adam242

Wow, that intro demo is a real attention-grabber! 😍

Nice work repairing that completely avoidable damage. Few things enrage me more than people who don't have a clue how to properly package an item for shipment. What method did you use to cut the hole for the monitor DIN connector?

Space bar activates the smart bomb in Defender, which is usually done under moments of great duress and people end up smacking it harder than they need to.

Those backgrounds are gorgeous! Would love to see them integrated into the game.

The illegal OS calls used in some 400/800 software that broke on with the XL series have nothing to do with "illegal" or "undocumented" 6502 opcodes. Some programs for the 800 used OS subroutines by jumping directly to them instead of using the provided vectors. When the OS was revised for the XLs, these routines were not located in the same memory space, and the programs would crash. Illegal opcodes are a feature of the 6502 chip itself, and have nothing to do with the operating system.

I own at least one of every 8-bit Atari. See my signature.

Populating the blank spots on an NTSC 600XL for composite is not difficult or expensive.. the hardest part for me was cutting a clean, round hole in the case for the DIN connector!

More than one player and regular playfield gfx for the fighters. Run the game in Altirra and hit ctrl-f8 to see the layers. Archer was indeed a master at maximizing the A8's resources.

This is very good advice. I've been happily and successfully playing through both those sets. Getting better and having fun doing it.

At first glance, I thought that was the source image, not the Rasta pic!

Very sad news. His 8-bit titles are among the Atari's very best. I also enjoy his Pool Paradise for the Gamecube.

I can't even get my head around how you went from step 1 to step 2 without jamming...

Is it just me or are most of these levels literally impossible??

Finished this tonight, guys.. I am blown away at the effort put into the art, music and story! This is truly an amazing achievement on the Atari 8-bit. Enjoyed it immensely. Thanks and congratulations to Fandal, Poison and PG. One of the best A8 gaming experiences.

Can someone offer a hint on the card reader/ keypad with the Greek letters? I thought the code might be someone's four-letter first name, but apparently not...

350125

Spray some contact cleaner into the color pot and work it back n forth a few times

From the item description: "I do not know anything about this game." Well, clearly...

You could be The Walrus, you'd still have to bum rides off people.

The RF modulator is precisely what makes the difference. Without one, machines like the Apple II can claim they are intended for "office use" and are exempt from the more stringent regulations applied to "home use" computers. The 400/800, having an RF modulator, are clearly designed to use the good-ol' living room TV as their display.

There were five different XL keyboards, documented very well in this thread.

Sometime in 1984, I convinced my Dad to buy me a 600XL. It wasn't even my birthday or Christmas. I dove right into learning Atari BASIC, and my whole family enjoyed cartridge games like River Raid and Miner 2049er. A few years later, pretty sure 1986, I had saved paper route money to upgrade to a 130XE and 1050 disk drive. Whole new world. I was 13. Unfortunately, I don't have either of those machines anymore.. by 1990, I sold both of them to buy a used Amiga 1000. All my current Atari 8-bits (except for an 800 I picked up before the Amiga) were bought on eBay or craigslist years later.

These units were owned by Dom DeLuise during the filming of The Cannonball Run in 1981. Exceedingly rare and worth quite a bit of money.

Sorry guys, just a lame Clutch reference.

While going through a box of old comic books from my childhood the other day, I discovered some Atari and Atari-related ads I though I'd share. Was particularly surprised by/ impressed with the Parker Brothers ad singling out Atari computers. Anyone interested in properly scanning and archiving these please PM me.