My 1st ATARI computers! Views from an orignal Commodore kid lol!

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Well yesterday I received my first ever Atari computers!!!! First and foremost an Atari 800XL, this came with just and PSU and joystick and Dig Dug cart along with an RF cable with one of those cable adaptors to replace the switchbox. I can confirmed that it runs and plays perfectly well.

 

Next an ATARI 520STm, fortunately it is one of the later models including OS in ROM and RF out built in. That is all I have so far, I have PSU yet but one is on the way (thanks walter_J64bit! ) so I have not tested yet.

 

I guess I will need an Atari monitor for the ST and I assume some type of external floppy disk drive? I assume most ST software/games are on floppy disk?

It appears to have a cartridge port on the side but I assume it is not backwards compatible with 8bit, is there anything useful on cart for ST's?

 

Anyway these are my forst Atari computers ever in my life. Like many back in the day I went from Commodore 64 to Amiga and never crossed over to the Atari side of the tracks. These days as a collector and hobbyist of classic consoles and computers I new my collection would not be complete without some Atari computers. I must say first of all these things are heaveier than expected! Seem very sturdy and well built, I am assumming quality was high with Atari computers. I also like the look of both machines, both definitely can use some cleaning up and I hope to find the ST functioning well when my PSU arrives.

 

I am so glad to finally own some Atari computers along with my Sears video Arcade II and Atari Flashback II, I now feel I am a "real" Atari owner and fan.

Any opinions, comments, suggestions are greatly welcomed and appreciated THANKS!

[Rybags]

STfm

 

fm= floppy/modulator, so you can just use a TV, although for medium resolution (640x200) it's a bit crapola.

 

Not so much came out on cartridge on the ST, floppy was the most popular media by far.

 

No backward compatability, the joystick ports are about the only thing in common with the 8-bits.

[frogstar_robot]

I guess I will need an Atari monitor for the ST and I assume some type of external floppy disk drive? I assume most ST software/games are on floppy disk?

It appears to have a cartridge port on the side but I assume it is not backwards compatible with 8bit, is there anything useful on cart for ST's?

 

Software wise not so much. Things tend to be loaded up from floppies or hard drives. The cart port on the ST was used more as a low rent expansion bus than a proper cart port. There are some 68000 Mac emulation products that use it and if memory doesn't deceive me there were also 3D glasses that used. Bigger ST hands than I am may tell you more on the ST forum.

 

 

Anyway these are my forst Atari computers ever in my life. Like many back in the day I went from Commodore 64 to Amiga and never crossed over to the Atari side of the tracks. These days as a collector and hobbyist of classic consoles and computers I new my collection would not be complete without some Atari computers. I must say first of all these things are heaveier than expected! Seem very sturdy and well built, I am assumming quality was high with Atari computers. I also like the look of both machines, both definitely can use some cleaning up and I hope to find the ST functioning well when my PSU arrives.

 

For the 800XL you mention, that is basically true. If you're both lucky and into modding, some XLs have socketed chips. Socketed or not the XL machines are well built. My 800XL was a tank basically. The XE line was something of a tryout for the style of housing the ST came in. IMHO the XEs, 520STs, and 1040STs are a bit on the creaky flimsy side. The more spendy Mega STs were built a bit tougher though.

 

I am so glad to finally own some Atari computers along with my Sears video Arcade II and Atari Flashback II, I now feel I am a "real" Atari owner and fan.

Any opinions, comments, suggestions are greatly welcomed and appreciated THANKS!

 

An interesting irony of history that many Commodore fans don't like mentioned is that the chipsets for the A8 and the Amiga were both engineered by Jay Miner led teams. As the A8 chipset was originally intended for a follow-on game console, it was originally developed to correct the biggest bottlenecks in the A2600 TIA which was also designed by a Miner led team. If you dig into the A8 and notice that at times it feels like the Amiga's 8-bit older cousin, it isn't co-incidental. The original Amiga chipset corrects the biggest bottlenecks of the A8 Antic/GTIA combo and is 16-bit to boot.

 

The other half of the irony is that the ST shares a lot of engineering personnel with the C-64 designers though the ST doesn't feel like a C-64 writ 16 bits large. The feel is more of a faster, cheaper, and more colorful machine that is more like the Macs of the day.

[nathanallan]

You are gonna LOVE those computers!

 

The ST can be networked, though you have to make it happen yourself. I intend to use a serial to ethernet converter (the parallel port is different, can't use a Xircom deal), and it can talk to an older computer over a null modem cable.

 

One great cart that you can get is the Terminal Emulator, it is a must-have if you have nothing else. I made it talk to Xenix, so it works great.

 

I have pretty much given up on a floppy drive for it, or any kind of inexpensive external storage. I use null modeming and terminal to do most anything. Sadly, I have only a couple floppy games for it, and a fdd still packed up as I have no room or time to set it all up.

 

Though you can use a TV, I highly recommend getting a monitor. Also, it can use any old Epson dot matrix, this is a huge plus. I use one, but it's packed away right now and can't get to it to tell you the model number

 

The 800XL is an awesome gaming machine, too, I have one and that's what it gets used for. I also have a printer for it, and that's only for letters.

 

If I was on a desert island and had only one computer, I would pray that it is an Atari 520ST!

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

You are gonna LOVE those computers!

 

Though you can use a TV, I highly recommend getting a monitor. Also, it can use any old Epson dot matrix, this is a huge plus. I use one, but it's packed away right now and can't get to it to tell you the model number

 

If I run games or programs once on the ST will it display those OK on a TV in color?

[nathanallan]

it'll do ok, expect blurring and generally a not so great picture. On my TV, there was a big distortion as far as the colors, but that may have been my tv set, not sure.

[OldSchoolRetroGamer]

Ah thanks for the info! It will do for now then, kinda broke LOL! The 800XL seemed to look pretty good through the RF!

[scotty]

There were some games for the ST that would roll on a TV, but look OK on a monitor. I do not remember which ones now.... but that was a problem back in the late 80s. Most played ok on a TV though.

[nathanallan]

oh, if you have to use the RF, use a good insulated cable, like coaxial with the good shielding. That'll help, too.

[dwhyte]

There were some games for the ST that would roll on a TV, but look OK on a monitor. I do not remember which ones now.... but that was a problem back in the late 80s. Most played ok on a TV though.

 

Those would be the 50Hz ones that were imported from Europe...

[Fröhn]

The other half of the irony is that the ST shares a lot of engineering personnel with the C-64 designers though the ST doesn't feel like a C-64 writ 16 bits large.

That's not true actually. The only engineer with a connection to C64 that entered Atari later was Shiraz Shivji. I even don't know what his part on the C64 was. All the key designers like Al Charpentier (VIC-II), Bob Yannes (SID), Robert Russell (ROMs), Chuck Peddle (6502) etc never went to Atari.

[+Random Terrain]

An interesting irony of history that many Commodore fans don't like mentioned is that the chipsets for the A8 and the Amiga were both engineered by Jay Miner led teams.

Noooooo! Somebody get me a razorblade! It's wrist slashing time!

 

Do Commodore 'fans' really give a sh*t? I was just happy to have a computer.

[frogstar_robot]

Do Commodore 'fans' really give a sh*t? I was just happy to have a computer.

 

A common disease of human thinking is that one's choices in things like cars and computers is an absolute indicator of one's good taste and judgment. Of course, someone else making different choices is evidence of their pigheadedness and stupidity. This is what fuels vs. flamewars. Another truth is back in the day, your first computer was likely what your parents thought was a good buy and you just learned to love what you had. Course if your friend's parents down the block got him something different......

 

Yeah, some Commodore fans and some Atari fans give a sh*t to a level I'd call diseased. Read the C-64 vs Atari thread that is only just now losing it's oxygen, though some strategic posting lockouts took the mean out of it about a month ago.

[ataridano]

Well yesterday I received my first ever Atari computers!!!! First and foremost an Atari 800XL, this came with just and PSU and joystick and Dig Dug cart along with an RF cable with one of those cable adaptors to replace the switchbox. I can confirmed that it runs and plays perfectly well.

 

Nobody seems to have mentioned it yet, so I'll throw in my 2 cents. I would highly recomend ditching the TV and getting at least a composit monitor cable. Most TVs have composit inputs anymore, and if you don't have one, just wait for about 2 weeks until everything goes digital, they'll be a dime a dozen. The cable is just a DIN on one side and a couple RCAs on the other (and will work on a C64 After that, if you want to get into downloading games/programs, I would suggest APE or SIO2SD.

[frogstar_robot]

Nobody seems to have mentioned it yet, so I'll throw in my 2 cents. I would highly recomend ditching the TV and getting at least a composit monitor cable. Most TVs have composit inputs anymore, and if you don't have one, just wait for about 2 weeks until everything goes digital, they'll be a dime a dozen. The cable is just a DIN on one side and a couple RCAs on the other (and will work on a C64 After that, if you want to get into downloading games/programs, I would suggest APE or SIO2SD.

 

Also the quality of the composite output varies across the A8 line and some models lack all the signals to do split Y-C (AKA S-VHS) on the video output port. There are video mods to address all this. I'll note that the composite output on an unmodded 130XE of mine is pretty weedy. I'd recommend seeing if a mod exists for your A8, applying it, and create a DIN to S-VHS adaptor for best quality. Note, some games (very few) rely on artifacting to generate extra colors and using chroma+luma on some displays like recent LCDs may reveal those colors to be the alternate striped lines they truly are.

[Mirage]

Just like to add to this since I've been messing around with my new 800XL and 130XE today. I already had 2 800's but really only had tried out cart games before, never used an Atari drive before, ever. And I'm a Commodore kid too... you really can't get the feel for a machine using only carts.

 

So, my impressions. I really like being able to just put a disk in and go... that's nice. I also like the DOS disk menu, though I haven't used it much. More user friendly than the Commodore. Disk access seems a lot faster. I'm still not totally sure how to get some things to load... BASIC/Not-BASIC, etc, but I'll figure it out. Some I've gotten to work by holding Option on boot, unless that was just a fluke that it worked that time. The build quality of the Atari stuff, I've gotta say, is generally much higher than the Commodore stuff. Until you get to the XE of course. Externally it seems to be about the same quality as the 64C. The 800XL and 800 just blow the doors off everything Commodore ever did, quality-wise (except maybe the PET's of course, those were pretty nice). And the Atari stuff all looks better than the C=. The 1050 is still pretty big, but not as big as the 1541! Hmmm... guess that's about it for now! I have 100's of disks I'm going through and having a blast! Just as much fun as the C= stuff, maybe moreso, since it's all new to me!

 

Not dissing the C= stuff at all, I'm still a C= kid at heart, but it's a dream come true being able to have all this stuff I dreamed about as a kid.

[FastRobPlus]

Anyway these are my forst Atari computers ever in my life. Like many back in the day I went from Commodore 64 to Amiga and never crossed over to the Atari side of the tracks.

 

You crossed to Atari the instant you bought an Amiga. You just didn't know it.

[frogstar_robot]

get some things to load... BASIC/Not-BASIC, etc, but I'll figure it out. Some I've gotten to work by holding Option on boot,

 

That disables the built-in basic which many disk games require to run. Such games tend to be self booting. Public domain disks and things of that nature may need to be run from a DOS. This is awkward to do from DOS 2.5 which is pretty much the DOS everybody uses if they stick to an Atari DOS. If interested, we'll dig up how you go about doing that. The better class of multi-game disks boot to a menu and let run game by picking number or letter. There are also menu disks that you can boot and then you stick in your disk of games and then again try to run things by picking the letter.

 

Of course some games are done in BASIC or a combination of BASIC and machine language. In that case, you'd boot a DOS without holding down option. It's been a long time since I ran a basic game but I believe you have to type DOS, get a listing of D1: (or whichever), exit DOS then do LOAD "D1:mygame.com" followed run RUN. If you already know the filename, you can forgo the listing. BASIC XL and BASIC XE have nicer disk handling and will run programs much faster. Quite nice if you have it.