CharlieChaplin

Hmmm, what about the program "XL-Paint 2.1 MAX" ?!? It is available atari-area. Think it uses 160x192 (or 160x200) with 16 colors... It is a painting program... It came with only one demo-picture, but thanks to the converter RIP2MAX (which converts Rocky-Interlace-Pictures *.RIP into *.MAX pictures) I now have two disks filled with 16 color *.MAX pictures. (There is only one drawback: While the painting program XL-Paint 2.1 Max allows the free choice of colors, the RIP2MAX converter does not - meaning all converted pictures have the same color-palette!) Since I am not a programmer, I don`t know if this program is any good for you, i.e. if it matches your needs. But at least it is an A8 painting program with 16 different colors (and different shades/luminances) and a resolution of 160x192 pixels. Why not take a look at it ?!? Or mail me at: [email protected] to get the program and some demo-pix... greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

Oops, whats that ?!? My computer gave me an error when posting the message, so I posted it again and again, until it worked. and now I see the posting is there 3 times ?!? Sorry for that ... -Andreas magenheimer.

Just a small reminder: - atari 400: no parallel bus ! - atari 800: no parallel bus ! - atari 1200XL: no parallel bus! - atari 1400XL: not sure ?!? (probably no parallel bus!) - atari 1450XLD: not sure !?! (the built-in floppy uses the parallel bus!) - atari 65XE : some with & some without ECI port (of course no XL parallel bus !) - atari 130XE: has cart. port and ECI port ! (which can be used as an XL parallel bus) - atari 800XE: some with & some without ECI (no XL parallel bus!) - atari XEGS: no parallel bus... whereas: - atari 600XL: has parallel bus ! - atari 800XL: has parallel bus ! From this point of view, the parallel bus graphic upgrade doesn`t sound so good or does it ?!? Anyway, it is a good project !! greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

Just a small reminder: - atari 400: no parallel bus ! - atari 800: no parallel bus ! - atari 1200XL: no parallel bus! - atari 1400XL: not sure ?!? (probably no parallel bus!) - atari 1450XLD: not sure !?! (the built-in floppy uses the parallel bus!) - atari 65XE : some with & some without ECI port (of course no XL parallel bus !) - atari 130XE: has cart. port and ECI port ! (which can be used as an XL parallel bus) - atari 800XE: some with & some without ECI (no XL parallel bus!) - atari XEGS: no parallel bus... whereas: - atari 600XL: has parallel bus ! - atari 800XL: has parallel bus ! From this point of view, the parallel bus graphic upgrade doesn`t sound so good or does it ?!? Anyway, it is a good project !! greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

Just a small reminder: - atari 400: no parallel bus ! - atari 800: no parallel bus ! - atari 1200XL: no parallel bus! - atari 1400XL: not sure ?!? (probably no parallel bus!) - atari 1450XLD: not sure !?! (the built-in floppy uses the parallel bus!) - atari 65XE : some with & some without ECI port (of course no XL parallel bus !) - atari 130XE: has cart. port and ECI port ! (which can be used as an XL parallel bus) - atari 800XE: some with & some without ECI (no XL parallel bus!) - atari XEGS: no parallel bus... whereas: - atari 600XL: has parallel bus ! - atari 800XL: has parallel bus ! From this point of view, the parallel bus graphic upgrade doesn`t sound so good or does it ?!? Anyway, it is a good project !! greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

Hmmm, think i have heard about this GTIA and Antic upgrade years before. Someone told me it was written by Chuck Steinman (the same guy, that wrote an article about the Pokey/Gumby upgrade for stereo sound) and appeared in Atari Classics. Alas, I don`t have any AC magazines, so I could never read that article and I have not found it online yet. But, like the Pokey upgrade this Antic/GTIA upgrade should have been done internally - inside the machine, not via the parallel bus. remember: only the 600XL and 800XL machines do have them. The XE (alas not all XE`s, only some of them!) do have the Cart.port+ECI port which almost does the same job as the XL parallel bus. But this means, one would have to develop two different upgrades: one for XL type computers and one for XE type computers. and there would still be some Atarians left alone (those who merely have 400/880 computers and those who merely have Xe`s without ECI port)... So, why not thinking about an internal upgrade ?!? Maybe one can piggy-back the additional ANTIC and GTIA chips right on the already existing ANTIC and GTIA chips and then do some wiring inside the computer... Personally, I think this is a great project. But it should be possible to "do-it-yourself". If one can only BUY your upgrade, then it will not have much chance... So maybe you can a) sell the upgrade on a pcb and b) also give details, plans and schematics (as well as programming hints and tips), so anyone can do it alone/at home... Ok, just some thoughts. Hopefully, they were not too negative. Besides, I am still interested in that article (maybe from Chuck Steinman, maybe appeared in AC...) that explains on how to install a second Antic and GTIA into your Atari computer... greetings from ABBUC, Andreas Magenheimer.

For me: - AR The City, AR The dungeon (req. a lot of time!) - Capture the Flag (Sirius; just 8k, nice+fast; 2 players?) - Amauroute (but an awful game!) - Henry`s House (gets very hard!) - Herbert (from german "AMC-Verlag" company) - Space Harrier (hope it gets finished!) - Andreas Magenheimer.

Well, Q-Bert, Pogo-Joe, Xagon, QB, Kazoo, Avalanche, Mr. Cool, to name just a few... Andreas Magenheimer.

Hmmm, so let`s vote for the worst game (and conversion): Frenesis !! other bad + buggy conversions by mastertronic: - colony (when you order new items, and they arrive, the screen gets filled with garbage...) - universal hero: no music, uses the keyboard a lot (instead of diferent joystick directions with+out button), the tape version has the codeword-bug: it does not accept the given codeword (you merely can correct this on disk) - rockford: an average conversion, but the tape includes a bug: level 9 (if I remember correct) could not be solved (there were not enough diamonds to collect...) - one man and his droid: awful and boring game (but with a few similarities to Lemmings, i.e. you can give 3 different commands to your droid while trying him to get the lemmings/nasties out of the level...); but almost no changes from one level to another... - amauroute: great graphics, nice sounds; anyone ever finished it ?!? Is it possible to finish it ?!? (25 levels and no save feature nor a level password, etc. etc.) - there are many more buggy or average mastertronic games (I remember two more games with bugs, but I don`t know their names right now...) Andreas Magenheimer

Lightgun games for the A8?!? Well, read the A8FAQ by Michael Current. Somewhere you will find a section: "What Lightgun games are there..." which counts most (if not all) available A8 Lightgun games. Sorry, since I do not own a 48k Atari, I did not list which games will run on Ataris that are smaller than 64kbytes... greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

Well, why not include some graphic viewers and/or sound players as well ?!? One of the programs like: Mega-Graph-View 1.2, Mega-Graph-View 1.3, The Projector, etc. (these are all graphic viewers for various gr. formats) or Mega-Player 1.6, Music-Player 2.1, Smart-Player (these are all sound players) or finally Mega-Player 2.0 (a gfx+msx+fnt+txt player/viewer by MacGyver). Of course you should not include all of these programs, but one or two of these would be nice, so whenever you encounter a sound or a graphic (or a text/font) you would be able to display it with one of these tools... greetings, Andreas magenheimer. P.S.: If you do not know / do not have these tools, I can send you copies of them (with small english instructions)... Just e-mail me at [email protected]