New to A8bit, need suggestions

[pixelmischief]

Definitely get Pitfall II if you don't have it on any other platform. But like was said, you should think about getting a MyIDE-II or something like it. If you need some encouragement in that direction, go over to YouTube and check out gameplay videos of Yoomp!, Assembloids XE, and Ridiculous Reality. Those are just a few of the amazing games developed recently for Atari 8 and that list is growing every year with the annual ABBUC contest.

Edited September 25, 2014 by pixelmischief

[phoenixdownita]

No list is complete without Centron 3D .... oh wait it's not available .... never mind.

 

[sorry couldn't resist and yes, please, call me Shirley]

[RodLightning]

That depends entirely on the quality of the disk and how it's been stored/handled.

Most of my discs still work 30 years later.

As for games, I recommend Shamus (very fast labyrinth shooter).

I'm impressed by how well my disk library has survived. None of my purchased titles have failed so far, although some of the labels have faded. Perhaps a half dozen in hundreds of media that started out as formatted blanks have failed. I guess it all depends upon usage and environment.

 

Today, I got a C64/Atari 5.25 inch double sided flip-able game disk via ebay and am happy to say that both sides work 30 years later!

[HiassofT]

The Cart combined with The Cart Studio software

 

Great if you want to run actual cartridge ROM files. It supports a huge variety of cartridge mappers compared to any solution that's come before, and it looks like it's also supporting more and more disk images.

 

It's slower for doing the initial programming/setup, compared to loading files on the CF based solutions. Maybe a future version of The Cart would just take a CF instead, but maybe there's a technical reason why it can't be designed that way.

Yes, there's a technical reason for doing it this way.

 

CF acts just like a harddrive and doesn't support true random access at a byte level - but this is needed to run cartridge code. With a CF based solution you first have to copy the cartridge code to memory, extra RAM for example. This of course means the extra RAM has to be large enough to store the whole cartridge data (for example 1MB if you want to run Space Harrier).

 

From what I've read the MyIDE II uses such an approach for cartridge emulation, although in a rather limited way - it doesn't support the standard bankswitching schemes (for carts larger than 8k/16k, like XEGS or OSS) natively, so the cart code has to be patched before you can use it with MyIDE II.

 

Due to the 128MB flash ROM this limitation is not present in The!Cart, all of the ROM data you flashed before is immediately available as soon as you power it up. You even could go ahead and write a game that needs 16MB of ROM, the hardware supports this.

 

The!Cart also supports loading cartridge ROM images from standard storage solutions (SIO or PBI devices) to it's 512k RAM without having to flash the ROM before. But, of course, this takes some time and is limited to 512k - so Space Harrier, for example, won't work this way.

 

If you are into carts get one, you won't regret it. Wolfram (mega-hz) is currently working on a new production run, so it should soon be available again.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[+MrFish]

Yes, there's a technical reason for doing it this way.

 

CF acts just like a harddrive and doesn't support true random access at a byte level - but this is needed to run cartridge code. With a CF based solution you first have to copy the cartridge code to memory, extra RAM for example. This of course means the extra RAM has to be large enough to store the whole cartridge data (for example 1MB if you want to run Space Harrier).

 

From what I've read the MyIDE II uses such an approach for cartridge emulation, although in a rather limited way - it doesn't support the standard bankswitching schemes (for carts larger than 8k/16k, like XEGS or OSS) natively, so the cart code has to be patched before you can use it with MyIDE II.

 

Due to the 128MB flash ROM this limitation is not present in The!Cart, all of the ROM data you flashed before is immediately available as soon as you power it up. You even could go ahead and write a game that needs 16MB of ROM, the hardware supports this.

 

The!Cart also supports loading cartridge ROM images from standard storage solutions (SIO or PBI devices) to it's 512k RAM without having to flash the ROM before. But, of course, this takes some time and is limited to 512k - so Space Harrier, for example, won't work this way.

 

If you are into carts get one, you won't regret it. Wolfram (mega-hz) is currently working on a new production run, so it should soon be available again.

 

I figured it might have something to do with that, otherwise maybe it had been designed for using with a CF or SD to begin with. So maybe another solution to the time it takes to flash would be to have a USB port on The Cart, which would connect to the PC for direct flashing, or have an optional flashing device that connects directly to The Cart and the PC, similar to the MaxFlash Cartridge Programmer.

Edited September 25, 2014 by MrFish

[kogden]

 

Centipede on the 8 bit doesn't look too good to me. The 5200 version looks (aside from squishing) and sounds arcade perfect. The 800 version looks like garbage in comparison.

 

Fortunately the 5200 versions of Centipede and Pengo were backported to the computers later on. XEX's floating around everywhere. Not exactly a cart though. Would probably need a floppy, SIO2PC, SIO2SD or something.

 

The 5200 version of Centipede is *AWESOME*.

[kiwilove]

While I am not running any of the old hardware anymore - so I don't know how easy to flash a cart - the flashcart (maxcart) seems the way to go because disk drives are likely to break down eventually. The avenue may be to go for the flashcart first, and eventually end up with a disk drive - when you can later on - just to get those rare disk only games to round out your Atari gaming experience.

 

For any videogaming system (computer or console) - it is good to know not only the most highly popular games for it - that are excellently done - but to know what unique games there are - for that system.

So, for game design with superb execution - I'll start such a list with ... in no particular order...

 

Blue Max, Bristles, Necromancer, Dropzone, Drelbs, Star Raiders, Donkey Kong, Joust - and I would plug for Hawkquest (though this is disk-based).

 

Harvey

[HiassofT]

So maybe another solution to the time it takes to flash would be to have a USB port on The Cart, which would connect to the PC for direct flashing, or have an optional flashing device that connects directly to The Cart and the PC, similar to the MaxFlash Cartridge Programmer.

Some time ago we discussed the topic of building an external USB programmer. But it's not that easy, especially if targetting multi-platform compatibility (Linux, Windows, OSX). And it's even harder to do that with java. Since we are all short on time we dropped the idea.

 

IIRC Wolfram asked Steve Tucker if he could add The!Cart support to his USB cartridge programmer, but got no reply.

 

so long,

 

Hias

[+MrFish]

Some time ago we discussed the topic of building an external USB programmer. But it's not that easy, especially if targetting multi-platform compatibility (Linux, Windows, OSX). And it's even harder to do that with java. Since we are all short on time we dropped the idea.

 

Sure, understandable, it's a great device irregardless.

 

 

IIRC Wolfram asked Steve Tucker if he could add The!Cart support to his USB cartridge programmer, but got no reply.

 

Yes, this is what I thought of when The Cart was first introduced. But then the reality of The Cart being a competing product and Steve being in business to make money soon overtook any enthusiasm I had for that ever happening. I'm hardly surprised at the response (lack of).