Xebec

Lol . The demos are what I want to see.. I have a system that is psuedo-PAL -- just the ANTIC swap and it works with my monitor.. colors pallette is probably off a bit but it seems to work for games like the Last V8 .. (you can finally play now ). Yeah i'll have to order one of these and find someone to install it..

VBXE is akin to the AGA upgrade on the Amiga - it doesn't totally replace the original chipset.. .. VBXE - useful on NTSC systems or should only really be installed on PAL?

Wow this is awesome work! Looking forward to this!

1,361,941 - Level 99 for me (just went back and looked at the list as i'm killing time playing Jag games since internet was down )

We're any terminal programs ever written that could play music while using a bbs or even transferring files ? If not would this be possible on a stock Atari or would music playing clobber the serial port too much even for slower speeds like 1200bps? Also how many bytes of space or ram would a tune plus code to play end up needing roughly ?

I'm so torn about buying an STE now to sit next to my Mega STE, 520STf, and 800XL.

I have a 520STf (4mb) and a Mega STE but I'm looking for monitor options. I currently have a SC1224 and a pair of matching 12" monos. The 12" screen for color is ~ ok .. but I can't find any SC1435's. I also have a couple of scaler devices and the ST looks kinda terrible on various LCDs that I've tried.. (unlike the Amiga which has a couple of good options for LCD Output.. piggybacking on the Alice/Denise chips). What is the way to get a 'bigger than 12"' output that looks reasonable from a ST these days?

I'd like to get one but not sure of the value of having it on a NTSC 800XL since .. PAL seems to be the wave for later software.

Falcon was a dev platform for the Jaguar i believe, but the Jaguar was killed in 1996 with the merger with JTS.

Search a bit around here - I bought a PAL ANTIC, plugged it into an 800XL, and it worked great. It handles the ANTIC timing correctly, 50hz games play at the correct speed. sound seems OK.. but the pallette is NTSC which is a bit different than PAL so that can cause some issues. I bought my PAL Antic from Best Electronics. Now with that said, I believe others here have done the swap but found their monitor would no longer work (or couldn't sync to the new frequencies). I'm 'lucky' in that mine did -- an old Amdek unit.

I'm going back to rescan some old manuals for games and apps (i.e. Archon 2: Adept, Percom manual, etc).. and I'm ending up with individual BMPs from my home scanner such as below: https://imgur.com/a/GflFg What's the best/easiest way to turn these into useful manuals/PDFs for archiving? Is it just dump them in word (or google docs), and somehow rotate the ones that need it (not sure how yet), and 'print to PDF' ?

Just here to pay respect to the awesome work you've done for the A8 on the demo/software side.. You (and flashjazzcat, Lotharek, and many others) have made the 8bit a ton of fun to return to.. Thank you!

Thanks Rybags! I have one of those 16KHz --> modern monitor devices laying around that I could try. I have a pile of 17-19" 1280x1024 monitors I'm assuming they'll work OK for this use. Any idea if VBXE would play nicely with an 800XL with the PAL ANTIC swap but nothing else? I know the color pallette can be off a bit, but I have an older monitor here that works just fine with it and I'm able to play PAL games nicely now (i.e. Last V8 is winnable). If yes then my christmas present to myself is the VBXE and another U1MB.. Thanks, John

The kid in me says Landscape ("Stealth") .. the dark tower collapsing after you shoot it, followed by an earthquake and then the excellent theme music.. and your ship flies back up into space after having completed the mission

What are or were some of the more exotic file transfer protocols for the 8bit? I remember in later years running PCBoard and being excited to try new ones like ymodem-g, Puma, Bimodem, etc. But on the 8bit I'm only remembering xmodem, xmodem crc, and Kermit (mainly for CompuServe?). I'm sure there was a ymodem. Anything unusual or specific to the a8 out at the time ?

I'm pretty sure a generic answer could be 1-100% (digital sfx), but i was just curious - for a typical game with 3-4 channels of music, and maybe 1 channel of sound effects - how much of the available CPU time is given up for POKEY? (and how much bandwidth does POKEY end up needing for sound output?) Does using a pokey channel in 16-bit mode substantially change the cpu usage?

I'm debating getting a VBXE from Lotharek, but curious about a few things: 1. Is the VBXE a good way to hook up an 800XL to a modern LCD? Are there better choices for this? 2. Using the VGA out (i'm in the USA) - will both PAL 800XL's and NTSC 800XL's work decently through VBXE? Will I need an LCD that supports 50 Hz for PAL? 3. For the Software that supports VBXE - is it pretty much all PAL? (i.e. don't bother installing VBXE on a NTSC 800XL?) 4. Are there any US based Atarian's that I could pay to solder the VBXE in for me (+ maybe a U1MB)? I was able to install a U1MB successfully, and even resoldered some ram chips with sockets, but I don't trust my skills for this. Thanks.. John

Nice - make sure you add a couple of PLASTIC screen protectors for that old school feel

DOS 2.6(f?) because of the awesome black background. It also 'felt' much faster than dos 2.5 because this is around the time we got a happy 810 drive..

Hmm, I always thought K Rift was closer to a 3D FPS than the Eidolon -- The Eidolon is effectively 2D since every object appears in a fixed vertical position, and generally don't swarm around you. The weapon and defense selections are also wider in KR. Although tbf my recollection of TE may be limited.. The other title I wish we had on the A8 (a little off topic) was Elite. I don't think you'd see a 2600 version of that

Koronis Rift is probably my favorite of the Lucas three.. I'd love to see a modern version of that.. and had long expected to see a 16-bit version.

Midi Maze is a time-piece example

I think I prefer 3 over 2 , but just slightly myself. I love all three though. 3 has a little bit of Project M inside . A few more inspired demos: Cyberpunk, Near Speaking of which, show me a 2600 or *any hardware* from before 1979 that can do anything close to this: https://youtu.be/RG6nCuhq2rU?t=55s or failing that, any 8-bit hardware before 1985?

Unfortunately I don't have a graphics card and monitor for this IBM PC XT.. It's ISA slot, and I got rid of almost all legacy PC cards a few years ago.. (kept a Soundblaster AWE32 purely for sentimental reasons).. I *probably* have a power supply that handles the board, but that's it.. The motherboard was literally left sitting in the window of a warehouse, backside facing the sun.. (the backside actually is faded because of this). Anyway, I'm sure this is wrong.. but it feels good to pull chips off an IBM board for the hopefuly benefit of some Atari's... i'll look for that Arduino Uno hack.. I have a few arduinos laying around..

I've been helping my father clean out an old barn, and in the process uncovered an old PC XT Motherboard. The motherboard is populated with 18 x 41256 (-15) and 18 x 4164 (-12) chips. 640KB.. with Parity oddly (bad pun). Is there a simple circuit or something I can build that I can test these RAM chips with? Using an 800XL to add/remove seems a bit painful. I do have an 800XL with the Newell 256KB upgrade so I do at least have a device supporting the 256's.. but would rather not keep using the sockets on that board if possible.