Bill Lange

Then I'll keeping looking for that little white 8 in the blue circle. Let me know if you need any help scanning, typing, researching ... whatever. Even though the 2600 was my first Atari, the 400 is what really got me involved in computers and programming.

quote 5200 and 7800 games will not work on the 2600. 2600 games do work on the 7800. There might be an adapter to get 2600 & 7800 games to work on teh 5200, but that I am not sure about.

quote Albert, Did you ever finish Universe? I got so fed up with swapping disks way back when, that I never finished it.

How much for a boxed JAG, 5200 and 600XL?

I counted about 150 5 1/4 disks last night. Some work, some probably will not because of age and the quad density formatting. Unless you have a Atari drive working in quad density. Now to find a box to put them in ...

I rewired my 2600 for composite video and have it wired to my Pioneer 56" HDTV through the DVD player. Now when I play Haunted House, the Ghoust scares the crap out of me in simulated dobly surround sound.

Make the arm chair joystick Forced Reaction with a giant subwoofer wired under the chair. Yea!

You could sell your blood plasma for $15 a shot. Used to do it back in college ... added benifit was that you needed less beer to get drunk since you have less blood. Seriously though, get a motorcycle. Get a cheap new interest free car. Get a job at any mall. Department stores are paying $8+. Don't sell out Atari like the Tramiels did!

I have a box with a hundred or so 5 1/4 floppies. Most are SSSD full of Atari 8-bit software. Some are DSQD used with an ATR-8000 back in the day. My 850 drives do not work so well any more and I'd hate to toss these disk since I've had them so long. Is anyone interested in them? You can have them for actual shipping. Let me know.

Last week I was surfing the Bard's Legacy website. www.bardslegacy.com Its a site for the upcoming release of a Bard's Tale type game. They had a link to a site that has various remakes of 8-bit games such as choplifter. http://retro-remakes.emuunlim.com/html/choplifter.html Also, a remake of Ultima I in full 3-D. http://www.peroxide.dk/ultima/

In Adventure, the rooms that are left and right of the room just below the golden castle have thin lines as borders while the other rooms have regular walls. I am assuming that those thin lines are missles one pixel wide and max pixels tall. Is this just for the easter egg or for another reason?

I received neither our 2600 (my oldest brother bought our first one in '78) or my 400 (I bought it when I was in the 7th grade .. spring of '81) for Christmas. This year, I am getting two new joysticks and dust covers for my 2600 and 800XL.

I still have my original Lone Ranger dolls and Matchbox cars, but alas, we sold all our 2600 stuff when I got my first Atari computer. I had an Atari 400 and Atari 800XL. I moved from the Atari to an Apple IIc which I used in my senior in HS and then while I was in the Army. Once I return from the Army, I sold all my remaining Atari and Apple hardware to a local school. I gave all my software to my brother. He has since given me all the software back along with all the hardware he had. WRL

I have two 1050 drivies. I can't format or write with either one. I can read with both of them, but one's read doesn't work much either. I tend to use my 800 XL for playing cartridge games. I used my emulator to fool around with 6502 assembly programming. I have a box of about 200 floppies that I would like to get on another media before they all byte the dust and end up in the bit bucket. WRL

You know, after reading all that, I just might continue using my SIO2PC cable and my PC hard drive. I figure it is going to be over $300 for a new BB and hard drive. The SI02PC cable cost me about $10 and 2 hours to make. WRL

I remember using MYDOS with my ATR8000 back in the day. It supports many drive configurations. I had a couple of double sided quad density drives and I thought I was king. Does anyone use this CSS Black Box? The $199 seems a little steep for this little device. Of course the best part of re-living your childhood is that you can afford it the second time around. WRL

Is it possible and if so, what is the best way to hook a standard hard drive to an Atari 8-bit. Has anyone done this? What DOS do you use? How do you power the Hard Drive? Bill Lange

I found DIS6502, an interactive 6502 disassmbler for Atari 5200/400/800, on Ronen Habot's site. Nice site Ronen. http://a5200prog.freehosting.net/index.htm Thanks WRL

Of course, I meant DISTELLA ... not DASM. WRL

What is the best way to dump .bin or .exe files for the 8-bit machines? I've used DASM to look at 2600 6502 source and I would like to look at some 8-bit 6502 source as well. Thanks WRL

I seem to find a lot of stuff here in Denver. The damn ARC sells common 2600 carts for $2.99. But they sell 8-bit carts for $.50. I guess they price by size. WRL

Junie, Here is a suggestion. Try contacting a trade/vocational school that teaches courses on plastics, molding ... See if they will make the molds/cases as a project at a reduced cost. WRL

Last November, I flew out to Milpitas for a business trip. While there, I stopped by that huge flea market right by the San Jose airport. I found a bunch of Atari stuff. Figures, being so close to Sunnyvale. One dealer had a complete boxed 2600 and 18 boxed games. Some of the boxes games where the early ones with the numbers printed on the sides of the box, i.e., 01 - Combat ... or whatever. He wanted $50. I pulled out $23, which was all I had at the time and he took it. Got to love companies that will send employees on all expense paid Atari hunts. WRL

Here is some info on the author from Chris Crawford's website - "Greg Christenson was a high school student when he burst upon the scene. Bright, shy, and quiet, Greg put together just one game: Caverns of Mars for the Atari. It was a simple vertical scrolling game, not too different from Defender. After all, Greg was only a hight school student, new to programming, and using the Atari Assembler/Editor cartridge as his development tool. He really didn't know much about game design per se. He simply started with Defender, made it vertical, and then added interesting bits and pieces until he had a game. But the graphics were fantastic. It used many of the graphics capabilites of the Atari, and the result was impressive. Caverns of Mars sold a zillion copies. Greg earned a ton of money. The press loved him. Here was a high school kid programming a hit game in just eight weeks. Talk about a Cinderella story! Atari game him a $25,000 award for the best game published by the Atari Program Exchange. Everybody wondered excitedly what this wunderkind would acomplish in coming years. But then, a grain of sand, a gust of wind, and Greg Christenson was gone. I don't know what ever became of Greg. He just disappeared from the gaming scene." - From www.erasmatazz.com WRL

Any ideas why the 8-bit classic Caverns Of Mars wasn't ported to the 2600? Seems like this simple scrolling shooter would work well on the 2600. It made so much money for APX and Atari, that I am surprised it was ported. WRL