TheRaven81

that's nice, and I appreciate your suggestion, but: #1: I was asking for book recommendations, not for PC software to do programming with. I don't want to do that. #2: Even if I did want to program things on my PC, I have no way to get those things to my Atari to use them in a real machine and not an emulated one. I don't personally have access to any of the newer hardware/software to do that sort of thing. I can't afford it.

just a random curiosity, is it possible to just simply re-flash the chips that are already in there? like, just erase the existing OS and BASIC chips, and flash OS++ and Basic++ to them? Even though I imagine you wouldn't really want to do this anyway unless you 100% knew what you were doing and could do it without making a mistake. Any sort of mistake would render your machine useless.

I'm the same, pretty much. Even though I'm new to this whole thing, I have been just looking anywhere I can online for A8 stuff. But good deals are hard to find.

I was initially going to start to learn Assembly, to program with my 800XL. But a lot of the books I see on 6502 for Atari have BASIC mixed into them, and also suggest that you know Atari BASIC to be able to follow along with it. More often than not, reading through them, I don't know enough about BASIC to know what they are talking about. So I decided I would take a step back, and try to learn Atari BASIC first. But there are so.....many.....books..... on this subject that I don't know where to start. I'd like to simply start from the beginning, learning as if I knew nothing of BASIC(even though I know little tidbits of it - enough to make small text-based programs, but nothing fancy with graphics or sound). So I am wondering if anyone has any recommendations on what book I should start with to learn Atari BASIC. And then once I learn most or all I can of BASIC, where to go from there to begin to learn 6502 Assembly for the Atari(since, there's almost as many books about this as there are for learning BASIC). EDIT: Just for clarification, I want to be able to use my 800XL for these things. I don't have any access to the new BASICs like Turbo BASIC XL, or FastBasic, or anything like that. For now all I have is the Atari BASIC Rev. B(will soon be C) that's built into my machine. So that's what recommendations should be built upon.

joined. thank you!

I had done a search on it, simply looking for the word "chatroom", but there's nothing that came up that was not near or over 10 years old. Was it not a popular idea? Maybe could start something like a server on Discord, or something IRC based?

it'd probably be a good idea to make a list of those things somewhere that you are willing to donate to people, when you have the chance to.

I would be interested in some sort of case for holding the 5 1/4" floppies, even if it was a small one. I don't have anything holding mine at the moment, besides the sleeves they are in. Even though I only have 10 or 12 at the moment, it'd be nice to have something for holding them.

https://imgur.com/a/Y9BhQBW new pictures, in better lighting. I was able to get the board out finally, so there are some pics detailing more of the board, some were mainly for my own reference. Took the shield off, and it looks like ALL the chips are socketed, which is exciting! Took a look underneath, and I don't see any patch wires to the chroma line, so there's no chroma mod done either. That's also something I'd like to look into probably later down the line, when I actually have a monitor/tv with an SVideo input on it. THAT I definitely AM going to have to learn to solder for though. Oh. A request. Now that I have gotten the top shield off, in the above link there's a pic of all the chips. Would anyone be kind enough to take that picture, and label the chips for me? I looked all over google, and found many pics of the board, but none that were labeled. It would be a big help.

the only screws I see holding it down are the 2 near the top. The upgrade I have planned is a replacement of the BASIC chip, which is under the shield. I'm trying to get it off now, before I have the replacement chip, so that I can see where it is, and how it is seated in there. I'm hoping real hard that it's already socketed. Otherwise I may have to decline the idea of doing it. I have literally zero soldering skills, so it's going to need to be a "pull old chip out, put new chip in" deal, or I can't do it.

I can take it back apart at least to the point where I had it already, and take some photos. They might help with any specifics for my machine. I'll edit this post once I take them. I think mine is similar to yours, the RF shield seems as if it's only on by screws. But those screws go in coming from the bottom of the board and sticking up. So I can't easily unscrew it unless I get the board out and flip it over. EDIT: here are some pics, not really sure how helpful they are atm, might try to take better ones later https://imgur.com/a/Y9BhQBW

The short of it is that I need/want a really detailed guide on the disassembly of an Atari 800XL, so that I can hopefully make a small upgrade to it soon. A video would probably be best, but written is OK too so long as it has pictures to show everything. Even better would be if there was possibly someone from this forum that was local to me(Rochester, NY, USA) and be willing to meet and help me directly(after this whole global virus crisis thing is over with, of course. Plus it'd be nice to make a new friend that was nearby and not just through my screen lol). I got the courage to open it up finally, but I didn't get very far. I got as far as having it opened from removing the 6 bottom screws, flipping it back over, and removing then laying the top half over upside down next to it, still connected. Couldn't figure out how to disconnect the keyboard half without possibly damaging it - the ribbon looked so flimsy. But I needed to get under the RF shield so I didn't think leaving it there would be a problem. But I can't get the shield off without removing the board from the base, and it seems stuck to it. I found 2 screws inside it - one below the DIN for the power, and the other was above the top right corner of the shield. There is supposedly supposed to also be a screw between the controller ports, but I did not see one. I saw a hole for one, but there was no screw in it. So I removed those two that I saw, but it still seemed stuck. Being able to get this up is the only way I am getting the shield off. Because I also saw, that the shield was screwed on from the bottom going up. I'll continue to look to see what else I can find, but hopefully someone will be able to help me, locally or not.

If it's a simple swap to go to BASIC C, then I'd like to talk to you more about this. As for the switchable EPROM, what kind of switch would it be? I don't really feel comfortable doing any modifications to the case.

That stuff is also expensive to obtain. which I kinda understand - stuff like that can't be cheap to produce. But I'm not looking to be a collector either, I just want an authentic experience. And I don't feel like using one of those devices, or using a Multicart, will give me that. I don't currently have the resources to burn one myself. I have looked into this, and would also rather it be a simple job - as simple as taking the old one out and dropping the new one in its place, without needing an adapter board to modify the socket because the EPROM has too many pins or whatever the reason is for that thing.

That can't run the stuff that is on floppy though, and that stuff is even harder to find than carts are.

....and sometimes near impossible to find? I mean, I know none of the "official" stuff is really made anymore and anything new is homebrew software. But still, is it all really that rare that prices are still as if it was brand new, sometimes even more? Even though it's all...what...30-40 years old now? Like, perfect example - I was looking to learn Assembly, so I went looking for the Assembler Editor. I couldn't find it for less than $50 USD. Some of the listings I found for it were ridiculous, priced at $150-200! Is it really worth that much now? Another example. My 800XL has BASIC Rev. B in it, and I'd like to upgrade it to Rev. C. But it's damn near impossible to find a chip to do so. I've read that you could sacrifice a Rev. C Cart for the chip, but those aren't cheap either. Those, even just for the cart, are $35+, and I don't think I'd pay that much for the cart just to dismantle it. I know there are emulators, and I could do this stuff for free on those - I already have Altirra, set up to be the same as the 800XL I have, and use it to demo software/games that I eventually want to try to obtain physical copies of. But damn, this ain't a cheap hobby. At all.

This is actually the next step up for me and my own 800XL, but I'm also wondering if there's any easy way to see if the Chroma line in my unit is attached(preferrably without having to open it up first)? Maybe a PEEK/POKE(i'm not sure which it would be) command? Not even sure if that sort of thing is even known/stored by the Atari in any memory address. I'd like to find out so that I can start using something besides the ugly looking RF output. Was going to buy that same exact cord from 8-BitClassics.com, but there's also a slightly cheaper one, that doesn't have the S-video plug on it. It pains me to say but I don't trust myself to open it up to look, and have it still working when I re-assemble it because i made some mistake from knowing near nothing about what I was doing. It's working now as it is, so I'd like to keep it that way.

Is there any difference between one made in Hong-Kong, and one made in Taiwan? Also, what sort of information do you have/know, that would lead you to make that guess at a date of mid-1984? Possibly just general history(that I could maybe read up on somewhere)? Not trying to doubt you, just generally curious as this is all still relatively new to me.

This one is mine, what kind of info about the machine can I get from this?

Ahh. Thank you.

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, so if it's not then feel free to move it where it would belong. Upon obtaining an Atari "box" with an 800XL and a few other accessories for it, in the box was a Crystal Castles cartridge(just the cart, no box or manual). But it's the 2600 version, which is incompatible, and therefor of no use to me. So I'm wondering if someone would be willing to take it in trade for something for the 800 that I can use or play. Anything would be nice, since I didn't get anything for it software-wise in the box besides a copy of DOS 3.0. As for the condition of the 2600 cartridge, I'd say it was in "Good" condition. It looks like it has some signs of wear on it, but nothing that wouldn't come from general usage of it. I also have to label this an As-is, untested item. I don't have a 2600, so I have no way to see if the cartridge works or not. I'm also not even sure how much it's actually worth, how rare it is, or anything like that.

Well, it is an archive website. So the type-in program might not really have typos made by the archiver, but reflect what was actually printed back then. When I got an issue of Antic with my 800XL, I was curious about what else there was and found that misprints in these type-in programs were not an uncommon occurrence, and sometimes the next issue would have an errata statement on how to fix it. So that might be a place to look. Another thing is that that errata statement could be in 2 different forms, either as a direct note from the Editor, or as a letter from a reader who wrote in about the error they found(and sometimes also how to fix it), or the magazine's reply to that letter will say how to fix it.

I find it strange that there were a few people who entered who already had one(evidence of this was shown in their submitted photo, with an AVGCart in the cartridge slot).

129094

Oh. *facepalm* That makes a lot of sense. Those are the lines the article says to omit when combining the 2 files. I don't know how/why my brain didn't put that together. Thank you. That will be a lot easier.