Sebastian ‘Candle`o`Sin’ Bartkowicz has, many years ago, developed the Ultimage1MB, one of the best modern upgrades you can buy for your Atari XL/XE. It offers, as you can guess, 1MB of RAM for the Atari 8-bits but it doesn’t stop there. You can have in it multiple operating systems and BASICs available, a real time clock and multiple modes of operation.
One caveat is that the Ultimate1MB is a piece of hardware that has to be installed inside the machine, with the need for a little bit of soldering. Although it is fairly easy, it is not a plug & play solution that anyone can install. Another problem is that if one has multiple machines, it can be expensive to buy one Ultimate for each one of them.
To fill this gap, Sebastian has announced that he is working on a new external version of Ul1MB, which will combine the functionality of a Ultimate1MB and a SIDE3 cartridge. This way, the users will have in the same device all the expanded RAM and a mass-storage device.
Sebastian warns that although the hardware is almost complete, he just started working on the firmware, so there is still no word when the device will be ready.
To make sure you follow the development, access Atariage’s link below and subscribe to the thread. If you are curious to see how the device works, Sebastian has a quick video demonstrating the external U1MB capabilities.
Link: Atariage