Tickled_Pink

So, how would something like the Black Box work? IIRC that didn't have RAM onboard. But I'm guessing that one of the chips had some RAM which was mapped to an area of system RAM?

I had a feeling it might have something like that. The thing is that once you have an MCU hooked up, most of the rest is down to the onboard software.

Just found this. hardware - How to implement bus sharing / DMA on a 6502 system - Retrocomputing Stack Exchange So, if I wanted to access memory shared by another component, such as the CPU or ANTIC, I'd have to halt them first, presumably to avoid some kind of bus contention?

Not entirely sure at the minute. So many possibilities. RAM expansion, of course (although that's been done to death, so it would be a learning project), or programmable multi controller ports, some kind of I/O controller. The idea I have for the Raspberry Pi probably won't work for all cases with what I have in mind but the architecture of the Atari may allow it to be used as HDMI output. Obviously won't be able to use the full Pi on a final project, but the Pi Zero or Pi Zero look-a-likes with HDMI output could do the job. But, like I say, it would probably work best with older software where devs haven't tried anything too fancy. Yeah, I'd like to come up with something for the 1090 but let's just learn to walk before I try to run, eh? 😉

Just been reading the PBI pdf. Trying to get my head around how the address and data lines work. Am I right in thinking that the Atari can read/write data from and to devices attached to the PBI but devices attached to the PBI can't read/write data on the Atari's own system memory? In order to do that, the PBI device would need its own memory mapped to the RAM area that you would like to access? Oh - and how on earth does 80 column video work on a system designed to run on 40 columns. I remember doing a type-in listing that offered 80 columns but that was done by messing around with the character set and squishing them a little. To do it properly, surely you'd need to double the pixel resolution?

I do have a Uno but I bought it for the still as yet incomplete SDrive-MAX I started putting together a little while ago. Might have a go at finishing it this weekend. But I like the idea of having a tiny board do everything and then just build stuff up around it. Yeah, I have a Model 3, I think. Been looking at the possibility of hooking that one up because I have a quite insane project idea for it. 😂 The ESP32 will allow me to get a bit more experience on the cheap without blowing a hole in something on the Pi. There is a guy called Gary Simms who has a nice YouTube channel simply called Gary Explains and he shows how to hook up a 6502 directly to a Pico in one video and uses the Pico as a memory emulator. Didn't look like it needed anything special. But I'm wondering if the same principles can be attached to the PBI considering that anything attached to it has to share the address and data buses with several other chips.

I've always had a bit of an interest in electronics but, apart from one attempt many years ago, have never really got into it in a big way. Last couple of weeks I've been looking at the modern "microcontrollers". I put that in quotations because they're not really microcontrollers in the true sense of the word. They're tiny SBCs. The price of some have shot through the roof, as well as the full blown Raspberry Pi. I have a Pi 3 (I think) that I want to try interfacing with the 800XL but the MCU that arrived a couple of days ago was the ESP32. This looks like a neat little unit on a par with the Pi Pico. I'm going to have a little play around with hooking it up to the PBI on the XL and see what i can do with it. Is there anything in particular I need to be careful of? I know the PBI is 5v output and I'll need to reduce that to 3.3V for the GPIO pins on the ESP32. The PBI, though, can handle 3.3V input because TTL logic high is 2V - 5V?

I remember getting TV Gamer when it first came out. It was a quarterly publication at first basically listing all the games for the most popular consoles, such as the Atari 2600 and Intellivision. Pretty sure I picked up my first copy from a WHSmiths in Llandudno. It went on to become a normal monthly magazine but didn't last more than a dozen issues, I don't think. Two issues I remember were one where they had the Dragonriders of Pern on the cover because of a C64 version of the game that was coming out (only found out there was an Atari 8-bit version a few years later - should still have a pirate copy of the game in my boxes somewhere) and one covering The Last Starfighter. It was because of that magazine that I remembered about the Dragonriders of Pern a few years later after leaving school and I got into the books. As for Silica, my last interaction with them was via the liquidators. I'd bought something from on a credit line (probably was a B2B transaction) from them that turned out to be faulty and when they went bust, the receivers asked me to pay up because obviously they had to chase after people so they could pay the company's creditors, but after explaining the situation they wrote it off.

That is actually rather tricky. You could break this down into genres and find a multitude of games that "do it". I've always thought Dropzone was an amazing game and the first to truly showcase that the Atari was capable of arcade-like graphics, presentation and gameplay. Rescue on Fractalus was another that I owned BITD that I played the hell out of. And then you have Ultima III and Alternate Reality (I actually preferred The City to The Dungeon).

Decided to have a go. Haven't written anything in Atari BASIC (or probably any other BASIC for that matter) for 25 years. Out of curiosity, is this contest for the most common or built-in BASICs for each platform or can someone enter with a TurboBasic or Basic XE entry?

Type-in listings on our 16K Spectrum. Pretty sure my first was a version of Snake. But real programming, as in writing my own? Toss up between my 800XL in '86 and the PC, also in '86. Might have done some BASIC on the XL before I started as a programming trainee converting PET software to PC in GWBASIC in September '86.

I had one. Sold it several years ago. Want another one.

I forgot just how bad I was at this game. You can take 400 points off that for the first two boards because that's all I got on the third board. Edits: New score (first 2 screens 15400)

That's actually just a piece of concept art someone did and posted on DeviantArt years ago.

If the shield was necessary, rather than have it attached to the motherboard in some way, would it make any difference if it was actually attached to the inside of the case? That would provide enough clearance for add-ons, or would there be some kind of signal leakage because it wouldn't fully shroud the components?

The exchangeable panels is what I was thinking. You could still have something with the look and feel, apart from some changes to the back and sides with some simple slide mounts.

Some interesting responses there. I think you have to bear in mind that if we're talking about maintaining "look and feel", I'm not sure if a third-party could legally manufacture something with the look and feel of the original because copyright in the original design would still rest with Atari, and therefore there would likely be some license agreement required. There was a Mini-ITX Apple II case released a few years ago but I'm pretty sure that had to be licensed from Apple. With the alternative option(s), I was thinking about this, which I'm sure most of us have seen.

I was just wondering. Given the number of poorly packaged units that end up getting smashed in transit, is there a market for professionally manufactured third-party cases?

There's an 8-bit port of Frostbite? That was a game I loved BITD. Think I still have my original copy from '83.

Think I might give it a go this time. Might even finish off my SDrive MAX build that's been sitting around for the past 12 months and get one of my few working units out. Dropzone Rescue on Fractalus Mr Robot Tail of Beta Lyrae Warhawk Robotron

Although the M1's armour doesn't become brittle over time.