atari basic vs commodore

[2600problems]

i'm thinking of buying one from letgo.com. how much would a 24k expansion cost?

[fujidude]

i'm thinking of buying one from letgo.com. how much would a 24k expansion cost?

 

Not sure. Let me go check on letgo.com and see what they run there.... oh wait, you can do that too.

[carlsson]

These days you should aim for a 32K or more RAM expansion, or even better a flashable cartridge that has both ROM and RAM capacities, often also memory card interface. I'm not sure this is the proper place to talk about VIC-20 peripherals, but anyway if you're sinking money into an expansion in the year of 2017, you should evaluate the market before buying something that you'll find is second range. The prices are not that different that you'd save any significant amount by sticking with a lesser expansion.

[Mr SQL]

I think the VIC-20 is most interesting with the initial 5K configuration. 4K was alot of memory for BASIC or ML programs in 1981; the VIC's extra K made a big difference and there is an amazing software library to explore.

[2600problems]

how do i do a PEEK command on the commodore 64 and vic 20? i can't get it right. i peek the address (38400) but it just says syntax error. what am i doing wrong. just give a short answer

[TMR]

how do i do a PEEK command on the commodore 64 and vic 20? i can't get it right. i peek the address (38400) but it just says syntax error. what am i doing wrong.

PEEK returns a value, so if you just type PEEK(38400) you get an error because you're not telling BASIC what to do with said value; working examples would be PRINT PEEK(38400) or X=PEEK(38400) to either print the value read from 38400 or store it in a variable.

 

just give a short answer

Who put you in charge of how other people answer questions...?

[Rybags]

Directory listing from Atari Basic:

CL.#1:CLR:DIMF$(18):F$="D:*.*":O.#1,7,0,F$:FOR I=1TO66:IN.#1,F$:?F$:N.I

 

OK, way late with this one. But back in the day I used this, fast to type in but runs a little slower:

 

 

CL.#1:O.#1,6,0,"D:*.*:F.A=1TO9999:GET#1,D:PUT#16,D:N.A

 

Of course in both cases you get an error. In fact, if you've just run a program that's used TRAP it might be a good idea to do TRAP 44444 to ensure the EOF condition doesn't cause the program to be started at the trap destination.

[Kyle22]

how do i do a PEEK command on the commodore 64 and vic 20? i can't get it right. i peek the address (38400) but it just says syntax error. what am i doing wrong. just give a short answer

 

[FifthPlayer]

 

How is that possible? it's literally sticking a value in a memory location. Two assembly instructions max. (load and store). Most other commands have to do additional operations on the data.

 

The Basic interpreter has to do quite a lot of overhead (load the statement token, branch to a handler, fetch the memory address and value stored as floating point, convert both to integers) before it can execute those two assembler load and store instructions. So it's still much slower to do PEEK/POKE via BASIC than for the corresponding 6502 assembler opcodes.

 

What some people may be referring to is a technique (hack) several Atari Basic programs used to animate PM graphics. The programmer allocates a 1 character string variable, then does a few POKEs to (a) expand it to 2K characters in length and (b) move its starting memory address onto a 1K boundary as required by the ANTIC chip for PM graphics. Then the programmer stores the sprite bitmaps as character substrings in the larger string. To animate the sprites, the programmer uses Atari Basic string operators. Internally, Atari Basic implements string operations as high-speed assembler move/copy routines. They can block update the sprite graphics much faster than a series of POKEs in Basic.

Edited March 26, 2017 by FifthPlayer

[UNIXcoffee928]

 

 

What's so cryptic about an "Error-143: Serial Bus Data frame checksum error" to a kid who has never used a computer before? ...

Bwaahahaha! The Serial Bus Data Frame Checksum ERROR! Yes! From age 12 to 18 that error became part of my common parlance; in fact, even today, it rolls off the tongue easily at over 180 bpm, despite not saying it for decades. lol. I used to use it in common conversation, as a kid, whenever I detected a communication error. ha. I have to start using that again, for sure... I mean, really, you can answer & terminate any stupid conversation with that one! ERROR 143, RAH!

 

In hindsight, this timesaver could have really helped during those 8 hour circular telephone conversations that you can get involved with when dating, lol. ...& to think of the lists of band names that I toiled away at, back in the day, when ERROR 143 was there, all along, hahaha! Thanks for reminding me of this... I can say, with total certainty, that this was my favorite error message of all time, on any platform, and that my life would have been much different without it.

[zzip]

 

 

Bwaahahaha! The Serial Bus Data Frame Checksum ERROR! Yes! From age 12 to 18 that error became part of my common parlance; in fact, even today, it rolls off the tongue easily at over 180 bpm, despite not saying it for decades. lol. I used to use it in common conversation, as a kid, whenever I detected a communication error. ha. I have to start using that again, for sure... I mean, really, you can answer & terminate any stupid conversation with that one! ERROR 143, RAH!

 

In hindsight, this timesaver could have really helped during those 8 hour circular telephone conversations that you can get involved with when dating, lol. ...& to think of the lists of band names that I toiled away at, back in the day, when ERROR 143 was there, all along, hahaha! Thanks for reminding me of this... I can say, with total certainty, that this was my favorite error message of all time, on any platform, and that my life would have been much different without it.

 

 

Heh- I remember when my friend grabbed the reference guide an looked up Error 143, and read "Serial Bus Data-Frame Checksum error" our heads practically exploded! I think we laughed, because we didn't know whether to cry. Eventually we got to know it to mean "somebody in the house or the cat moved, and the vibrations were enough to upset the 410 program recorder, try your 15-minute tape-load again"

 

And even though "Serial Bus Data-Frame Checksum error" sounded like gibberish then. Sad to say today that sentence now makes perfect sense to me

[2600problems]

that was funny kyle22

 

very funny

 

btw, can the SID player in Winvice take WAV or mp3 files?

[carlsson]

Error 143 sounds like something that is affected by a chuntey field, if a such is known to exist around Atari computers in the same fashion it appears around Sinclair computers.

[Kyle22]

that was funny kyle22

 

very funny

 

btw, can the SID player in Winvice take WAV or mp3 files?

You wanted a short answer.

[2600problems]

ok, so, how do I get it to work in Winvice? all I get is a blank box with a few options

[Kyle22]

Do you know how to set up a covox in Altirra? How about re-flashing the SDX slot in the emulated U1M?

Let's create and format an APT partition on a Corvus hard drive attached to joystick ports 1&2 of an 800xl running under SDX. Easy

 

 

 

Emulators, especially full featured ones, can be quite complex.

 

Edit: added a space.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Kyle22

[2600problems]

kyle, in English man

[Kyle22]

In English:

 

This is an Atari forum. If you want info about commie emulators, ask in a commie forum.

[fujidude]

In English:

 

This is an Atari forum. If you want info about commie emulators, ask in a commie forum.

 

Actually Kyle, this thread is about both Atari and C64, and the AtariAge forum itself is dedicated to classic computers and gaming, not just Atari models. Of course the name is AtariAge, which pays proper tribute to the best classic computers, but I digress.

[carlsson]

Aha! I just realized that WinVICE since a while ago has an utility called vsid which is a .SID player. It indeed starts with a blank window, and the idea is that you use the drop down menus to load a file. If you know how to use drop down menus, it shouldn't be too hard to get to use, although I think SidPlay2/w has a nicer and leaner interface.

 

http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/vice_7.html#SEC202

 

And no, it doesn't seem like vsid is capable of playback of WAV, MP3 or MIDI files since it is a specific player for .SID files. However if you download an older version of WinAmp, it had the possibility to add a SID plugin that will playback some of the .SID files, but not all. There may be other players like VLC with similar plugins, but I haven't looked for one.

 

While this thread discusses different BASIC dialects and their pros and cons, I must admit that figuring out a tool to play music files is a bit out of scope.

[2600problems]

just thought it would be nice to hear dokken while playing ultima

[2600problems]

how do i paste code to the atari 800 emulator. and for that matter, is there a way for me to copy code from archive.org pdf's for the atari 800?

[+Stephen]

As far as I know, the only emulator that allows directly "pasting" into it is Altirra. Best you can do, is save the file to your local hard drive, point the emulator to it, and enter it that way. Make sure to use the Atari EOL of $9B, not the PC's $0D $0A terminators.

 

PDFs may or may not be able to have text copied. it depends on how they were generated.

[peteym5]

 

Commie64.png

 

My newest slogan is "Is What Atari does and Commodon't"

Edited June 7, 2017 by peteym5

[Heaven/TQA]

 

How is that possible? it's literally sticking a value in a memory location. Two assembly instructions max. (load and store). Most other commands have to do additional operations on the data.

Moving sprite data around is little more than poke.