Foebane

Unfortunately, I can't read Polish so I don't know where to look, and the site has changed since I last found them. Can anyone tell me where I can find them or where I should link to them?

No-one answered my question above.

I had a 1020 Plotter back in the day, which was rather fun to use, but I really wanted to be able to print out pictures, although there was a program in Atari User that was supposedly able to print out such things, but I never got it to work. Ultimately, I used it for text and so forth, but it seems that printing in small font sizes shortened the lifespan of the plotter and it eventually got damaged and wore out. I remember my mother, ever since, complaining about "damaging printers" every time I printed in small font sizes.

I collected a few A8-related articles from different issues of Retro Gamer, namely these: Atari 8-bit - 35 Years Young The History of Boulder Dash Hybrid Heaven? An Atari XEGS Retrospective Are these articles in The Atari Book?

Thanks for the heads-up, Mark Wright. As it is, I already have the first two Retro Gamer Collector's Hardware books, and I think they have the main A8 articles mentioned above, so I don't need them again. Yes, Retro Gamer criminally misunderstands and underappreciates the A8, but then many people in the 1980s did, being besotted with their Speccys and C64s and Amstrads and even BBC Micros instead, but at least the Amiga had much more widespread appeal, acclaim and it was really Jay Miner's pet project, and an innovative and revolutionary piece of hardware in itself, and I'm glad to have gotten that Amiga book, now that it seems to be sold out on the Imagine website.

Thanks for the input, I might get it but not for several months yet. The thing is, I was hoping to get a good all-round book on the finest 8-bit computer ever devised, the 400/800/XL/XE series, and their creator, Jay Miner, but I think that series was wayyy underrated and will not really be remembered. So instead, I got The Amiga Book, as that machine has gone down in history as the finest 16-bit computer ever devised, bar none. And WILL be remembered.

This, I mean: https://www.imagineshop.co.uk/the-atari-book.html If so, are there a lot of articles on the 400/800/XL/XE platforms? Hopefully those that have already been featured in Retro Gamer? And if so, what are they? The description given is rather lacking IMHO.

So I've got two sets of MP3 recordings from 24 A8 games, with two different emulators with two different sound qualities used. Whilst I think that the Atari800Win 4.0 PLus files lack accuracy with the default settings, I don't like some harmonic distortions introduced in the Altirra emulator. Anyone think I should keep both?

Oh, don't bother with Wikipedia - every page I've edited has long since been reverted or rescinded ever since, there's always some dick who thinks he's the authority on the subject, and unfortunately they have more clout than us.

You think the C64 is a pile of shit? I think I agree.

Up'n'Down? I remember that game, probably the first A8 game I ever played. Liked the sprite for the car, but the graphics were all flickery, it was hard to control and as for that repetitive music... I've seen better stuff since.

I prefer Pole Position's road animations to Elektraglide's, even if in both the red/white stripes are actually moving much, much faster than the track bends.

1. I guess I was rather harsh on the C64, but I still maintain that it has that "acquired taste" look and sound with the dreadful colour palette, which isn't even constant (I've heard the technical reasons). 2. I grew up with the A8, so of course I'll prefer it, although the C64 did give birth to the Demoscene, which I've followed and enjoyed ever since.

Ah yes, the 8.3 filename, so beloved of MS-DOS and Atari DOS. Am I to understand that Atari DOS came up with the 8.3 filename format first, and then MS-DOS ripped them off? Crying shame on you, Microsoft!

Those charts are ridiculous when they cover the IBM PC as well - everyone knows the IBM PC is the most prolific computer of all time! Here's an idea: OMIT the PC sales and see how the also-rans fare then.

It was simply great aggressive marketing by Commodore that put the C64 where it was. Frankly, I find the C64 specification rather pathetic, with a backward step in graphics and a soundchip that only an Ultravox fan could like. ATARI FTW!

I highly recommend Whirlinurd as well - so full of humour, classy, technically brilliant and addictive!

I don't know which particular type of 1010 I had. When the buttons snapped, I ended up having to remove the brown plate at the front so I could access the levers that the plastic buttons pushed against, and I remember even making a replacement cardboard front, cutting holes, and using square Lego pieces as buttons! During that time, at one point I had a tape playing and I pushed in the large push-spring lever on the circuit board that the Record button used to push against, and I realised I'd recorded over that part of the tape! Because the "write-protect" mechanism was bypassed, you see. And lastly, one of my 1010's (actually, I think one of them was a friend's) died when I took it's power lead to plug it in and I inadvertantly stuck the plug into a couple of SIO pins and fried the circuit board. Oops! What wonderful memories!

That was the data cassette recorder styled after the XL line, and BOY was it a pile of crap! I had two, one after the other, and they both failed because the fact the buttons snapped so easily due to the stupid way it was designed - if you've ever taken one apart, you'll know what I mean. I just wish I'd gotten the later, flatter design that I'm sure lasted longer.

I hope that doesn't mean there's vast improvements in the audio subsystem, as it means another re-recording session!

I think I'm using 2.40, the first entry on the VirtualDub site that is your sig, and I reset both the Atari and restarted the emulator. It could've been an earlier version of Yoomp! I used, which was the one on the Top 50 of the Atarimania site.

One thing: On Yoomp!, the game didn't register the stereo version when stereo sound was selected in Altirra - maybe a bug to fix in the emulator?

I needed to have actual in-game SFX as well as music, and I wanted my own gameplay recordings. As it was, I was quite chuffed that I won "Alley Cat" on Kitten and got the girl cat! The sound effects in that game are phenomenal. On the negative side, I did hear a fair bit of distortion in the Altirra audio, which didn't go away when I turned down the volume.

I've spent all afternoon trying out Altirra, and it really was like going back in time! It feels like a genuine A8 as it has all that stuff that appears on the overscan, which I'd forgotten about and which Atari800Win didn't show - despite it spoiling the presentation of various games, mind. I assume there's an option to turn it off? I tried about 25 games on there and they all played flawlessly - except for Mr. Do!, but that was only because the image file was dud; I tried another image of the game and it played fine. What impresses me about this emulator is that this guy wrote the entire emulator from scratch, using "Mapping the Atari" and various reference manuals, or so I hear. But the sound in this instance is what I was after, and the games sound just as I remember it, with the meaty explosion when the jetpack man dies in Dropzone to the slight distortion in the music in Ninja. If I ever collect a bunch of A8 games on my PC, this is what I'll play them on!

Agreed. I'm abandoning Atari800Win as of now.