52 replies to this topic

[SIO99]

Some more experimentation with DOS, saving and loading has given me the following experiences or errors. I type in a BASIC program, run it, then save it to an attached DOS disk in D1: . The latest example was the Collapsing Boxes program, which was published as Program 3 in one of the Atari User Guides. I saved this program as COLBOX1.BAS and it appeared in the Directory. I then saved it again as COLBOX2.BAS, just in case the first save was unsuccessful. After typing NEW, I typed LIST to check the program was no longer in RAM, then I loaded COLBOX1.BAS, which was successful and I was able to run it. After typing NEW again, I tried to load COLBOX2.BAS. It wouldn't LIST or RUN. I checked on the disk Directory and found that each time I saved a program with a title ending in 2 after saving it previously ending with a 1, the versions ending in 2 all had a file size of "001" instead of a file size larger than "001", which the versions ending in a 1 all had. Can anyone shed any light on this? Perhaps it's something quite basic about ATARI DOS which I don't know about yet. At the moment, I'll continue to type in some program listings from various sources to learn more about ATARI BASIC, as well as ATARI DOS. BTW, I've just been outbid on an Atari 800XL with cassette recorder.

[BillC]

SIO99, on Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:31 AM, said:

As for buying an Atari 8 bit computer itself, I keep getting outbid on eBay. I know how much or how little money I might be able to afford for this, because recently I've been studying some classic BASIC programming, using commands which are common to all classic MS BASIC dialects. I used these techniques to create a program I've called "Budget Maker", which allows me to plan my budget just by inputting a few expenses, such as for various utilities, etc, calculates what percentage of my total income this is, then tells me how much I've got left for everything else. This is much easier than the approach of inputting hundreds of things I've bought in the past or that I plan to buy in the near future. Unfortunately, the expense item food is made up of lots of separate items, so it can't just be keyed in as one figure like this, but I'm working on how to get a rough figure which will cover it. Unfortunately, this program would even run on a Commodore 64, which was my first computer and caused me lots of stress due to it using a version of BASIC ported from earlier Commodore computers without colour, graphics, or sound. This meant the Commodore 64 had no BASIC commands for colour, graphics, or sound. I sold it after about 11 months!

You could always look at the Marketplace forum, the following thread has 1 800XL for $30 stock/2 upgraded to 256K for $45ea., and 1050's for $20/$30 stock or one with Happy upgrade for $50.
http://www.atariage...._1#entry2503670

[Nukey Shay]

You say that you saved COLBOX2.BAS after checking a directory for the existance of COLBOX1.BAS? Were you doing said checking within the emulated DOS? There's your mistake - calling up DOS will wipe out a BASIC program in memory unless you had it's memory-preservation feature activated (i.e. "MEM.SAV" in Atari's DOS 2 compatables or other such measure). Something easily-forgotten in modern days of multitasking, etc. Ancient computers had extremely *limited memory* and *limited resources*.

In other words...

The emulator did exactly what it was supposed to...exactly what a real machine would have done.  COLBOX2.BAS is an empty file.

You might want to skip attempting to save your files to mounted .atr's and just use the hard drive function mentioned earlier (now that it appears you have a little familiarity with using DOS). Don't forget to activate the patch and pick a folder within the emulator so your DOS can access the H: device.

Edited by Nukey Shay, Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:12 AM.

[Bryan]

Another alternative is to work in BASIC XL or BASIC XE which is compatible with Atari BASIC but has directory commands (among other things).

[Nukey Shay]

Actually, you can call up a directory without affecting memory at all if you do it right.  MEM.SAV is one such way, but there's other tricks to doing it.  An interesting way is to save "direct-mode" keystrokes into a LISTed file via DOS's copy function (copy from E: to D:filename, enter multiple XIO commands, and use the BRK key to write the mess).  You can make a utility disk that has a bunch of such "hotkey" files at your disposal.  The computer will respond just like you had entered them on-the-fly...leaving memory untouched.

[SIO99]

BillC, on Thu Apr 19, 2012 10:33 PM, said:

SIO99, on Thu Apr 19, 2012 5:31 AM, said:

As for buying an Atari 8 bit computer itself, I keep getting outbid on eBay. I know how much or how little money I might be able to afford for this, because recently I've been studying some classic BASIC programming, using commands which are common to all classic MS BASIC dialects. I used these techniques to create a program I've called "Budget Maker", which allows me to plan my budget just by inputting a few expenses, such as for various utilities, etc, calculates what percentage of my total income this is, then tells me how much I've got left for everything else. This is much easier than the approach of inputting hundreds of things I've bought in the past or that I plan to buy in the near future. Unfortunately, the expense item food is made up of lots of separate items, so it can't just be keyed in as one figure like this, but I'm working on how to get a rough figure which will cover it. Unfortunately, this program would even run on a Commodore 64, which was my first computer and caused me lots of stress due to it using a version of BASIC ported from earlier Commodore computers without colour, graphics, or sound. This meant the Commodore 64 had no BASIC commands for colour, graphics, or sound. I sold it after about 11 months!

You could always look at the Marketplace forum, the following thread has 1 800XL for $30 stock/2 upgraded to 256K for $45ea., and 1050's for $20/$30 stock or one with Happy upgrade for $50.
http://www.atariage...._1#entry2503670

That may be OK for you, but I live in Britain, so the NTSC Ataris won't display a picture on PAL equipment and the disk drives would be about 115V, requiring a transformer to connect to 230V power, although they'd be connected to an Atari computer designed for 240V (the declared voltage was changed to 230V later on, but 240V items still work). I'd also probably have to wait a few weeks or even several weeks for them to arrive and may be charged extra by customs. Unfortunately, Atari 8 bit computers weren't all that popular over here, although Silica Shop was an Atari specialist and had a club Atari owners could join. My personal record for mail from the USA is a 12 day wait for some yeast and special home brewing caps from Alaska. I assume it wouldn't be any faster from Canada. I got some VHS cassettes of ST:ENT and Firefly sent from Canada several years ago, but I can't remember how long they took to arrive.

[SIO99]

Nukey Shay, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 6:56 AM, said:

You say that you saved COLBOX2.BAS after checking a directory for the existance of COLBOX1.BAS? Were you doing said checking within the emulated DOS? There's your mistake - calling up DOS will wipe out a BASIC program in memory unless you had it's memory-preservation feature activated (i.e. "MEM.SAV" in Atari's DOS 2 compatables or other such measure). Something easily-forgotten in modern days of multitasking, etc. Ancient computers had extremely *limited memory* and *limited resources*.

In other words...

The emulator did exactly what it was supposed to...exactly what a real machine would have done.  COLBOX2.BAS is an empty file.

You might want to skip attempting to save your files to mounted .atr's and just use the hard drive function mentioned earlier (now that it appears you have a little familiarity with using DOS). Don't forget to activate the patch and pick a folder within the emulator so your DOS can access the H: device.

OK, thanks for that! I don't know how to use MEM SAV, but I've seen it listed as a feature in DOS. I'm afraid I don't really understand your final paragraph. Please can you rephrase it? I'm not a long term Atari owner, I'm just investigating it and trying to program some games as a kind of therapy for "Commodore 64 psychosis" or whatever you want to call it. I'm surprised that Commodore wasn't sued over the Commodore 64 BASIC 2.0 AND 38K NOT 64K (even under Machine Code) fiascos!

[SIO99]

Bryan, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:06 AM, said:

Another alternative is to work in BASIC XL or BASIC XE which is compatible with Atari BASIC but has directory commands (among other things).

Can you give me a list of the extra BASIC XE commands? Do they include commands for Player Missile Graphics?

[Bryan]

Yes

http://www.scribd.co...Basic-Xe-Manual

[Fox-1 / mnx]

SIO99, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:37 AM, said:

That may be OK for you, but I live in Britain, so the NTSC Ataris won't display a picture on PAL equipment

Tip #1: Filling in the "location" field in your profile prevents unnecessary questions and answers.

Tip #2: Read a DOS manual.  I mean, really, read it.  Most DOS' on Atari, especially DOS 2.5, are very easy to use if you know a few basic things.  You'll agree when you're at it.

[SIO99]

Unfortunately, I've got a new problem now! I downloaded a BASIC program from http://www.atariarch...cs/chapter4.php . Unfortunately, I can't click on the file on my desktop and get the emulator to open it. I've tried to load the file while running the emulator, but I can't tell it where the file is. How can I load this file? I could type in the listing myself, but I feel there should be a way round this.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

This is getting annoying.

What makes you refuse to read any manual?

[AtariGeezer]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:42 PM, said:

This is getting annoying.

What makes you refuse to read any manual?

Really!, I agree 100%...
Most people would at least read the manuals to get a basic understanding of what they are trying to do...

Spoon feed him all the answers and he'll never learn...

[SIO99]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 2:42 PM, said:

This is getting annoying.

What makes you refuse to read any manual?

This is to do with the emulator, not to do with a manual about how to use Atari computers. I've got a BASIC file with the extension .BAS on my laptop hard drive. I know how I could load it if it was on a tape or disk and I had a real Atari computer, so the answer isn't in a manual.

[AtariGeezer]

Then ask yourself how you would copy a file to a disk or Atr disk image, maybe searhing the forum with that question might give you an answer
But you'll never know if you don't look and read

Edited by AtariGeezer, Fri Apr 20, 2012 4:00 PM.

[SIO99]

AtariGeezer, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 3:59 PM, said:

Then ask yourself how you would copy a file to a disk or Atr disk image, maybe searhing the forum with that question might give you an answer
But you'll never know if you don't look and read

I don't know if this is possible or if it would corrupt the .ATR disk image. If I was to drag the .BAS file over onto an .ATR icon, then the disk may well get corrupted. There doesn't seem to be any instructions on doing this in the Help file.

[AtariGeezer]

Just another "I refuse to look and read" response

[atari8warez]

SIO99, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:37 AM, said:

That may be OK for you, but I live in Britain, so the NTSC Ataris won't display a picture on PAL equipment and the disk drives would be about 115V, requiring a transformer to connect to 230V power, although they'd be connected to an Atari computer designed for 240V (the declared voltage was changed to 230V later on, but 240V items still work). I'd also probably have to wait a few weeks or even several weeks for them to arrive and may be charged extra by customs. Unfortunately, Atari 8 bit computers weren't all that popular over here, although Silica Shop was an Atari specialist and had a club Atari owners could join. My personal record for mail from the USA is a 12 day wait for some yeast and special home brewing caps from Alaska. I assume it wouldn't be any faster from Canada. I got some VHS cassettes of ST:ENT and Firefly sent from Canada several years ago, but I can't remember how long they took to arrive.

What I'll suggest is to download the software called AuctionSieve. This software allows you to monitor eBay items. You would setup a Sieve for eBay UK and filter the auctions by keywords such as130XE 800XL 1050  and choose category: 82631 only. Once you set the Sieve, you click on the Get Auctions button and all auctions on eBay UK, under category 82631, containing words like 130XE 800XL 1050 etc. will be displayed. You can click on the auction name/photo to see the actual ebay auction page. You can select items to be added to the Watchlist for monitoring purposes. Auctionsieve will alert you 10 mins before a watched auction ends, so you can either try sniping it, or submit a proxy bid. Any auction added to the watchlist will be added to the Price History tab once it ends, so you can do price analysis on past auctions

AuctionSieve is quite useful, I've been using it for a while to watch auctions on several eBay sites and I have recently seen several 130XE, 65XE and 800XLs being sold in UK.

Hope this helps... good luck....

Ray

Edited by atari8warez, Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:32 PM.

[SIO99]

I've tried various other techniques now, but they didn't work. I've read the tutorial on http://www.atariage....ri800_tutorial/ , and set up the directories it mentioned, including SUPPORTm DISKS, and CASS, but it didn't mention loading .BAS files which I haven't saved myself, I've tried the method on http://www.atarimani...topic.php?t=772 , but it doesn't allow me to browse my hard drive, it just freezes up. I hope this makes you happy that I've actually read some pages about my problem. Does this persuade you to tell me another possible solution? It looks like I may have to type the listing in myself and save it onto a DOS disk which I've managed to attach.

[SIO99]

atari8warez, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 7:26 PM, said:

SIO99, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 9:37 AM, said:

That may be OK for you, but I live in Britain, so the NTSC Ataris won't display a picture on PAL equipment and the disk drives would be about 115V, requiring a transformer to connect to 230V power, although they'd be connected to an Atari computer designed for 240V (the declared voltage was changed to 230V later on, but 240V items still work). I'd also probably have to wait a few weeks or even several weeks for them to arrive and may be charged extra by customs. Unfortunately, Atari 8 bit computers weren't all that popular over here, although Silica Shop was an Atari specialist and had a club Atari owners could join. My personal record for mail from the USA is a 12 day wait for some yeast and special home brewing caps from Alaska. I assume it wouldn't be any faster from Canada. I got some VHS cassettes of ST:ENT and Firefly sent from Canada several years ago, but I can't remember how long they took to arrive.

What I'll suggest is to download the software called AuctionSieve. This software allows you to monitor eBay items. You would setup a Sieve for eBay UK and filter the auctions by keywords such as130XE 800XL 1050  and choose category: 82631 only. Once you set the Sieve, you click on the Get Auctions button and all auctions on eBay UK, under category 82631, containing words like 130XE 800XL 1050 etc. will be displayed. You can click on the auction name/photo to see the actual ebay auction page. You can select items to be added to the Watchlist for monitoring purposes. Auctionsieve will alert you 10 mins before a watched auction ends, so you can either try sniping it, or submit a proxy bid. Any auction added to the watchlist will be added to the Price History tab once it ends, so you can do price analysis on past auctions

AuctionSieve is quite useful, I've been using it for a while to watch auctions on several eBay sites and I have recently seen several 130XE, 65XE and 800XLs being sold in UK.

Hope this helps... good luck....

Ray

I've seen various auctions recently on eBay and I don't think any of them have escaped my attention. It's just that I haven't got enough money and too many bills and other expenses have been piling up. There have been various Atari XL and XE computers without any storage devices, a few cassette data recorders for about £24  (US$38.52), and several 1010 data recorders all priced £116.10 (US$186.36) all from Sweden!  I've bought something which some people on this forum may think is amazing and I hoped to sell it on eBay for a profit, but some similar items I found were a bit different, so I don't know if it's possible. What I bought was two packets of Aspirin tablets each containing 16 300mg tablets for 19p or 30c (US) per packet. This also happens to be 30C (CDN) at the moment. Selling a certain number of these to the right people living in the right places could get me enough money to buy all the Atari 8 bit hardware I may want. I hope I'm allowed to mention this on here, but perhaps not. Anyway, I also know whereabouts in London I can buy German mustard, so that could be the solution to my problems.

Edited by SIO99, Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:12 PM.

[Nukey Shay]

(sigh)

MEM.SAV is an option right on the DOS menu.  When you create MEM.SAV, any BASIC program in memory will be transferred (stored) to the disk when you call up the DOS menu...then loaded back into memory when you exit the menu.  It's really just saving and loading, so IMO the option is basically there for the extremely absent-minded

"I know how I could load it if it was on a tape or disk"

No, you don't.  The unfamiliarity presented in this thread of how an Atari computer's DOS works pretty much proves it.  You can't (for example) physically take a paper document in your hands, lay it on top of a floppy disk, and expect it's data to be magically transferred TO the floppy disk in a neat little file.  Essentially, that is what you expected to happen by desktop dragging and dropping shit around.  To load a .BAS file downloaded and stored on your modern computer into an emulator, it should be done by using the emulator's hard drive function.  The .BAS file is just a text file.  Dragging the .BAS file onto an .ATR (floppy disk data image) is just confusing the hell out of your modern computer's browser - the two file types are incompatable and cannot be "merged" that way.  If you don't know where files you download end up on your modern computer, check it out.  Right-click/Save-As should point directly to where downloaded stuff ends up (and if you wnt it someplace different, browse there in the Save-As dialogue box).

Look though the emulator's HELP file.  Configuring it to work the way you want to is much less confusing than trying to do multiple Q&A in this thread.

[atari8warez]

SIO99, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:05 PM, said:

What I bought was two packets of Aspirin tablets each containing 16 300mg tablets for 19p or 30c (US) per packet. This also happens to be 30C (CDN) at the moment. Selling a certain number of these to the right people living in the right places could get me enough money to buy all the Atari 8 bit hardware I may want. I hope I'm allowed to mention this on here, but perhaps not. Anyway, I also know whereabouts in London I can buy German mustard, so that could be the solution to my problems.

I guess a lot of people reading this thread will need some of that Aspirin, nice way to create potential customers!... As far as the German mustard go, I personally prefer French mustard (and I know whereabouts in Toronto I can buy it)  so sorry but I won't be any help in the mustard department.

Edited by atari8warez, Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:44 AM.

[russg]

(I sometimes don't understand the problem.)  If I understand, you found a .BAS Atari program you want to load on the emulator (Altirra?).  There is no way to drag and drop,
cut and paste, a program (.BAS or .COM) to an .ATR.  I believe some C=64 emulators can do this.  You have to use a PC program (or are you on a MAC?), such as
MAKEATR.COM to insert a file into an .ATR.  Actually makeatr.exe(com) is the only program I know that will allow manipulation (add, delete) of .ATRs.

Attached Files

•  makeATR_v0.06.zip   56.15K   40 downloads

Edited by russg, Sat Apr 21, 2012 4:54 AM.

[rdea6]

I like this one quite well.   http://raster.infos....pc/atadi305.ZIP
Mostly drag&drop.
Delete, rename, import, export available options with a config. file...

[SIO99]

Nukey Shay, on Fri Apr 20, 2012 8:47 PM, said:

(sigh)

MEM.SAV is an option right on the DOS menu.  When you create MEM.SAV, any BASIC program in memory will be transferred (stored) to the disk when you call up the DOS menu...then loaded back into memory when you exit the menu.  It's really just saving and loading, so IMO the option is basically there for the extremely absent-minded

"I know how I could load it if it was on a tape or disk"

No, you don't.  The unfamiliarity presented in this thread of how an Atari computer's DOS works pretty much proves it.  You can't (for example) physically take a paper document in your hands, lay it on top of a floppy disk, and expect it's data to be magically transferred TO the floppy disk in a neat little file.  Essentially, that is what you expected to happen by desktop dragging and dropping shit around.  To load a .BAS file downloaded and stored on your modern computer into an emulator, it should be done by using the emulator's hard drive function.  The .BAS file is just a text file.  Dragging the .BAS file onto an .ATR (floppy disk data image) is just confusing the hell out of your modern computer's browser - the two file types are incompatable and cannot be "merged" that way.  If you don't know where files you download end up on your modern computer, check it out.  Right-click/Save-As should point directly to where downloaded stuff ends up (and if you wnt it someplace different, browse there in the Save-As dialogue box).

Look though the emulator's HELP file.  Configuring it to work the way you want to is much less confusing than trying to do multiple Q&A in this thread.

I thought that when the DOS menu appeared the program had already been deleted from the RAM. I've looked through the emulator's Help file.

Anyway, I think I've found the reason why I can't attach my hard drive as H1: . When I click on the H1: button, nothing happens and it seems to freeze up. I think it's quite likely that this is because I'm running the emulator on Linux OS using the program WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator). I'm also using the native Linux OS Ext filing system, instead of NTFS. I think this is where the emulator can't cope. As for my success in attaching the Atari DOS disks, I often (or always) have to click on the .ATR or .XFD files and select the option to open them with the Atari emulator. I'm running this on a laptop, which was supplied with MS WIndows, but I've more or less given up on MS Windows now. My Windows installation no longer seems to even boot up, because the last time I tried it, all I got was the wallpaper. Windows requires constant attention to keep it running. As I've given it up, that's why it doesn't work anymore. I plan to salvage the data on my WIndows partition, before deleting Windows altogether.

BTW, I've also got a Power Mac G4, so I think I'll try to run an Atari emulator for Mac on that. Obviously, it won't be the latest version, because I need one for Power PC and Mac OS X 3.9, but there should be something available.

I'm so sorry that all those years ago my Dad (RIP) who thought he knew it all, made me get a Commodore 64, just because he was *lending* me the money. I should have got any computer so long as it wasn't by Commodore with their antique BASIC, but I wanted to play at least 3 channel music with it as well. My local Atari dealer "Silica Shop" had a special offer of 100 free programs if you bought an Atari from them. I never even accumulated 100 programs for the Commodore 64 in the 10 or 11 months I owned one.  I couldn't even do word processing on it, because I didn't manage to get any software for this. Perhaps it was only available on disk, or an expensive cartridge. I'm sure I'd have been better off with an Atari 400, with or without upgraded keyboard. This is on my list of things to sort out if I can ever travel back in time!

I'll continue to bid for Atari 8 bit computers and storage devices on eBay.