questions about the old atari 400?

Question

i have an old atari 400 from 1982. if i turn it on without a cartridge the top of the screen says:

ATARI COMPUTER - MEMO PAD

then the rest of the screen is blank until i type something.
is this all it does?
if not what else?
is there a way to save my work?
what is that weird looking port on the side for?
where can i get a better AC adapter for it?
also i need a better RF adapter too.
what does the atari logo key do?
is there anything other than typing and playing centipede that i can do with it?
what are some of the commands i can use?
as of right now it just takes up space!
how can i use this thing to it's full potential?
i know that the abilities are limited, seeing as it was built in 1982. it's older than i am. ha ha ha

Answer 1

Without a cartridge or boot disk, the computer boots into memo pad mode, as you've discovered. All you can do is type. There is no way to save your work. You need a cartridge or boot disk if you want to do other stuff.

Weird looking port: which one? What's it labelled? What sort of connector does it have (shape, number of pins)?

AC adapter: I have no idea. Does it have a standard-size connector?

Atari logo key: turns reverse video on and off. In memo pad, try pressing the Atari key, typing a few letters, and pressing the Atari key again.

What you can do with it: there was a moderately large software library at one time. I've got a bunch of Atari 400/800 software; you may be able to find some on the Web for download (of course, you'd have to put it on 5.25" disks). The Atari 400, 800, 600XL, and 800XL had the same OS and used the same software, so you can probably search for any of these computer names (or for "8-bit Atari") and see what comes up in terms of old software or peripherals. (These computers used the Motorola 6502 chip, as did virtually every other personal computer at the time.)

The Atari ST series, on the other hand, are different animals: these are 32-bit machines with Motorola 68000 chips, and were designed to compete with the Amiga and early Mac. ST software will not run on your 8-bit Atari.

E-mail me at marnen AT marnen DOT org if you need more help. I'm no Atari expert, but my parents and I used an 800 and 800XL as our primary computers for years, so I may be able to help you out with a thing or two.