Gunstar Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 I asked a similiar question under the 8-bit board, just covering the bases. Background: I recently pulled my XE out of storage, it had been there for years, as I lost ALL my software for it during a move. I'm rebuilding my collection now, and I also recently purchased a 5200. I just was wondering which version is better; 5200vs.8-bitdiskvs.8-bitcart? I used to own the disk version and it had a really cool intro of the mothership while the game loaded. Is this still in the 5200 and/or 8-bit cartridge versions? Anything else different? which is the best? Or are they all the same? This was always one of my favorite games and I just want to get the best version. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Nope, the intro was only on the disk. It doesn't appear to be in either cart. Just a little window dressing for disk users . Dunno where you can get a disk image of it, tho...the ones I've seen just contain the game part. BTW I prefer a disk-based system, since... ...you don't have memory restrictions like carts do (particularly RPG's). ...it usually has more software for it (more third-party devs., too). ...it's able to fix, patch, or upgrade it's software. ...it's easier for users to create their own. ...it's less spendy for companies to produce. The drawback is that disk software has a shorter lifespan than carts (especially in homes that have sticky toddler fingers of death). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 My Atari XE Rescue on Fractalus cart has the little intro. Are there two different versions for the Atari 8-bit? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zekish Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Don't ask me on this one cuz I have the disk version of Behind Jaggi Lines. Can't recall if there's an intro or not. I'll have to play it again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindfield Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 There is an ATR version of Rescue on Fractalus with the intro intact. It's available in the Atari 8-bit section of my site. (click here for a quick browse) [ 07-03-2001: Message edited by: Mindfield ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 4, 2001 Author Share Posted July 4, 2001 I had the original commercial release Rescue on Fractalus on disk, it came out years before the XE cartridge version and I think about the same time as the 5200 version. I just want the one with all the extra's, like the mothership at the beginning, so if it is still on the XE cart version, then probably everything is the same, in which case I'll pick up the XE cartridge for the durability factor. Although, I got my disk version around '85 or '86 and it still worked fine in '95, the last time I played it before losing all my software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Tempest - Oops...my bad. I didn't know there was an XE cart. Minefield - Excellent! It's been a while since I seen that deal. Didn't that game startle the bejeezuz outta you the first time an alien jumped up on your window? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 4, 2001 Author Share Posted July 4, 2001 I just wish they had put The Eidelon and Koronis Rift on XE cart or 7800 cart! It's also too bad that they didn't get Rescue out on the 7800...I remember seeing a picture of it on my 7800 box(when I had it), I wonder why they never released it? Is there possibly a prototype floating around? I did pick up the 7800 version of Ballblazer, haven't tried it out yet, so I don't know if it's intro is intact(like the 8-bit disk), but from the screen shots on the box, it appears to be in a slightly higher res and has better anti-aliasing, so I'll probably be happy with it no matter what... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Funny you should mention that... I remember playing RoF for the first time on my 5200 about two years ago. Of course I hadn't read the instructions so I didn't know about the aliens (I just figured it out as I went along). So here I am in my dorm room around 1:00am in the morning (kind of sleepy) landing to pick up my guy when all the sudden an alien pops up and starts banging on the window. I swear to God I let out a scream that woke up the entire dorm. People thought I was being murdered or something. I must have left my seat by a good foot. There's an Atari memory I'll never forget (and neither will my dorm). Tempest 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 4, 2001 Author Share Posted July 4, 2001 Hey! Mindfield! A quick question about these ATR files...I'm getting ready to start replacing my lost 8-bit software, some I'll buy new if I can, but others I'll probably download off the net. My question is; will these ATR files work normally on a REAL 8-bit computer if I transfer them to Atari format disk or use an SIO2PC cable? I prefer the real thing to sucky emulators(I don't mean that they aren't necessarily any good, they suck IMO because I don't think Atari games should be played on an IBM/Intel machine-YUCK!-I want the real McCoy!). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Tempest - lol! The first time I played it I borrowed it from my sister's boyfriend, so I had no idea either. "Hmmm...level 10, this is kinda easy-GHAAA! WTF!?". Gunstar - Here's a no cost solution if your PC has a 5.25" floppy drive (see the bottom of the page). http://ch.twi.tudelft.nl/~sidney/atari/ Never tried it, so I dunno. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 quoteDidn't that game startle the bejeezuz outta you the first time an alien jumped up on your window? Oh my god, I remember the first time that happened to me. I physically jumped back and almost fell out of my chair, not to mention nearly staining my pants. And my heart must have been racing for five minutes afterwards. I very quickly learned how to tell the normal pilots and the aliens apart, but it was always grand fun to watch someone else who wasn't familiar with the game get the piss scared out of them. ..Al 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Albert Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Ahhhh, the LucasFilm LTD quartet of games for the Atari 8-bit. I bought every single one of those games for my 800XL and enjoyed the hell out of every one of them. I also would kill to have version of Koronis Rift and The Eidolon in cartridge form, but I imagine they're pretty easy to get running in an 8-bit emulator (has anyone tried?) I spent countless hours playing Koronis Rift, but don't believe I got anywhere close to "finishing" it, if that's even possible. Same with The Eidolon. But damn were they fun. I think part of the problem with getting those two games to cart is that they probably used every available bit of disk storage, which was quite a bit more than they could get on a cartridge at the time. Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus were pretty small games, in comparison. I will forever have the Rescue on Fractalus tune etched in my memory. That and the catchy Boulder Dash music. That's another game that would be great to have in cartridge format. Hell, someone needs to come out with a GBA version of that. Hmmmmm, First Star Software is still in business, I think I may need to give them a call. ..Al ..Al Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marc Oberhäuser Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 @Albert FSS sold the licence to Kemco (known for Top Gear games) in 2000 if I remember correct. But there is nothing on the release schedule yet. Wait for my companies Roxstar for the GBA and GC, I promise it will rock. You may have a first look on it at the CGE. MaO Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Well, at least Boulder Dash was released in cartridge form (I have it). It was so impossible to get though, I'd probably only trade it for Crystal Castles or Flip & Flop (a game I wasnted when I was younger but didn't get). You mentioned there was a way to tell the difference between an alien and a pilot? How do you do that? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 4, 2001 Share Posted July 4, 2001 Oops, I didn't realise that you lost every single disk. There was a small program you could type in Basic to use the drive without Dos.* This was in an old issue of Antic, and I posted it at the old board. I'll try to track it down again. * It reads & writes files in reverse...but I think it formats correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 4, 2001 Author Share Posted July 4, 2001 That would be very much apprieciated! I do still have the majority of old Atari magazines, including; Antic, Analog, Atari Explorer, Atari Interface, Atariuser, among others, so if there's an outside chance that you remember the month&year it was published, i might have it...I don't have them all though, but about 2/3 of the mags... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zekish Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 Gunstar, if you need to format some disks, try this program. It's something my friend wrote yearrrrrrrs ago. I stumbled upon it yesterday while going through an old BASIC programs disk I had. Your post couldn't have come at a better time: 5 GRAPHICS 1+16 7 OPEN #2,4,0,"K:" 9 POKE 16,128: POKE 53774,128: POKE 9,255 10 POSITION 2,1: ?#6;"QUICK FORMATTER" 20 POSITION 5,4: ?#6;"---------------" 30 FOR DE=1 TO 500: NEXT DE 35 GOSUB 30000 40 GRAPHICS 0: POSITION 2,1: ? " QUICK FORMATTER" 50 ? : ? : ? : ? "HOW MANY DISKS TO FORMAT";:INPUT NUM 60 FOR LOOP=1 TO NUM 70 ? "INSERT DISK #";LOOP;" AND PRESS RETURN." 80 GET #2,A 90 TRAP 100: XIO 254,#1,0,0,"D:" 100 IF PEEK(195)>1 THEN ? "*ERROR #";PEEK(195);"*": POKE 195,0: GOTO 70 110 NEXT LOOP 120 ? "ALL DONE" 130 ? : ? : ? : ? "PRESS START TO BOOT OR SELECT TO GO TO BASIC." 140 IF PEEK(53279)=6 THEN POKE 580,1: GOTO 20000 150 IF PEEK(53279)=5 THEN NEW 160 GOTO 140 20000 ? "PRESS RESET" 20001 GOTO 20001 30000 OPEN #3,6,0,"D:*.*" 30001 DIM A$(500) 30002 ? "WOULD YOU LIKE A DISK DIRECTORY":GET #2,A: IF A<>89 THEN CLOSE #1: CLR: GOTO 40 30003 TRAP 30005: FOR L=1 TO 20: INPUT #3,A$: ? A$: NEXT L 30005 GOTO 30002 Hope this helps. If not, I typed it for no reason. Hehe. Hey, guess I learned how to format a disk today. Cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zekish Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 Koronis Rift. Hmm. Never finished it, if there is indeed an end. I got kinda far but got at an impasse after awhile. I never knew what objects did what things. It was soooooo trial and error. I didn't have a manual, either, so I dunno. Did the instructions help any or was it really trial and error to find good shields, weapons, etc.? And a lot of objects didn't seem to do anything. What were all the things objects could do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 Zekish - The program you typed uses the XIO command for disk I/O...useless if you don't have DOS already loaded. Gunstar - After flipping thru some old issues, I's starting to think that it was a Compute! issue that had it. I'm guessing around '84, and it says "Atari NoDos" near the bottom of the cover. Still looking. Update...see page 2! [ 07-04-2001: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zekish Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 quote: Originally posted by Nukey Shay: The program you typed uses the XIO command for disk I/O...useless if you don't have DOS already loaded. Well, don't that just figure! Back to the drawing board then. While we're talking DOS, what was everyone's favorite? I liked 2.6 a lot but 2.5 allowed for double density (or close to it) formatting. 3 was evil. Pure evil. I got it with my 1050 drive and never used it. I used 2.6 mostly until I got 2.5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nukey Shay Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 Here it is (Compute! June '87, p86-87) (not verbatim)... 32740 REM COPYRIGHT 1987 COMPUTE! 32741 DIM A$(1):GRAPHICS 0:CLR :? "NoDOS/RELOADER":?"INSERT DISK IN DRIVE 1";:TRAP 32740:GOSUB 32753 32742 INPUT A$:BUF=1536:SEC=719:I=128:POKE 82,0:POKE 83,39 32743 POKE 842,12:L=0:? CHR$(125);CHR$(127);"HIT ANY KEY TO ABORT";CHR$(29):POKE766,1 32744 GOSUB 32749:? CHR$(D);:L=L+1:IF D=155 THEN 32747 32745 IF PEEK(764)<>255 THEN POKE 82,2:POKE 766,0:POKE 764,255:END 32746 GOTO 32744 32747 POKE 766,0:IF L=1 THEN POKE 82,0:END 32748 ? CHR$(29);"G.32743":POKE 842,13:POSITION 0,0:STOP 32749 IF I=128 THEN GOSUB 32751 32750 D=PEEK (BUF+I):I=I+1:RETURN 32751 POKE 768,49:POKE 769,1:POKE 770,82:POKE 771,64:POKE 772,ASC(CHR$(BUF)):POKE 773, INT(BUF/256) 32752 POKE 776,128:POKE 770,0:POKE 778,ASC(CHR$(SEC)):POKE 779,INT(SEC/256) : D=USR(203):SEC=SEC-1:I=0:RETURN 32753 POKE203,104:POKE 204,76:POKE 205,89:POKE 206,228:RETURN 32755 DIM A$(1) :? "NoDOS/FORMAT: DRIVE #1":? "ENTER 'Y' WHEN READY";:CLR :INPUT A$:GOSUB 32753 32756 IF A$<>"Y" THEN 32760 32757 POKE 768,49:POKE 769,1:POKE 770,33:POKE 771,0:POKE 774,255 : D=USR(203) "DISK FORMATTED":STOP 32760 DIM B$(255),A$(127) :? "NoDOS/SAVER: HIT RETURN TO START ";:CLR :INPUT A$:TRAP 40000:CLOSE #1:POKE 82,0:GOSUB 32753 32761 POKE 83,39:BUF=ADR(B$):I=1:SEC=719:OPEN #1,13,0,"E:":POKE 752,1:POKE 559,0:A=PEEK(136)+256*PEEK(137) 32762 ? CHR$(125);:L=PEEK(A)+256*PEEK(A+1):LIST L:POSITION 0,1:INPUT #1,A$:A$(LEN(A$)+1)=CHR$(155) 32763 B$(I)=A$:I=LEN(B$)+1:A=A+PEEK(A+2):IF L<32739 AND I<=128 THEN 32762 32764 IF I>128 THEN GOSUB 32766:B$(I)="#":B$=B$(129):I=LEN(B$):B$(I)="":IF PEEK(771)=1 AND L<32739 THEN 32762 32765 B$(129)="#":B$(I)=CHR$(155):B$(I+1)=B$(I):GOSUB 32766:POKE 82,2:GRAPHICS 0:? CHR$(253);"STATUS - ";PEEK(771):END 32766 POKE 768,49:POKE 769,1:POKE 770,87:POKE 771,128:POKE 772,ASC(CHR$(BUF)):POKE 773,INT(BUF/256) 32767 POKE 776,128:POKE 777,0:POKE 778,ASC(CHR$(SEC)):POKE 779,INT(SEC/256) : D=USR(203):SEC=SEC-1:RETURN Notes from the author Emmanuel Gendrano... This program can be modified to work with double-density disks. Change the first two POKEs in line 32767 to POKE 776,0 and POKE 777,1. You may or may not have to change the same POKEs in line 32752...depending on your drive. The screen blanks out while NoDOS saves programs. This is to gain a little speed. When the screen is restored, a status number is shown. If this number is anything but 1, an error occured (the Dos manual explains the meanings of the numbers). The program is small enough for quick cassette ENTER "C:"'s, just in case your Dos fails...and you can actually increase your amount of Ram available to Basic by not loading Dos at all. The drawback is that you can only save one program per disk (because it doesn't use Dos' VOC). The file will also be much larger opposed to a normal SAVE, since it is written to disk in untokenized form. GOTO 32755 to format (lines 32753-327757), GOTO 32760 to save (lines 32753 & 32760-32767), and GOTO 32740 to reload (lines 32740-32753). All three routines use line 32753, which loads the little I/O jump vector. If you are using it "on-the-fly", you only need to type the lines shown for each routine. Again...this program is very destructive to disks that already contain data, as the VOC table is not even looked at. It was written to read and write in reverse for that reason...since the chances of colliding with an existing Dos program are lessened. If you wish to have it read and write forward, change the SEC=719 statements to SEC=0 and the SEC=SEC-1 statements to SEC=SEC+1. [ 07-04-2001: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ] After taking a look at this program again...I have a feeling that the POKE 774,255 statement in line 32757 might need to be changed to POKE 774,253 to format in double-density (or was it 252?)...and the SEC=719 statements can be changed to SEC=1023 to use the last sectors of double-density disks. Therefore, you should be able to use the format routine to create a blank disk, and use TT.exe to move a disk image onto it using a PC. Also, you could actually save more than one program on a disk by changing the SEC number (the sector that this program starts at)...but since there is no provision to get a disk directory, you would have to keep track of the start sectors yourself (as well as where each one ends to keep from overwriting the previous file). The files are invisible to Dos. Again, I take no responsiblility for what you do . [ 07-05-2001: Message edited by: Nukey Shay ] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
liquid_sky Posted July 5, 2001 Share Posted July 5, 2001 i never did like dos 3, i only had experience with an atari comp at my friend jons house he had dos 2.5 and dos 3.. tried dos 4 on an emulator, dont really care much for it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 5, 2001 Author Share Posted July 5, 2001 Hey, Nukey Shay! thanks for the heads-up, I actually have another program I got for the pc that is able to format disks on the pc in atari double-density format(like the 1050 with the US doubler or the xf551), but my 51/4 drive is a 1.44 meg one, and I can't get it to format down to 360k, like the program needs, So I've been looking for an old IBM 360k drive...I'll give the method you linked me to a try, I hope it will work with my 1.44 meg 5/14...Any other suggestions? is there a way to get the 1.44 to format in 360k? I tried changing it's designation under the system menu(when you hold f1 while starting up), but that didn't seem to work... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted July 5, 2001 Author Share Posted July 5, 2001 To Tempest: The Alien has a different colored helmet than the pilot (green(?)as opposed to white(?), it's been years...so i'm looking forward to reintroducing myself to it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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