kenjennings

The 1400XL is so luv-er-ly. Too bad my wife spent all the money I'll every have before I met her. If someone gets it in their mind to make a modern Atari reboot it should be based on the 1400.

This looks like the output of assembly, not the source, so the line truncation could be an artifact of the assembler itself and not a problem with the copy/scan. maybe.

I use BASIC XL. Internally, every number is stored as a floating point decimal number, so there really is no "hexadecimal" number. . A=$FEDC Ready ?A 65244 Ready ?$BA98 47768 Ready . So, there is no need to convert a hexadecimal numeric constant since it is automatically converted to decimal when it is used or assigned to a variable. Turning a string representing a hex value into decimal works (in BASIC XL) with VAL(), but it requires a leading dollar sign. . ?VAL("$01FF") 511 Ready

Yes. It was the overheating problem. My system would scramble the screen and crash by 9:30 in the morning in the summertime. (we had no air conditioning) Freaked me out since the computer consumed the entire years' worth of proceeds from a paper route. But then again in the evening it would start working and keep going fine all night. I saw an article in a magazine about some other system and their description of overheating seemed similar to mine, so I figured out I could air the system out by opening the cases. I also bypassed the cartridge door interlock allowing it to run with the top off. That was good enough to make it run all day except on the hottest days. Those days taught me the value of designing programs on paper before touching the computer. In winter it was never an issue -- I grew up in Wisconsin.. (Figure that :-)

I'm pretty sure the people in the top picture are better informed and smarter in practical ways than the vegetables in the bottom picture.

It would be cool if it were possible to find out what these were expected to do, and how they would work. Now that I'm not a 12 yr old with a paper route the control module is affordable, so I have two of them. The computer itself is a crazy fast clock, so I figure there would not be a lot to the timekeeping and reaction time modules. Maybe a switch to turn on and off with supporting software. I've seen cheap lie detectors using analog sensors for skin electrical resistance -- basically the same as biofeedback sensors. These would probably be similar to potentiometers for input. A heartbeat sensor would probably be pretty simple too. But, the Mechanics, Robotics, and Nuclear Radiation?!? i'd really like to know how those were supposed to work.

Current gamepads use analog sticks, so it is easy to move the stick so that it triggers multiple directions. In fact, it's almost impossible to move the stick perfectly horizontal or vertical. then there is the D-pad which is supposed to be digital, but on many gamepads it is clumsy to use or has so little travel that it also triggers accidental diagonals too easily. For modern games with infinite movement directions gamepads are super. For retro games meant for digital joysticks they stink. I have 2600-style digital sticks with a usb interface for retro games.

I'll take three.

http://www.atarimax.com/forsale/index.html System Includes Rare 1200XL in good condition Enhancements Include APE Warp+ 32-in-1 OS Upgrade Pre-Installed! APE Warp+ OS Atari 1200XL OS Atari 130XE OS w/ Reverse Basic Atari 800 Compatible OS Hold SELECT at Power ON for On-Screen OS Selection Menu! SuperVideo 2.1 Upgrade (very sharp chroma/luma or composite video) Keyboard All Keys 100% Tested and Working (Keyboard hand refurbished to original responsiveness if required) APE/ProSystem Interface Internal SIO Power Modificaition (Restores compatibility with all SIO powered devices) APE/ProSystem Universal Interface w/ Serial Cable (DB9) 256k 800XL RAMBO Compatible RAM Upgrade (All 130XE Compatible except 'ANTIC Banking' demos) Original 1200XL Power Supply $249 + $15 Shipping in USA (e-mail for shipping quote elsewhere)

Yes, the driving controller can be hooked up to an Atari 8-bit computer. It is like half a trackball or mouse. The rotation is transmitted as just one axis of movement. (three values) Since it works like a mouse axis, it probably needs to be polled more than once each frame to maintain rotation consistency. Indy500 on the 2600 is an awesome game because of these controllers. If it used a joystick it would have sucked.

I've got one of Steve's upgraded 1200 XLs, too. Its an excellent box.

The manual's layout and decor are so awesomely 70s. They don't make them like that anymore.

Um? ? ? Page 9 in the PDF file, like hunmanik said. The block on the lower right of the page. "Atari Brings Multimedia Computer Show To Schools.".

On the subject of Q-bert clones and play-a-likes, there was also Pogo Joe on the Atari.

Ditto. Super idea.

Graph paper. Back in the 80s I did entire fonts, player missile animation and screen layouts using just graph paper. And a pencil. Though this has been useful for fonts more recently: http://atariage.com/forums/blog/576/entry-11195-grid-edit-character-set-editor/

Graphics? Of course. At the time the Apple ][ was far more expensive, the Pet and TRS-80 were far too boring, and the VIC-20 was far too stupid. But the Atari looked the best -- C'mon, Star Raiders?!?! Nothing else had anything that looked and played like Star Raiders. I saved all my paper route money to get an Atari 800 with a cassette recorder. Wish I had been able to get the floppy drive at the same time. Star Raiders is still a killer game.

How does this get downloaded? When I clicked on the Atari800.exe link I'm taken to a login/upload page for something called File Dropper.

I did something similar-ish on my blog. http://atariage.com/forums/blog/576/entry-11920-convert-binary-file-to-basic-xl-data/ It can load a segmented binary file (in a rather stupid way) which depends on the machine language program not loading into the same space as the BASIC program. So, this is mostly intended for new binary file work that the user controls, not debugging legacy code occupying the BASIC program space. Alternatively, it can ignore the load file structure and just put the binary into any starting address, but this means the segment information is also part of the binary/program output.

Thanks, but I know where my graph paper docs are. (not on this particular computer.) Currently killing zombies on my PC games box. I usually do the 800 stuff on a different laptop.

I think that wikipedia page is pretty much worthless. The aspect is based on the size of a color clock for the Atari 8-bit and the Amiga OCS chipset (Either multiple of the color clock, or fraction of the color clock), and that page is nowhere close. I had a PDF file with pages of graph paper in the correct aspect ratios somewhere around here. Apparently not on this computer. Grrrr... If I recall correctly a high-res pixel (Atari) (which is low res on Amiga) is 11:13 (NTSC). Therefore, a Mode E pixel one color clock x 1 scanline is 22:13, and a GTIA pixel is 44:13.

I ditto that. Those are the prices I would expect for a working 400.

From the posts on that site: ...you can navigate with the cursor keys / return key or the joystick / fire button (port 2 only, port one interferes with the cursor keys and I couldn't figure a way to tell them apart). In the non-touch mode a familiar logo comes up so you can see what icon you are currently selecting. The touch screen is off-the-shelf parts from Digi-key. 3M single touch, capacitive with a serial interface module. So, yes, the touch screen comes in the user port. It's only running at 1200 baud right now!

What others said -- the box eliminates light from other sources, blocks the screen and stabilizes the camera. I didn't have one of those contraptions or the money in the 80s to get one, so I had to come up with a work-around. I'm not any kind of professional, but found a procedure that worked pretty well: I used a stack of books (tripod substitute) to align a (borrowed :-) 35mm camera in the exact center of a 13" color TV. The 35mm camera was far enough back ( 4 to 6 feet) requiring some zoom to fill the field. This assists in flattening the image on film. The room was as dark as possible. I usually worked at night, so no lights meant a black room. I double-tape-stuck black construction paper around the TV to block reflection from the bezel and frame the CRT. I used color slide film. Not sure why I chose it exactly. Maybe someone else recommended it. It did work very well. Then shoot by bracketing. Start at 1/30 sec (for NTSC -- I'd guess start at 1/25 sec for PAL) and take a range of exposures. Two or three times I'd back off the shutter speed slower, and take another range of exposures. Basically, this burns through half a roll of film (12 to 16 frames) for one screen shot. Bright screens come out looking best at the faster shutter speeds, darker screens look better at longer shutter speeds. Someone with a better clue about light measurement could probably do this without wasting as much film as I did.

... which means it doesn't use hardware sprites. ("C64 games without hardware sprites")