If anyone knows the patent number for the versawriter, that should contain a description of how it works. Bruce NJ On Sun, Oct 3, 2021 at 6:23 PM Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Marcus Mera is looking to borrow the [U of A] VersaWriter, contact wanted.
The Web page says: "Contact Information: Send reference and licensing requests to ahap@uakron.edu"
My experience with museums, and universities, is that they are reluctant to have just anyone obtain or mess with their artifacts. Don't blame me for reporting this circumstance.
The versawriter itself, has some history I believe, that can be found on the Web. I stumbled over it not long ago, which is why I've responded at all.
So it's a known thing. My engineering spider-sense suggests to me, it's two adjustable resistors - potentiometers - on sticks. If so, someone somewhere has reverse engineered it. I think someone reasonably handy, could build a duplicate, if my guess is correct. And odds are, someone has.
Additional Web research should be informative, to find the details and/or a willing owner and/or how-to-make. Atari is not my tech, but I'm curious now.
Regards, Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT comcast DOT net