Productivity with the 2600?

[Riko]

This one is an odd one, i have a particular interest in taking old hardware or tech and finding new useful ways to use them, for fun mostly not out of practicality. Is there anyway to use the 2600 actually like a computer, either using a keyboard or somehow getting files/programs on and off it or even just writing things on it.

 

This probably sounds ridiculous though i thought id ask anyway!

[jhd]

There were a handful of keyboard attachments announced (and some of which even reached the prototype stage), but only one shipped shipped (in limited quantities) -- the CompuMate. There are some music composition and drawing programs as well as a very limited BASIC interpreter.

 

Conceivably, someone could write a simple text editor in BASIC, but I doubt that there would be enough free RAM remaining to do anything useful.

 

As for getting data off of the system, the CompuMate has a cassette interface, but I do not know if it has the capability of saving files or just loading. If so, it would be necessary to reverse-engineer the protocol (and write appropriate software) so as to transfer the files to modern hardware.  

 

 

[+Gemintronic]

batari BASIC has extensions for the keypads, SaveKey storage and maybe a usable text mini kernel?   Not sure about that last one.

 

That's the scenario I could think of for an off the shelf solution.

[+karri]

Why not create a word clock?

 

And hope that the clock is stable enough... Or add a timekeeper.

[Riko]

2 hours ago, karri said:

Why not create a word clock?

 

And hope that the clock is stable enough... Or add a timekeeper.

This is exciting.

[danny_galaga]

https://atariprojects.org/2019/12/24/try-basic-programming-on-the-atari-2600-15-30-mins/

 

This is probably as close as you can get to actually using your physical Atari like a computer