8-bits in the present day.

[pmitch_3m]

Okay, I have an 800xl, Two 1050s, a 300 baud modem, and a old dot-matrix printer(which I'm sure is broke). I've had the system since I was in grade school. Buying it piece by piece with allowance money. I used to mess around with it everyday until the wee hours of the night....geeking out on BBS's(TAP, Part-time, Bloom County) and various games(loved Bruce Lee, Archon, Goonies and AR). Anywho, I'm 31 now and my 8-bit sits dormant. I would love to bring it into the present day and make it a part of my everyday life, much like my PC is now. I am far from a programmer and have lost what little knowledge I once had of the 800xl. Besides gaming, what can I do now with my trusty xl? What do you do with yours? How can I reeducate myself on this powerful little machine and bring him into the present day?

 

late,

p

[Callipygous]

See threads on SIO2PC. This is the main upgrade to do. For instance http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.p...ighlight=sio2pc and there are other threads also.

[Goochman]

The Old games are still fun - Look for some of the new Multic Carts that have come out (www.sunmark.com) - You can just fire up that ole 800XL and play a bunch of old favorites.

 

Otherwise not much else for the XL these days

[TMR]

Well, there's always the possibility of learning how to code and doing your own software...? =-)

[emkay]

Well, there's always the possibility of learning how to code and doing your own software...? =-)

 

BTW: Which game you wrote is your personal favorite?

[TMR]

BTW: Which game you wrote is your personal favorite?

 

Ooh, difficult one... depends on my mood really, Reaxion if i'm in a puzzle game sort of mood and probably Cyberwing for blasting.

[+davidcalgary29]

Okay, I have an 800xl, Two 1050s, a 300 baud modem, and a old dot-matrix printer(which I'm sure is broke).  I've had the system since I was in grade school.  Buying it piece by piece with allowance money.  I used to mess around with it everyday until the wee hours of the night....geeking out on BBS's(TAP, Part-time, Bloom County) and various games(loved Bruce Lee, Archon, Goonies and AR).  Anywho, I'm 31 now and my 8-bit sits dormant.  I would love to bring it into the present day and make it a part of my everyday life, much like my PC is now.  I am far from a programmer and have lost what little knowledge I once had of the 800xl.  Besides gaming, what can I do now with my trusty xl?  What do you do with yours?  How can I reeducate myself on this powerful little machine and bring him into the present day?

 

late,

p

 

I'd recommend a trip to the ACEC Swap Meet in Columbus at their September meeting. You'll be sure to find an excellent resource base, and I'm sure that someone will be on hand to help you with any questions that you may have about modding your various pieces of equipment.

For the record: I still use my 800XL for word processing with "Atariwriter 80" and the XEP80 80-column device. :wink:

[+Sauron]

While you're probably not going to get anywhere near the same functionality out of an A8 as you will with a standard PC, there's still plenty to do with it. I think most of us here just use ours as hobby systems, which entails trying out things like SIO2PC to connect it with our PC, run some of the OSes which have been written for it (like Contiki), or even just play all of the games we never got a chance to play back in the day.

 

Even at that, there's several things I can easily think of that would be of a more practical nature. Printing out labels wouldn't be too difficult, provided you have a printer. A simple word processor is definitely something else. Any other ideas?

[RJ]

You could always keep a personal journal/diary on disk & add entries using a word processor (I use SpeedScript 3.0, a PD version). That way no one unfamiliar w/ booting/using an 8 bit can see your stuff.

 

I've probably got about 5 disks full of entries but not much time to write anymore!

 

Also, find ComputerEyes & hook up a VCR/video source & mess around w/ some pictures. You can load em into art programs, color them, print them, etc. if you're at all interested in the artistic capabilities of your 8-bit (or your own!)

[+davidcalgary29]

While you're probably not going to get anywhere near the same functionality out of an A8 as you will with a standard PC, there's still plenty to do with it. I think most of us here just use ours as hobby systems, which entails trying out things like SIO2PC to connect it with our PC, run some of the OSes which have been written for it (like Contiki), or even just play all of the games we never got a chance to play back in the day.

 

Even at that, there's several things I can easily think of that would be of a more practical nature. Printing out labels wouldn't be too difficult, provided you have a printer. A simple word processor is definitely something else. Any other ideas?

 

Antic offered up some pretty weird ideas for the 8-bits in the '80s. As I recall, articles were printed to help you:

 

a) Wire an in-home security system;

 

b) gather, collate, and print satellite weather imagery;

 

c) use your computer as a recipe database (even without a hard drive);

 

d) control home-made robotics experiments.

[Goochman]

I know a guy who hooked his 8bit up to a sesmic reader to track earthquake and such. He has some printouts of big earthquakes that happened across the globe since these aftershocks can be heard in the earths crust all around.

 

He then hooked his 800 into a a radio reciever to do some SETI like space listening

[RJ]

You can find that stuff at www.atarimagazines.com if you didnt know that already!

 

Set aside some time...it's great browsing!!!

[Dracon]

Atari 8-bit is rather old compy, but there's still some stuff to explore within it... I mean its possibilites..... Look at NUMEN demo to get it right and I tell you this is not the end of what can be done with it.

No kidding!

 

So, demo writing is still alive, especially among Polish Atarians...

Anybody can learn coding Atari now and thus to get to know how to write efficient procedures/algorhitms (the 6502 processor is quite a good thing). Some good assemblers are waiting (one can write source in PC and assembly and run on Atari).

 

Another good using of A8 is... music.... Yeah, there some good tools (RMT by Raster, etc) and so-called chip sound is back on the stage.... RETRO mode arrived !

[Big Player]

Antic offered up some pretty weird ideas for the 8-bits in the '80s. As I recall, articles were printed to help you:

 

a) Wire an in-home security system;

 

b) gather, collate, and print satellite weather imagery;

 

c) use your computer as a recipe database (even without a hard drive);

 

d) control home-made robotics experiments.

 

e) taking meal orders at a roadside cafe.

 

I always wanted to have an 800XL for a waitress.

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n1/ataricafe.html

[JB]

 

http://www.atarimagazines.com/v5n1/ataricafe.html

 

 

The entrance beckons with a poster of a menacing skull and cross-bones done in that unmistakably folksy mechanical dot-matrix style of Broderbund's Print Shop software: "Warning: During closed hours the computers call police if building entered. Armed owner on premises." The skull is surrounded by a border of computer-generated hearts.

 

 

HAH!

[RJ]

So, pmitch- been awhile...what are YOU doing w/ your Atari? Any suggestions/ideas from above? Let us know!

 

You could also design fonts. I used DaisyDot 3's font editor to create a "ransom" font using characters from each font file on the disk. I used graph paper to map each character, then copied it into the editor. I use the font for CD song lists for their jewel cases. I've also designed:

 

Boxy

Gothic

Japanese

Commando (like the game's text)

Survivor/Castaway/Gilligan (tropical island motif)

Gameshow

 

Just go thru a magazine & choose interesting fonts, then put them on your Atari!