Angry Jedi

Which particular model did you get? At my local Maplin there's one that looks like an "all in one" unit in a blister pack for £25.99 or one for £12.99 in an orange box which is distinctly cheaper looking. Being a cheapass, I tried the cheaper one and it didn't work. Is the other one worth a try, then?

An interesting-sounding device! I've spent the money on the SIO2PC kit now though, so I'd like to try and get that up and running. If I can't, I'll definitely give your product a look.

Hello again everyone! Thanks for all the advice so far. Okay. So I've got my Atari 800XL. I've blagged our old 1050 from my parents (along with a veritable treasure trove of old software!). I've got my SIO2PC cable and am trying to get it working with SIO2OSX. Apparently the SIO2PC cables are touchy about what kind of Serial to USB converters they use when running on Mac OS X. The author of SIO2OSX recommends http://www.usbgear.com/computer_cable_deta...06%2C1009%2C601 but I'm in the UK, not the US. Anyone know a good source in the UK for picking up a Serial to USB adapter that works with SIO2OSX? I got a serial to USB adapter today from Maplin and the power light comes on on the SIO2PC cable, and the TX light flickers a little, but then the Atari just goes straight to Self Test or BASIC. Any thoughts welcome!

Nope, best bet is Atarimax.com or ABBUC in Germany. I have bought from Atarimax on several occasions (including a moded 1200XL) and have no hesitation recommending Steve (CLASSICS) You could always make your own Heh! It's not safe to let me near a soldering iron, or indeed tools of any description. I'll happily pay the money for someone else to get their hands dirty AtariMax were selling SIO2PC devices on eBay, so I've picked one up. Hasn't arrived yet, but should be here soon.

Well, it's begun! I've managed to score an 800XL that is apparently in full working order from eBay. Came to about £30, plus postage. Not too bad, looking at other systems around the place. Plus it was one of the few Ataris being listed on eBay UK at the time. No disk drive or tape deck, but it has all the leads, and I'm going to look into getting a SIO2PC setup (or rather SIO2OSX in my case). I'm pretty excited! Gonna set it up next to my Mac on my desk, since the Mac will be playing the part of disk drive very soon. Is there a particular UK site to pick up SIO2PC/OSX devices?

Thanks for all the suggestions! I'm currently running Atari800MacX, which is a great emulator, but I'd love to get into using the real hardware. In answer to the above question "what do I want to do with my collection", I want to collect and use them... and potentially look at the customisation scene as well. I have some very fond memories of playing games on the old Ataris when I was little and it'd be great fun to recapture that. The SIO2PC/OSX thing looks great. Does it sit externally or do you need to mount it inside the hardware? And am I right in thinking you can use it to boot the Atari from a disk image on a PC/Mac? (I'm a Mac user by the way, but can boot into Windows if necessary) I actually would like a disk drive at some point because - it sounds bizarre - I miss the sound of it. The one thing the emulators don't seem to do right is the "loading sound" when booting from disk - I used to love the sound from the computer and the snark-snark-whirr of the 810 and later 1050 while you were loading something. That's one thing that seems to be missing from the emulation scene at the moment. Sure, loading a disk image quickly is efficient... but for the authentic experience? Gimme that BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL! (pause, zurbit) BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL! (pause, snark) BLBLBLBLBLBLBLBL! (snark) any day. Also noticed you mentioned Wico sticks above. We had a Wico stick, it was great and very "arcadey"... but the fire buttons died on it relatively quickly, from what I recall. We got through one hell of a lot of joysticks over the years.

I'm clearly outclassed by some people here... but I made a huge improvement again! Check it out: 66940

Another improvement for me! Check it out!

Yeah... PALed up here. I have TVs that can handle an NTSC signal, but the one I'm planning to use the A8 on if I get my hands on does strange slowdown and screen-squashing when in 60Hz NTSC mode. Thanks for the offer though. I was thinking 800XL would be a good "starter". There seem to be a few of those out there, at least. I might bid on a couple and see where it gets me. There don't seem to be many 130XEs around at the moment... spotted quite a few 65XEs though.

Holy moley. That's an incredible haul. *jealous*

Hello everyone. I'm relatively new here but have been a long-time Atari fan along with the rest of my family... all the Davison males wrote for Page 6/New Atari User at some point in their lives I'm seriously considering starting my own vintage Atari collection. What I was hoping to pick your brains about is... where to start? What systems are reasonably easy to find, and what are some good places to look? I had a rummage on eBay earlier and there were one or two sweet deals, but some bits and pieces seem to be very difficult to find - particularly things like disk drives. I understand there's various ways of hooking an A8 up to a PC or Mac, though, and using it as a virtual disk drive - can anyone point me in the direction of a FAQ or something about this? My folks still have a 400, an 800XL and a 130XE up in their loft but it'd be super-cool to have my own collection. Sorry if these are dumb questions - I'm still pretty new here but loving it so far! I thought it'd be nice to hear some people's thoughts as I'm sure there's plenty of opinions on the matter here! Oh, I'm in the UK if that helps with advice-giving.

Yup Awesome. Thank you!

Improvement get! 44070 Do I get a badge now?

Hello! Newbie to the HSC here. I am allowed to enter halfway through, right? I'd forgotten how much I love this game. It's super-simple but super-addictive, plus it's very well-designed so that when you mess up you know it's entirely your fault in most cases. My score on my second attempt since going back after many, many years... 30660. Not bad! Made it to Bridge 18.

NetHack is, I think, a good comparison, in that you kind of make your own fun. Because the series was never finished, The City doesn't really have a "purpose" as such, except to 1. have fun 2. die a lot and 3. theoretically level you up in preparation to play The Dungeon... if you survive long enough to make it to a Dungeon entrance One of my favourite things about roguelikes and AR for that matter is that this freedom really encourages you to develop your own "narrative" for the game - we've seen it a ton in this thread and the AR competition thread, on my blog post and doubtless there's other people out there too. One of my favourite gaming stories of all time is actually from Angband, where I was 5 levels down into the dungeon and my torch spluttered out... I didn't have another light source so I had to find my way out by feeling my way along the walls. The feeling of satisfaction I got when I managed to actually escape despite this problem was huge... just like the feeling of satisfaction you get when you make it, battered and bruised, to an Inn in The City.

Hello! I had a relatively disastrous experience recently, which is well-documented in blog format here. I've returned to AR after many, many, MANY years. I last played it as a kid who didn't really get what an RPG was. Now I understand it, I still find myself dying horribly on a regular basis. Here's my final screenshot. You'll notice my stats are... uhh... weak. I was rather thirsty by the time I expired and a merciful guard put me out of my misery. I have much to learn, I think.

Hey. Thanks for the reply! Think you misread me a little - I'm playing the Atari version on an emulator. My podcasting buddies were Commodore peeps in days of yore so I saw fit to educate them on the wonder of Atari and particularly AR. I think you're right, though - the Commodore port, if I remember correctly, at the very least didn't have as fancy graphics as the Atari AR. I haven't tried it myself, though. I also had the Atari ST version back in the day, too. I always remember actually liking the 8-bit Atari's intro sequence better than the ST's one for some reason. The intro to the City is also better than the one to The Dungeon for my money, even though they're essentially almost identical. I've still never given The Dungeon a go. I have disk images but want to see how far I can get in The City first.

Hi guys! I'm new to the forums (and the site) but rediscovered Alternate Reality recently. I posted a lengthy blog entry about it here recently, and also discussed it on a recent one of our podcasts (iTunes link - go here for RSS if you're interested) - the podcast mostly focused on the Commodore 64 but I showed plenty of Atari love - I grew up with Commodore as "the enemy" after all Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for posting the great info, tips and stories about AR - I have very fond memories of it, even though I have always had the most rotten luck on my playthroughs