Getting back into Atari 800XL - Need some help.

[Hawk269]

Ages ago, I was heavily into Atari Computers, ran my own BBS and just loved it. While I had the Atari 1040ST, Mega ST it was the Atari 800XL that I loved the most. What I loved was that I had TON's of Disks with anywhere from 4-8 games per disks and I had over a 100 of these. It was a great time and unfortunately, there was a fire and I lost it all. That was over 25 or so years ago. I never got back into it because I could not afford it and things/priorities changed.

 

I recently, as of a few days ago aquired a great working Atari 800xl and 1050 Disk Drive all it great condition with boxes and all.

 

I am not sure if it is frowned up to ask this here, but I would love to get disks with games on them again. I am not sure where to look. I found a site that seems to have hundreds of disks with 5-10 games on each of them. They are downloadable, but have no clue how to move those from a current computer to a readible 1050 disks. I guess what I am wanting to ask is there any fellow Atari 800xl owners willing to help out a long time fan in getting 1050 disks with games on them?

 

Thanks and I apologize if this is wrong to ask in this forum, I just don't know where else to ask this question.

 

 

[Tillek]

The big thing I ask is where you're located. If you live near someone else here willing to help that makes it easier.

 

For do it yourself advice, http://www.atarimax.com/sio2pc/documentation/ People here will now hit you with a deluge of other options and have all the reasons in the world why their suggestion is the best, but that is the easiest I found, especially if you like to use real disks.... The software is worth the price.

[Hawk269]

I am located in Santa Maria, California, but will be moving to Boise, Idaho early February 2017.

[ryanmercer]

Just buy an SIO device. I prefer SIO to usb devices as you can emulate all sorts of hardware by attaching the Atari to a Windows machine. You can load disk images all day long that way. https://www.atarimax.com/sio2pc/documentation/is one example and is shipped from the U.S. and an alternative for a U.S. seller for SIO2USB is http://atari8warez.com/buyDualUSBv3.html but he's out of stock until spring.

 

If you don't think you'll ever want to emulate hardware, you could just get a flash cartridge like https://www.atarimax.com/myide/documentation/these are nice when you don't want to have a Windows machine sitting around too. If I'm taking an Atari somewhere I'll usually just take my myide.

 

 

If you really wanted to go the floppy route, first you have to find some. In the past I've used http://www.floppydisk.com/5point25 and the disks have all been fine but they are a bit pricey. You're better off just spending 65-75$ over at atarimax. If you got an sio2usb you could copy disks from image yourself in the future if you wanted. You just load an image in the software then on the atari copy the emulated disk to a disk in your 1050, I did it a few times just for the nostalgic factor but I haven't used a floppy or any of my floppy drives in probably 2 years.

Edited December 20, 2016 by ryanmercer

[Kyle22]

Here's a link for a more durable device which uses a proper SIO connector: http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=98

[ryanmercer]

Here's a link for a more durable device which uses a proper SIO connector: http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=98

 

Indeed, but OP note that this ships from Europe, generally only ships one day a week or less and you are probably looking at 2 weeks delivery from ship date plus you'll almost certainly need to sign for it which means likely picking it up at the post office.

[Kyle22]

Yeah, but I would like to see the OP get a professionally built product, not some inferior cheaply made knockoff thing from a shady 'warez' site.

 

 

Edit: added word 'shady'

Edited December 21, 2016 by Kyle22

[ryanmercer]

Heh, it's not a warez site just has it in the domain. Not shady either, and as far as quality I'm quite please with the one I bought from him a year, year and a half ago. Works as well as my one from atarimax and looks nicer because it isn't just a naked pcb.

[tjlazer]

Plenty of places to get Atari 800 disk images, called ATR files. Get a SIO2PC and you can write them all back to a real disk. Or load them from the PC directly into the Atari 800XL!

[Kyle22]

@ryanmercer

 

Yeah, I know, but please don't make me explain the details all again. It's ugly. Everyone already knows about the 'problem.'

 

BTW, Ray, I am really happy with my Outlook rules & spam filters. Give it your best shot (again) if it makes you happy.

 

[ryanmercer]

What 'problem'? I've never heard of any issues with him or his sio2usb. Is there something I should know about?

[Kyle22]

I'll PM you a few details. I will not discuss this in public.

[Hawk269]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I appreciate the feedback and most likely will order the one from the european site. What USB cable would I use with this, I am not familiar with the one on the device? My PC has standard USB 2.0/3.0 ports, but the one on this device looks squared.

[ryanmercer]

Lotharek's sio2usb uses a USB A-Type male to B-Type male cable

[McKong]

Take a look at the other options too. When i got back into Atari a few years ago i bought a sio2pc but then moved to a sio2sd and have just bought an Ultimate cart, which is now my preferred piece of kit.

 

There's a 'pinned' post in this forum called 'topic for newbies' that lists most of options