Shawn Jefferson

I definitely want to get in on a second batch if there is one!

You should be able to tell if it's running at full speed if the sound is good, or if not, it will probably be choppy. At least that's been my experience (albeit not with the Pi).

Yes you are probably right... although I don't enough about DANE. DNSSEC hasn't caught on to the extent we need yet either though.

Even on ARM. I use Atari800 3.0 SDL on my Nokia N900, and with a game gripper you can play games with a NES style joypad even, not to mention having a full keyboard. The only real issue is the hardware is a bit too slow to keep up, so you get audio issues sometimes. I've checked out Atari emulators on other devices, but touch-screen only devices are just not a great experience to emulator a computer that has a keyboard.

The problem is that the CA root certificate is not "trusted", which means it's not in your browser's list of root CAs. To get on that list, there's a usually a small fee and some mild vetting. CACert.org obviously hasn't done this.

Sorry for the confusion... I wasn't sure if you were wanting to write your own program and put it on the flashcart, or just build a multi-cart with existing programs/games. The fancy menus you see people doing are all programmed from scratch by them. As far as writing whatever to a physical cartridge, using Steve's programming software (Studio) is the easiest, baring writing your own (or maybe using the SIC software, I think it's compatible?)

What exactly do you mean by "write cartridges?" It's just an Atari cartridge, so you can write programs for it like any other Atari cartridge (Space Harrier for one example.) The Maxflash Studio software just automates creating multi-carts.

He (the guy who make that flashcart) programmed that menu himself. As far as I know, it's not been released, and probably isn't "general purpose" anyway.

It seems Candle may have got inadvertently himself into a similar situation that Zaxxon was in... projects being prepaid, but real life then gets too busy to deliver. Coming up this April, it will be 2 years that a few folks (including myself) pre-paid for a Lynx video upgrade board. I realized that he has other projects to deliver before that one and it would take some time... 2 years though, is quite a long time. I have two other Candle products, and while the time from pre-pay to delivery was quite long (close to a year), they were definitely worth it and I'm glad to have them.

FJC, no reason to even explain... no one's paying for this. It'll be done when it's done, or maybe never. It's your project. I guess you can be flattered that people are impatient to get even a demo on their real Atari computer!

This is the same reason that I have installed various hardware upgrades in my Atari computers. I love the Atari 8-bit, and it's a hobby, so I view all those hardware upgrades as simply extending the boundaries of my enjoyment. I have disk drive upgrades, memory upgrades, sound upgrades, OS upgrades, mass storage upgrades, mass storage cartridges, and yes, video upgrades including the VBXE. I'm not a purist in the sense that the machine must remain stock (I have several that are if I ever change my mind!), as long as the machine retains the Atari 8-bit feeling, and all these upgrades don't cross that line for me. VBXE for instance... you still are programming for it in 6502 machine code, and all the other features/quirks of the machine are still there for your enjoyment. I'll go further and say that hardware hacking such as this was always a part of the Atari 8-bit computer (any many other computers of the time) experience for most. The fact that technology has advanced so much and the hardware we're hacking onto and into our little Ataris is so capable doesn't really make it bad. Everyone has to figure out where that line is for them though. This is definitely a problem for sure... eventually it reaches critical mass and tips the other way. Having them in the emulator helps a lot though. I guess you could argue that VBXE hasn't reached that critical mass yet, and that there is no "killer app" that entices a larger audience to have one. How many are out there and installed? Less than 100? 200?

As far as monitors go, I think the Commodore monitors do RGB right? I'm personally using mine with an Atari ST monitor that I got fairly cheap (got rid of the ST it came with of course!)

I remember the C64 drives were SLOOOOOOW, and waiting for a game to load so you play Bruce Lee with your buddy was horrible. And not everyone had Fast Load carts until later on... when my Atari had a Happy drive already (but no new games unfortunately... ). Many other Atari folks had hard drives and were using SpartaDOS when the C64 guys were finally loading their games at a decent speed. Still, even though I didn't like things about the C64, I was envious of the game support, especially later on. Why couldn't we get Bard's Tale, or U5? Sometimes I was envious of the port quality. Racing Destruction Set is one I remember being very disappointed with. The Atari version just looks so crappy compared to the C64, and that was a game we had lots of fun playing on the C64.

We never had "cheap" games in North America. Stores just stopped stocking Atari 8-bit games over here. When we bought a game, we usually played it A LOT. But definitely games we got on pirate disks, especially from overseas, you'd have no idea how to play, sometimes they wouldn't even work properly on our computers due to VBI time, or whatever else. So yea, I've booted a few games, looked at it and said... nah, I'll go back to U4, or MULE.

A friend and I both bought Atari 800XLs at the same time. I could only afford the 800XL and one game, where he had a 1010 tape deck. So I saw what the tape deck was all about, but both of use really wanted disk drives, so it wasn't much after that, that we both got 1050 drives (mine was a Christmas/Bday present and I think ran about $350-still have it, with Happy upgrade.) The "funny" thing is that a good friend of ours, whose parent's owned a computer store had THREE computers, a C64, an Atari 800 and an Apple IIe (replaced later on by an IBM PC) and TONS of pirated software for each computer, which is where we got interested in computers. They basically told us that if we got computers, they would copy some software for us, which we (at 12 years old) thought was pretty awesome. When we finally did get disk drives though, they charged us $5 a disk. We both bought a pirated Gemstone Warrior from them, but didn't buy any others-it didn't feel right to be buying pirated software, and we felt lied to. We eventually found other avenues to buy and copy games (mainly the Atari User Group.)

The Atari booting sound always brings back great memories, even just thinking of the sound while reading this thread.

When I was a kid there were no stores in my area selling Atari games. I remember being so excited on a trip to Disneyland that I could go to Toys R' Us and buy some games for my computer. Other than that, downloading from BBSes and copy parties were pretty much the only way a kid like myself in those days could easily get games. I can fully understand your frustration when you saw your game being copied, with the financial outlay and effort you had to make to get the game out there. That's assuming that people who pirated your game would have purchased it, which is likely not the case. That's a difficult one. Also, I'm sure you assumed that some piracy would take place, so it must not have been a surprise either, although a bit of a kick in the pants to see it up close and personal. Every platform had rampant piracy... all my friends with different makes of computers (Apple, C64, IBM), all had pirated software.

Absolutely, that's too much into the dark side and I think almost everyone agrees with that one.

Basic monster code ported over now... monsters can move and attack, and you can attack them. update: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/18/entry-11652-here-be-dragons/

And kobolds, slimes and snakes. Got the basic Moria monster code running on the 8-bit. Monsters can move and attack you, and you can attack back and kill them gaining experience (and levels). You might want to wear your armor and wield your weapons and avoid Battle Scarred Veterans on the town level. Besides the monsters, these functions added since last beta/demo: ? - brings up the help screens M - Map has been rewritten and fixed W - Where am I (map feature) P - Peruse books (you can look at the contents of magic books, just can't learn the spells yet!) T - throwing items, including arrows/pebbles from slings, flaming oil Q - Quaffing potions (beware of drinking strange substances in the dungeon!) / - Identify character All commands are shown in the help screen, try whatever you like, those that are not ported yet will do nothing. Tombstones are drawn when you die and you can view your character and equipment. Change $1A3B just before going down a staircase, and you'll go to dungeon level $1A3B + 1. Don't go too much further than your character level, the monsters get quite a bit stronger. These bugs I'm aware of: - sometimes a treasure is displayed as " (1d3)". You can pick it up, but doing inventory commands with it usually results in a crash. - almost always a crash around generating a dungeon level around 5-7. - "you hear a muffled scream"... creatures are being spawned in rock, most likely corrupted - picking up gold seems to pause for a significant amount of time (could just be all the 32-bit values being worked with in that function.... or some bug I introduced.) - occasionally invisible monsters that you can kill and gain experience but they don't get deleted from the level, so you can keep killing them over and over. - some more I can't remember off the top of my head. All bugs introduced by my efforts to port, usually due to bank switching errors, and not from the original code! On the coding front, I thought I had ran out of memory, but I found some data in low memory that should have been in cartridge banks, so freed up enough to keep going! Mainly the issue is around the banking code to allow functions to call each other inter-bank.

Isn't there 1450/1400 emulation in Atari800? I haven't tried it, but I guess no V: emulation there then? Quick google finds me this:

Is there a patent on SIO2PC? (I'm suspecting not.) Or did you mean that you "don't take someone else's property" only if it's protected by law?

You draw the line at "current" device and platforms? I'm just trying to point out that even some people who have very black and white views often are still rationalizing somehow/somewhere. Having illegal copies of even old Atari software is still illegal and copyright infringement, and is harming the secondary game market (people like Best, B&C and Video61 who put money into purchasing up old stock for instance.) The law is clear (who owns the IP may not be so clear after 30 years though....) What generally do folks here think about illegally downloading an old movie or song? What about E.T.? Ok to download, or must you buy it? What about all those Duran Duran albums you want to listen to now? Ok, or not? Where's the line, and who is it ok to harm? As long as the "author" or primary creator isn't being "harmed" ? Or is the line the current IP holder; if they aren't receiving money from your purchase, it's ok to infringe?

I'm still halfway through... put the project away and haven't got back to it yet. I also need to do another part order to get the rest of the parts I need (mainly chip sockets.)

I'm curious if you have, or have used, any software for the Atari 8-bit that you don't have the legal rights to use? Is everything you've used either purchased (and still retained), free-ware/public domain? PS. I don't disagree with your statement that copying software without paying the IP owner is illegal. It clear is against the law. That's also good business sense, as infringement at the level you are talking about can be very costly. I work in IT, and part of my job (as everyones' in IT) is to make sure that software used by employee's of the company, and installed on company owned equipment is legally obtained and licensed. I pursue this ruthlessly, even with "shareware" and trial software. Sometimes license management at that level is difficult and costly. Luckily a company like Microsoft, instead of suing you, will let you "true-up" and pay for what you are using if you happen to be audited.