may feel about machine Foo versus machine Bar, it doesn't matter to the end users. They just want something that works reliably. This can be hard for techies to get becuase we care so much about the technical aspects, but most secretaries could give two shits if Word was coded in C or C++ or Befunge as long as it works (in as much as Word works).
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Buying? (Score:1)
Re:It's not weird (Score:1)
This is great (Score:1)
I was going to use an old 486/133 w 16m ram for an firewall, but I don't know if having that power supply fan running 24/7 would be a good idea. Rebooting on a floppy is problematic as well. (I guess there is a good use for one of those i-openers after all!) The only good reason to get one of those linksys firewalls IMHO is that they are low power don't need a floppy to reboot.
Is there any cheap alternative for a linux router? A small low power EPROM-able device that could run a Linux router at low power? Something without a fan and a hard drive?
Damn Commie misinformation! (Score:1)
In the 800XL 48K of memory was free for programs when all the ROM was switched in place (I'll concede that if DOS was loaded in with it that figure shrank slightly). On the C64, LESS THAN 40K was free. To top it all off, all the 8-bit Ataris ran at an 80% HIGHER clock speed than the C64, and the 800XL had 256 colours vs. the C64 (the Atari could produce some stunning greyscale images). The Atari disc drives were something like 10 times faster. In fact, the C64 drive was considerably SLOWER than the CASSETTE TAPE drive on another interesting 8-bit computer, the Coleco ADAM (I personally tested this fact and found it to be true). I/O in general was better in every way on the Atari XL series (faster, easier to program, more expandible) than on the C64.
Atari BASIC actually had sound and graphics commands (the C64, desipte it's sound and graphics power had a sucky Commodore PET-derived BASIC). Atari disc drive users also had a REAL DOS. On the C64 you had to use arcane, kludgy commands to even get a simple directory listing.
And last but not least, C64s and the earlier 1541 disc drives were less reliable than anything Atari ever put out. The acid test is how they fared in schools. The C64's (unlike the rock-solid PETs of an earlier era) were always suffering from joystick connector problems, power supply glitches, keyboard defects and do on. Ataris seemed to fare better under similar use (even though the keyboards had a mushy feel that would frustrate touch typists).
In conclusion, Commies suck and Atari Rulez d00dz!
what will "old reliable machines" be in 10 years? (Score:1)
Many people have said (correctly in my opinion) that there's nothing wrong with using, say, 10-year-old computer technology now, because it's very reliable, not to mention cheap, as long as it can handle whatever you're throwing at it.
So 10 years from now, what will people be using as "old reliable cheap" hardware? Will Pentium-III, Pentium-4, or AMD PC's assume that role? Will they somehow become more reliable if they survive for another 10 years? :-)
(My own personal answer is, yes, a P-III or AMD running Linux *is* generally very stable. But I sure hope Windows98 doesn't seem comparatively "reliable" 10 years from now, when judged against the standards at the time.)
Java? (Score:1)
Not only will it save your life, it will waste cycles on glitzy applets!
So what does this indicate? (Score:3)
2) Instead of better processors, we simply need better algorithms.
3) Instead of insisting that schools have the absolute latest computers, maybe we should make children try to do more with the systems they have.
4) Maybe I should just shut up.
=) (Score:1)
Oops! (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Stat (Score:1)
Not too sure what this has to do with technology though, someone must've been a bit hit up for stories. I know of a company using a tweaked up Commodore for a gateway/cache machine does this mean I should post it as relevant?
My Slashdot Spoof [antioffline.com]
Just a though guys... (Score:1)
Surely someone could do it?
If it works... (Score:3)
Seriously, when was the last time you ever heard of unrepeatable bizarre crashes on the old 8-bit machines like this?
I would be a lot happier with mission-critical stuff run on a ZX Spectrum than on any new PC.
Not only that... (Score:2)
--Shoeboy
Re: stuck on a landfill leeching lead and PCBs (Score:1)
Re:Fscking Atari Spindoctors! (Score:1)
Some things never end, it seems! ;-)
Those smart commies (Score:2)
For a very long time, nobody east of the "iron curtain" was allowed to buy 16-bit hardware. Which guarantees the development of a pool of expertise in 8-bit platforms. It would be interesting to know how many Apple II, Comodore 64, 8088-PC experts there are in eastern Europe.
And remember that the Atari was specifically designed for data acquisition. Of course, that normally means joysticks and such, but I seem to recall a certain popularity as a lab machine when it first came out.
And of course, there's the economic factor. I doubt if many Czech hospitals have the hard cash it would take to buy the off-the-shelf equivalent from Agilent.
Hey, now I know what to do with all that old hardware I couldn't bear to throw out!!!!
__________________
Re:If it works... (Score:1)
Just to have another example... do you think that Voyagers and Pioneers would have survived more than 20 years if they were launched with something as complex as a PIII/WhateverModernOS system?
It's not weird (Score:5)
The 800XL is a powerful computer. Not by today's standards, perhaps, but basic data-processing needs haven't advanced so much in the last fifteen years that the an atari, a ti99-4a or even the noble spectrum can't handle them. I'd have my doubts about a vic 20, but I've had those doubts for decades now.
Personally, I'm delighted that these things are still being used, rather than stuck on a landfill leeching lead and PCBs into the ground.
hardware vs software (Score:2)
Replacing the hardware with something better would be cheap and easy. The difficulty would come in porting the software. As long as the software you need runs acceptably well on the hardware you've got, the (rational) motivation to upgrade is low.
That said, fast new hardware is a wonderful thing. For developing, high level languages and reduced compile times make a big difference. For many scientific applications, it just isn't practical to run on slower hardware.
I guess the lesson is, for every task, the best tool is the one that does the job.
Re: Java? != big brother bill (Score:1)
SEE!? (Score:1)
(I even still write software for them sometimes:
http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/atari/ [www.])
Re:Just a though guys... (Score:1)
Re:Buying? (Score:1)
Or post a For Sale message to comp.sys.atari.8bit.
Or have a garage sale.
Or give one away to a charitable organization.
Or get an SIO2PC cable (to use your PC as a disk drive) and hook it back up and play games!
It's amazing how many 8K-32K files you can download with DSL.
Re:hardware vs software (Score:1)
Re:If it works... (Score:1)
Re:This is why I bought a c64 (Score:1)
(He died a few years ago; never did keep up with what ever happened with Atari 8-bits... I wonder
how he would have felt seeing some of the AWESOME stuff that came out of the European demo scene!?)
Speaking of Amiga, I was playing emulated Sinistar on my PSX last night, and was reminded that the guy who wrote it ALSO worked on the Amiga (and the Atari Lynx). It's a small (kick-ass) world.
Re:Just a though guys... (Score:1)
You have not yet read the FAQ [slashdot.org]. Please do so before asking again.
Thank you.
Re:Those smart commies (Score:2)
__________________
Re:Fscking Atari Spindoctors! (Score:1)
That was true for the Atari 800 but not the 800XL. The 800XL had 64K and it's ROM & BASIC could be flipped out too. The 130XE had 128K which would bank switch in the extra 64K as needed.
You're talking BASIC. And that's not quire right. As Commodore tokenized it basic keywords, you could write more BASIC code on a C64 than on an Atari.
Um, the Atari's BASIC was tokenized too. You did have the option of saving the BASIC program as a "text" file (LIST "D:FILENAME") or in it's tokenized format (SAVE "D:FILENAME"). Note how much easier it was to save ("D:" means disk drive, if you want to save to cassette use "C:" instead), no arcane commands to remember.
I'll give you the one on the tape drive. Atari had a lousy tape drive, it was faster but unreliable.
Speaking of keyboards the early PET had a chiclet keyboard, so even Commodore put out terrible keyboards.
Re:That's nothing! (Score:2)
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Re:Pictures mirror. (Score:1)
Why Atari / US Government Property (Score:1)
I went to Frankfurt American High School [fahs.org] from 1982-1986, a US DoDDS (Department of Defense Dependent Schools [odedodea.edu]) school.
Instead of Apple IIs (that everyone else seemed to have at school at the time in the US) we had Atari 400, 800, 800XL computers. Lots and lots of them.
Apparently when they were eventually thrown away or sold, this hospital in the Czech Republic got one knew how to make it do tricks. I'm happy to see it put to good use!
Re:If it works... (Score:1)
That's nothing! (Score:2)
--
Re:So what does this indicate? (Score:1)
Re:hardware vs software (Score:2)
--
The Translator (Score:1)
Real world devices us 8 bit CPUs (Score:2)
One thing that make my skin crawl is the thought of connecting up patients to an off the shelf computer without any electrical isolation. Just place electrodes on your chest so that you have a direct electrical path into your heart from the computer. Hook those electrodes to a power supply built by the lowest bidder to minimal standards. Now ask yourself, "are you feeling lucky, punk?" An off the self computer can be used just fine, but propper engineering MUST be done to provide proper isolation at the pre-amps before the signal reaches the computer.
For that matter the largest selling computing platform on earth is a 2 MHz Z80-like 8 bit micro ---- Game Boy!
On-On,
Scott
Re:Good Old Atari 800XL (Score:1)
It was a clever piece of software, it would copy an image of the old 800's ROM to the 800XL's RAM then turn off the 800XL's ROM. This was possible because the 800XL had an extra 16K of RAM that could be switched in and out with it's ROM.
Re:This is why I bought a c64 (Score:1)
The 800's chipset was designed by the same person who designed the Amiga's chipset... which Commodore later bought.
Re:Commodore 1750 REU gave me 640K, w/o kluging. (Score:2)
Also, there were commercially available products to give over a meg of memory to an 800XL which just plugged into the expansion bus. Take a look here [atarimagazines.com] for an example of how far an 800XL could be pushed with commercially available upgrades in 1987. Sure blows the additional 512k that your C128+1750 had out of the water...
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Re:Damn Commie misinformation! (Score:1)
in case of /.-ing (Score:5)
Atari in hospital
I was contacted some time ago by some person asking me if I can help with repair or replacement of Atari 800XL for hospital. I was very curious about that, because it's known that Czech hospitals are in bad financial situation but I just wondered how they could use it at the end of the nineties. The person was kind enough to send me some details about setup and also sent me few pictures.
Description
It's used in child cardiocenter in Faculty Hospital Motol for the heart diagnosis. They are looking for uninvited leaks between two parts of heart. Principle is in injecting isotope in blood and screening its movement in vascular system of pacient.
Usage
1) Computer is started, program is loaded from cassette.
2) Entering the data of patient (name, birthdate, height, weight).
3) Entering the date & time of checkup.
4) Entering the age of the isotope.
5) Program computes the optimal amount of isotope.
6) The probes are pointed to certain places of patient's body.
7) Injection of isotope.
8) For 5 minutes the program records the data from the probes.
9) Saving the data to cassette.
10) Disconnecting the gamma interface, connecting the teletype interface.
11) Priting of the protocol to teletype.
The checkup could be done by usage of other gamma camera, but it takes about 1 hour and the amount of isotope needs to be higher.
Setup
4 gamma probes
plotter
Atari 800 XL
Atari XC 12 datasette with Turbo2000
teletype T100
interface Atari gamma probes (two joystick connectors)
interface Atari teletype (one joystick connector)
monitor
Pictures
(70 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Detail of setup. Black box at the left behind is power supply for interface.
(74 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Overall look to gamma probes and plotter.
(67 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Detail of setup.
(66 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Overall look. At the left is teletype machine.
(65 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Overall look.
(62 KB JPG) [slashdot.org]
Detail of sticker on the computer. I wonder where did they got it.
Atari pages accessed xxx times.Last modified: Wed Dec 6 13:33:40 2000
(c) 2000 Jindroush [mailto]
Why Atari? (Score:5)
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Re:Old Computers Never Die (Score:1)
Why do you hate that phrase? The irony of running a second computer (or a computer at all!) for "environmentally friendly" reasons?
hold on a sec (Score:3)
________
This is a good thing (Score:2)
Healthcare is always overstretched (Score:3)
If an Atari does the job then use an Atari. They're cheap. I wonder how many more patients in the UK or US could be treated if people didn't upgrade their computers/stethescopes/coffee machines etc. because they want something new and shiny, rather than because there's a good reason for it.
Plus, it's probably pretty well debugged by now...
Re:Stat (Score:2)
I'd hate to be on the receiving end of a healthcare system with such antiquated stuff.
As long as it works, why? Would you prefer a hospital that uses a multi-million dollar piece of equipment to take your temperature in only twice the time it takes to use a regular thermometer?
The thing is, most of the people who would object to that also want lower healthcare costs. Is it really necessary for non-critical hospital equipment to be built to milspec or better? The equipment in question is a useful diagnostic tool, but nobody dies if it is down for a day.
Sticker on the Atari Information (Score:2)
The sticker is a little identification mark that is put on all Department of Defense Dependents School (DODDS) properties including computers.
DODDSs school are located all over the world, including Germany which isn't quite that far from the Czech Republic. Knowing quite a bit about these schools, I know that they just recently (about 2 or 3 years) ago moved to this ID type, so if this computer has this sticker, then the Atari really is from an American school somewhere in Europe.
I really don't know how Czech people would receive this Atari (especially since the sticker would be removed if the computer would be donated or sold through government auction/sale)
If you have any more questions, be sure to ask.
Atari 800XL ports (Score:2)
One latched "trigger" input for the FIRE button. On each leading edge of this input only signal, the x/y position of the electron beam was stored in a pair of registers for light pen implementation.
Four I/O bits from the 6532 PIO chip. These were user settable as either input or output lines via a mask register on the 6532.
Two ADC converters. There was no DAC facility. The buggers worked by discharging a capacitor at the end of vertical blank and charging it back up through the input line. When the voltage reached a predetermined level, the Y value of the electron beam was copied into a register.
It don't believe that it would be very difficult to implement this sort of primitive I/O on a more modern system. The ADC function would require a bit of hardware, but not much.
Re:This is great (Score:2)
http://www.us.buy.com/retail/searchresults.asp?
OK, so it's not Linux, but these things are cheap and have no moving parts.
Old Computers Never Die (Score:3)
Computer manufacturers are pushing the limits of technology, and the shortened life span of a computer and the development cycle is necessary to keep the tremendous growth that these companies now expect. (nee and so does wall street) This is great for us gadget people that always like the latest and greatest. It's not so good for companies that are forced to retire a substantial investment in hardware because it won't run the lastest MS WORD 2K sp1rev5.
The affect these diminished "time to market" approaches has on quality of hardware and software is also readily apparent. (10 years ago how often did you need to flash the BIOS?)
Isn't that one of the great things about Linux? Many people are running firewalls from an old 486 with mimimal RAM. Sure is much cheaper and "enviromentally friendly" (*groan* hate that phrase) than buying a new NT machine that you can bring to it's knees with check point.
In the end if the equipment works for you, and if it's reliable then use it. The old atari's never crash, is it any wonder that it's in a mission critical application? Necessity is the mother of invention. Because that invention is old does not make the solution any less valid.
Another use of the Atari 800... (Score:2)
Atari 8-bits do well in Eastern Europe. (Score:2)
While it is a shame that these machines are gathering dust in thrift stores in America, the truth is that almost nobody would know how to put one to really good use. As word processors, they're adequate as long as an 80-column dot-matrix printouts are adequate. As spreadsheet calculators, they're archaic and less intuitive than programs like Microsoft Excel. And, generally, in the workplace, if you find someone who can use a computer without a mouse, that person is worth enough money that you can as easily buy an Intel or Apple machine as hire them. The appropriate software for a given job might exist somewhere, but unless you've grown up reading Antic magazine and know all the websites and own an APE cable, good luck finding it. Though, at games, they rock as much as ever; cartridges don't bit-rot like disks do.
The Commodore 64 has done slightly better for itself, as at least it has GEOS, which supports mouse input and WYSIWYG sorts of applications. In that regard, though, even an original 1984 Macintosh is superior. In fact, an old Mac is perfect for a lot of modest tasks, because it has the GUI interface and WYSIWYG support that represents what people expect from computers. And the necessary software often does exist, even if it is outdated and hard to find nowadays. It will suffice, as long as one does not raise the question of the Internet.
The obsolescence of 8-bit computers is not a technological one; it is a cultural one. It is not that we need a faster computer to do the same things; we need a faster computer for the latest killer app. We needed to upgrade so that we could do desktop publishing, gaming, graphs, spell checking, the Internet, music sharing, or movie editing.
The exception, of course, is when you upgrade because the latest version of your favorite Microsoft program is slower than the last one, for some reason.
Re:If it works... (Score:2)
No, it doesn't.
The flight critical software is run on a redundant set of IBM AP-101 computers. The AP-101 is a 32-bit machine that is a descendant of the IBM 360. See this page [nasa.gov].