Cassette Programs: 16K vs 24K Versions

[Tempest]

Many early Atari cassette programs had both 16K and 24K versions (such as SCRAM), does anyone know what the difference is between them? Less loading maybe? 24K is an odd number (yes I know it's 8K more than 16K) because unless you did some odd combo of memory carts on your 800, you'd normally only have either 16K, 32K, or 48K.

 

Tempest

[+bcombee]

The Atari 800 originally shipped with a single 8K memory module, so adding a 16K module to get to 24K wouldn't be too unusual.

[+bcombee]

So, looking at the SCRAM manual, they just say the 16K version takes longer to load. After you load the initial loader using CLOAD, the 16K version pulls the rest of itself into memory in two parts. If it's loading BASIC code that then used DATA statements to load machine language, that would explain how a second load would reduce the memory usage.

[sup8pdct]

I know Frogger had both a 16K and a 32K version. The 16K version had continous music playing removed and a couple of game elements removed.

These were cassette and disk versions tho.

I also know Zaxxon was another one that came in 2 versions.

 

James

 

 

Many early Atari cassette programs had both 16K and 24K versions (such as SCRAM), does anyone know what the difference is between them? Less loading maybe? 24K is an odd number (yes I know it's 8K more than 16K) because unless you did some odd combo of memory carts on your 800, you'd normally only have either 16K, 32K, or 48K.

 

Tempest