Need help with my atari 400

[Catherine]

The computer is pal.

If you don't get any signal (except for a black or red screen) then its very likely that your computer is broken. In case you just need the comp for gaming and you have a newer PC at hand also I recommended to install an emulator.

aww thats crap I wanted to play on it, emulators just aren't the same as the real thing.

[Kiwilove]

Something to keep in mind, that if you have a Atari 400 with no cart present, it should display the MEMO PAD blue screen, once you
tuned your TV in, properly.
But I'll guess that past a certain time limit, the blue screen would
cycle to various colours? ie. the background colour blue will?
I'm only guessing from my recall of how an old Atari computer will
act? I use emulators on a PC these days, and sold my Atari computer
so many years ago.

There is nothing wrong with getting your Atari 400 going - but
they only had 16K of memory, and you will probably want to chase up
games only on cartridges, which I'll guess should work OK? Then you need some Atari joysticks. It's much less hassle to run emulators - and these
work on the older PCs alright too - on PCs that are around 400-600MHz
speed, which is pretty slow these days.

If your Atari 400 isn't working, it'll probably be difficult finding someone who could fix it up for almost nothing...
If you can get it going, then you just need to be aware of, and lucky
enough to get the better cartridges for it. Star Raiders for one, Pac Man,
Pole Position ... ... etc. You'll have quite a scavenger hunt to do...

Harvey

[Catherine]

I have got some games with it, it came with Defender and Pac-man, but I tried and tried and it just didn't wanna seem to work really. For now I've just given up and popped it under my bed.

[Kiwilove]

Something else to try? Is to insert the Pacman cart in, and see/listen to whether you can hear the game going, if you tuned into a black screen?
The Pacman game is very distinctive with it's sounds, when it plays in demo mode. At least I think it does? You can always keep on pressing START...

Defender never lived up to it's promise, for the Atari Computers.
This is definitely a game, that needs to be played in an original coin-op cabinet, with all those buttons to control.

A terrific game though, is Bristles --- this is 32K and I don't think you'll come across this in on cartridge. If you got a suitable PC - try this game out... I think it is one of the better ones, along with Archon II, and
various others...

Harvey