NEW CX-77 Atari Touch Tablets at BEST

[NEW CX-77 Atari Touch Tablets at BEST]

I remember the first tablet I saw was on an Apple in 1984-ish at a magnet school for the arts. It was big and fairly heavy. And it was pretty darned inaccurate. But it was neat to draw on a surface and have the same thing appear as pixels.

 

I bought my first CX77 tablet new in the US about 1990 and it did not come with the plug-in stylus. The place told me there was a reliability problem with them and they included a glorified plastic stick instead.

 

The second came used from Ebay a few years ago, and it does have the plug-in stylus.

 

Tablet input is an easy thing to do in Atari programs. It's read like paddle controllers, so it is very cheap overhead. It is great for productivity and utilities, because pointing to things is instant, rather than tediously moving a cursor with a joystick. Another great thing about the tablet is that most emulators can treat the PC mouse as the tablet allowing an Atari program to have a mouse-like interface without the overhead of polling real mouse hardware.

[BallBlazer framerate]

The game is rock solid on real hardware. The Atari's scrolling is magically fast and requires negligible resources. The game is so smooth it could stand by itself as a demo.

 

The person doing the comparison video must have issues with the capture method or used an emulator that couldn't handle it.

[Is there any way to play The Empire Strikes Back on the Atari 400?]

that's it folks, all these ports not done by the original publisher/programmer are not ports at all... they are strange knock off weirdo games.... ..

 

Fair notice: There's a remote control, long distance, force choke coming your way.

 

[How Many Scanlines Does Your Monitor or Television Display?]

There are NTSC TELEVISIONS (not monitors) that show 240 scan lines ? I'd like to see that. I had a plain, old, goldstar 13" color TV back in the 80s A custom graphics mode could go to 212 scan lines before the corners touched the bevels. Any more and graphics were lost.

 

Atari purposely limited the OS graphics modes to 192 scan lines (though ANTIC has no problem doing much more), because of big bevels and extensive overscan on many TVs , especially those console TVs. My Atari 800 on a friend's console TV had the corners of a default graphics 0 screen solidly under bezels with almost no black border visible.

[An error in "Mapping the Atari"?]

There are more than a few errors in Mapping!. I usually check it with another source and trust the other source if they differ.

[Looking for A8 computer model recommendation]

1) 800XL. (with video upgrade) Though this is Atari's effort at cost reduction, they still couldn't bring themselves to assemble the same level of krap quality that the Tramiels put in C64 and then later in the Atari XEs.

 

2) Atari 800. Built like a tank. In the distant future, the last real Atari left running will be an 800. (Maybe a 400.) And it has Four joystick ports!

 

3) 1200XL (with a multi-OS upgrade and video upgrade.) If you can find one.

 

A 48K 400 would be almost as good as an 800 if it has an aftermarket real keyboard upgrade.

[Best practice on a programming environment for Atari 8-bit?]

Linux

Eclipse

WUDSN

atasm assembler

Atari800 emulator

 

gimp for graphics

 

sometimes editing with Kate or Notepadqq or Leafpad.

 

Last but not least, saving stuff in github

[Images generated by RastaConverter]

Truth be told, I've had an urge to create a game called The Trams, which is part simulator and part parody (both of the Tramiels themselves, and of well-known 8-bit games). It is just an awful lot of labor to create a story on a confined canvas, and for a limited audience, you know?

 

I think it was already done. Cinemaware's The Three Stooges game. On the Amiga it was awesome.

[PvP games list (Player VS. Player).]

Hmmm, some examples can be found in the genre "duel":

http://www.atarimania.com/pgelstsoft.awp?system=8&type=G&genre=113&step=25

or simply "1 vs. 2":

http://www.atarimania.com/list_games_atari-400-800-xl-xe-1-vs-2_player_6_8_G.html

 

Asteroids for the Atari 8-bit doesn't show up in either search.

 

That was THE college dorm game in the mid 80s. It has game options that allow teams turning it into Space War With Big Rocks. WITH four players on the 800.

[Rastaconverter image exit]

How exact does the pause need to be?

 

This is good for about 5-ish seconds

long_pause
     lda #0
     sta RTCLOK+2 ; increments every jiffy
     sta RTCLOK+1 ; increments every 255 jiffies

pausing
     cmp RTCLOK+1
     beq pausing 

     rts

.

[Test your Atari/computer Knowledge...]

so are you saying it added 42 new graphic modes? or none? or are you going to go by useful modes?

best to make the question ask how many new color interpretations then, the debate will be ongoing

 

Should the question be how many sanctioned graphics modes were added by Atari with the introduction of GTIA, the OS already supported them and waited on the chip...so were they added? This can go in a lot a directions...

 

 

Essentially, yes. Whether it has GTIA or CTIA -- the "modes" are from ANTIC, and that's 6 text and 8 graphics modes. CTIA provided one color interpretation for those modes, so a CTIA Atari has only those 14 modes.

 

GTIA provided 3 new color interpretations, so 4 * 14 is 56. Many of these combinations are less useful than others. But, "useful" is in the eye of the beholder, so as soon as I say a GTIA color interpretation + ANTIC graphics mode 8 is not useful, someone will jump up and disagree. I'd say there are somewhere between 20 and 30(ish) useful combinations. But, I'm sure someone here has found a use for all 56.

 

Yes, the OS-sanctioned graphics "modes" 9, 10, 11 were already there in code in the CTIA Atari 400/800. (These "modes" are all ANTIC graphics mode F (aka BASIC/OS mode 8 ) plus one of the GTIA color interpretations.)

 

Since the "modes" were already supported in the OS, I guess the question would be "How many color interpretations did GTIA add?"

[Test your Atari/computer Knowledge...]

23. How many new graphic modes did the GTIA chip have?
A. 3
B. 4
C. 8
D. 16

 

The OS and BASIC package the behavior to look like "graphics modes", but GTIA doesn't actually provide a graphics mode. GTIA provides 3 additional color interpretations for ANTIC's 14 text/graphics modes. That means an Atari with GTIA has 56 graphics modes (14 ANTIC modes times 4 GTIA color interpretations.) Granted, many of those combinations have debatable usefulness.

[Test your Atari/computer Knowledge...]

8. How many bits in a Byte?
A. 2
B. 7
C. 8
D. 32

 

I understand what you're asking , but that will give a fit to those with nitpicking computer science minds. (And we hates them! gollum! gollum!)

 

You would need another qualifier in that question (How many bits in a Byte on the Atari 400/800/XL/XE computers?)

 

(In the Air Force I did programming on a system with 6 bit bytes and 36 bit long words.)

[Atari Christmas, get the snowball rolling...]

I don't suppose anyone has Milatari (Milwaukee Area Atari user Group) disks? They had a Christmas contest for several years. One year I had a 63 color Christmas tree, and a lame BASIC game like Freeway with an elf crossing the road to get presents while avoiding skiers, skaters, sleds, reindeer, and ummm arctic penguins (I guess they were on vacation from the south pole.)

[Looks like a scam to me?]

hi all

 

This was a project that started from a special request of an Atari friend that use to own a 5200 console...

to goal was to play all Atari 5200 games from one source on the 8bit machine

 

In the cartridge there are 70 Atari 5200 converted games, New conversion... and the rule was to be faithful to the original 5200 cart with the exception of using

a Digital joystick instead of the analog one.. (these are not the Gleen 5200 conversions Inside)..

 

i did not use a MAX FLASH cartridge but a special made PCB created for this task with switch 16k bank switching (not 8k)... and only few cart where made.

 

...

 

 

Holy cow. I want to buy it.

 

 

... the Ebay post was ended.. and the remaining cart will not be offered for sale.

 

 

Oh. Krap.

[5-color mode with almost no restrictions]

(with 4x8 font)

 

This has already been done. In fact, a long time ago, back in the 80s.

[Programmers Aid for Atari Computers - Plastic Sheet Reference]

What do you think the sheet means by "Free RAM in Page 0" in BASIC v Assembler? (Blue page)

Yes, I understand the BASIC cart using much of the second half of page 0 for itself.

I thought in Assembly pretty much everything in the second half of page 0 from $80 to $FF was free, but the sheet says it starts at $B0.

[Citron 3kg does look and sound familiar...]

awesome

 

 

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[5-color mode with almost no restrictions]

Erp... has someone figured out 80 column text output? (This is giving me a Centron flashback.)

[8bit game that scared the hell out of you?]

When the aliens popped up instead of the astronauts in Rescue on Fractalas it was always surprising. At 2AM with the lights out it was frightening. Dang, the animated aliens were so BIG, too. I don't recall seeing anything else like that.

 

 

Going through doors/up stairs in Haunted House was always a high-tension moment. You could run into a ghost on the other side. Then the match goes out, the room is dark and there's lightning -- man, that was scary.

[Atari Activision vs HES PastFinder]

...why......doesn't he get it that no one buy this stuff at those prices ??

 

the seller is counting on that one fool to make it all worthwhile.

[introduction to the USR and XIO commands]

If you need to get into non-Atari-specific assembly programming, this is a nice online 6502 simulator that allows to try things live.

 

That's a good page if you have low 6502 experience. The page includes a very simple snake game (and a link to an expanded version with more documentation).

Learn how that works and then figure out how to make it to work on an Atari.

[introduction to the USR and XIO commands]

You need to write the assembly routines elsewhere (Mac/65, Atari Assembler/Editor, etc.)...

 

Also have a look at WUDSN, a plugin for Eclipse that allows for Assembly development right on your PC, including testing on an Emulator after compiling.

 

Ditto that.

 

Natively building on an Atari has a number of inconveniences to enjoy from the 80s (line numbers, limited editor, limited memory, limited disk space, slow assembly time, etc.) In the 80s that's all there was and we liked it (uphill, in the snow, in both directions.)

 

Today I use Eclipse/WUDSN with atasm and the Atari800 emulator on linux for writing, building, and testing 6502 assembly.

 

atasm is Mac/65 with all the joy and none of the line numbers.

[introduction to the USR and XIO commands]

You need to write the assembly routines elsewhere (Mac/65 Atari Assembler/Editor, etc.), load them into memory on the Atari, then call them from BASIC using USR().

 

I did a series of tutorials around making simple Assembly language USR() routines supporting Atari BASIC. The last sections are specifically about what's wrong with XIO and how to use the OS CIO routines successfully (with and without XIO.)

 

 

 

http://atariage.com/forums/blog/576/entry-13175-part-1-of-11-simple-assembly-for-atari-basic/

 

 

Part 1: Intro

Part 2: Overview of common Assembly instructions

Part 3: The environment inside a USR() call.

Part 4: Implement DPEEK() (16-bit, two-byte PEEK()).

Part 5: Implement DPOKE (16-bit, two-byte POKE).

Part 6: Implement several bit-wise operations.

Part 7: Implement conversion from integer to hexadecimal text

Part 8: Implement conversion from integer to bit string/text

Part 9: Implement memory copy

Part 10: The problems with XIO, and using CIO (part I)

Part 11: The problems with XIO, and using CIO (part II).

[Atari font as assembly source file]

atf2code

 

An over-engineered linux tool to convert an Atari 8-bit font to BASIC, C, and Assembly source. (Should be easily build-able on anything that supports C.)

 

https://github.com/kenjennings/Atari-Font-To-Code

 

 

The example text files there show complete output of the E000 character set including all the comment options. If anyone does use this let me know if something doesn't work.

 

 

And bin2code

 

This is another overdone linux tool that does output similar to atf2code, but works on any binary data without assuming the data is for a font. This does better at graphics bitmap data than atf2code.

 

https://github.com/kenjennings/Atari-Binary-To-Code