x=usr(1536)

Found out last night that, at some point early next year, the contents of the storage unit I have on the other side of the country will be able to be moved to where we actually live. One of the items still in storage is a 1200XL, which was passed down to me shortly before it went into storage. I never had one of these growing up since they weren't available where we lived, but was always sort of intrigued by them. Unfortunately, I never really had a chance to play with it before it went into storage, so I'm still fairly clueless about their capabilities beyond what I've read about them. Anyway, on to the actual question: are there any demos or other software worth checking out that illustrate any of the 1200XL's pecularities compared to the other XL/XE (or 400/800) machines? 1200XL-specific bugs, weird behaviours, capabilities, etc. are all on the cards as are BASIC or assembly listings. Basically, I'd like to get a feel for what makes it what it is. Hopefully it's survived the last decade without developing any issues - thankfully, it's in a climate-controlled unit (along with the rest of my Atari stuff), so chances are decent that it still works.

For the full-on retro experience, it should be capable of booting a kernel with some base utilities from a 1.44MB floppy. Used to do it with Slackware all the time; Mint's just bloated by comparison

Funny you should mention the Odyssey2; I ran across one at the local Habitat for Humanity store a couple of months ago. It had arrived in the box. That had been broken down and tossed into a trash can, evidently fairly close to when I had arrived at the store. Five boxed cartridges (nothing that could be classed as either rare or unusual) were included with it. Their boxes were in great shape right up to the point where they were double-wrapped with packing tape to hold them together, then taped down to the keyboard so that they wouldn't get lost in the store. The asking price? $150. I made some enquiries as to how they had arrived at that number, and was given the usual 'according to our research...' line, which, upon further investigation, meant 'we looked at eBay'. They weren't very happy when I pointed out that they had effectively dropped the system's worth to around parts value by how they had handled it. It sat on the shelves at $150 for a couple of weeks, and (I believe) was eventually sent to e-waste. Thrift stores and the like are more or less a waste of time these days.

Preface: the point of asking this question is not to be antagonistic; it's something that I've wondered about since the age of around nine or so. With that in mind: Did anyone actually like their Aquarius? I had one; it even included the Mini Expander and 16K RAM cartridge. And I hated it. Nobody else had one, magazines never carried any interesting program listings for it, and the game selection was scant. Its capabilities were... Limited. Years later, when I heard how it had been described as the 'system for the Seventies' inside of Mattel, I totally understood what it must have been like to know that this was what had been selected to ship. About the kindest things I could find to say about it was that the green power light was sort of a neat colour, and putting an appropriately-tuned AM radio next to it and forcing BASIC to do some heavy FOR/NEXT loops could cause some interesting-sounding interference on the radio. So was I just an ungrateful kid (bear in mind that the sole purpose of my parents obtaining this computer for me by sitting through a timeshare presentation was to keep me away from the Apple ][+ that they had, a stratagem that backfired significantly on them), or was my loathing at the time completely justified?

As long as any lights on the stick can be turned off, I'm fine with the idea. There are times where they could be a visual distraction, which would be considerably less than desirable. That said, I'll also admit that I like the stick's design. Yes, more buttons would be more bueno, but could also be ergonomically-difficult to achieve outside of a gamepad format. The 7800 did it reasonably well, though, for a design where one hand is on the stick itself and the base is in the other hand.

Agreed. I thought that it was a really good continuation of the original story, and very much appreciated the way in which it was handled. Similarly, Tron: Legacy also gets my vote for excellent continuation of story. Seeing two films that had massive impacts on me growing up receive sequels that lived up to the originals was incredibly refreshing - it tells me that the filmmakers also understood why the original films were important to as many people as they were, and full credit to them for handling that material with care.

Okay, we've solved the AtariBox software problem. Anyone know a good package manager for making hardware?

sudo apt-get install all_the_emulators PROFIT!

These cats... They herd poorly.

Yes, absolutely. And that was actually one of the things I was curious about, as it happens.

This is a fair point, I have to admit. If a F/OSS licence permits bundling of F/OSS software with commercial hardware or media, then it's an above-board move. Attribution, source bundling / contribution, and other requirements of that licence are a different matter, but if there's no violation of them then there's no problem.

I'm asking this in all honesty: does this community not count, or does it not fall within your purview? That's not to say that we're being discounted (though I really have no idea if that's the case or not), but I am trying to understand how you're positioned here in light of your above statement.

More stream-of-consciousness: this is actually something I'd like to speak a bit to from personal experience, particularly as regards the name (and, specifically, not the brand) 'Atari'. I grew up with Atari. Not their game consoles - I didn't even own a 2600 until I was in my early 20s, despite being in the right age range to have had one when they were still new and exciting - but rather their arcade games and, especially, their computers. Atari also didn't make the first computers I had or had access to, but Atari did make the ones that had the greatest impact on me, and those same computers directly led to a career in multiple facets of IT. It's not stretching the truth to say that if it hadn't been for the Atari 800, 800XL, and various STs, my family would probably be cold, unclothed, and starving right now because I really don't know what else I would have done with my life over the past two-and-a-half decades. For this, Atari more than deserves my acknowledgement, appreciation, and gratitude, and receives all of them unreservedly. But that same appreciation, acknowledgement, and gratitude is not unconditional. The original Atari/s had its/their share of turds, and I'll recognise them. Similarly, I won't just blindly buy into anything that comes down the pike with a Fuji slapped onto it. There is a name that has to be lived up to, and branding can never have the value to me that the meaning of that name does. When I see AtariBox trying to make an emotional appeal on the basis of nostalgia without understanding why either one has meaning beyond making some sort of lifestyle identification through branding, it's just insulting. And yet I still want to see AtariBox be something worthy of the name. That - not a brand - is worth it living up to.

This instantly became my new favourite terrible mental image, and I greatly look forward to inflicting it upon others. Thank you!

Yep, it's essentially the Big Lie approach - repeat it enough and people won't question it. My mother once had someone give her a ration for driving a Subaru; she should have bought American like they did. They didn't know how to respond to her retort of, "well, what's more American - my Subaru built in Indiana, or your Chevy made in Mexico?" Modern advertising and branding is a really interesting thing, particularly when you look at how people receive and process the message. I realise these were really meant as rhetorical questions, but I'm going answer them anyway as I also happen to have experience with all three. Starbucks: don't care about their drinks, or mugs, or Pumpkin-Spice Urinal Cakes. They have iced tea and WiFi that usually works, which makes them the cheapest office space I can rent for a couple of hours if I'm on the road. In other words, they're useful to certain of my needs at times, but I ultimately don't really care much beyond that. Disney World (and, by association, Disney in general): meh. Was always more of a Warner Brothers fan, but hope they don't end up running Pixar and Star Wars into the ground. The theme parks are fun for a day, then I'm done. Don't think I've ever bought anything from one of their stores. Full credit to them for some truly beautiful animation, though less so in recent decades. Can take 'em or leave 'em for the most part. The Ritz-Carlton: definitely nice, but agreed on the overpriced assessment. Would stay there again, but would also happily stay elsewhere that was comparable. In all honesty, I'm probably a terrible person to talk to from the standpoint of brand loyalty as I basically have none, and current ownership of <insert item here> does not necessarily imply future (or even current) allegiance to that brand. Let me put it this way: I used to be someone who almost exclusively bought Sony personal electronics. Their stuff was good - a little pricier than the competition at times, but the quality was worth it. Then their quality went to crap somewhere in the late '90s, and after three purchases that were just not up to the standards I expected, I now play the field. But, paradoxically, we still have a PS3 hooked up to the TV that sees regular use. Being loyal to a brand is pointless. If someone else does it better, cheaper, and with the same or better quality, whatever logo is stuck on it is largely-irrelevant.

Agreed, at least as far as the separation of relationship goes. But a branding ferret will capitalise on the interest shown in each to bolster their own product. "Hey, investors - look at how much exposure the Atari name has in the marketplace!" They just won't tack the asterisk onto the end of that statement that leads to the footnote of, "none of these items have any relationship to each other beyond one word in their name and maybe a lookalike logo, too."

Or a funding consortium, or even just a few individual speculative investors. This is one of the things that really infuriates me about branding mania: more value is put in the brand than in the products sold or manufactured under it. I'm fairly well convinced that one of the intentions is to get the gameband and speakerhat onto the market solely to be able to say that Atari is capable of releasing products, emphasis on the plural. It doesn't matter if the products are any good, or even desirable - in the eyes of brand equity ferrets, those products put more Fujis in front of more eyes, which in turn raises the brand's value in their estimation. While I understand that thinking (calling it logic would be a mistake), I find it highly-specious at best. Unfortunately, many others don't, and they're the ones holding the purse strings that fund things like this. As this relates to adventures in crowdfunding: this one has the potential for leverage with investors. Bear with me on this. Think of it this way: you're AtariBoxCorp, Inc., and you're utterly cash-strapped. You repackage a couple of cheap-from-China items in the form of the gameband and speakerhat, slap a Fuji on them, and get them out into the market. All this is going on while you're talking a good game about the AtariBox, and how it's going to revolutionise retrogaming while building brand equity for the company. On the surface, that's not a terrible strategy - you've demonstrated that the company has some ability to execute on shoestring resources, and is looking ahead to future market opportunities. To a potential investor, that could appear interesting if not slightly promising. Cool. Now, the gameband can suffer interminable delays as you seek smaller cash infusions to complete it because the speakerhat's already on the market. You made yourself look good by putting the latter item on the shelves, so to speak, but the gameband can be explained as a more ambitious stepping stone to the longer-term AtariBox trifecta. All you need is a little help so that you can really prove yourself - and, while you're finding that help, you can play the, "look at all these crowdfunders who have faith in us! It's like a ready-made market, and just think of the millions who didn't get in on the ground floor who are going to want one of these!" card. (If I were a potential investor and heard that, I'd bolt straight for the nearest bullshit-free exit - but many wouldn't. For the sake of the argument, we'll assume that those same investors are still sticking around at this point.) What AtariBoxCorp, Inc. does at this point is nothing. They keep the AtariBox hype alive, get the gameband onto the market, then wait a bit. Not long, but long enough to be able to show that they've delivered two products and successfully crowdfunded one. With luck, an investor with more money than sense will come along, pour a ton of cash into the AtariBox project, and thus allow AtariBoxCorp, Inc. to sidestep the need for crowdfunding. That's the best-case scenario. Second-best case: AtariBox goes to crowdfunding as planned and one of two things happen: Crowdfunding is successful, and that parlays into better potential investor interest on the crowdfunder faith angle. Crowdfunding fails, potential investor interest dwindles to nothing, and the whole thing goes total vapourware. Either way, I may be giving AtariBoxCorp, Inc. too much credit. They could just be flailing at this if not blindly then at least with one eye that's semi-swollen shut. Frankly, I'm somewhat leaning more towards the latter, but I can also see where they might be taking the gamble on the other two products building up the third (and the brand).

Ever since Feargal Mac Conuladh opened his mouth and proved himself incapable of not using the words 'brand' or 'branding' to an almost Tourette's Syndrome-like extent, I've had suspicions along these lines. My take: for the principals behind AtariBoxCorp, Inc., the long game is to build brand equity, cash out, and move on to the next one. The gameband and speakerhat exist solely to provide potential investors with good-faith products showing that the company is trying really, really hard to get something to market while working on the Ataribox. The Ataribox is the carrot to get major investors in the door... Who, I am sure, will be thrilled with how the delivery of the first crowdfunded product went, and won't see this as history repeating itself. Lived through the dot-bomb era watching exactly this sort of thing happen multiple times at the epicentre. There's more than a little similarity here.

Something of a footnote to this: Sony was able to pull off a double-whammy with the initial loss that they took on the PS3 hardware. The first part was getting the unit itself out into the marketplace, because at the price they would have had to retail it at based on the cost to build it nobody would have bought it. This helped the uptake, which in turn helped to assure a stream of software for it for the next decade. The second part (and this is where the initial loss really paid off): at launch, the PS3 was about the cheapest Blu-Ray player you could get. Remember that this was back when Sony and Toshiba were still fighting the Blu-Ray / HD-DVD supremacy battle; by putting a Blu-Ray player into a gaming console, Sony was creating a captive market for their own disc format at a lower price point than was happening with actual Blu-Ray players. Ultimately the victory was in Blu-Ray becoming the de facto successor to DVD, not so much the PS3's sales - but having racked up around 84 million of those (IIRC), the console didn't do at all badly for itself either.

A memorandum of understanding between AtariShartCorp, Inc. and AtariBoxCorp, Inc. is being drafted as we speak. By leveraging both companies' respective core competencies in the areas of gastric disturbances and audible haberdashery in conjunction with Sharter's deep reach into the poo-flinging social media sphere, there is a unique opportunity to introduce a highly-brandable product to market that carries with it the potential to completely revolutionise human interaction with technology. That product: The ShartHat. The possibilities are endless.

AtariShart can do that for you!* * AtariShartCorp, Inc. reserves the right to change the specifications of AtariShart at any time.

BTW: totally planning on dropping mad phat cash on product placement in an upcoming film because branding is the most important part of developing a saleable product. Also: branding!

We should crowdfund that and call it the AtariShart. It could even be integrated with the gameband for discreet, personal alerts and the speakerhat for douchier, more public ones that let everyone within a 25-foot radius know just what's running down your legs right now. A buck says that our product makes it to market before theirs.

And none of this nano crap (except maybe in PINE); vi or death Oh, and X doesn't belong on a server unless its job is to be an X server. Powershell is one of those things that would be fine if it wasn't for how it was implemented. It can actually do some useful things, but it does them in some really annoying ways.

Unfortunately, they also used it for Server 2012. Thankfully, Server 2016 rolled over to the Windows 10 interface, which is at least tolerable. That one's probably another 9 to 12 months away from being ready for mass deployment, though, so admins get to continue to suffer until then. And don't even get me started on the Windows Server Core editions - no UI, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, and performance and stability have generally been pretty good. But we've found that the all-Powershell, all-the-time approach to administration that those use has some significant limitations of its own. But I digress...