starraider

It comes a bit late, but PlatterMania from Epyx uses paddles too...

Games were often released both on disk and tape. Sometimes the tape had less features than the diskversion, e.g. I believe that Zorro had fewer rooms on tape. Does anybody know other games with different versions on tape?

What kind of diskdrive is that? The plug looks like a standard atari serial plug, but I have never seen a diskdrive like that for the atari 8-bit. http://cgi.ebay.de/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt...4&category=8093

Yea, that would be fun Mr barcardi has a mp3-file on his homepage for the game speedrun. http://people.freenet.de/mrbacardi/ (in the red rat software-section)

I have tried several loads and saves. It seems to work fine! Well done I haven't tried the higher rifts yet though.

You mean SEUK. It never appeared on the Atari unfortunately.

I bought an appropriate PSU and the 410 works still fine after 25 years! Thanks for the help

Yea, I definately will do that. I just hope, I won't destroy the Unit, bc of a wrong polarity. I have now all of the Recorders (410, 1010, XC11, XC12) for the Atari. It's fun to see the different designs alltogether

That's interesting. Mine is made in Japan though. According to the pic, the head has to be + ? Have you found an appropriate power adapter?

That's right! As you can see there is a power connector for a 6V DC input.

I have recently bought an Atari 410 Program Recorder, but without any power adaptor. I assume that it needs 6V DC with 300mA, is that correct? I wonder about the polarity of the plug. Does the head of the plug have to be + or - ? Could the 410 be destroyed, if I accidently choose the wrong polarity?

Well, it might be that the sid is better than the pokey or it might be not... But I don't think we have anything to complain about. The pokey makes great music and sound fx. I always have that arcade feeling when I am playing games on the atari, especially when the Atari is plugged into a big TV with the volume turned up In this discussion there is only one thing to say: Have you played Atari today?

Definately finish Elite first. I assume, you have done already some significant work there, so it might be the fastest one to finish... + Elite is THE game of the eighties... I would highly recommend to concentrate on one project only, before starting the next one, it's much more efficient A lot of ppl seem to prefer AR, but hey..we have that already on disk. I would rather see something that hasn't been on the Atari before first, that would be much more exciting...

If a game was being converted from the Atari to the Commodore, the Atari-Version was looking better and vice versa... Later in the Eighties most Atari-Versions looked rather ugly, bc they were cheap and fast conversions of Commodore-Games, almost never showing the potential of the Atari. A bad example is "The Pawn" from Magnetic Scrolls. On the C64 it used multicolored Graphics and everybody was enthusiastic about this version and hailed the C64. On the Atari it was dull 4-Color Graphics, like they never heard of things like the Display List... Positive Examples are the Lucasfilm games, which all look, sound and feel better on the Ataris or Alternative Reality, International Karate, Dropzone, etc.

OK, but the AtariDOS is much more userfriendly and I like the menu-driven appearance of it...

Graphics: - Atari: more overall Colors, very flexible - C64: more colorful Sprites Sound: It is being said that the C64 has the better overall soundqualities. I, personally, like the pokey sound better (especially the sound fx), maybe just bc they sound more familiar to me.... Usefulness: - Well, how do you use a vintage 8-Bit Computer today? For me it's a nice and beautiful hobby. But I guess if you compare the usefulness in 1980's standards, they are both equal.

I wonder how the loading and saving of a game works? I have tried the switchable XEGS-ROM in the Emulator, but it crashes everytime I try to load a game. I also don't really know if it saves a game at all. I have put a blank 90k-Image into Drive 1 and I couldn't see any disk activity.

I have experienced problems especially with Parker Bros. carts on the Atari 130xe. They just won't work if I put them totally in. I have to move them a bit backwards to make them work. That's really awkyard sometimes...

Ok, I have done another one

I have just made some custom "XE-Style"-labels for the games Deflektor, Tower Toppler and Super Pac-Man. If anybody likes to use them for his own cartridges, he can feel free to do so (of course, only for non-commercial use). I have done another label for Commando, which can be found here: http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35872 Have fun

I have done my own label as well...I used the titlescreen, bc I think it looks really cool (even with the pink wall in the background ) Feel free to use this label for any (non-commercial) purpose...

Those are some good ideas, thanks! The Poke 842-method worked fine, by the way...Thanks to Nukey and Heaven!...I am able to load different programmodules into memory now, the loading speed is ok as I try to keep the modules compact.... I might use a combination of the several techniques....I will have to see which one suits me best.... You might be right about the adventures, I was always faszinated about how accurate the parser of those games have usually been....

First of all, thanks for the many replies! This is my first coding experience on the Atari since about 10 years, but it's fun Since then, I have only coded in Java, so now the 34k of free ram seem much less to me than they did back then....I really thought that I could code the complete game in about 16k, but now I see that I might have only implemented about 10% of the complete game and over 10k are already gone....I can forsee that I won't be able to implement all the features I had in mind, just bc of the lack of RAM and thats really a pity.... and I am talking solely about functionality, no graphics or sound-fx are coded yet at all! Additionally, I will need some really BIG datafields, as huge amounts of data are being used and collected during the game.... If anyone is interested, it will be a managergame where you start as a garagecompany, back in the 70s, to manufacture your first computer You will be able to buy all the cpus of that time, starting with the very first Intel 4004 until the Pentiums of today..... So you ever dreamed of building a computer with the Antic and the Sid-Soundchip? Here you go, see how well it will do on the market Or if you think all those chips won't satisfy your needs, invest in your own r&d-team to develop the best cpu of all time..... If you're low of cash, go to the bank, get some funds, but beware! you have to pay back every single cent some day! etc, etc..... So I hope it will be fun to play with some accurate data, like the original launching dates of the Cpus, and some economic background (as I have studied business administration, it should be of some use at last ) So mainly it will be text-based only at this early stage, I do not plan any fancy graphics or sound-fx, despite maybe a titlescreen and titletune.... So now back to the topic..... Yeah, I am afraid too, that it might not work with the compiler, but since speed isn't crucial (not yet at least), it would be ok to not compile it at all....I plan to release the sourcecode to the public anyway (if anyone is interested), so that wouldn't be much of a problem.....of course, it just doesn't look as "professional" as a compiled program, oh well... I just wonder how did the gamecompanies do it? I can't believe that, e.g., complex text-based adventures, like "The Pawn" from Magnetic Scrolls were entirely programmed in assembly language.....those games load constantly from disk....or do they just load contents into variables?

I am coding a strategy game in Turbo Basic (that I will compile later using the Turbo Basic Compiler), but it seems that memory is getting already low.... So I thought about making the game modular, loading only parts of the code into memory..... My first Idea was to just replace programlines "on the fly" with the "Enter"-Command. But whenever programcode is being loaded with "Enter", the game returns afterwards to Basic, showing the "Ready"-sign..... So, how can I make the game continuing, after an "Enter"-command? Is there any other method to make a program modular in Turbo Basic (without having to reload the main program and its variables over and over again)?

Damn, how I loved these chicks! I was using my A1200 till the Mid-90's, where everybody else was already using their crappy windows 95.... I had my Amiga spiced up with a 68030 with 50Mhz and a harddisk Jay Miner, the creator of the Antic and the Amiga Customchips, was a real Mastermind! I would say he created a significant part of my youth as well