Multi OS Question

[Tempest]

Ok this is probably a stupid question but will the Atarimax 32-in-1 OS (or the older 4-in-1 OS) make a 400/800/1200 compatible with XL/XE games (assuming they have enough memory)? Given what Warerat has had to go through to get the 800 to work as an XE I can't believe it would, but if it doesn't what good is it running the XL/XE OS on am 800 or 1200?

 

 

http://www.atarimax.com/warpos/documentation/

 

Tempest

[Rybags]

1200XL is virtually the same as the rest of the XL except no inbuilt Basic, so there should be no issues.

 

400/800 standard machines I think would run the XL OS alright. But the problem is that the XL/XE OSes don't cater for the System Reset key since it generates an NMI - they'd just think it was a VBlank.

 

That aside, I don't know that there'd be too many games out there that absolutely insist on the XL OS being used, but don't use the other XL features like RAM under the OS.

[Tempest]

The reason I ask is because I have a modded 1200XL that Steve did with the 4 in 1 OS, extra RAM (256K I think), and a video mod. The thing is absolutely gorgeous and I really like it, but the OS seems to be really buggy and doesn't work right. I tried it with several different games and got these results (these are the ones I remember):

 

Food Fight: Crashed

Into the Eagles Nest: The title screen graphics were all flickering and corrupted. It crashed shortly after.

Karateka: Started automatically. The shadows under the players flickered. Crashed after a short time.

Congo Bongo: (not a XL/XE cart I know). The high score appears to be corrupted (lots of ?

Crystal Castles (XE version): Appeared to work alright. I played for a few moments with no issues.

 

Steve said he tested the RAM and it was good, so my guess is that it has to be the OS. I thought that maybe just adding the XL/XE OS and RAM to a 1200XL wouldn't be enough to make it compatible, but maybe the mod itself is just bad. Can anyone help? I'd love to use this beast, like I said, it's absolutely gorgeous.

 

Tempest

[Rybags]

Probably best to grab one of the Extended RAM test utilities and give it a run.

 

Another thing - later versions of the OS still have the Function Key handling built in. The potential problem there is that pressing an F-Key will mess with the setup of extended RAM, since the 1200XL uses part of PORTB for it's LEDs, but later machines/upgrades use those same bits for bank selection.

[Goochman]

The reason I ask is because I have a modded 1200XL that Steve did with the 4 in 1 OS, extra RAM (256K I think), and a video mod. The thing is absolutely gorgeous and I really like it, but the OS seems to be really buggy and doesn't work right. I tried it with several different games and got these results (these are the ones I remember):

 

Food Fight: Crashed

Into the Eagles Nest: The title screen graphics were all flickering and corrupted. It crashed shortly after.

Karateka: Started automatically. The shadows under the players flickered. Crashed after a short time.

Congo Bongo: (not a XL/XE cart I know). The high score appears to be corrupted (lots of ?

Crystal Castles (XE version): Appeared to work alright. I played for a few moments with no issues.

 

Steve said he tested the RAM and it was good, so my guess is that it has to be the OS. I thought that maybe just adding the XL/XE OS and RAM to a 1200XL wouldn't be enough to make it compatible, but maybe the mod itself is just bad. Can anyone help? I'd love to use this beast, like I said, it's absolutely gorgeous.

 

Tempest

 

Congo Bongo not working is a blessing in disguise.

[Tempest]

Congo Bongo not working is a blessing in disguise.

Not to go off topic, but Congo Bongo was one of my favorite games back in the day for the Atari 8-bit. I have no idea why, maybe because the perspective was so neat. I never played the arcade version so I never knew it was missing two of the levels until years later. I still have a soft spot for it to this day.

 

Tempest

[thorfdbg]

One of the problems of running the XL at an A800 is that first the port-B mapping is different, meaning basically that the 3/4 joystick ports are now outputs, not inputs, so don't plug anything in there. Second problem is that you definitely do not want to press the trigger on joystick #3 since that will cause a hang. On the XL machines, this line is connected to the cart ctrl, indicating whether a cart is inserted or not. A very stupid feature of the XL Os is to loop infinitely in case this line changes (presumably to avoid pirating of carts). The BASIC switch via PIA shouldn't matter, but anything that expects RAM under the ROM will, obviously, fail. Third point is that your RESET key is not going to work - that's a true hardware reset on the XLs, but only a NMI on the A800.

 

Greetings,

Thomas

[+bob1200xl]

Are those all cartridges? Do disk games work OK or is this just a general malady? Sounds like you have bad cartridge circuits. How about BASIC/XL and such? Does it work? Using the 800XL OS, unmodified, should work fine - maybe a few issues with internal BASIC and RAM configuration. You need to hold down OPTION to enable the RAM in the cartridge area or something like that.

 

Bob

 

 

The reason I ask is because I have a modded 1200XL that Steve did with the 4 in 1 OS, extra RAM (256K I think), and a video mod. The thing is absolutely gorgeous and I really like it, but the OS seems to be really buggy and doesn't work right. I tried it with several different games and got these results (these are the ones I remember):

 

Food Fight: Crashed

Into the Eagles Nest: The title screen graphics were all flickering and corrupted. It crashed shortly after.

Karateka: Started automatically. The shadows under the players flickered. Crashed after a short time.

Congo Bongo: (not a XL/XE cart I know). The high score appears to be corrupted (lots of ? < and ! instead of 0's). Crashes on the controller select screen.

Crystal Castles (XE version): Appeared to work alright. I played for a few moments with no issues.

 

Steve said he tested the RAM and it was good, so my guess is that it has to be the OS. I thought that maybe just adding the XL/XE OS and RAM to a 1200XL wouldn't be enough to make it compatible, but maybe the mod itself is just bad. Can anyone help? I'd love to use this beast, like I said, it's absolutely gorgeous.

 

Tempest

[carmel_andrews]

Tempest....Your 4 in one o/s...what o/s's were they

 

I also have a 4 in 1 o/s xe, standard xe o/s, omnimon xl, ultimon xe and warp speed o/s (only works with suitably modified 1050's...i.e. SA/SAII,Happy, Lazer or USD/Hyperdrive, essentially anything happy/USD compatible)

[Tempest]

First I'm using a moded 1200XL.

 

The OS's IIRC are: 400/800, 1200XL, XL/XE, and Warp OS

 

Tempest