ZylonBane

Wow. Just... wow.

Most people are smart enough to figure it out on their own.

Someone please teach Keatah how to use the MultiQuote button. Or in this case, the MultiNecro button.

*SIGH* Sorry folks, usually the reading comprehension jab is enough to get people to go back and interpret things properly. Clearly that didn't happen here. Y'all can just skip past the next few posts. Or not. This thread was pretty much crazytown from the first post anyway. So, Jinks, apparently the root problem is that you literally cannot comprehend the difference between: a) "when watching old movies and talking about video games or almost anything constantly doing an atari reference like yeah at that time atari was doing this or that idea was made by atari" and: b) Atari fans posting on an Atari forum to other Atari fans about Atari-related topics This is not a subtle distinction. I've been an Atari fan since the Pong days, but the way you describe your behavior--a veritable Rain Man of Atari--I'd probably be asking you to STFU about Atari too. Judging by your behavior both IRL and here, it sounds like you may have a touch of a certain condition that starts with an "a" and rhymes with cheeseburger. As an addendum, you aren't using the word "troll" correctly either. You cannot troll an inanimate object, like a sentence, you troll a person or group. And it most certainly isn't a catch-all for anyone who merely says what you don't want to hear.

You really need to work on your reading comprehension.

You should listen to your friends.

You don't seem to even know what your point is. Can Atari ATASCII graphics replicate C64 PETSCII art? Of course not, because it has more graphics characters and multiple text colors available. Can the Atari replicate them in graphics or nonstandard text modes? To varying degrees, yes, but at that point you've gone completely off the rails because the entire point of PETSCII art is that it uses bog-standard character mode.

So you're asking if it's possible to create color graphics on the Atari. Uhh.... yes. Yes it is.

Uh, no, you are completely missing the point of these things, which is to use the BUILT-IN drawing characters.

No, they really aren't. There are edge cases that utilize novel arcade-specific hardware, analog circuits, etc, but for 99% of cases it's just like emulating a game console. Lots of arcade games and home consoles even use the same chipsets.

That reminds me, Atari BASIC's machine language interface was pretty sweet compared to its contemporaries. The USR function allowed you to pass an arbitrary number of arguments to a machine language function (which got pushed on the stack as 16-bit integers, making them very easy to deal with), and could return a value to the BASIC environment. This allowed developing some really powerful helper routines. Commodore and Apple BASICs were limited to passing a single argument, and AFAIK it was passed as a float, requiring the receiving routine to convert it to an int.

Are you drunk?

No, there are only good points and no bad points, and what you said above doesn't even make sense. A good typist would (presumably, in your head) never make mistakes, so syntax errors would never be an issue. Nah I'm kidding, I know you tacked that last part on there just to be smug.

I'm pretty sure kidding is supposed to be funny.

I said "graphics, sound, and controller". Whatever it is you're trying to do, you're doing it badly. And with a suspiciously flat affect.

What a completely random notion. Did the Family Guy manatees come up with this?

Wrong. Englishing does not work that way. Systems like the 2600Jr and 2700 were versions of the 2600, because they played only 2600 games. The 3200 was to be a successor to the 2600. CTIA was based off the original TIA chip, but nobody calls the Atari 400 a "second 2600". That would be so dumb.

No, there was not a "second 2600" in the works. You're thinking of the 3200.

Apparently it is SO inconvenient to just hit the power button before swapping carts.

If you think it's better to not know about any syntax errors until you try to run the program, then you are a weirdo. I meant what I said, smrt guy. Built-in commands for drawing lines AND setting the palette AND playing sound AND reading game controllers. Very few other standard 8-bit BASICs had such a full complement of multimedia functionality.

Almost. The challenge of most scene demos on 80s/90s computers is finding novel ways to exercise the hardware. That's not really possible with the Apple II. You have a slow CPU, a speaker that clicks, and video hardware that does exactly what it was designed to do and no more. It's... boring. Now the Apple //gs offers for demo coders.

Atari BASIC may not have been the fastest 8-bit BASIC, but it was by far the most pleasant to program in. Immediate syntax checking, keyword abbreviation, built-in graphics, sound, and controller commands. It was pretty sweet.

I'm sure the Apple II's stone-age audio/visual capabilities have nothing to do with it.

Either some flavor of Pong at a neighbor's house, or Gun Fight at the skate rink.

Given that most people have a backlog a mile long of games they actually want to play, why would anyone waste their precious time on a game they think they won't like?