andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 We're really getting lucky: - Warlords (i.e. Castle Crisis) is now available. - Super Mario Bros (or Sweet Giana Sister) is coming soon. - Space Harrier XE is now a cartrige and will run on any 64K XL/XE model. And best of all, all these ports / variations are written by persons who care about the little ATARI (anybody remembers the Green Beret port by DeRe Software ?) That has to be the best time -in recent memory- for gaming on the XL/XE platform. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oesii Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I would add all the great hardware mods and products out there as well like MyIDE and the Atarimax Flash Carts. APE, WarpOS, and Sio2pc have all stood the test of time and are still awesome tools to get back to using your 8bits more often for all those cool games Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I still think the 800 was ahead of its time. Freakin' awesome hardware and it took others years to catch up. If anyone discovers the secret to time travel, let's go show Atari what kind of stuff they should be putting out! -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Author Share Posted December 21, 2003 Damn, if I have access to Time Travel, I'd like to go back to the famous meeting between the person from Dataque (who created the Turbo 816) and the Tramiels to make sure they say "YES". AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I'd tell Bushnell not to sell, and to let his engineers develop their 68000 machine in-house. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Author Share Posted December 21, 2003 Bry, Also I need to add that, thanks to the internet, we can easily educate each other and learn from each other when it comes to hardware upgrades (MyIde, etc.) and programming (it seems that most of everything is now open source - even Commando XE was dumped by Super Genius when released). The internet makes the optimizaton of the A8 a lot easier than 10, 20 years ago and it's just a wonderful tool. I don't miss the eighties (or early nineties for that matter) when it comes to getting the right information to optimize your system. Everything is much easier now. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 That reminds me, I'd tell Atari to GIVE AWAY the specs to the machine, so people wouldn't be scrambling for documentation like they had to in the early days. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Author Share Posted December 21, 2003 Bry, It's slightly off topic but how much time did you invest in Castle Crisis ? From what I've seen (I don't have the cart yet), it seems to be extremely close to the original and I only presume that it's your familiarity with the original arcade game that (probably) made the programming quicker than if you had started from scratch with a completely original game. I think it's really cool that this passion for antique arcade games (very much like the fondess of Sheddy for Space Harrier) gives you and other programmers the energy to create ports for the XL/XE line because 1) it's a lot of work 2) you'll never get paid enough for it but that's where the hobby motivation comes in. So, in a nutshell, how much time did you spend on CC ? AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 CC started over 2 years ago, when I started thinking about how cool it would be to have a portable version of Warlords. Since the A8 is readily available and takes paddles, it seemed the best choice. I hadn't worked on it steadily until a few months ago, though. I really didn't plan on a 5200 version originally, but once I found out about the Paddle modification, I got excited about the idea, since game console cartridges are more collectable than computer stuff. -Bry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Author Share Posted December 21, 2003 Bry, Thank you for replying so fast. On my own, I started to go back to programming three months ago and, while I'm not in Sheedy or Bry territory, my hope is to create nice and effective games to keep the machine alive (at least in my mind). Having said that, I'm super busy doing my job so it will be a while before something pops up but it eventually will (and the GTIA upgrade is my first priority ATARI wise). AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
emkay Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 2003 was a very lucky year for the 8-bits. Firstly I want to mention that Sheddy's Space Harrier is the biggest project which has to earn the most honor of all. Bryede's Castle Crisis is not a game of my taste and I don't have any paddle though....but it looks to be a very well conversion Analmux has some projects to much I hope SMW will be finished soon I can't wait to play TMR's Reaxion on the A8... For shure it is still unbelievable, there are actually projects for A8 to give it new software in 2003/2004 .... in a time of 3(and more)GHz computers.... At last many Thanks to Raster for his RMT and TeBe for Graph2fnt and the ATARI800win developers .... so it is possible to use the high tech machines for creating new software for the A8 a much easier way ... and with new possibilities Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TMR Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I can't wait to play TMR's Reaxion on the A8... It's nearly there, i have a C64 project that needs to be done as close to Chrimble as possible but after that all i have to do is build the completion screen and a quick fade up/down for the Cosine logo (based on the C16 one i'm using in my avatar right now). Oh, and a certain person needs to get on with converting the other two tunes he hasn't done yet [looks meaningfully at Sack =-] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariDude Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I still think the 800 was ahead of its time. Freakin' awesome hardware and it took others years to catch up. If anyone discovers the secret to time travel, let's go show Atari what kind of stuff they should be putting out! -Bry If I had my time machine (Tardis is being used right now) , I would win every state lottery out there, buy Atari myself, and then with all the cool new items that have been produced, release them before anyone else has them as ideas. I might even buy Microsoft just to keep them from getting involved in the PC, just in case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mendon Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 We're really getting lucky: - Warlords (i.e. Castle Crisis) is now available. - Super Mario Bros (or Sweet Giana Sister) is coming soon. - Space Harrier XE is now a cartrige and will run on any 64K XL/XE model. And best of all, all these ports / variations are written by persons who care about the little ATARI (anybody remembers the Green Beret port by DeRe Software ?) That has to be the best time -in recent memory- for gaming on the XL/XE platform. AB. I'd also like to add that there have been some very nice releases by Sunmark this year! Mendon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DracIsBack Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 Also - lets give credit to Sunmark for unearthing lost gems that WERE completed: RAMPAGE, COMMANDO, MIDI MAZE, MEAN 18 all saw the light of day on cart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sack-c0s Posted December 21, 2003 Share Posted December 21, 2003 I can't wait to play TMR's Reaxion on the A8... It's nearly there, i have a C64 project that needs to be done as close to Chrimble as possible but after that all i have to do is build the completion screen and a quick fade up/down for the Cosine logo (based on the C16 one i'm using in my avatar right now). Oh, and a certain person needs to get on with converting the other two tunes he hasn't done yet [looks meaningfully at Sack =-] suprisingly enough - I'm actually doing it now Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy_bernstein Posted December 21, 2003 Author Share Posted December 21, 2003 Also - lets give credit to Sunmark for unearthing lost gems that WERE completed: RAMPAGE, COMMANDO, MIDI MAZE, MEAN 18 all saw the light of day on cart. True - I completely forgot to mention them in my initial post (which only included brand new games being currently programmed). Any time I can play a SCULPTURED software port (i.e. Commando) for the XL / XE is never to be missed so thank you Sunmark. BTW- Rampage was released in Europe back in 1988 (complete with disk, box, instructions). Also, a big thanks for Steven Tucker for developing the Flash Cart. My wish for 2004 -> SIO2MAC and some sort of APE software for OSX. We already have a killer XL/XE emulator under OSX but it shouldn't stop there. I might even buy Microsoft just to keep them from getting involved in the PC, just in case. I'm with you on this - Real Networks is now suing them. AB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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