CharlieChaplin

Oh, there were two keyrings and an Apple inside? Yes, the Apple packaging has seen better days... it did not fit the size of the computer at all. But since when is Abbuc sending Apple computers? When I entered the club, I did not get an Apple computer as a welcome gift.

Certain things could trigger the music playing - like they did in Pitfall II or Snokie? Nooooooooo! I prefer music in the titlescreen or on the startpage, but only sfx in the game. If there is music in the game it should either be so calm that you do not notice it (like e.g. in Star Vagrant) or there should be an option to switch music off (and therefore switch on sfx).

Hmmm, tmp's new avatar looks like some PBI device. PBI2SD or PBI2CF ? So one can load ATR images without U1MB and without SDX from the PBI ? If so, expect questions like - does it include XRAM, does it include Covox, does it include 65816, does it include UAV, does it include xyz ??? Whatever it is, tmp, please let us know in a new topic! Regarding cart. holders, I am currently using large 5,25" disk / CD boxes for them, but they are very large and heavy, so I decided to buy wooden boxes from IKEA instead: Moppe with 6 drawers. One drawer has enough space for 14 (2x7) A8 carts, so all six drawers have space for 6*14=84 carts. The only problem with these drawers is their height, meaning once inside, you cannot see the front labels (covers) of the A8 carts any longer unless you take them out. So you may require end labels (top labels) on the carts, so you know what's on them without having to take them out of the drawer. The 3D printed cart. holders look great and I will surely test print one of them (errrm, ask my friend if he will do it for me, since I do not have a 3D printer). But if you have a large collection of approx. 300 A8 carts you need quite many of them. That's why I bought the wooden IKEA boxes (for my whole cart. collection). Think I will only put my mostly used carts (AVG, Ultimate, etc.) into the 3D printed cart. holder.

Where is Heidi ? And Peter the goatherd? Here in mainland Europe the japanese anime television series is extremely well-known, but according to Wikipedia this is not the case in the UK and in the USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi,_Girl_of_the_Alps

Also true, but the actual PDF from March lists 0 (zero) Sys-Check 2.2 XL/XE and also 0 (zero) Sys-Check XL/XE BBU in stock - so they are not available atm. That's why I mentioned the separate Sys-Check XL and Sys-Check XE versions. But maybe all Sys-Check versions will be available again in a few weeks... @tf_hh will surely let us know.

"Nightmares" tape version by Red Rat and later by Byte Back also used both sides.

Well, there were some commercial programs on tape that used both sides, e.g. - Phantom by Tynesoft - Winter Olympics by Tynesoft - Winter Olympiad 1988 by Tynesoft (two tapes, each used both sides) - Gauntlet by US-Gold and later by Kixx (also Gauntlet Deeper Dungeons by US-Gold and Kixx, but these were only new levels) - Basil tgmd by Gremlin and several others.

Yes, you can order a Syscheck V2.2XL or V2.2XE from tf_hh which will give you 512k XRAM, four different OS and a nice (RAM) system checker... tf_hh Hardware He also has internal RAM upgrades (512KB SRAM memory expansion for XL/XE/XEGS and 576KB SRAM memory expansion for 600XL) available.

Afaik, the Atari DOS versions DOS 3, DOS 4 and DOS XE are only compatible with themselves (also OS/A+ V4.x) - I would avoid using them. If you require a DOS with a very low memlo, DOS2XL (not to be confused with DOS XL!) has a memlo of $0794 - but it uses RAM under the OS and will therefore only work with computers with a min. of 64k RAM. DOS2XL is also limited to 90k and 130k formats and I do not remember if it supports a ramdisk (I think it does not, it is compatible with the DOS 2.x format however). There is also LiteDOS 2.x and 3.x by Mr. Atari. The standard versions have a memlo of $1000 and do not use RAM under the OS. There also exist some special versions named LiteDOS-XS and LiteDOS-RO that have an even lower memlo. The standard LiteDOS does support a ramdisk (via external ramdisk-driver). Last not least, there are some 3-sector (bootsector) "DOS" versions like uDOS (memlo $0937), XBootDOS (memlo $0980) and others. They do have lots of restrictions and limitations, but if you only want to load a BAS or ML file, they are good enough for this purpose. They do not support a ramdisk (or XRAM) and saving is restricted to overwrite already existing files, etc. The disadvantage of all these small-memlo DOS versions and files running with/under them is the fact, that those files will most likely not run under DOS 2.0/2.5, MyDOS, SpartaDOS, SDX, et. al. and/or harddisks, ultraspeed devices, etc. anymore (and this will most-likely upset some Atarians). DOS2XL.zip UDOS.zip

Well, I have several hundred A8 disks, all DSDD - most of them are still good allthough they are 30+ years old. Error 173 in most cases means that the disks are bad / damaged. When I format a disk and receive Error 173, I give it a second try, if it still gives Error 173, I know that the disk is bad and I can throw it away. So I guess you simply have bad luck and all your 9 disks are bad. Try to get some DSDD disks that are known to be working (e.g. from a nice AA member here) and try to read/write/format them with your drive. You may also look at the disks surface and try to see if there is some kind of mold or fungus on them (due to age/chemical processes or due to humidity). (Another reason could be that some of your disks are HD or had been formatted on a HD drive - but I do not think that's the case here and you wrote above that the disks are DSDD.)

Alternatively you can order a Syscheck V2.2XL or V2.2XE from tf_hh which will give you 512k XRAM, four different OS and a nice (RAM) system checker... tf_hh Hardware He also has internal RAM upgrades (512KB SRAM memory expansion for XL/XE/XEGS and 576KB SRAM memory expansion for 600XL) available.

Afaik, the XE carts with a nose on the back were originally made in Hong Kong, the other XE carts with Atari Fuji on the back were made in Taiwan. (Later Atari used whatever cover sticker they had available, so even when your sticker says Hong Kong, it could still be a Taiwan cart and vice-versa.)

There is a key on the Atari keyboard which says "Break"... Last year I copied several tapes to diskette, using various C-Simulators and software freezers. One of these freezers (named The Reset Machine) installs a copy-program into a chosen (unused) RAM location and when hitting the Break key, it freezes the whole 64k memory and a bootloader onto diskette. For most programs it does not matter, when you hit the Break key (in the titlescreen or during a game) and as always, some programs do not react at all and cannot be freezed that way. And there are a few English Software (e.g. Colossus Chess 3) and Novagen (e.g. Mercenary) programs, where some timing is required - one has to hit the Break key as soon as the counting loader reaches 000 -and- before the program switches to the titlescreen. Therefore one has to be fast (reaction time maybe half a second) and well, it happened to me last year that I hit the Break key very fast, but also very hard and thus I breaked (broke!) the Break key... The white plastic spring broke into two pieces, the lower part of the key was still sitting in the keyboard, while the upper part was completely loose. A few days later I also removed the lower part from the keyboard, so now this 800XL keyboard is completely missing a Break key. In short: Morning has broken, errm no, my Break key has (is) broken.

Maybe a better topic title would have been: "Looking for a forum post comparing Atari pencils with C64 pencils" or something like that... Found one topic e.g. here: That pencil topic also includes a link (post #4) to the "famous" C64 vs. A8 thread (464 funny pages to read).

pm sent to avoid the usual C64 vs. A8 war...

There are a few Atarians that do own a 1400XL and/or a 1450XLD. Since I can only dream of such a system, the best I had come up with was an official Atari catalog about the "Next generation Atari Home Computers", featuring the 600XL, 800XL, 1400XL, 1450XLD and the XL peripherals. Even that catalog sells for a high price at ebay nowadays (and I gave it away for free approx. 20 years ago, sigh). https://archive.org/details/AtariCatalog.1984USA/mode/2up Also very nice is this Atari brochure featuring the 1450XL, the 1090 and the Mindlink system: http://atariprojects.org/2020/09/06/explore-atari-computer-sales-brochures-and-catalogs-10-15-mins/ Besides, in the Dynamikum in Pirmasens/Germany they had a simple+working Mindlink system, named Mindball, where both players had to move a metallic sphere with their thoughts/brain onto the side of the other player to gain a point: I visited this "museum" (which is not really a museum, since you are very actively trying, testing and using the stuff shown there) several times and also played their Mindball successfully. Maybe someone could create a large poster of a) a 1400XL and b) a 1450XLD that we can hang on the wall? And two posters of the 1600XL variants (concepts 1 and 2) that were never built, please...

Not sure if the @moderators are reading here, but I think this topic is running into a certain direction... (a one-way street with a dead end). Or to quote some moderators, I have the feeling "this topic has run" (or lost) "its course".

Hmmm, file status? Something like: normal file file locked file deleted file not closed <filename.ext> file occupies sectors beyond 720 (Atari DOS 2.5 and compatibles in 130k format) file beyond sector 720 and locked file beyond sector 720 and deleted file beyond sector 720 and not closed file uses both sides of a disk (e.g. on a 360k disk) not a file, just a DIR comment (usually with a length of 000 sectors) sub-directory (MyDOS, SpartaDOS, etc.) ... Maybe a XIO 13 (status request) can help here ?

Really 1995 (when they sold the Atari Jaguar) ?

Nope, just the opposite, these magazines are only available in english! Written by Germans, Aussies and others that speak broken-english

Well, derail #17 (or whatever, I cannot count). I liked this episode of the Simpsons - the no-Homer's club... "Sorry, no Homer's."

Henry's House, has very good gfx, but for me it is much too hard (played with cheat "CPM" and still could not solve the last level) Cavernia, again good gfx, but hard and quite unfair (e.g. you must jump on the moving platforms, but these do not move you) Elektraglide, very good gfx, but I always get killed by the circles/spheres and other fast moving obstacles, no fun to play that game Amaurote, Amaurote+ and Amaurote 128, good gfx, very hard, very repetitive and boring (for me); if I play with normal lives and energy, I get killed within a few seconds; playing with collision-detecion switched off, makes the game very easy, but then it is very boring killing the Alien Queen again and again and again (and the 25 levels do not look that different to me)... Dropzone, or the name I give it "die-a-lot", I rarely finish level 1 and die dozens of times in that game; an alternative name could be "die-as-fast-as-you-can"; the volcano spits out small pixels that do not hurt you, the enemies also spit out small shots/pixels, that will kill you when you touch them; and of course my reflexes (for this and other A8 games) are much too slow nowadays... Animal Party: a very funny game with very good gfx, alas, my reflexes are much too slow nowadays Well, I could continue that list, but instead I wrote two articles for issue 15 of Proc Atari Magazin, one of them is named "Top of the Flops" and mentions more than 100 awful, boring, crap, etc. A8 games, the other article is named "Die hard - and die often" and mentions dozens of A8 games that are good, but much too hard, require pixel-perfection, require very good+fast reflexes, etc. However, I am not sure if/when PAM 15 will get released and IF it will include these two evil+subjective articles from me.

Well, I am also not a fan of doing things manually this way - copy the whole disk, delete all files and put your own files onto it -or- copy the first five sectors onto another freshly formatted disk and then adjust the VTOC manually. Does there exist a kind of creator/initializer for this menu? One that writes the bootloader onto the disk and adjusts the VTOC automatically or even better, one that formats a disk (e.g. 90k, 130k 180k) and then writes the bootloader and adjusts the VTOC?

LiteDOS memlo: $1000 = too high! Ape loader: Afaik, requires a PC or is there a version for 5,25" A8 floppy disks? Wasn't XBIOS memlo $0800 and one would have to change it for a lower memlo?

5x Atari 800XL, 1x stock 64k RAM, 4x with 576k RAM. Therefore voted for 576k RAM. Afaik, the Ultimate cart. has 1MB RAM (and I have two of them), does that also count? And how much RAM is inside an AVG cart. - 1MB or more? (Have two of them) Besides my mini-Speedy 1050 offers 16k programable RAM (I have four of them), the mini-Super Speedy 1050 approx. 256k programable RAM (have two of them) and the Sys-Check 512k RAM (have one).