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The Atari "Collette"
is a single board version of the the Main Board of the
Atari 800. Combining the Mainboard, OS Board, CPU
Board and the 3 16K boards into 1 single board.
The expansion slots and the right cartridge slot have
all been removed to accommodate the needed real estate
for all of the chips of those boards being put onto the
main board. The RAM chips are 64K DRAM chips. It
appears that the exact same mechanical footprint of the
original 1979 Atari 800 Main Board was used, with the
front 1/2 of the board remaining nearly the same and
only the back 1/2 of the board being laid out
differently. It is interesting to note that
even the PITS Edge Connector outline is retained and is
used for traces to be laid out on the board.
Very little is known of the
background of this board design. 3 known
prototypes are still in existence and they may be the
only ones ever made. Judging by the fact that all
are done in the lower cost non-solder masked versions,
these appear to have been a very low cost budgeted
project.
Some minor notes exist in a
few engineering logs mentioning the word "Collette" and
an FCC submission document noting that an Atari 1200 and
a Collette had been sent for FCC testing in 1982, are
the only known references to the project.
It can be assumed that Atari
may have been looking for a parallel pathway of 2
products: the 1200 and a cost reduced 800 and they would
go with whichever project seemed the best choice.
Hopefully further
information can be obtained. It would be
interesting to know if any case design changes would've
been made since the need for a 2mm cast aluminum frame
would no longer be needed. Would the case have been
redesigned to use a simple sheet metal RF shield?
Would the top of the case also be redesigned to just
have a single cartridge slot door or just an opening of
some sort and eliminate the removable top since that
would no longer be a needed requirement?
If you are a former Atari
engineer and worked on Collette or have any direct
knowledge and/or information or documents on the
project, please contact the Atari Museum:
CLICK HERE
Special thanks to Glenn Bruner and
John Hardie
for the loan of the Collette board to
the Atari Museum. |
