12 replies to this topic

[Jinks]

Hey I am getting a 600xl for christmas with a floppy drive a couple tape machines and lots of joysticks, games etc... apperently the tape machines do not work. Anyone know how to fix em? What is cool to have with this system??
Do they run basic like the trs 80 did and can write programs for it??

Edited by Jinks, Sat Dec 15, 2012 4:21 PM.

[oracle_jedi]

Depends on what the tape drive is, and then obviously what's wrong with it.

The 410 decks were pretty solid but the belts do wear out.  I don't know where you would find replacements today.  The 1010 is fragile and the buttons would break, but you can usually repair them easily enough with donar parts from another deck.  The XC11 was the best of the bunch but Europe only AFAIK, and the XC12 was produced late in the run.

Unless you really dig the authentic retro experience of waiting 45 minutes for a game to boot-error i expect you will quickly move on from tape and rely on the disk drive or better yet, a device like the SIO2PC that allows the Atari to boot from your PC or a flash card.  The reliability is better and it allows far more complex game play than tape.

The 600XL does have built-in Atari BASIC so you can experiment with that and its a reasonable dialect given that it is only 8K and was produced in 1979.

The North American 600XL has no monitor port so you will need an RF capable TV/monitor to get a picture.  Upgrades exist if you are handly with a soldering iron.  Also the 600XL is 16K RAM which severely limits the games you can play.  Again upgrades exist from plug-in expansion to 64K or 320K, to solder-in options to expand from 64K to 1MB.

A nice feature of the 600XL is the tiny desk footprint compared to most other retro machines.

Hope you have fun.

[Jinks]

They are 410s have 2 of them. Have a 1050 disk drive as well. Got about 30 tapes with games on them. Three carts and one floppy. . What would more ram do faster loading? Multicart ram etc where to buy?
I dont care about load times can probably fix the tape drives I guess.. Also got about 40 compute magazines from 82-86 in the deal.

Thanks for the info!!

Edited by Jinks, Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:43 PM.

[ApolloBoy]

Jinks, on Sat Dec 15, 2012 7:39 PM, said:

What would more ram do faster loading? Multicart ram etc where to buy?

Adding more RAM allows you run programs that require more than 16K, which is a substantial chunk of A8 games and software. You can find RAM upgrade guides by looking around, and you can get multicarts or a SIO2PC here: http://www.atarimax.com
Once you pick up a SIO2PC or even something like a SIO2SD, you'll never need to use a disk drive or tape drive ever again. I sold both my 810 and 1050 when I got my SIO2PC and I've never looked back.

Edited by ApolloBoy, Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:23 PM.

[Jinks]

So I would need both to play all the games. Ram upgrade and atarimax cart. Is there anyway to tell if someone already did a ram upgrade on screen?

[OBO]

Doesn't a basic :
print fre(0)

shows the amount of RAM available ? (I have no extensions on my XL/XEs, except the 1064 for the 600XL)

[Jinks]

thanks!!! will try.

[mimo]

OBO, on Thu Dec 20, 2012 6:01 AM, said:

Doesn't a basic :
print fre(0)

shows the amount of RAM available ? (I have no extensions on my XL/XEs, except the 1064 for the 600XL)

yes it does

[oracle_jedi]

Jinks, on Mon Dec 17, 2012 6:11 AM, said:

Is there anyway to tell if someone already did a ram upgrade on screen?

Hold down OPTION when you power on the machine, or wait for the READY prompt to appear and type BYE.

Select MEMORY and watch the test progress.

If you have 16 RAM blocks you have a stock 16K, 40 or 48 then you have 64K.

If you have any other number of RAM blocks, or any blocks show red, you have problems.

[Hatta]

Do you really need a multi-cart when you have an SIO device?  Are there cart games that haven't been dumped to disk?

[OBO]

You still need one for a game like Space Harrier, that can only be run from a 8mb flash cart...

[zylon]

ApolloBoy, on Sun Dec 16, 2012 9:22 PM, said:

Adding more RAM allows you run programs that require more than 16K, which is a substantial chunk of A8 games and software. You can find RAM upgrade guides by looking around, and you can get multicarts or a SIO2PC here: http://www.atarimax.com
Once you pick up a SIO2PC or even something like a SIO2SD, you'll never need to use a disk drive or tape drive ever again. I sold both my 810 and 1050 when I got my SIO2PC and I've never looked back.

I really like that MYIDE II cart if it comes with all those ROM's.

[Jinks]

Thats my problem. Im too dumb to put games on carts.. The atarimax cart has games and you dont have to repower to switch games?? Hell I got 1 hour into trying to post a pic on here with no luck.