[How come a lot getting into retro games skip Atari?]

But Pitfall and Miner 2049 didn't scroll. NES was designed from the ground up to play side-scrolling games like Super Mario Brothers.

 

The 400/800/5200 hardware, available in late 1978 was built to play scrolling games (horizontally, vertically, diagonally or multi-directionally) like e.g. Snokie, Necromancer, Zaxxon or Cavelord. And the 2600 could at least scroll vertically, as shown in Pitfall II or River Raid. The horizontally scrolling Jump'n'Run seemingly just didn't catch on until Super Mario Brothers made the genre popular, as most 400/800 Jump'n'Runs are single or multi-screen,

[A8 vs C16/Plus4]

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'd like to get more experienced with the 6809. I wish there was a computer I liked based on it. I suppose the CoCo 3 is the best there is.

 

Not quite a computer, but a great 6809 based piece of kit:

 

[Complete Noob to ST]

Yes, but you'll have to solder a 13 pin DIN plug (i.e. the ST monitor connector, Kenwood used the same connector for some of their car stereo equipment, but they are still quite expensive on your side of the pond) to VGA cable with a 4x switch - which is necessary to switch between mono and colour modes:

 

http://info-coach.fr/atari/hardware/interfaces.php#multisync_switch

[Complete Noob to ST]

That monitor will most likely only display the lower two resolutions, but for gaming, that will fully suffice (there are very few "mono exclusive" games on the ST, and most of those are mediocre PD stuff), but for a start, I'd aim for a NEC Multisync 1970VX or NX. These are dirt cheap and sync to 15 kHz/50 Hz (despite this not being an official feature).

 

Are broadcast RGB CRTs really that expensive on your side of the pond? For a used Sony BVM 20M4E I have spent 50 Euros here in Hamburg - cash on collection though. While that was very cheap, I wouldn't spend any more than 200 for such a monitor.

[Keyboard reset with TOS 1.04?]

Many Mega STs were shipped with TOS 1.02 ("Blitter TOS"/"Mega TOS") though, not with 1.04 ("Rainbow TOS").

[North America/Europe software compatibility?]

Provided that you have a colour monitor that synchronizes with the 50Hz vertical frequency of European games and demos, there are no compatibility issues - just be prepared you may find games in German, French, etc.. There even is a Finnish racing game "Romurallia Rotiskoilla II" and I still wonder what that might mean.

 

If your monitor does not like 50Hz and you encounter a rolling screen or "out of range" message after loading a game, try pressing F6 or F5, several games have a frequency switching functionality included.

[Atari BASIC, was it intended as an interim BASIC?]

While I can understand Atari's decision to publish ATARI BASIC in this form, I wonder why they never openly embraced what OSS achieved with their BASIC dialects and ACTION! afterwards. I have never seen an original cartridge of these prior to buying one on ebay.com, only read about ACTION! in the "Computer Kontakt" magazine and they were really expensive (more than 200 German Marks in the mid 1980s). It would have helped a lot if these were distributed through Atari.

[Bone stock 1040Ste. What do I do to it?]

This method should(!) work, but there are some kind of SIMMs that share the same form factor physically, but have a different type of RAM on them (was it EDO?) and are said to cause stability issues, the STE needs 4 fast page mode 30 pin SIMMs with 1 meg capacity each to reach its full potential of 4 meg (the "MMU" chip doesn't allow for more, the workaround is installing up to 10 megs "alternate" RAM on a daughter board, which is similar to "Fast RAM" in the Amiga or "TT RAM" in the TT030, yet actually slower than ST RAM, and pushes the limit to 14 megs on normal STs and 10 megs in the Mega STE (4 megs of address space are reserved for the VME bus found in these machines)). "Alternate" RAM requires a driver software to be accessed, IIRC.

[Atari 400/800 games: Espial, Taiwan carts, etc. + VCS PAL Subterranea]

I have put some cartridges (mainly for the A8, but also a loose PAL "Subterranea" for the VCS) up on eBay, among them Tigervision's "Espial" and the two vintage Taiwan pirate carts I accidentally acquired with a lot of other games.

See here: http://www.ebay.de/sch/thorsten_guenther2/m.html

[Taiwan carts?]

No production dates, the cart shells each bear a small inmold "Sirius" label additional to the silver one.

 

As these seem to be vintage pirates like the majority of Taiwan carts, I put'em up on eBay.

[Yet another thread about the fate of the Atari 8-bit in the UK]

While I can't agree to the notion the Speccy being indecently specced for the time (considering there were games such as Starglider and R-Type on it), I always felt the pre-+2/+3 models felt "incomplete" lacking Joystick ports, RGB out, a good keyboard and/or a sound chip (although I have an original Clive Sinclair era 128K myself, plus a RamTurbo Joystick/cartridge(!) interface to cope with the lacking joystick ports of the machine).

 

I have to agree with CrazyAce that an Atari 400/600 style low-cost computer (perhaps a 600 with a Bit 90 style rubber keyboard) would have helped Atari accessing the entry-level market.

 

The approach of computerized VCSes has been tried by Bit Corporation with the Bit 60 and that machine was not exactly a success (BTW the Bit 90 was a Colecovision compatible home computer that also failed in the market) - presumably due to the lack of RAM in the standard configuration (both only had 2K, though the German advertisement I saw for these claimed the Bit 90 having 18K, but as we all know, the TI graphics chip found in these "MSX 0.5" and MSX 1 machines needs 16K VRAM which can not be used for program code).

 

 

 

[Best ST for Gaming?]

The STs do not have a built-in speaker, but the ST monitors (and most other colour monitors suitable for the ST) have one each. The RCA out is only needed for monaural ST models such as the original ST, STF(M) and Mega ST, the STE has stereo jacks right beneath its power switch.

 

The cable you are mentioning seems to lack the 4x switch, this one is needed to "tell" the ST whether there's an SM124 or SC1224 connected. I recommend finding someone with soldering skills who can reproduce this schematic:

 

http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/index.php?page=Attachment&attachmentID=88353

[Best ST for Gaming?]

The two monitors you mentioned will most likely not work in colour modes (several models have been tried, but so far, only the 1970VX/NX model firmware seems to be able to cope with 15kHz horizontal frequency - the same is true for most TV sets with a VGA connector: they will display "out of range" for a 15 kHz input via VGA, while the same horizontal frequency is perfectly fine for them when using the composite, s-video or SCART input). "Three mode" cables look similar to the ones you mentioned, but feature a 4x(AFAIK) switch usually placed in a small box, these are the two (left: TS Datensysteme, right: Lindy) I own:

 

http://www.forum64.de/wbb3/index.php?page=Attachment&attachmentID=86545

[Bone stock 1040Ste. What do I do to it?]

It may not the chip that is at fault (Jookie also suspected the issue of the DMA chip writing all zeros sometimes is caused by the surrounding electronics rather than the chip itself - after all, this sounds logical because the same chip - in earlier ST models - did not scramble hdds), but nonetheless early STes (with this chip) will scramble hdd contents, BTDT, and Atari blamed "third party hdds" as the source of the problem. Apparently your fix mends this issue, making the Ultrasatan usable on all STes.

 

[Bone stock 1040Ste. What do I do to it?]

Early STes may have the dreaded DMA bug, meaning they can read data from hdd, but will inevitably scramble hdd contents while writing. You may want exxosuk to check for that before you purchase an Ultrasatan.

 

Possible workarounds are an IDE interface (these attach directly to the CPU, but require TOS 2.06 for auto-booting capabiility), a CATA (cartridge port attached IDE/CF - if these ever become available to the public, Pera Putnik designed them but sadly still noone seems to produce them) and of course a HxC (fdd replacement which features hdd emulation (though of course this is slower than a real hdd).

[Taiwan carts?]

Some months ago I won a lot of Atari cart games including these two Taiwan made cartridges of "River Raid" and "007". I have seen loose cartridges of the same type on eBay before, but none boxed so far. the boxes do not contain instruction, but the River Raid insert is reinforced with a black plastic mold.

 

Does anyone know whether these were legit or pirate releases and what titles were published?

 

[Neuer Asterix Band: Asterix bei den Pikten - Meinungen?]

Hm, ich habe die alten Horizont-Lederbände (braun mit Goldprägung) Nr. 1-7 (und Band 7 geht schon mit "Der große Graben" los und enthält dann noch "Die Odyssee" und "Der Sohn des Asterix" ) und nie den Drang verspürt, weiterzukaufen. Allenfalls eine Werksedition in ähnlich edler Aufmachung könnte mich überzeugen, das alles noch mal neu zu kaufen, aber auch dann wohl nur Nr. 1-6.

[Best ST for Gaming?]

You should absolutely find a way to connect the ST via RGB instead of composite - the picture quality will be much better.

 

Other than that, a HxC or other FDD replacement will suffice for gaming, an Ultrasatan is the modern version of an external HDD, but will only work correctly if your STE does not have the dreaded DMA chip bug and requires driver software.

 

Upgrading RAM beyond 1 meg will not be necessary for most games (an exception being Wolfenstein 3D), but some games will load their levels from RAM instead of FDD/HDD if you have 2 or 4 megs.

 

A CPU upgrade will increase the frame rate of some games (mostly 3D stuff), but currently they seem to be hard to find (most are intended for the DIL CPU found in older ST models and will require an DIl to PLCC adapter and/or may not even fit under the STe keyboard/shielding).

 

Must-have STe exclusive games are: Obsession Pinball, Stardust, Sleepwalker, Dynabusters+, Zero 5, Alien Blast

 

Must-have STe anhanced games are: Wings of Death, ChuChu Rocket, The Chaos Engine, Esprit, Oxyd, Oxyd 2, Zool, Venus the Flytrap, Wolfenstein 3D (requires 2 megs of RAM), Leavin' Teramis, Zool, Alpha Waves, Magic Boy

 

And of course the STe will run the vast library of ST games which includes hundreds of great titles (Dungeon Master, Xenon, Staglider, etc.)

[What type of Game maker would you like for your Atari ?]

Just caught up to this thread, and IMHO a "game maker" for a machine as capable as the A8 should combine tools for creating/scrolling/animating character and pixel background graphics, composing music/FX and creating/moving/animating/multiplexing PMGs with a high-level language (with a syntax akin to BASIC/ACTION!/QUICK - or perhaps one of the latter could be used directly?) for the game logic.

 

I don't know whether this is even realistic.

[European Atari Jaguar Festival 2015 - Date Poll -]

According to my experience, the Dutch have the best English language skill among central Europeans (my guess is that this is due to the fact that no "adult" movies are dubbed to Dutch, whereas all movies and TV series are dubbed into German for their release here). Among Germans, it varies wildly depending on overall education on one hand and personal interests on the other (I, for one, aside from having eight years of English lessons in school, started looking up song lyrics and learning exactly one English poem by heart ("Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost) and at some time bought the first English language books (the "Harry potter" novels, other fantasy and space opera stuff such as the "Skaith" novels by Leigh Brackett and "Skraelings" by Carl Sherrell (because I liked "Raum" very much and "Skraelings" was never published in German).

 

I also watch movies in English, though I often switch on English subtitles when I encounter problems with the actors' pronunciation, thus I strongly support adding subtitles to eJagFest (admittedly, I also sometimes want subtitles for Germans with a thick dialect such as some Saxons, Hessians and Bavarians and for those speaking lower German or Frisian .

 

Among my colleagues in the Hornbach home improvement store, my level of English skills is among the best, many even claim to have none at all (despite English having been mandatory in school from fifth grade up in the former FRG for several decades and in the former GDR right after reunification).

[Best ST for Gaming?]

Erm, not "ST specific", all RGB capable monitors will work, including the NEC MultiSync 1970VX and NX as has been found out accidentally, but also all those Commodore monitors aimed at the Amiga and professional/broadcast video monitors such as Sony's PVM/BVM models, albeit these will not display the high resolution usually.

 

CRT monitors that display all three ST resolutions include the original NEC MultiSync, the GS (grayscale), II and 3D models, Commodore 1940, 1942, 1960, 1962, M1764, etc., and some monitors by Mitsubishi (EUM-1491A and EUM-2951A, e.g.).

 

One will need an adapter cable though, preferrably with a switch to change between ST high (being detected as VGA by all monitors I tried) and colour resolutions (which have a 15.x kHz horizontal frequency and a 60 or even 50 Hz (PAL games) vertical frequency just like a TV signal).

 

On this side of the pond we're much better off due to the French invented SCART connector that can still be found on almost any TV and incorporates RGB, composite and stereo pins in one - rather bulky - plug. These can be bought on eBay UK, e.g. - I'd aim for a small TV set with external PSU intended for caravan use like this one (but not at that ridiculous price), as external PSUs can easily be replaced if they are not 110V capable already.

[Star Raiders Source Code to be released?]

 

Here comes Centron 4D!!!

 

[buying my first Atari!]

Wow, we hat entirely different BBS setups on this side of the pond. A very widespread one was the Madness BBS and one aimed at networking BBSes and thus also introducing mail and "newsgroups" (that actually were available in Usenet through working(!) gateways) to hobbyists was the MausNet (MAUS being originally the acronym for Münsteraner Apple User Service, but they switched from Apple II (actually, the first MAus ran on a Basis 108 Apple clone) to Atari pretty fast when the ST became available). The software to set up an Atari St as a MausNet BBS is called QUARK.

 

BTW, "Maus" is German for "mouse" and "Quark" is German for curd cheese.

[Game titles I like to see appearing on A8 hardware...]

AMC did also publish a game very akin to Lady Bug: Bilbo. A great version of this game, IMHO.

 

I'd like to see arcade conversions theat were never done, like Galaga (with graphics, not PETSCII - sorry Norbert), Phoenix, Mappy, Rally-X, Bosconian, Time Pilot, Amidar, Elevator Action, etc..

[European Atari Jaguar Festival 2015 - Date Poll -]

@badhonet i think you better try a kölsch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%B6lsch_(beer)

 

Erm, this is in the vicinity of Düsseldorf, not Köln (Cologne). They drink Alt (a dark lager) in Düsseldorf, occasionally mixed with Coca-Cola (referred to as "Krefelder"), and due to the historical rivalry between both cities it is generally not considered a good idea to order Alt in Cologne or Kölsch in Düsseldorf (although many take this rivalry with a grain of salt or even tongue-in-cheek nowadays).