POLL: Upgraded RAM A8s, stock Ram A8s, and A8 mouse users

[Beeblebrox]

I don't recall seeing a poll asking these questions so I was curious to start one.

 

This topic isn't intended to debate stock vs upgraded Atari 8-bits or the pros and cons of any particular Ram upgrade for example - I was just curious to get a rough guage, as well as finding out how many use mice with their A8s.

 

I also think it may (or may not), be helpful to the many wonderful developers out there to know these things.

 

I own A8s in most catagories and use a mouse with my A8s for games like the Brundles, Tommingi, Operation Wolf, and GUis for example. 

 

The Ram catagories are also very general as I am aware there are many more configurations.

 

Thanks in advance for taking part.

 

EDIT: Just realised I should add an emulator user only option - so just did. 

Edited February 19, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[+MrFish]

11 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

I don't recall seeing a poll...

 

Atari 8-bits Memory Inventory (64K wins)

 

[_The Doctor__]

um 52k option, or axlon / other for the 800's

there were two competing 800 expanded (greater than 52/64 depending on how you count and if you added ram under rom etc etc) memory schemes for the most part.

[Beeblebrox]

Thanks for the replies. Just to say aside the stock Ram A8 catagories the poll is generally putting all non-stock Upgraded RAM machines into the one catagory of upgraded machines. I know this doesn't cover everything and isn't intended to be an exhaustive poll of all variations of Ram upgrade. The poll is really to roughly guage the landscape regarding unmodified Stock Ram A8s and upgraded Ram A8s and also to generally to see if many A8 owers use mice with their A8s. 

 

At a quick glance to date it appears so far a good number of those 34 x AA members completing the poll are owners of both stock A8s, (64K being popular), and some form of upgraded RAM A8s.

 

Mouse use is understandably going to be lower as not that many A8 games, etc use mice, owners don't have a compatible one to use or have invested in a modern adapter to use one.

However the numbers are higher than I would have expected, (currently 13 yes answers to 21 no answers), which is very interesting.

 

 

[Mathy]

Hello Beeblebrox

 

Big advantage mice have over RAM extensions is that they don't require installation (apart maybe for a small resistor to get the second button to work).  You can just buy 'em and use 'em.  So low mouse use doesn't have to stop developer, if the software is appealing enough the user will try to get a mouse.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy   (who likes to use an ST mouse with Bombdown, a Mines clone)

 

[Beeblebrox]

Big thanks to all who have completed this poll. Very interesting so far. ??

[Mark2008]

At the exact moment my family went shopping for computers, the Atari 400 didn't have 16k, it had 8k.  The original color computer had 4k.

I say this, because my Dad was tech savvy he wouldn't buy a machine with low memory.  It's why he bought a TI-99 4 as the family computer - 16-bit, 16k ram.  

 

As a practical matter, it had a lot of limitations.   My first computer, that was just for me,  was an Atari 400 with 16k, bought later.  Anyway, might be kind of cool to get an 8k Atari 400, at least for the rarity.  But, my personal habit, is to expand the computer.  My ideal Atari 400 would be an upgraded keyboard, the super color cpu mod....but I dare not buy another Atari.  Even if having my old Atari 400 back would be sweet....

 

interesting poll.

 

 

[Beeblebrox]

@Mark2008  Interesting to hear these things from BITD. My dad came home with the 400 in the early 80's,  (I can't recall the mem it had or whether he subsequently upgraded it at the time).

 

We loved it as kids - remember the game Boing! or Bopotron?   As kids simple games like those were mesmerising!

 

Then we progressed to the 800XL. I then got the 800XL and eventually also the 130XE that my Dad upgraded to as hand me downs. Finally he got the Atari ST.

 

I used the 800XL and 130XE A8s right up to the millenium. So happy to be back on the scene.

 

Anyways I am really finding this poll interesting too. I am hoping we get lots more users complete it. Always good to get a rough up to date feel of the landscape as it were from time to time. Especially now with so much going on in the Atari scene. I know it's only a snippet of course.

 

Looking at the 53 x who have completed the poll so far the same general pattern persists - at the high end there are a good percentage of A8 owners generally having one (or more) of 64K stock A8s and also one (or more) of non stock upgraded 256K+ machines. Again it doesn't surprise me being an owner of both stock and upgraded A8s myself. 

 

I know of course a RAM upgrade can consist of taking a stock 600XL 16K and upgrading it to 64K, but that isn't what the poll is intended to track.

 

The poll is intended to roughly guage an idea of stock A8s (up to 128K) and upgraded A8 ownership, where "upgraded" is defined as above the standard 128K max of stock released machines - so typically 256K is the next up. I say typically as there may well likely be upgrades that sit between 128k and 256K of course. Still, I think probably BITD people would proably have gone for 256K or 320K if they were upgrading their 64K or 128K machines, rather than something in between 128K and 256K. Of course maybe I am wrong there.

 

I am still quite impressed there are a larger number of A8 mouse users than I'd expected from the 53 x users. It's less than half at currently 22 out of the 53, but still - nice to see. I love using a mouse with those games and utilities that support them. 

 

Anyways - thanks for completing it.

Edited February 21, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Beeblebrox]

Thanks again to all so far for completing this short poll. 64 responses and counting. ?

[Beeblebrox]

Thanks to all 75 who have completed the poll so far. Very interesting insight.

[Gunstar]

I just voted, didn't read all the replies above, so if it was mentioned, sorry...but what about stock Atari's with external PBI ram upgrades. I converted my 512K Rambo 1200XL back to 64K when I got a 512K Syscheck XL for the PBI port I built (which gives me 576K total memory instead of only 512K of the Rambo). I also have a Syscheck 2.2 (XL/XE) for an 800XL with 64K (576K total). Though, admittedly, these machines are anything but stock now anyway, except for the memory reversions. But I'm sure there are people using Syscheck's for extra memory with truly stock machines otherwise.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Gunstar

[_The Doctor__]

yep and externals like citrad made as well.

[TGB1718]

3 hours ago, Beeblebrox said:

Thanks to all 75 who have completed the poll so far. Very interesting insight

Nice to see all respondents have real hardware

 

[Beeblebrox]

@Gunstar  Sure, no worries. Yup basically as per my comment in post 8 above this poll is very much a quick survey to roughly see an indication of the A8 RAM landscape in terms of Stock RAM machines (those with the original factory released RAM - 16k through 128k), as well as those which are modified non stock RAM A8s, (those typically upwards of 256K+).

 

To answer your question - for the purposes of the poll I would definitely include Sys check II, (and any other plugin RAM upgrades above 256k), as a RAM upgrade if used as such with your A8 on regular basis, despite it being a PBI plugin RAM upgrade. I probably should have included a separate question for external 256k+ plugin RAM upgrades in hindsight, but it can sit under the poll's modified upgraded catagory.  

 

I'd not covered between 128k and 256k upgrades as I figured most people BITD when upgrading their stock machines from 16k, 48k, 64k or 128k would more than likely upgrade to 256K and above, rather than something in between. (I've not seen 188K A8s for example).

Of course I could be wrong there and if so I'm obviously missing a group. My bad Also the poll can't take into account people counting the machine with the Sys check II unplugged as a stock machine and then also counting it again as the upgraded machine once the Sys check II is plugged in. I would probably just count it once in the upgraded catagory given you probably just leave it plugged in and thus the machine is used most of the time upgraded.

 

Again this was intended as a very light touch poll with a short number of generic groupings. I just thought it would be interesting to see the landscape/trend in terms of whether owners had stock or upgraded A8s, or both, and generally whilst running the poll also ask how many used mice with their A8s. 

 

It's not really intended to cover the numbers of different types of upgrades within these groupings as people have rightly said there are many. It would get too complex.

 

Apologies to all if I'd not made this clear at the begining btw. 

 

As it stands it's interesting to see the trend leans towards high numbers of Atari fans with one or more stock 64K machines (to be expected being a common one), AND also  high numbers also having upgraded A8s as well.

 

I'd love the poll to get a really high response.

 

Hypothetically say this poll had ran with really high numbers of A8 owners owning upgraded 256K and above machines - that would indicate to me at least the fact that perhaps there is more of an audience for games taking advantage of RAM higher than the highest stock RAM A8s. 

 

Again thanks to all for completing the poll.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 25, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[Beeblebrox]

7 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

Nice to see all respondents have real hardware

 

@TGB1718  I totally agree.  I love using Altirra for example, but like me I think those emulator users also own A8s, and it would appear so far no-one at present just uses A8 emulation only. 

[Gunstar]

1 hour ago, Beeblebrox said:

@Gunstar  Sure, no worries. Yup basically as per my comment in post 8 above this poll is very much a quick survey to roughly see an indication of the A8 RAM landscape in terms of Stock RAM machines (those with the original factory released RAM - 16k through 128k), as well as those which are modified non stock RAM A8s, (those typically upwards of 256K+).

 

To answer your question - for the purposes of the poll I would definitely include Sys check II, (and any other plugin RAM upgrades above 256k), as a RAM upgrade if used as such with your A8 on regular basis, despite it being a PBI plugin RAM upgrade. I probably should have included a separate question for external 256k+ plugin RAM upgrades in hindsight, but it can sit under the poll's modified upgraded catagory.  

 

I'd not covered between 128k and 256k upgrades as I figured most people BITD when upgrading their stock machines from 16k, 48k, 64k or 128k would more than likely upgrade to 256K and above, rather than something in between. (I've not seen 188K A8s for example).

Of course I could be wrong there and if so I'm obviously missing a group. My bad Also the poll can't take into account people counting the machine with the Sys check II unplugged as a stock machine and then also counting it again as the upgraded machine once the Sys check II is plugged in. I would probably just count it once in the upgraded catagory given you probably just leave it plugged in and thus the machine is used most of the time upgraded.

 

Again this was intended as a very light touch poll with a short number of generic groupings. I just thought it would be interesting to see the landscape/trend in terms of whether owners had stock or upgraded A8s, or both, and generally whilst running the poll also ask how many used mice with their A8s. 

 

It's not really intended to cover the numbers of different types of upgrades within these groupings as people have rightly said there are many. It would get too complex.

 

Apologies to all if I'd not made this clear at the begining btw. 

 

As it stands it's interesting to see the trend leans towards high numbers of Atari fans with one or more stock 64K machines (to be expected being a common one), AND also  high numbers also having upgraded A8s as well.

 

I'd love the poll to get a really high response.

 

Hypothetically say this poll had ran with really high numbers of A8 owners owning upgraded 256K and above machines - that would indicate to me at least the fact that perhaps there is more of an audience for games taking advantage of RAM higher than the highest stock RAM A8s. 

 

Again thanks to all for completing the poll.

 

 

 

 

Agreed. it certainly depends on your perspective on upgrades and I, like you don't normally make a distinction if an upgrade is external or internal, but many do and I recognize that if I don't agree with it.

 

256K/512K Rambo's are actually 64K+192K/448K extended, where External upgrades (except the 1064) are 256/512/1064/etc. external +64K main ram. And there are 320K upgrades, usually done to 65/130XE's using Antic HALT ability and most, not all (Compy Shop upgrade was XE compatible for one though), XL upgrades stick with the Rambo style, without Antic HALT. The Incognito uses Axlon/Compy/Rambo memory versions for 100% compatibility through the entire line. So it has different memory versions from 48K, 52K or 64K main plus extended. Axlon compatible is either 48/52K main memory (52K being a main memory upgrade itself of course) and up to 1024 extended (on legacy memory upgrades anyway, but I think Incognito is the same).

 

Axlon was the de-facto extended memory standard on the 800, Rambo was the de-facto standard for XL's and stayed popular even with the newer Compy-Shop XE memory, and still is popular for modern upgrades like Syscheck, and XE/Compy shop was the official Atari standard for extended memory for some upgraded XL's and XE's. Except for a very short list of programs and demos that use Antic Halt command, Rambo and Compy/XE memory compatibility is a non-issue.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Gunstar

[Geister]

No mention of 400's upgraded to 48K?  I've got at least one for those.  I don't have a mouse but both my 400's have B-Key keyboards. 

How about 64K upgrades on 600XL's I've got one of those.

All of my 1200 and 800XL's are stock 64K but I'm in the market for an ultimate 1MB board for a couple XL's 

My single XE is a 130 and I don't think I'm going to upgrade that any time soon.

[Beeblebrox]

@Geister Thanks for the questions. See my post 14.

 

The intention of the poll is not to track A8s upgraded within the stock RAM ranges, (ie someone upgrading a 16K stock 600XL to 64k, upgrading their 800 to 52k or adding 64k extra to their 65XE to upgrade to 128k). It's to roughly gauge the landscape of those common stock RAM A8 ranges, (so RAM 16k thru 128k), and those upgraded RAM A8s which have typically 256k and higher.   I could have had sub questions as it were but I wanted to keep the poll short and simple.

 

I also could have just had two groups in the poll as well as the mouse question, but I figured it would be interesting to see a rough breakdown of the typical stock RAM A8s, hence the 16k, 48k, 64k, and 128k stock A8 RAM groupings.

 

So your 48K Atari 400 would be logged under the 48K grouping, even though it's technically undergone an upgrade - because it's still within the 16K to 128k RAM bracket.  (I appreciate the groupings have the word unmodified in there which if I did the poll again I'd likely remove to avoid confusion - (poll was created rather quickly I must confess - plus it was my first poll on AA ).

 

Great you are looking to upgrade some of your A8s to U1MB.  I have U1MB upgrades in my 800XE, 600XL and driver 800XL, and Incognito (which incorporates U1MB), in my 800.

 

Obviously the poll is a snapshot at the time of completing so if you have yet to complete it, (and want to), it's up to you whether you log your XLs as stock, or those XLs you plan to upgrade to U1MB in the upgraded RAM grouping.

 

As I say it's a very rough poll but the results of the 81 Atarians so far completing it is very interesting. Thanks for completing it, (if you have or plan to).

 

BTW what is a B-key keyboard? Not heard of that before. (Presumably an aftermark keyboard to replace the 400's stock membrane one?)

Edited February 27, 2022 by Beeblebrox

[tep392]

I have 3 machines right now and none are stock

400 - Intec 48K 

800 - Axlon compatible 256K using a modified 16K Atari board (288K total). Also have an Omnimon ROM board.

1200XL - U1MB

[Beeblebrox]

@tep392  Sure. So for the purposes of the poll your 400 (48k) would go in the 48K catagory (despite technically being modified upgraded RAM), as still within the 16k thru 128K range Atari released their A8s. The others because they are 256K and 1MB respectively would then obviusly go in the upgraded catagory. (As mentioned in the above post (#18) above if I did the poll again I'd remove the unmodified ref in the first few questions and also clarify things more. My 1st poll and hindsight is a wonderful thing and all that! - My bad). 

 

The poll is basically about RAM and also taking the opportunity to roughly guage mouse use on the A8. 

 

Thanks

[Schadret]

I'm one of those "Emulator only" people for now - haven't won any of the eBay auctions for actual hardware yet, and unfortunately my original stuff got tossed about 15 years ago during a house move ?

[Gunstar]

I think I may have voted all wrong as I do have two 64K non-memory expanded Atari's, But as I mentioned before they have external memory upgrades, but I voted as 256K+ categories for them, but they are heavily modded and upgraded too, just not the memory anymore since I switched to external extended except for my Incognito 800, which not only has over a meg of internal memory, but also 512K of external memory on the Turbo Freezer cart. I also have THE!CART and MyIDE II which also have 512K external sram memory on-board. Just mentioning the last few for shock effect.

[Beeblebrox]

@Gunstar  Sure. It was only ever intended as a quick light touch poll for the purposes of gaining a little insight into the A8 RAM landscape (and the mouse users), so it doesn't matter about the fact that there any other mods that an A8 might have (IDE, OS mods, Video, sound etc). If those 2 x A8s you mentioned have 256K of External RAM upgrades then I'd say you have put them in the right catagory. 

 

Wow - lot's of RAM on the 800 

[Gunstar]

5 hours ago, tep392 said:

I have 3 machines right now and none are stock

400 - Intec 48K 

800 - Axlon compatible 256K using a modified 16K Atari board (288K total). Also have an Omnimon ROM board.

1200XL - U1MB

I was in the process of building an Axlon compatible 256K board myself, also using a modified 16K board from one of my 800's (now christened 800CX totally customized inside and out-see avatar) I was also turning the second of my three 16k boards into a Mosiac 64 compatible board with 52K main plus 3 banks of 4K (I have a second fully populated 800 mobo, less ram boards I bought from B&C-MyAtari). Using @ClausB's previous work and his schematics, and great help from him too.

 

I never upgrade my multiple Atari's the same way twice, though they may share a few of the same upgrades. About half-way through Lotharek started carrying Incognito boards again so I dropped the projects and bought the Incognito and moved on to other upgrades and mods. Of course with it I have Rambo, XE and Axlon memory options of 1MB. And main memory choices of 48/52/64K.

 

I'm still thinking about whether I should finish one of those board mods or get another Incognito (My first 800 has a lot more and different upgrades). Just like I have one 1200XL with 32-in-1 OS, Pokeymax, Rapidus, PAL converted, DIY PBI using 512K Syscheck board, but my second Atari 1200XL will stay NTSC and is getting an U1MB and VBXE and Pokeymax...oh, one 800 is converted to PAL too, and the other is NTSC. I have a 3rd 1200XL and an 800XL and they will be different too, when I get around to them.

Edited March 1, 2022 by Gunstar

[tep392]

@Gunstar, Those are some serious upgrades!  I only have the U1MB in my 1200XL, but did the cheap Clearview 2002 video mod because the display quality was so poor out of the box.  It's probably my favorite to use and I really like the feel of the keyboard.  My goal for my 800 is to keep any upgrades period correct.  Just mods that would have been realistic back in the 80's.  That's why I did the homebrew 256K board and Omonimon, which I find pretty useful when programming.   I'm also using SpartaDos and MAC/65 on it, though I'm cheating a bit by putting them on an Atarimax cart.  The cart has SDX 4.49, MAC/65 and BASIC.  The two 810's I use with it have been upgraded with the Happy board and "The Chip" Archiver.