Mr.Amiga500

This thread has reminded me how much I love vector graphics - those glowing, extremely crisp lines that could barely be reproduced by computers 25 years later. Effects in late 70's/early 80's movies using vector graphics totally blow away later effects using blocky raster graphics. I think vector graphics was abandoned too soon - before raster was at a high enough resolution. (...but this is a bit off topic. Carry on.)

I've got to say it again - this SDrive NUXX is friggin awesome!

This was released in 1893? I remember 1893... back then we just had horses, carts and stuff. My favourite game as a kid was kicking a piece of horse shit down the street. If I only knew they had games like this! Can somebody let me know the winner of this Atari v Commodore thread when it's finished? I don't have time to read 400+ pages.

Yes, of course I saw the Vic 20s behind McCroskey and there's a couple TRS-80 Model IIIs in the scene Ted Striker is talking to Elaine. (just after Simon says "...and Striker - I'd watch my step if I were you." (then he falls down the stairs) and before Ted says, "What a pisser.")

This is a bit of a useless post... but I was just watching the movie "Airplane II" again and I was shocked to hear the sound of an Atari 8-bit loading! You can hear it just after Ted Striker accidentally rips off the lever trying to slow down the ship. I'm pretty sure of it, but can anybody confirm? You can also hear a bit of it earlier in a scene on the moon base just before a military guy adjusts a screen to show William Shatner. I already knew about the Yar's Revenge sound effect, but this is the first time I noticed the drive sound. "Where am I going to find an Atari 8-bit.... here... in space.... at this hour?"

More "responsive"? How so? I've got a 1986 Model M (and 1991 one) and the 1984 AT keyboard has a clickier, more solid feel. The Model M feels a bit spongy in comparison and a little less precise. I don't notice a difference in response times (between pressing a key and seeing a letter) if that's what you mean. I wish I could manufacture my own keyboards. I'd make a buckling spring Atari 800XL and a black buckling spring Amiga 500.

I was obsessed with this idea for a while and would have definitely been interested - until I started using my Ataris a bit more recently and realised that the keyboards aren't really that great. They're too stiff (both 800XL and 1200XL). I'd be more interested in getting an interface for a Kaypro keyboard. Now that's a keyboard with nice thick shiny black keys and a good feel. The keyboard of the TRS-80 Model III is surprisingly nice too (but it's attached so forget that one). I'm typing this on a 1984 IBM AT keyboard which really has the best "feel" of any keyboard (better than the Model M), but just doesn't have those nice thick sculpted black plastic keys of the Kaypro or Model III. Maybe I'll leave my AT keyboard beside the Model III and see if they mate and have children. I don't know why people these days tolerate cheap crap keyboards with flat keys made out of dull flimsy plastic. The keyboard is the part of the computer you touch the most. It should feel like it has some quality.

Yeah, and remove that little guy that digs - you know, that stupid little guy that keeps getting hurt by the rocks? No, just the time limit will be fine. I don't need the stress of a time limit. That's too much like real life.

Awesome! That's exactly what I'm looking for. Thanks pr0be!

I've always hated games with time limits. I've always thought Boulderdash would be much more fun if it didn't have that damn time limit. Is there a cheat version out there - specifically of the original Boulderdash? Or is there a way to binary edit the program to kill the counter?

I guess I won't be enjoying the "old-style wait-forever floppy loading experience". I tried copying from SDrive to 1050, but no matter what I do I get "FORMATTING ERROR". I tried about 15 different disks. My 1050 is probably screwed up. Oh well, good thing I've got the SDrive.

Excellent! Thanks guys.

Uh... anybody know where I can get mycopier to do this? I've read that it's in APE_WARP.ATR, but the ones I've found don't contain mycopier.

I think most people who aren't using their Atari probably won't bother to take this poll to say "no". (but at least you'll get a count on how many are)

I understand completely. I'm thinking of doing the same thing. A couple years ago I had a chance to buy an NTSC 800XL from them, NEW in box. I arranged to buy it from them and they said they'd get back to me. When they didn't, I said, "Ah, screw them then." When I checked a few months later, they were sold out. I felt like kicking myself in the face with steel-toed golf shoes. (...even though that's physically impossible... and I don't play golf) I know those PAL 800XLs will be gone soon. Even though PAL is useless for me and I certainly don't need another computer, I just want to sit back and bask in the glory of a new 800XL.

My first Atari purchased games (bought 5 at the same time) were cartridges of: Blue Max Ballblazer Rescue on Fractalus Montezuma's Revenge Berzerk I bought them last year. (...but I played all of these games back in '84) The first 3 were NEW in box, never opened!

Here's a picture of my Kaypro. Look at the solid keyboard. You don't see that quality anymore. Who could not like that? Another shot. As you can see, I finally got a TI-99/4A (two, actually). It's beautiful. This one was "New, never used" and judging by all the unopened manuals, I think they were right. My other TI-99/4A (which is slightly older) has a slightly better keyboard and I think has the best keyboard feel of any "computer in a keyboard" designs ever. You can see more pictures of my computers by clicking on my signature.

Thanks for the SDrive NUXX, Steve! It's one of the best upgrades I've ever bought for any computer. This is good news. I hoped and suspected this was possible, but when he said it wouldn't work I was a bit disappointed. Not that it would be a big deal not to be able to copy to floppy - the SDrive makes the 1050 totally obsolete. I just wanted to put the best stuff on floppy for whenever I want that "old-style wait-forever floppy loading experience".

Thanks MrFish! It's a nice little schedule program. I just wish it loaded the default calendar on startup. I had difficulty with this too. You have to use <> to change year, () to change month, then under "Change", "Save Defaults". Next time you start it, it'll be at the right year and month. It would have been annoying to start at 1985 every time. You'll still have to go to "Disk", "Load" to load your schedule though. Pity.

I was just thinking of this question myself. Now that I have an SDrive NUXX and loading and saving is fast and easy, I was wondering what programs I could find that could actually make my Atari useful (aside from just games). The problem is - it's really hard to think of something I can't already do on my Amiga or PC. Both the Atari and Amiga are silent and boot up much faster than the PC, so I'd probably focus on simple things I need to do quickly - like make a quick note or log, maybe even a simple database or spreadsheet. Sometimes I need to just turn on the computer, enter a couple things and turn it off - without wanting to wait for long PC startup and shutdown. I planned on using AtariWriter for notes, but I don't need a full wordprocessor with print capabilities. I'd like a simple editor with the same colour scheme, but no paragraph symbols after linefeed. (this is simple though and I could probably write it myself) I'd really like to see a simple customisable database like XBaze on the Amiga. It's useful for daily logs & checklists.

Thanks MEtalGuy66. (I know I shouldn't be flaunting Amiga screenshots on an Atari site...but I was just trying to show how that Atari bar demo influenced me.... really! ) I've got archives of my setup for both WB 1.3 and 3.1. Maybe I'll update them and upload them to Aminet. I'm back posting here because I just got an SDrive NUXX. It's awesome. I also have an SD adapter for my A500 and I was hoping to finally be able to easily copy from Amiga to Atari (and Atari to Amiga) on SD card - without the need for a PC. Some people might find this boring, but I'm thrilled.

Thanks for checking. I've got the walking robot, but don't see the bar demo on that disk. Your disk is probably different, so who knows - it might be there. Yeah, I know I could write a duplicate, but I want the actual one I saw. Why? Who knows. Maybe I just want to say, "This is the actual one I saw." I want to find out if my memory is correct (and sometimes memory turns out to be wrong). This simple demo strangely had an effect on me for years. I even put that bar pattern on my Amiga 500, as you can see in this screenshot:

I remember back in late '84 or early '85 being blown away by an Atari 800XL demo. It was a bunch of silver bars or pipes - gradients, I think either just horizontal or possibly horizontal and vertical mixed. It's also possible that it started silver then cycled through some colours. It was just the image, no music or other effects - sort of similar to the "Pencils" demo. Does anybody remember this and know where to get it? Back in the early 90's I wrote an MS-DOS demo in an attempt to duplicate it from memory. See the attached screenshot. It looks something like this. (...I think)

Yep, at least there were two: the Taiwan and Hong Kong version(s) of the XE cart(s)... -Andreas Koch. Mine is the Taiwan version. I still have the box and manual... and the shrink wrap on the box... and the box that the box came in... and so on.

I've got the XE cart of Blue Max and the "bug" is still there.