+Stephen Posted February 26, 2013 Share Posted February 26, 2013 Think of sio as the grandpa of USB. Appropriate since Joe Decuir was involved in USB development. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snakeboy Posted February 27, 2013 Author Share Posted February 27, 2013 Well, I guess the only "sale" left is the game experience. Funny that you should write this because yesterday I went ahead and played a few games through an emulator to try to push me over the line. The two games at the top of my list were Donkey Kong (from what I've heard the best home version back in the day) and One-on-One Basketball (I remember seeing this game as a kid and thinking that it looked amazing). Well, after playing just those two games for a while and realizing I could sit there and play them all day, I was pretty much sold - my 800 XL should be coming in the mail soon. Another thing that has sold me, too, is all the new developments for the system. Some of the things discussed in this thread are a little over my head right now, but the more I learn, the more intrigued I am by it. Well, thanks to everyone who helped me out. I'm pretty excited about playing around with my new machine and learning more about it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 Excellent, keep us up to date with your progress, and please ask as many questions as you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snakeboy Posted February 27, 2013 Author Share Posted February 27, 2013 Excellent, keep us up to date with your progress, and please ask as many questions as you like. Thanks. And I will! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adam242 Posted February 27, 2013 Share Posted February 27, 2013 Welcome to the club! I'll be glad to help, as would everyone else here. A lot of knowledgeable, friendly people on AA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted February 28, 2013 Share Posted February 28, 2013 Welcome to your new hobbie probie.. The best part of having a Atari computer is the people behind it. We might be a tad passionate about our hobby, and it shows. Ask almost anyone for advise, and you are in for an earfull. Every Atari-person I have met in person or otherwise has always been KIND. This is a great community to belong to. If you need anything..phalno@hotmail.com The big Atari haul.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markmiller Posted March 6, 2013 Share Posted March 6, 2013 The reason I still have a fondness for the old Atari 8-bits is the programming. They're relatively simple machines, though still have enough features to make them worth exploring, just for the sake of learning about the different aspects of the machine. But I see you're more interested in the games. All the games I can recommend were originally on disk (one of the SIO devices), though Ballblazer was released on a cartridge with the XE Game System came out. My favorites were Ballblazer by Lucasfilm Games (Yes, THE Lucasfilm) Rescue on Fractalus, as was mentioned earlier, also by Lucasfilm B.C.'s Quest For Tires, by Sierra On-Line, based on the comic strip by Johnny Hart International Karate, by System 3 The Halley Project, by Mindscape The easiest way to use the Atari was to plug in a cartridge and turn on the machine. No fuss, no muss. In that way it works a lot like the old Atari 2600 VCS. Disk drives are also pretty easy to set up. Just plug one in to the SIO port on the back, put a bootable disk into the drive (most commercial software came this way), turn on the machine, and it would automatically take you where you need to go. The thing with a drive is you need 5.25" disks. You can't get those anymore, I don't think. That's why people recommended other mods like SIO-to-USB, etc. You can load disk images off the internet using a PC onto a USB drive, take it out of the PC, put it into the SIO adapter, turn on the Atari, which will boot into the SIO adapter firmware, presenting a menu. From there you can have the adapter "mount" a disk image off the USB drive, and to the Atari it looks like you just put a disk in the disk drive, and the firmware will restart the machine off of that so that the Atari is loading from the virtual disk. You jump through some hoops, but it's what you'd need to do to run an Atari "from disk" nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 (edited) I know that the original poster probably has his 800xl by now but I feel I should throw in my penny's worth. I started an the TI99/4a and progressed a few years later to an 800xl which became my favoured set up-complete with 1010,1050,trackball etc. I eventually decided to sell the lot to help me finance my eventual "upgrade" to a Commodore 128. After the initial novelty wore off-I could not help but wish that I could get all the Atari stuff back. The moral of this story is-I don't really know, just don't swap an 800xl for a Commodore 128, unless you have a spare. Edited January 18, 2014 by am1933 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 The moral of this story is-I don't really know, just don't swap an 800xl for a Commodore 128, unless you have a spare. Or just have both... =-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
am1933 Posted January 18, 2014 Share Posted January 18, 2014 Or just have both... =-) I do now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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