[List of Dealers that See Atari Computers]

Look for the VENDEV FAQ, posted to comp.sys.atari.8bit on a semi-regular basis - it lists current vendors and developers.

[Printing program listing including control characters]

There was also the G: driver in ANALOG, which would print out to Epson-compatible printers in beautiful ATASCII. A very nice bit of programming that supported alternate charsets, too...

[Running Mac/65 under MyDOS?]

Another option might be to try MAE, written by John Harris (of Frogger and Jawbreaker fame). It's floating about out there in the interwebs...

[ASSUALT FORCE 3D w/Super Charger cartridge]

I suspect the intent in offering the Cart was as a form of copy protection.

 

I think Best is still offering the cart/disk combo for sale- and MyAtari may have a few as well.

[Atari XC1411 Monitor for the 130XE]

I have an "Atari XE Game System" green monitor. When a lightgun gave up the ghost, I took the Atari label from its side and glued it on to a Tandy green monitor...

[PBR Print Buffer Routine (anyone ever seen one?)]

There was info or it was reviewed in either Antic or Analog (I forget which but don't see it in Antic archives). Seems like the company had another cart like a disk emulator or something in the same article.

 

I seem to recall an ANALOG review. This was similar to the "Atari Zucchini" series of articles by Lee Brilliant, on converting an 800 to a printer buffer - a custom SIO cable between the parent computer and the slave 800; the 800 would act as a printer buffer and print out via the joystick ports to any Centronics parallel printer (in other words, it would act as the P: device).

 

I also recall another cart from the same company that would have your second computer act as a RAMDISK.

 

Anyone interested in learning to program SIO / CIO could do much worse than reading the Atari ZUcchini articles from ANALOG.

[600XL - pros and cons]

There's only the standard TV out; adding the monitor output takes some work on your part.

 

There's also only 16K RAM; some game cartridges do require more RAM (mostly later ones)

[Blue Max]

I have made it to "Blue Max" but only 4th class... every time I get all the targets early and hit the bunkers in the city on the first pass I somehow manage to crash into another plane. But I still go back...

[Disk/Program Translation question (XL)]

I think ANTIC ran an article many, many moons ago in their "Tech Tips" explaining the 5v switch method - in fact, it's what I've got in one of my 800xls (socket soldered on top of the OS ROM, 27128 plugged in on top).

 

That may explain why that 800xl gets flakey when I try using an Atarimax flash cart...

[Blue Max]

In the Atari cart version the screen DL screw-up upon bombing your own hanger went away.

 

Anyone out there ever reach the esteemed rank of Blue Max first class?

[Thoughts on Atari XEGM?]

A question: I just picked up an XEGM (no keyboard) on Ebay. All the chips are soldered except for ANTIC. Any one have a hypothesis as to why that one particular chip would be socketed?

[Fast Math ROM]

It used to be available at the Umich archive; if that doesn't work out, I know I have a copy somewhere - the problem si that my Atari stuff is mostly still in storage, so no guarantees as to when I can find it.

 

It's a drop-in replacement within the OS; what I did was take the XL OS, replace the FP routines, add John Harris' Hyper E:, and add a routine from Antic so CTRL-SHIFT-P would dump a GR 0 screen to P:, then burned it into a 27128 (losing the International charset in the process, but still having a few hundred free bytes to play around with). Again, once I dig out my disks I'll upload...

[What's the latest Atari related thing(s) you've bought on ebay?]

XEGS, with power supply but no keyboard, for $1.57 (plus shipping).

 

 

I was watching that one. Missed the end!! Good purchase!!

 

I'm thinking about a hardware / software combination to let it act as a server (using SIO) for up to 4 other computers... kinda nifty to have multiple megabytes of disk space accessible to multiple computers...

[What's the latest Atari related thing(s) you've bought on ebay?]

XEGS, with power supply but no keyboard, for $1.57 (plus shipping).

[Expanding the 400]

Brad Koda at Best may still have some in stock (http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/); alternatively, B&C Computervisions (http://www.myatari.com/) may also be able to set you up with a 48K board for the 400.

[What games bring you back to the A8?]

MULE

Blue Max

Star Raiders

BallBlazer

Hardball

[64K Atari 800]

Slightly OT:

 

The Montreal Atari Club was named at its first meeting "The Reunion of Atari Montreal People" or TRAMP. It was intended as a joke; at the second meeting the club was renamed the "Montreal Atari Club Atari de Montreal", or MACAM. Lots of memories there...

[Device Drivers]

Drac030:

 

Many thanks. The site is occasionally inaccessible from here, but it's a good list... I only need to polish my Polish!

[Device Drivers]

I'm interested in seeing what device drivers exist for the Atari 8-bits. I'll list the ones I know, and I'd ask one and all to add any others they know about.

 

S: Screen

P: Printer

E: Text Editor

C: Cassette

K: Keyboard

 

D: Disk drives

 

R: RS-232 device (Atari 850, PR Connection, MIO, Black Box etc)

 

G: Graphics printer device from ANALOG

 

N: Null device, from Antic (I think)

 

M: For the Multiplexer interface, originally from CSS

 

 

Any other ones you can think of off the top of your head?

[Atari 400 Newbie]

Can't find it with Best or Myatari (B&C Computervisions) but there was an Atari 48K board for the 400. Best is still offering a 32K board for $25.00 - see http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/800.htm, item #CB101377.

 

Brad sometimes has items in stock not listed on the site; it's probably worth an email.

[Whatever became of Turbo-816?]

And the promised pictures of the FTE Sweet 16 upgrade. Top shot is as installed in my 800xl (in the top of the photo are from PIA to expanded RAM). Bottom shows the other IC mounted on the bottom.

[UltraSpeed Plus OS]

I believe you are correct. After a comprehensive set of tests (some would say I merely played a bunch of games, some 400/800 only, with the switch in both positions. But I call it testing) it appears that one position is the 400/800 OS (with OPTION to enable BASIC), while the other is the default XL OS.

 

Here are photos (top and bottom) of the upgrade:

[Looking for atari 400 adapter]

What type of adapter, specifically? Power adapters are available from sources like www.myatari.com or www.best-electronics-ca.com; TV adapters may be available from the same sources. There are also memory adapter cards that will take your 400 to a whopping 48K.

[UltraSpeed Plus OS]

There is another thread at http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=104682 that has scans of the Ultra Speed + OS manual.

 

I recently found that one of my 800xls has an old CSS OS upgrade. I haven't yet had time to do any detailed poking about, but the OS ROM has been replaced by a small PCB with a socked for the old ROM, plus another EPROM with its face covered in black plastic, along with some logic ICs with their identifiers carefully rubbed off. The bottom of the board reads "Computer Software Services 1984". I'll try to open up the system again to take some pictures (the RF shield is actually screwed down on this machine!)

 

The selector switch has only two positions, and when in the non-default XL OS position the functioning of OPTION seems to be reversed on boot.

 

As the UP+ OS came out in 1988, and this PCB is dated 1984, does anyone have any ideas what it might be?

[MyIDE Internal Upgrades Available Again]

Is there a general FAQ that explains exactly WHAT all these products are for people who have been out of the loop for years? They all sound like things I'm interested in, but would like top-down description of them!!

 

There was an upgrade FAQ at one time, I'm not sure if its up to date or even still available?

 

Steve

 

As the one who many, many moons ago wrote the upgrade FAQ, I can safely say that (1) it still lurks around the darker corners of the net and (2) it's woefully out of date - I'd estimate a decade or more - think back to Geocities and handwritten HTML...