Whats your A8 hardware spec like

[Shawn Jefferson]

My main machine is:

 

NTSC 800XL

256k Rambo-compatible memory upgrade (done circa 1988)

Stereo Pokey

Internal MyIDE (the flashable version)

Supervideo 2.1 upgrade (removed the RF modulator)

 

I also tend to use quite often:

Atarimax 1mb and 8mb flashcarts

SDrive NUXX

SIO2PC/10502PC with APE!

1050 Happy

 

I have a bunch of other stuff... MIOs, stock machines, tons of joysticks, etc.. I recently had to thin some of it out a bit to make room.

 

On the memory upgrade topic: I think Metalguy's idea is a good one and doesn't break compatibility. I'd also like to see someone take Atari's original idea of seperate ANTIC banking, which they made a good attempt at with the 130XE and expand on it. Take another register and use it to control what bank of ram ANTIC gets to see. Actually, I guess this could be combined somehow with Metalguy's idea... let ANTIC see it's own 64k chunk of RAM.

 

I'm not totally sure on how seperate ANTIC banking works in the 130XE... I know display memory and display list are in scope, but is PMG? Charsets? I should test this out myself I guess... Moving the screen, PMG and charsets out of the 64k that the CPU sees will give the programmer much more bang for their buck than adding more expanded memory in my opinion.

[JohnBuell]

I recently got my hands on a stock NTSC 130XE. I've tried a couple of the 128K demos for it that I couldn't with any of my other machines. Not bad, but still doesn't seem to run as much as my old 800XL did. That machine (the 800XL) is back in storage for now. I've got my dad's modded (upgraded memory) 800, a 48k 400, another 800 I just acquired and haven't played with yet, a 600XL I added the monitor jack to, but still running just the 16K, a 65XE with SVideo I got off eBay, and the 800XE for PAL demos. No memory or video upgrades beyond what I've mentioned, and I've got the SIO2SD and SIO2PC/USB. I'm thinking about getting an SIO/Spider next and the flash cart programmer and usb cart from atarimax. After that I dunno, I guess it depends on if another run is done of a 320XL like external upgrade (did I mention I suck at soldering?)

Edited October 6, 2010 by JohnBuell

[Rybags]

All Antic access is treated the same. The /HALT line is part of the logic and is used to determine if it's the CPU or Antic that is performing the access.

 

The banking isn't totally "seperate". You have the narrow choice of having neither, either or both CPU/Antic using extended RAM for $4000-$7FFF accesses, and the bank you select for that applies to both.

 

The problem with yet another banking scheme is that it becomes yet another banking scheme, which won't be supported by legacy software.

 

It would have been nicer if a PORTC type arrangement was used from the word go with the XE, then 90% of these problems would never have existed.