Larry

This works without an Atari Computer? (OP says he has no Atari hardware, but plans to use an Atari drive.) @ OP -- if the originals were made in DD (as Netzar mentions), then your choices are limited. IF they were made in DD on a Rana, there is a good possibility that no other stock disk drive in the galaxy will read them. They were notoriously bad in DD. Have you considered sending the disks to someone to make the ATR's -- that might be a cheaper solution? -Larry

From your pics... What devices are you using for your nice display setup? S-video upscaler? HDMI upscaler? Or? -Larry

That's difficult to answer. I would give a "big picture" answer like this: Atari Basic is of course the default. Most of the rest are relatively syntax compatible, except MSB and (IIRC) to a lesser degree, ADVAN. (I don't remember a great deal about ADVAN other than I was disappointed after I bought it from Antic.) All of them have incompatibilities because most are supersets of the original. Of the ones I have used, TBXL, BXL/BXE, and Altirra/ATX are pretty compatible. FastBasic (new) is different in that it doesn't use line numbers and has a unique Editor system. I really like TBXL/ATX, Basic XE, Altirra (because it is ROMable) and the ABC Compiler (for its compact, stand-alone code). BXE stands out because of it's string arrays and built-in sort features. I hope that Phaeron ultimately has the time and inclination to add those two features to ATX. I think that ATX could be the "perfect" Basic for the A8. -Larry

The implied decimal place should line up, so the first way that you show is better. But to provide a little "wiggle room," it might also depend on what else (if anything) would be printed on that same line after the score.

Yes about MS Basic, but I don't consider a different "package" another Basic. Same with the A-B-C versions of Atari Basic. "Frost Basic" is the TB for the 800 or upgraded 400. This is a little more clear cut difference, since Frost features were left out from the XL version, and it is tethered to Dos 2.0. Likewise, the CTH version of Frost for Sparta (TB32Q) is functionally the same as the regular Dos 2.0 version, except for the Dos. I think that one time I got that version working with an early, small version of MyDos -- 3.07. But we still have a lot of Basics! I know of no other Micro that comes close. -Larry

Doesn't the 5200 just have 16K or maybe 32K of ram? That seems pretty limiting for development. (?) -Larry

How could I forget Basic A+? The first improved Basic, IIRC. How easily I could forget Microsoft Basic! I forgot about JLS. Wasn't it one of those "Basic Assemblers" (used basic syntax to create an assembler product with macros like BASM)? I remember thinking it was a little unusual when I saw it (many years ago). Veronica Basic is Altirra Basic in Simius cart, isn't it?

Atari Basic Basic XL Basic XE Turbo Basic XL Frost Basic 800 (almost the same features as TBXL) Fast Basic (the 1980's one) Fast Basic (the new one) Altirra Basic (8K) Altirra Extended Basic U-Basic Advan Basic Hypra Basic Compilers ABC TBXL Datasoft Compiler MMG Compiler (essentially the same as Datasoft) Advan Basic Compiler and Optimizer Wow -- a lot of Basics! Any I've forgotten? -Larry

I'm going to mention this because it seems in line with what I think the OP wanted to do. (And to give proper credit, rdea6 also mentioned this option.) Instead of ATR's, one can create a DCM image (Disk Communicator 3). Then that image can be stored on native A8 media and file systems. Then can also be transmitted to a PC in a variety of ways. Using APE, one can mount and use them just like an ATR. Or one can convert them to ATR's using the Imagic tool. The downside is that this method is pretty slow and not quite as "bullet-proof" as using a PC. But of course, the easy solution is to use some SIO2PC device and send the data from the Atari drive directly to an ATR on a PC laptop, etc. I seem to recall that the 1088XEL has built-in SIO2PC hardware? (I don't have one, but thought I remembered that from the the big 1088XEL thread.) -Larry

@FJC In one of his INSIGHT ATARI columns, Bill Wilkinson went through a somewhat similar scenario in his description of Atari Basic immediate syntax checking vs runtime checking in others (like MSB, IIRC). His scenario was that an obscure non-executed line was sent out in a commercial program, and then (somehow) the user executed that line and BINGO. I looked this AM through his Insight columns, but couldn't find the article with about a half-hour of searching, so I gave up. I know it is not quite the same as what you were mentioning, but it is along a similar vein. If anyone has not read Bill's columns, they are still certainly educational and interesting, even though thirty some years have passed. You'll have to look around the web since they do not appear to be at Atarimania, but they are out there.

Understand, but if you are trying to debug a line with an error, it is useful. For instance, if the solution is to split the one into two lines, it is handy to create two identical (error) lines, then edit both lines to eliminate the error. But there are certainly work-arounds if it is a big deal to add it.

I think there is an issue with the way that error lines are handled. If I create a line that has a syntax error in Atari Basic or TBXL, then LIST the program, the lines are shown starting with (lineno) ERROR... In ATX these error lines just disappear.

Wow! Even beats TBXL with Ahl's Benchmark. 36.6 sec vs 41.3 (and 405.3 for Atari Basic Rev C for a default).

Download the users manual/docs for the 1050 Happy and read what it will do from Atarimax.com. It is a PDF link, so you will have to Google "Happy Drive Documentation." Then read what (little) a Doubler will do. It is an easy decision.

Bill Wilkinson always took the position that cpu's like the Z80 were much better suited to compilers than the 6502. Probably a lot of folks here would have a good idea of the technical reasons, but IIRC, Bill said it was related to the registers of the Z80 and lack thereof on the 6502 + the obvious clock speed differences. I know that I was shocked many years ago when I ran Basic XL against MS Basic on my 4.77 MHz PC and Basic XL won (by a small amount). And as we know now, Basic XL is not exactly a speed demon among our Basics. Probably it would not fair to too well today against a 3+ GHz PC! But there we are -- our 8-bit "time in a bottle." -Larry

I've run into this same issue a few times. 95% of the time AlZip (was freeware) works just fine, but every so often, I'll d/l an ARC file that gives me a "corrupted" error message, and I'm usually quite sure that the ARC is not corrupted. So I have to go to Puff's Super UnArc. Very slow, but sure. Thanks, I'll try this Universal Extractor. Edit: See Wikipedia for AlZip history.

Oops! Sorry, didn't see your post. I really don't remember for sure, but I think that I just used a low profile socket. It seems unlikely that I would solder an adapter directly to the mobo. I may have used a shield that had "surgery." I had/have a Hako, so desoldering is not a big issue. It's still around here... somewhere. If I run across it, I'll post a picture. -Larry

Certainly not elegant, but in the spirit of using the AsmEd pretty easily and in a "bullet-proof" manner, I put it into a 27128 along with Basic and used a 2364 to 27XX adapter with a switch so I could boot to whatever I needed. These adapters were sold by Jim Brain at something like Retro Innovations. Pretty sure this is the same thing, but maybe a slightly different pcb than I have: http://store.go4retro.com/2364-adapter/ or http://store.go4retro.com/23xx-adapter/ BTW, that romload is a cool utility. Many, many years ago I tried to make something like that, but never got it to work correctly. It used to be so frustrating to hit reset on a cartridge image and have it crash!

I had a 1040ST, then a (used) Mega ST4. My good computer buddy went to Amiga, and although it had better specs due to the specialized support chips, I really could see very little difference between them from a user perspective. I did like TOS far better than the early versions of Windows. But Windows kept on improving and the ST's countered by going away! I ended up using the ST Gemulator (Darek Michoka) after I finally got rid of all the ST stuff. Now, just 8-bits.

Quite the opposite. I've bought too much stuff along the way. A conclusion that I've come to -- it's a lot easier to buy stuff than to get rid of it later. (I did have a 400 that I got at a K-Mart blow-out, and never once regretted giving it away.) I got it for my then young daughter, and she complained daily about the "keyboard." -Larry

I did contact Wolfgang, and he explained that due to not having a webmaster, the paper supplements have not been available online for awhile. He did point out that the 2015 "Special Issue" was "ABBUC in a Box," (30 Years of ABBUC) and it contained issues up to #124 as PDF's. Indeed it does, but still in German, so translation is still an issue. (Can be done with Google, but a fairly cumbersome process.) Perhaps someone may have an idea on an easier method of translation of the PDF's? edit: I wonder if Atarimania and ABBUC might work out a deal where Atarimania might host the PDF's of older issues? -Larry

Hi Sijmen and Fred_M ! Yes, me too, I'm a member for about 4 years, I think. But I was thinking that I had read that they offered scans after several months, so that the translations could be read by non-German speaking members. (?) (My high school German no longer counts for much!) Think I'll pester Wolfgang! -Larry

A second, related question... Is it possible to read issues after #108 online? Or perhaps they are stored in PDF files? I looked around the web site, but only find the scans up to #108.

Thanks for the info. I tried using Chrome, and am getting good results now.

I am trying to read some of the older ABBUC mags arbitrarily starting with #100. Of course, I'm wanting to read these in English, so I set the language at log in to English at login, and then select one of the older mags -- for example #106. The mag opens promptly, but then only a part is in English. Does it take some time time to translate the original German to English, or perhaps I'm doing something wrong? Or perhaps the mag texts are only partially translated? Can anyone offer any tips on reading these? Thanks, Larry