6 replies to this topic

[therealbountybob]

A small Atari tale...

After spending most of my adult life living in the relatively small village of Thurlby Lincolnshire I remembered seeing when I re-read the Page 6 mags last year that there was a company called RAMBIT in Thurlby. I thought I remembered the address but wasn't sure as it was The Green which was the bit in the village that isn't just a single street... anyway... I'd been keeping my eye out on a particular house as I did my regular local walks but never saw anyone there until Sunday, when I'd been dropped off at the local shop after watching a mates son play football... So armed with a pint of milk and a flask and several extra cups I looked at this lady who was standing outside the front of the property and (resisting the temptation to blurt out RAMBIT!) said I had an Atari (hoping she wouldn't call the police) and explained and she smiled and called her husband down from a ladder (replacing guttering) who was Mr.Davidson (I think) who was indeed the person behind RAMBIT - they were the turbo load hardware mods for the cassette drives...

Unfortunately he had recently got rid of his atari stuff (though he still has his notes / paperwork); I hadn't the heart to ask if it was thrown away. He was probably in his 60s now and had lived in the village for 40 years (when it was a little village before us city folk had runined it - he didn't say that!) I explained that I ran the high score club and there was still great support for our little machines... He wasn't a computer user now and didn't use the internet at all. Makes me wish I'd done this 10 years ago, but better late than never. He and his wife live in a house dating back to the 1800s (though he's extended/renovated it) and they are waiting for some decent weather to do a hot air balloon ride that has been cancelled several times! Up Up and Away

Was wondering if anyone here used their products or knew him?

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Same as with you.

I know the RamBit Turbo as I saw it advertized in a non-Dutch Atari magazine (must be Page6/Analog I think) but never had one. It was briefly noticed once in a Dutch magazine in an article about a software-based turbo loader (Kees Beekhuis) and that's about all I know about RamBit.

[Tickled_Pink]

Nice story. Would be interesting if it was possible to make copies of his notes to see if there was anything of interest to the community. I certainly remember the ads.

Good to see that they seem to have done alright for themselves.

[therealbountybob]

Tickled_Pink, on Tue Jan 24, 2012 8:07 AM, said:

Nice story. Would be interesting if it was possible to make copies of his notes to see if there was anything of interest to the community. I certainly remember the ads.

Good to see that they seem to have done alright for themselves.

Next time I see him I'll ask him if I can take then and get them scanned in somewhere

[Tin_Lunchbox]

therealbountybob, on Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:37 AM, said:

A small Atari tale...

<text clipped for brevity>

He and his wife live in a house dating back to the 1800s (though he's extended/renovated it) and they are waiting for some decent weather to do a hot air balloon ride that has been cancelled several times! Up Up and Away

Was wondering if anyone here used their products or knew him?

That's a great story, thanks for sharing it. I wasn't familiar with Rambit, I take it to be some circuitry that speeds up cassette-tape loading on the 410, the 1010, and whatever the other ones were. That's a nifty mod, but to me the niftiest yet would be a mod that allows loading from various places on the cassette, like a disk drive. In other words it would have some kind of smart rewind/fast forward capability. I guess no-one ever did that.

[orpheuswaking]

I have the Rambit Taskmaster disk that I got from them via mailorder

[kixs]

I used Rambit extensively back in the days. Me and my brother even made some circuits for XC12. It was great to fit 20 games to cassette. I sold my Atari stuff in 1991 when I switched to PC's. A few years later I've seen the first emulators emerge and then realized that selling it was a mistake. Now I have it again, but just can't find the one that is without faults.

Yeah I have nice memories of Rambit.