Velcro_SP

This project looks great. Its connection to Atari is not tenuous at all, it's deep. That's okay that there is just the Windows version now. I hope like the website says, you are able to release Linux and Mac versions at some point. I just purchased an Android-based netbook, so maybe the Linux version will make its way to Android. I also applaud your philosophy to make your incremental improvements available to the public, even though you're not as far along by this time as you planned.

Valid points, Gunstar. I played AR City on my Atari 800, and then a few years later played AR Dungeon on my Atari 65XE. City had magic, by that I guess I mean that "wow" quality of a computer game that successfully takes you into its world. In Dungeon I was able to do more. I'd say Dungeon retained about 75% of City's magic. Dungeon was less frustrating, no doubt. Technically it was refined and the difficulty level was lower. I am one of those who has focused on Phillip Price's City, but I have to give Dungeon and its Datasoft programmers who continued Price's work their due. The later programmers did not screw things up, and they deserve much credit for that, because oh yes lesser programmers would have screwed things up.

You could possibly seek permission of the copyright holder. Perhaps that is still Atari but I don't know. They might go along with it, or ask you to limit the run to a certain quantity, or... I met some of the Atari personnel in about 2006 at a retrogaming convention. They seemed very cool and friendly.

I wanted to chime in to say that this project is amazing and unprecedented. I support the zooming of the gfx if that was needed to get the best result. And I hope you put a version on cartridge that will play in a 48k or 64k (like mine) Atari 400 or 800. Unbelievable what is being done lately. Keep going!

Wow, just checked out the picture of it at atarimuseum.com, very cool and looks like a fat 810 disk drive. And sounds like a washing machine, says the article. I have an 825 printer. It's the model that sounds like a machine gun, I suppose. I don't think I can do the WD-40 trick with its ribbon (yet...?) Anyone know if I can get a non-dried-out ribbon for it somewhere? Played Seven Cities of Gold for a bit last night.

Those are both very cool, but I must say the first one looks magnificent and amazing. All that could possibly be done to improve it is to somehow overwrite the "XM 301" with "SIO2PC" but because that's molded plastic, I dunno how it could possibly be done. Those blue LCDs/LEDs look so great but aren't they going to burden the power system? They are awfully bright. But man that is something else and a great use of the XM301 which is one of the few peripherals that isn't of much use for the retro scene.

Great to see that page. Rooting for all you brilliant coders to come up with something that makes it easy to put my 800 on the Internet!

I watched these videos, and thought they were very cool. It is obvious how much effort must have gone into creating those. I am really grateful Big Mo that you tidied them up and reworked them so we could all appreciate them in video format.

Unparalleled manufacture and materials are the 800. IMHO the XLs and XEs did not rival it in those criteria, though they had more memory and the later chipsets. Nor was the 400 as good, even when you changed out the membrane keyboard. Your 800 may well be operational 20 years from now.

At digitpress.com, I read an interview of Jim Huether, who authored the Atari 2600 titles Steeplechase, Flag Capture, Sky Diver, and also did 5200 and 8bit work. He said that he completed for the 8bit, way early on, an animation-creating program and a cartoon-creating program. I did a cursory check at atarimania.com and did not find them. Anyone have any idea whether they might still exist? Here's the relevant part of the interview:

I have an Atari 800 w. 64k (do not know the configuration of that last 16k of memory). Is there a Last Word version that will support any non-XL/XE 8-bits at all?

Yah, the cable I am using actually has four RCA plugs as well. The colors didn't match the color coding on the back of the 1702, but it was light work to plug them in and check to see what functioned where. Perhaps the extra plug is straight video. That would allow the cable to function on various Commodore Amiga monitors, as well as a vast range of TV sets, however I think w. less fidelity than split chroma and luma. You definitely a floppy drive IMO, although cartridge-based games can keep you entertained in the meantime. The 1050 is a late model Atari floppy drive that does higher capacity floppies, but there are a range of good floppy drive choices out there, at eBay or eCrater, or at one of the remaining dealers (check out the FAQ).

Well! Congratulations on winning a great computer. The Atari 800 has an RF cable coming out the back, and that is okay for running to a old-TV-game-type switchbox on an old TV. However since you have the 1702 (and I suppose the 1701 is similar) you can get better image quality. The cable that you need connects to the round port that is forward on the right side of the Atari 800 (which by the way is different from the 800XL, I guess you know this). This cable has 5 bins in a crescent formation that goes towards the bottom. It extends on the other side to three (well, mine has four, dunno what's up there) RCA-type connectors. Those are chroma, luma, and audio. On the back of your 1702 you will find RCA plugs to attach them to. Here is a picture of such a cable I found on the Internet: I may have an extra here somewhere that I will sell you inexpensively if you can't find one somewhere.

that guy can really play

I just set up my Atari 800 system after having boxed it for a move and some months after that. I don't plan on moving again real soon and now that I have it set up I should be able to work on my BASIC software some, and try to get Fuji Chat going, and... and... Anyhow it occurred to me as I looked at the great picture on this C= 1702 that I found at a Goodwill store that the 1702 must be the best monitor ever for the Atari 8bit. And this is a bit ironic because Commodore was of course the great nemesis of the Atari 8bit. Is this the accepted view, that the 1702 is the best? If not, what is the best?

Looks great, Kaz. That speed should help play value a lot. It really moves along. If the knight could move just a little more smoothly, it would be even better. And if it could have just a little more colors, anywhere, it would be even better. I remember blowing so many quarters on Ghosts and Goblins in the arcade machine at the gas station down the road from our old house.

Yours looks a bit like mine. Of course this kind of look is not original since Wizardry I guess. Screenshot below. Anybody curious can download the program here: http://members.cavtel.net/daclmi/basic02.html I got okay speed on mine by a weird drawing and erasing of the walls, done line by line. It doesn't go to disk at all. Yet I couldn't compile it with ABC compiler because of a weird way I do the GOTOs (although it made okay sense to me). I'm happy with the way the walls look but I need to move that into data statements. I'm real happy with the controls. It's not playable at all but you can move through four rooms. I don't really know enough to give you advice, but keep trying!

Oops, never mind!

I'm not aware of any games like that. I guess such games would have to have been specifically programmed for the particular third-party controller with the second button. The 7800 controllers were terrible. Two buttons, one on each side, that do the same thing. A disc-like thing on the joystick that spins, but isn't a paddle controller, it doesn't do anything but spin. It's almost as if the engineering concept for the controller started out as "two independent buttons and a paddle controller disc at top of the joystick" but was changed along the way by some "oops, can't do thats" and "nope, would cost too muchs." I also never much cared for Intellivision or Nintendo NES controllers. IMO the absolute ideal controller would be an Atari 2600-style joystick but with *two* independent buttons, with the second serving wonderfully for arcade functions like hyperspace or smart-bomb, and strategy functions like bringing up a menu.

I liked the one with the 3D pyramid a lot.

Interstel Corp. PO Box 57825 Webster, TX, 77598 (713) 486-4163 The box has some very light wear at the corners of a very minorly abraded appearance that I didn't know could occur through shrinkwrap. But it would seem to be the original shrinkwrap because there is a metallic gloss "Electronic Arts Distribution" sticker *on the shrinkwrap*. I should save this one to open on Christmas or Thanksgiving holidays to spend some time playing it. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. So, just send it to me. I´ll take care of it. Cygnus or Interstel box?

I have this in shrink-wrapped new condition. I picked it up more than a year ago thinking it looked very strategic and interesting, but haven't played it yet. Did not know it was programmed in Action! How much do you think it'd go for on eBay?

Wow, thanks a lot! This is one of the most sought-after Atari 8bit-related documents that never made it to a publicly available downloadable form. I think I was looking for the bytes for this ten years ago (I eventually got an early version of it in hardcopy). Did you do it, Remo? If so you've done a real service to the community and enabled more new Action! software to be authored.

Good idea. Yeah, it should be possible to launch a binary like Tennis (or Star Raiders, etc.) from the desktop, but is it really feasible to find a way to terminate it (other than flicking the power switch)? It would be okay if that were even possible to just quick-reboot the desktop (warm-start) but to get that speed it'd have to be cart-based.

I would like a GUI desktop where I can launch a binary (like Atari Tennis or BobTerm for example) via icon double-click. I would like then to be able to terminate it, perhaps by escape key or key-combination, and end up back on the desktop without reboot. The icons would be assigned automatically for all files, with simple images perhaps even 8x8 or 16x16 to start appearing automatically, and different based on file-type. One would be able to rename, move, and delete the files via the icons. I guess a drawer paradigm is most practical. The user creates drawers on the desktop and can move files in and out of the drawers by moving the icons. Android OS makes use of a labeling paradigm, however. There might be some advantages to going with that, but I don't know if it applies and I don't quite understand it yet. I encourage you to go as simple as possible each step of the way, and get the memory and other requirements down-down-down, so that the new GUI may even run on a 48k 800 or 400. Good luck!