Goochman

There def seemed at the time holding back on exact conversions such that the arcade machines didnt loose income IMHO

These are some of the funest 2 player games out there - try them if you havent already

The secret 5th screen is really just lvl 1 which is impossible to get to on the 5200

Since IM not very good at Computer fixes/upgrades (unless its a matter of popping something out and back in) I wont have that OS Sijmen should talk with Steven Tucker about his Warp OS and getting that in tune with the MyIDE OS!

The XL/XE line was the first to get tagged a pirate machine - Didnt help that Lucasfilm games were being released into the BBS world right from Atari's internal board................ After that declaration most EA games for the Atari were pure crap and quick conversions.

Donkey Kong 3 and I believe the character was Luigi (however to spell his name) - the brother of mario?

The release of the C64 basically ended all real 'tuning' of the XL line. EA declared the XL a pirate machine and most developers went to the C64 and Apple II line Only in the 90's when the Polish scene took to the XL/XE's did the real magic start to reappear. Just my $0.02

Correct, it only works with IDE drives. It comes with all software necessary to format and partition the drive - FDISK

I just got one and heres the scoop: MyIDE turns your HD into large disk drives for DOS to see. It works best with MyDOS which allows you to configure 16meg partitions from which you can load software - each directory can have up to 63 entries. With the 'external' cartridge version you will need a disk drive no matter what. At a minimum some device drivers need to load inorder to get the HD interface going, after that its smooth sailing. Advantages: Fast loading Single drive holds LOTS of exe's - I have A - F of exe's loaded into a 16meg partition and havent even filled it 1/2 way up Has 'image load' capability where you can load any disk image onto the HD and run that image as if it was being served by the HD - supports up to 9 different images being loaded in any one session (ie, you could have all the Alternate Reality disks swappable with 1 keystroke when needed!) Works ok with SIO2PC cable Cool thing to have! Disadvantages: Driver runs in a part of memory that some programs dont like (ie, Turbo Basic) Some games also use this memory and wont work I dont believe 'translator' type games will work since you need an XL/XE OS to work with this (An upgraded OS can also be purchased which can run 99% of XE/XL/800 games in 1 OS) You cant load .bin or .atr files from the HD - you need to load .exe files or put the .atr's in the 'image load' area. DOS 2.5 only supports up to 720K and I cannot get Sparta DOS 3.2g to recognize a large partition, therefore I use MyDOS since it has directory capability. External version still needs a disk drive to start ------------------------- It wasnt that big of an investment to me ($60 for External cart encased), $11 for a 1gig HD and $30 for an external case to hold HD and provide power. Beware that some HD's wont work with the interface - ask Mr Atari which ones he recommends. It is alot of fun to see programs being loaded off a HD - Id like to make an AMS partition as well but dont have alot of the songs

When Trev Mcfur came out it was one of the most panned games on teh Jag which kept me from buying it. Was described as all show and no go.

I remember the Blitz cable - it could copy a disk in no time flat - I also believe it handled copy protection as well. None of that is rare and the Blitz cable doesnt do anything really special except for speed.

I would aruge Barnstorming, HERO, Pitfall, Pitfall II and Private Eye are all maze type games - Maybe Barnstorming is stretching a bit but it requires one to know have to navigate the maze of obstacles to complete the game. HERO, PF and PF II require the user to know the maze correctly in order to complete the level/game.

Am I the only one that cant get to this page?

On his website it mentions the JagLink2 has 2 ports in it, therfore you can daisy chain connections up to as many as you want

I have a network cart card for my Mega2 which allows me to ftp files back and forth to my ST, is that would you'd like Its also 720K floppy compatible so its not too bad moving software from 1 to the other.

No prob - I was pretty good at this game so no one would play me Along this same line there was a 'dog' game where you could throw a bone at the other player - I think its called 'Dog Daze' and its as good as Claim Jumper!

Ill agree with NS - Galaxian kinda stinks with the sound, not to mention to me the game is kinda boring. Most football games on the 8bit stunk. PP and Defender are excellent ports

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, Now my mind is racing - I loved that game and know exactly what you're talking about - You picked up gold and either put it in the bank or bought more bullets with it - If your buddy had gold you could shoot him and take it Was a fun 2 player game but I cant rmemeber the name for the life of me! I think it was called 'Claim Jumper'!

I believe the full version of APE supports loading CAS files into the 8bit via a SIO2PC cable - cant verify though.

I could never find anything on SIO2IDE in terms of buying one and such so when the MyIDE came out fully assembled I jumped on it. Bascially, MyIDE loads a patch into memory before you boot your DOS disk. From there you should be able to do whatever you'd like. I havent gotten SpartaDos 3.2g to work with it but MyDOS 4.5 works fine with 16meg partitions. The driver stuff for MyIDE is still in its infancy stage but being updated and improved. One interesting option with the MyIDE interface is the ability to load images onto the HD therefore removing the need for floppies. For example, you could have all 4 sides of Ultima IV on the HD and booted like they were in drive 1 (switching when necessary). Depending on the HD it could support over 1000 images on the HD!

You can fnd all the info you need here: http://home.wanadoo.nl/mr.atari/hardware-info.htm

But is this offer real or just another test........................ Sounds like a good idea

Diamond should've been teh GEOS for the Atari XE line except the Tramiels didnt want it to compete with the ST's so they decided not to back it From whats out there today it appears BOSS-X is one of the best options but limited DOS support for now

Ive been spending some time recently looking at 8bit GUI's and DOS's and would like to get some others input. GUIs: Diamond GOS - This prob had the most promise but never was fully completed IMHO - I havent seen v3 but v2 looks great but only seems to support normal devices such as Single and Double Density DOS's BOSS-X - This looks really cool and claims to support DOS 2.5 and MyDOS (with directories). However, I cant seem to get it to load with MyDOS therefore not being able to have large disks and directories with it. The File Manager is neat but shows 'icons' which is slower than just pushing out a text display like GOS can. http://www.12move.de/home/atarixle/boss/indexe.htm ATOS - Sparta DOS only support. Havent played too much with this one though looks promising - Wish it had MyDOS support............... http://cth.dtdns.net/atos/ (seems to be down today) DOS: 2.5 - workhorse, nothing special. 720K max disk support size MyDOS - Better Dos 2.5 with large disk support, directories(poor implementation with 64 files max) and Drive configurability SpartaDos 3.2g - Seems like a great DOS but HD support seems lacking(I cant seem to 'configure' a drive in this one). Directory support plus a command line interrface. Call it PC DOS 3 for the Atari . Thoughts - Comments - Additions?

hmmmmmm, Have to double check - the default game is easy but there should be some difficulty there to make things harder - Its gameplay was true to the arcade which is why I give it an A+ - look at some of the other arcade conversions and how crappy they look compared to the real deal!