geezer

Mickey in the Great Outdoors was my first game. On cassette as well! It would take like half an hour to load and the game worked about 30% of the time. I remember when it did load, my little brother and I would hear the music and run full speed towards the 800XL. We later got Invitation to Programming 1/2/3 and PILOT & LOGO on cartridge next. Most of the fun stuff came later once we got a 1050...

Tried my hardest, but I cannot make it past that security level 39! I love the music before each board! If not for that, I would have given up after level 2

Anybody remember that show "Whiz Kids" from back in 1983? In one episode the main kid Richie's super-computer is trashed and the only way they could get it going again was to go to school and use an Atari 1200XL in a computer lab full of em' to rebuild the kernel. While not 8-Bit, I remember there's a scene in the Dolph Lundgren movie Army of One with an Atari ST in an office at the bad guys car chop-shop

Plenty of Atari dreams still kicking around in my mind. I've had numerous dreams of finding atari's curbside in the trash, or at hamfests or hidden away in stores, sometimes just 800XL's, other times 1400XL/1450XLD's. I also still dream of finding the case of disks that my dad mistakenly threw away, that had everything I ever programmed on the atari Waking up is the worst, as I'm stuck asking myself why can't it be real, or why couldn't I have had another 20 minutes in dreamland? I've owned around 300 computers (still have 100+), but none of them get as much dreamtime as the 8-Bit Atari's

Whoa, did the board-editing capability really make it into the finished product? I loved to mess around with that game but it was very hard to play since extreme precision was needed and that motorcycle could hit some insane speeds. I may still have my manual, but I don't think it mentioned anything about creating your own castles iirc.

Just for the record, I've used several maxflash 1mb cartridges on a 400 with the Atari 48k upgrade. A few games, Atari Basic, Ice-t(800 version), and that 80col terminal to run the ATR-8000 in cp/m mode all worked fine. On the other hand I never tried programming a maxflash on the 400.

The sounds in that track remind me of some little keychain sound effect generator that was around in the early 90's. Or it might have been a little control panel that you'd mount in your car to hit when you wanted your "revenge" on other drivers.. I came across some mp3's from a group called Papa Byrd years back, they have a song called Robotron, and on their website at that time, every songname was pictured on a detailed looking atari 800 cartridge, so no doubt they were major 8-bit atari fans. I'm not sure if the site is around anymore, but it was some cool music.

Damn I feel your pain! I had a similar situation also in the early 90s.. My dad was cleaning up and wanted to throw away some disks. I pointed to a box of all the educational software we had, but somehow he threw out another box of disks - _EVERYTHING_ I ever programmed, the BACKUPS of the same, all the drivers and backup drivers for all my hardware, and all the archives of BBS related stuff. I didn't realize it until weeks later when it was too late and that made me put my remaining software and the atari on ice, while all of my hardware (rverter, voicemaster jr, computereyes, parrot, hybrid arts midi, atr8000 and loads of other stuff) I threw into my electronics junkbin, where they got cannibalized. Years later I got all my drivers back and reconstructed what was left of the hardware, but life will never be the same without my programming stuff.. I've had dreams now and then that I found the missing disk case, hidden in the house, or while looking around a junkyard. Anyways, I wish you luck! Your situation sounds a tad more hopeful than mine.

Do you mean Interstate 76 / Interstate 82? I played the heck outta both of those on the PC, 76 had a great feel to it and 82 let you do a lot of customizing, but none could compare to Autoduel.... I spent days at a time playing autoduel on a friend's c64 before I knew there was an atari version. I'll never forget how we ended up losing everything when my friends mom turned on a vacuum cleaner and the c64 freaked. It did have an intersting bug though - when you first started the game, if you went into the bar and sold your courier tasks, there would be alphanumeric garbage listed as tasks and you could sell that for some instant cash, allowing you to build a pimped out vehicle right from the start! The atari version did not have this bug so you had to work to earn your money. Back in the day, whenever your game was going right, it'd be best to save and then make a dupe of the game disc (side c i think) so you don't lose everything if you suddenly die. A modern version would indeed be awesome, especially with a variety of vehicles like atv's, motorcycles, street cars, 4x4's, 18 wheelers and heck, why not a copter and a plane! If it was done right, it could be made to run standalone and online similar to ultima online. As long as i'm dreaming, imagine if there were some 8-bit client versions that could get online with some help from the PC via proxy. It would be mad max before we know it and atari gangs would be fighting c64 drivers.. I guess the first step would be to try and get a blessing from Lord British and Chuckles (listed on title screen iirc?)

Here's mine: USA Made 83S DA 53689 163 -Kevin