Urchlay

Yeah, and I really wish it could be remapped... for one thing, I use WASD and Control for everything else (MAME, Quake, etc), and for another thing, my favorite keyboard has no numeric keypad. (Yah, it's open source, and I've changed the key mapping in the source... would be nice to remap without a recompile though)

Anyone feel like trying to port it to the 2600, with Batari BASIC? The math there is either integer or fixed point... but there's no square root function AFAIK, you'd have to write your own. For A=A^2, you could write A=A*A... though that could be considered cheating (I bet the A8 could run it a lot faster, if you made the same change).

Not so... you can run "atari800 -windowed" to get it running in a (small) window. There's no way to put that in the config file though (I checked the source)... but on windows, or on something like KDE or Gnome, you could edit the "shortcut properties" and add the -windowed parameter there, to get a clickable icon for atari800 in a window. Or, you could write a shell script or batch file wrapper that runs it for you. You might also add -ntscemu, it doubles the size of the window (to 640x480) and gives you a nice fake-scanlines effect. Also, something that might help you get fullscreen working: atari800 uses SDL for its graphics... SDL supports an environment variable, SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_HEAD, that (if set) chooses which monitor to display on. On my Linux dual-head (Xinerama) setup, I use SDL_VIDEO_FULLSCREEN_HEAD=0 for left monitor, 1 for right monitor, or don't set it and it stretches across both. The same thing probably works on Windows... though I have no idea how to set environment variables in modern Windows (maybe the shortcut properties again?). Also (you may already know this), Atari800win+ works pretty well on Linux with Wine. Only thing that doesn't work is the debugger window.

Quite a few ATR images here: http://www.langesite.com/atari/Holmes/ Probably for initial testing, you want a DOS: http://www.langesite.com/atari/Holmes/Holm...ting%20Systems/

You could use Atariwriter to create invoices: create an empty invoice, load it whenever you need to generate an invoice, edit, save to a different file, and print... but it would be "dumb" invoicing, wouldn't track income or anything. A long time ago, I worked in an electronics repair place called Recycle Electronics (if you're reading this, hi Ken!)... the owner of the shop created his own cash register/invoicing system, using an Atari 800, an 825 (printer) and his own homebrew BASIC software. There was also a cash drawer that could be opened by the 800 (can't remember how the interfacing worked, joystick port maybe). It also did payroll (very limited, since there was only one hourly employee). At one time, I had a copy of the software... last year I went through my old floppies, and I don't remember finding it then, but I wasn't specifically looking for it either. Maybe I'll have another look... though I don't know how the author would feel about it being posted here.

I remember reading somewhere that Commodore 64 BASIC's integers are actually slower than its floating point, because the integers have to get converted back to FP any time they're used in calculations. Maybe Atari MS BASIC suffers the same problem? (Being slower doesn't make them useless: integer variables still use less RAM than floating point variables)

Wow... I didn't think BXL and BXE were that different, would not have expected the huge speed increase in BXE. Is this interpreted or compiled Turbo BASIC?

Well, a sector copier would be a quick & dirty way to test a drive, or a couple of drives... also SmartDOS and IIRC SpartaDOS 3.2 both have drive RPM test utilities, definitely worth using.

410 belts are pretty much guaranteed to be bad if the drive is stored for a couple of years... long before the belt dry-rots, it gets a permanent kink in it. See this thread: http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=105976

Nice! How'd you get the white part looking so white? Just cleaning, or paint too?

If they don't know the difference between RF and composite, they'll probably end up plugging the RCA cable with RF signal on it, into composite (RCA) input on the TV. Though if they did that, and they were honest, they'd have to list it as broken (even if it isn't really), since they wouldn't even know they're doing it wrong. Even if they get it right, a good percentage of modern TVs won't display non-standard video like the Atari computers put out (see the S-video thread). Someone who sells hundreds of consoles/computers could be expected to know how to hook up an older system, but a seller who just found an old Atari in an attic could be excused for not knowing anything about it. What's needed is a "hooking up old consoles/computers for dummies", but even if you write one, how do you make people read it? For that, there's no excuse... though I don't mind so much sometimes: the dusty crappy-looking stuff sells cheap, and I can clean it myself.

It isn't the VTOC, it's the directory sectors... the VTOC is just a map of which sectors are free and which are used. If it's corrupt, the disk is still readable (though the free sector count will be wrong). If DOS 2.5 shows it as empty, no files, it's possible that the first directory sector got zeroed out somehow. If that's all that's wrong, it'll be possible to recover your files... you haven't tried to write to the disk (image) since the crash, have you? Any chance you could zip up the ATR image and post it here or in a PM? I've been working on-and-off on writing some ATR diagnostic tools... nothing's ready to release yet, but (a) I might be able to use it to fix your image, and (b) having a real example of a broken ATR image will help me improve my code.

Is the ATR image itself damaged, or the file structure on the image? First thing to check is the size of the ATR file. For single-density, it should be 92176 bytes. Double density should be 183952, and 1050 enhanced should be 133136. More generally, the size should be: 16 + (num_sectors - 3) * bytes_per_sector + 384 You said something crashed with files open... what crashed, the Atari or the PC? (or both, if you were using an emulator) How are you using the ATR image? In an emulator, with APE/SIO2PC, or...? What happens when you try to use it? Can the Atari see it, but with missing files and/or error messages, or does your PC software complain that it's an invalid image? If the Atari can see the image, but some files are corrupt/missing, you can use an Atari-based disk repair tool (doesn't matter that it's an ATR instead of a real disk). I can't think of the names of any of the disk repair programs (been 20+ years since I used one), but someone here will chime in I'm sure. It's also possible to use a hex editor on the ATR file and repair the VTOC/directory/links manually (helps to know what you're doing here). Before you try to fix the image, of course, you should make a backup copy of it (even though it's mangled).

Where do these go? From the chroma/luma wires to ground, or between the A8 ground and the TV's ground, or...? What's the usual effect of missing terminators, on a regular analog CRT TV?

In that case, I'd want one... I have a Stelladaptor, love it, and will be buying another (or another something like it) when/if I ever have money to spend on "frivolous" stuff like Atari... What price point were you shooting for? Ballpark figure only...

Of the three, I'd say the 800XL is your best bet. If there's such a thing as a standard Atari 8-bit, the 800XL is it. The XE series are kind of cheaply made, compared to the XLs... though if you had 130XE on your list, that would be worth getting (lots of the newer games/demos need 128K). As far as keyboard feel, the XE keyboards are universally bad, and some of the XL keyboards are OK while others are awful (it's a toss-up, there are something like 5 different XL keyboards, which all look basically the same). If you're just wanting to play cartridge games, you'll be happy with any of the above... maybe the XEGS has a slight edge in that it's got standard (RCA jack) video and audio outputs, no need for an adaptor to hook it up to most modern TVs. If you're into hardware mods, the 800XL is easier to work with than the XE series... you might even consider a 1200XL (plenty of extra room in the case for mods). So the answer is... it depends on what you're planning to do with it.

So this is the opposite of a Stelladaptor? Lets you use modern USB controllers on your Atari... will there be a way for the Atari to read all the extra axes/buttons, or will it strictly emulate a joystick?

Nope. The CAS format doesn't allow for audio, or for the sync tones that are required to keep the audio in sync with the running program. Someone is (was?) working on an extended cassette format that'll allow audio and a few other things the current CAS format doesn't support. Until then, the best way to archive these is as a stereo .wav file, or a lossless compressed audio format such as FLAC or shorten. Basically you'd connect a regular tape player to your PC's audio line inputs and record with whatever software you want. Then you'll be able to give copies of the files to your friends, who will have to record them back to cassette and use a real 410/1010 to load them on the Atari.

So the guy who gave me a copy of 2.6f was, er, stretching the truth a bit when he said "it's faster than 2.0S on the 810"... not out of character for him at all.

I'm no guru, but... it's exactly what you think: a coil of copper wire, AKA an inductor. I've never seen one exactly like that, it almost looks like it's been inflated like a balloon, but the "L1" marking on the board means it's definitely an inductor. I can't see any numbers in the photo (just letters), but maybe they're on the other side. The numbers will give the rating in henrys, you just have to find parts with the same value in a catalog (Jameco may have them).

I remember messing with Interlisp a long time ago. I had found a book on Lisp somewhere, and was trying to teach myself the language... but I didn't have any docs for Interlisp, and couldn't make it past about chapter 2 or 3 of the book because Interlisp doesn't have "defun" (define function). Years later, someone told me it was possible to define "defun" in terms of lower-level operations (I think he mentioned "lambda", which I see in your list). Have you gotten any of the Atari-specific graphics stuff working yet? Would be curious to know whether they're faster than BASIC's graphics commands...

Unfortunately, none of the 2.5F, 2.6F, or 2.8F images have any documentation...

If it's like Turbo BASIC, it has built in commands to do just about everything DUP.SYS does. DIR gets you a directory, I think there's a FORMAT command, I can't remember what the command to delete a file is (try KILL, ERASE, or DEL)... if these commands work, you at least know your DOS is being loaded correctly.

Has anyone ever heard of Atari DOS 2.6f? A long time ago someone gave me a copy of this, with no docs. He claimed the F stands for Fast, and that it was faster than regular Atari DOS, but only on an 810. All I had back then were 1050s (on which the DOS worked, but definitely not faster than DOS 2.5)... He also told me it was some kind of Atari internal version that had been leaked. However, this guy was known for exaggerating and occasionally making things up, so I took what he said with a grain of salt. The DUP.SYS menu looks a lot like the DOS 2.0S one, except the text background is black, and there's an option for testing drive RPM. As far as I could tell, the DOS didn't support 1050 enhanced density or true double density. The DUP menu didn't have a "Format single" option (the "Format" option only formatted single density), so I'm assuming that, whoever created it, this DOS was a modified 2.0S. A bit of googling found a mention of DOS 2.6f in a list of Atari DOSes: http://www.oshistory.net/metadot/index.pl?...ategory;op=show Another list, with a downloadable ATR image: http://mousenet.radtkes.net/bbs/bbsmenu/ataristuff.htm A brief mention here: http://bf.amfband.com/aboutme.html (Boot Factory BBS... why is that name familiar to me?) Here's what the DUP menu looks like (running downloaded image in atari++): Despite the "Modified for use with Atari 800" text, it runs fine on XL/XE machines. So... anyone know what's the deal with this DOS?

Hard to tell from the scan, but I think that's Sir Isaac Newton sitting under a tree, about to get hit by a falling apple. I've always thought the new Apple logo (apple with a bite taken out of it) was supposed to be an homage to Alan Turing (father of the digital computer), who committed suicide by injecting an apple with cyanide. His body was found with the apple, with one bite taken out of it... It sort of goes with the $666.66 price tag, too. I didn't even know the apple tree/Newton logo ever existed.