Thus skip 20 odd years and here I am expecting a delivery from Jason - A kind guy from the lovely Jeff Minter forum, YakYak my home on the internet. He had one hidden in his house and it needed a good home as he was given it and never used it. So I stuck my hand up quickly and Jason sent it to me. I didnt know what to expect. Was it the older Atari 800 I wanted? Was it the box of delights I asked Dad for many moon ago?

The box arrived and I ripped open to find......

A lovely old old Atari 800 complete with Atari disk drive and Atari tape deck and some great carts along with gosh - Star Raiders! at last I can play it properly!

The mighty beast was in poor shape but she is there!

The main problem that I could see was the shielding from the cart cover was loose - spreading lots of old foam around the Atari - Looks like the machine needed a spring clean so I set to work....

For cleaning old machine I have always found hot soapy water is the best bet to clean the plastic. and it comes up a treat. Also I invested some time ago in a little soft brush to get into the cracks and keyboard. Magic!

After only an hour...

Looks 100 times better. I also cleaned up the cassette deck and drive.

Now for a quick play.....

It seems there was no power supply. I tried to use the Atari disc drive one that was in the box. The Atari didnt seem to like it as the screen buzzed away and reset every time I pressed a key - but I just had to get these shots....

Now all I need to do is source a power supply for the Atari and that's it! Gaming retro heaven awaits! and then there is trying out the drive and cassette deck.

Many many thanks to Jason! You are a star sir!