Britishcar

I've acquired what I would almost literally call a "barn find" 800. The poor thing was the filthiest computer I've ever encountered and I've seen quite a few. The inside was so crusty with crap that the power switch had something partially blocking it from switching on. Once I rattled that out of the way, the machine powered up perfectly to an incredibly clean and stable Memo Pad. The outside was no better with filth ground into it. The only working key was the BREAK Key which was 100% functional. The entire rest of the keyboard was 100% non-functional. Not even an intermittent click. RESET, OPTION and SELECT work too but alas START seems to be sleeping (tested using a Pac Man cart). This 800 turned out to be a sort of "diamond in the rough" since after a FULL disassembly, a toothbrush, hot soapy water, a miracle sponge, etc. it looks almost new from '82! No cracks, scrapes, gouges not even discoloration! I think it was kept in a very, very dirty but very dark place. Here's the problem: I gave the keyboard (a Hi-Tek) a full keys-off wash and clean along with everything else. I fully expected it to come to life but no luck. The exact behavior as before. I checked all of the traces for continuity (everything seems connected) but it refuses to do anything. I know about the hitting keys over and over to get them to reconnect but I'm not sure that is the problem here since I cleaned just about everything including spraying contact cleaner on each of the little gold claws beneath the keys. BREAK, RESET, OPTION and SELECT continue to work and everything else is still dead. I don't think it's POKEY as the computer plays games great, the sound it great, etc. I know that the console keys are on a separate circuit to I will have to deal with the START key separately when or if I get the main keys working. The only keyboard matrix layout I can find applies to the 800XL, not the 800. And I cannot find anything that discusses the keyboard pin connector layout (the rainbow one in this case) that connects right under the 800's keyboard to the motherboard. Am I missing something here? Does anyone have any advise on what this might be? I feel as if I'm missing something very simple here. Thank you!

These mods are fun. It's interesting to see the increased speed via optimization, etc. JamesD, I think there's a typo in your A2E code: Line: 130 HGR2:COLOR 3 Should be: 130 HGR2:HCOLOR=3 Does anyone have a TI-99/4a Extended BASIC version worked out?

The only one that comes to mind is the purposeful code that Mattel inserted into the Intellivision II's EXEC to cause Coleco's (mostly) crappy titles from playing. It accidentally nuked Mattel's own "Word Fun" on the system and, of course, didn't last long as Coleco and others quickly figured it out and worked around it.

How about: Joust (any version) the "unbeatable?" pterodactyl. Bite me. Seaquest (Atari 2600) that bastard sub at the top of the screen. Stampede (Atari 2600, Intellivision) the "black cow." Donkey Kong (any version) fireballs my friends, fireballs. Pole Position (most versions) Road Signs. Tail of Beta Lyrae (Atari 800) magnetic satellites. Demon Attack (Intellivision) damn swooping birds on boss level. Ice Trek (Intellivision) f*cking floating icebergs. Shark! Shark! (Intellivision) the b*stard it's named after. Space Armada (Intellivision) two unavoidable words: invisible. aliens.

Amdex Color 300 with Chroma/Luminance separation (S-video). Bought new in the 1980's still crystal clear with saturated colors to this day. No burn-in thanks to Atari 800's built in color shifting.

Oh good grief! Talk about feeling like an idiot. I've been playing this game exclusively on the highest level for so many years that I never realized that the numbers and islands CHANGE COLOR depending on what level you're playing. Ok, idiot posting, move on, nothing to see here.

I can't find any information about a ROM variant for Sub Hunt other than "No ROM variants have been identified" at INTV Funhouse. However, I've recently noticed that I have two Sub Hunt red label carts that are *clearly* different. One of them has the "upper land mass" -- the place the enemy ships are headed -- AND the number of ships sunk indicator on the left shown in RED. This is a common screen shot and is the image on the standard box art I believe. However, my other Sub Hunt has the "upper land mass" shown in black and the number of ships sunk counter is also in black. Interestingly, this "black" version seems *harder* to win, at least on the Admiral level. I'll need to really test this theory more but the destroyers seem more aggressive in this version. Am I missing something here? Is this a well known ROM variant, say Mattel / Sears or something that I've never heard about or noticed? Did Mattel update the ROM during the run of this game?

Absolutely! 1 set.

PM sent.

PM sent.

I've been using the same monitor since I bought the 48K 800 in the early 80's -- an Amdek Color 300 with chroma/luma separation. It's tack sharp edge to edge to this day with saturated colors. It's been a remarkable piece of equipment.

Yep. I ran "The Flight Simulator" in Austin, TX in the early 80's. Modified AMIS-based. It ran on an 800 with a 1050 and a Percom FDD. I used a small thermal printer for the logs...an Alphacom I think. For telecom, I started off with a blue MPP joystick modem but moved to an 850 and a Hayes later on. Fun times.

Does anyone have an .ATR (or similar) with a set of self-runnning, or auto-playing set of Xmas music on it? For example, a Pokey Player disk with Xmas music titles available for autoplay. If not, does anyone know of an way to collect and compile a set of autoplaying Xmas music? It can be in an emulator but I'd really like to turn the .ATR into an actual floppy or USB mountable image for real hardware. Does anyone have such a collection? Thanks!

Fully funtional ATR8000 for an Atari 800.

The Floppy Wizard! Is that the store (once upon a decade) in Houston? They sold a lot of Atari ST stuff for a while I believe.

A website called plaidstallions.com appears to be about 70's toy and game culture. One of their interesting features covers game stores from the 70's and early 80's. I was fascinated by some of the photos as it really took me back to the early 1980's when one could stroll into a mall game store and witness the full battle between Atari and Intellivision, later adding the ColecoVision and home computers, 800, 400, TI-99/4A, VIC-20, etc. Does anyone else have any photos such as these that are shareable on this forum? I'd love to see them.

Thank you!

It works as a straight load in the emulator (double click on the file), but fails when being binary loaded from DOS 2.5 on an .atr image (black screen).

Kyle! Yes, please! I need to be able to load it from say single density, DOS 2.5, as an executable. That would be great!

I'm in.

Thanks Kyle and Doctor. I have to agree with DrVenkman: I don't know if I have the tools or the talent (Ghostbuster reference!) to be able to add FFFF and load/init headers to the file nor flash a cart.

I'd love to be able to use this on actual hardware (800XL) for high school classroom for announcements, etc. I'm already using various other scrolly apps (thanks to members of this board) but would love to add this to the options. The easiest way (for classroom use) is to get it on a real floppy, which I can do with .atr and .xex files. However, I can't figure out how to load a .rom file onto actual hardware from a floppy. Is there a convert .rom to .atr utiilty somewhere or does this file exist as an .atr or .xex already? It would definitely see the light of day again. I'm using Atari800MacX as my emulator and the 800XL with an 810 as the real silicon in the classroom. Thank you!

Centipede plays itself and actually makes a great screen saver due to the constant movement and color-shifting.

I may have mentioned this elsewhere on AA. I'm a teacher: 130XE used to display a master calendar running on a CRT just outside of the classroom. Attract mode gets attention. 800XL on a rolling cart inside the classroom doing something similar -- different announcements from the outside one usually. Often scrolling or other colorful announcements (ROTBERG MARQUEE for example). VIC-20 sitting on a desk displaying the day's classroom activities for each period. Apple ][+ showing inspirational quotes on a green Apple monitor using an APPLESOFT BASIC program that scatters, recombines the letters of each quote that I usually change daily.

Thank you, guys! I've also just remembered that Demon Attack has a weird alternating 2-player co-op mode where the ship control switches back and forth every 4 seconds between P1 and P2. Kinda fun and goofy.