yorgle

There's one on ebay right now for $1.99. http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Atari-1027-Pri...1QQcmdZViewItem

I didn't ask if these were new or simply "new old stock." I'll find out.

Best Electronics just emailed me. Turns out they do have replacement printer heads (and rollers). The head assembly is $35 and the rollers are $5 each. Looks like my 1027 has been spared from the trash bin.

No. In fact, if you supplement your collection with a AtariMax FlashCart, you won't miss the USB attached storage at all. For me, inserting a cart with my favorite 50 or so games is a much better solution than navigating sio attached storage. You can read more about these here. Thanks. The concept of the flashcart is probably more what I initially had in mind when I bought the SIO2PC, but I can see that the SIO2PC is going to be just as useful.

I can't imagine you will be able to get consumables for this classic. I had a bunch of rollers 'in stock' which dried out due to the packaging. You might have better luck with the bands, but without rollers, you don't have much. I got through college with one of these, but it's time to move on Yeah, I do tend to live in the past, but it's such a nice looking, small, neat printer. I hate to see it go without at least trying to save it. I emailed Best Electronics as was suggested above. Hopefully, they'll be able to help. I've actually got several of the ink rollers still in the original packaging and I openned one up and the ink is still wet! Unfortunately, 24+ years proved too much for whatever the character wheels (bands?) were made of. I managed to print one page before the characters began crumbling off.

I've got a very nice, complete, boxed 1027 printer with all manuals, cords, etc in excellent condition except that the rubber character wheels have completely deteriorated and crumbled off the printing wheel. I would expect finding a replacement printer head to be nearly impossible. Hate to throw it away, but at this point, it seems to be junk. Any suggestions?

Lesson learned- do homework before buying. Just for clarification, what you purchased is called a SIO2PC, not SIO2USB, which is the device Philsan pointed you to. It comes in both a serial version and the new USB version. SIO2PC is strictly for attaching your Atari to a PC and using the PC as your drives, printer, modem and so on. The USB is only for making the connection to the PC. APE is the software used with SIO2PC. Atarimax is the maker (user Classics here on AA). SIO2IDE, SIO2USB, SIO2SD, MyIDE and others are great for using various different media with the PC and all have a great place is the scheme of things, but SIO2PC is practically a must for manipulating and utilizing all the disk images available for the Atari. Not to forget printing to your PC printer and using your PC modem and network connection. It is also the best (IMHO) method for archiving any disks you might have. Well then I guess I didn't do too bad purchasing it. Thanks for all the great info.

Lesson learned- do homework before buying.

Rats. Thanks for the info. Still a great piece of hardware, though.

Please forgive my ignorance, but along with my 800xl I impulsively purchased an APE SIO2USB Prosystem unit on ebay. I understand that it will allow me to transfer files from my PC to my 800xl via USB cable, but will it also allow me to store/retrieve files from a USB flashdrive plugged into it?

Sweet! Fantastic player sprite- kudos to whomever designed it. I tip my hat to you, sir!

Probably would have been less expensive to just buy a 2600.

So far, all of my ventures (limited as they are) into the realm of 2600 programming have been using my PC, a socketed cart and my trusty eprom burner. I thought it would be neat to use my new 800xl if it was reasonably practical, but without an emulator to test my code on the spot, it doesn't sound all that practical.

Just curious if anyone here does any development or hacks for the 2600 using an 8 bit. Does a 2600 emulator exist to run 2600 roms on an 8 bit?

jshesquire@hotmail.com thanks much.

I have an extra one. The metal logo strip is bent up a bit on one side but shouldn't affect anything. It is without cart and manual, but does have the box and styro. Let me know. Just sent PM. Thanks.

Now that I've got my 800xl up and running, my daughter is begging to draw pictures on it. I picked up an AtariArtist cart on ebay but didn't realize it required the touch tablet. Anyone have one they'd like to find a good home for?

Anyone have a scan or pdf of the AtariWriter manual? I did a search on this forum and found one for AtariWriter Plus, but not for the original version. Even a "cheat sheet" of the basic codes would be helpful. Thanks.

Thanks much for the offer, but I just grabbed one off of ebay for $9.00 and it included the manual as a bonus. I suppose I really should get an SIO2PC so I can just download stuff in the future.

When you first boot with a disk drive, you will need to have a DOS disk in the drive. Then you can change it to a black to format from the program. Thanks. Looks like I've got to track down a DOS disk.

Checked it again and it definitely says "DOM" Another question I forgot to ask: What do I need to do to use the 1050 drive. Do I need to load any software (ie a DOS of some sort) first? I tried formating a disk from the ATARIWRITER cartridge menu but I get an error saying the drive is not present or something like that.

Last night I set up the 800xl system I recently purchased. A few keys (5,T,H, and J) didn't work but I managed to find the problem- a scratch across part of the keyboard pcb that severed a few trace lines. Some quick soldering took care of that problem and it works great now. I do have a quick question: on the bottom of the computer, there is a small hole with a phillips head screw way down inside. There is a small sticker that says "DOM" near it. What is this?

Geez, maybe they do. I know my own kids are capable of reducing our house to rubble in a matter of minutes.

A bit of story is ok with me too, but if you want to read a story, buy a book. If you want to play a videogame, you shouldn't have to read a book first. Give an 8 year old Adventure without any explanation and within minutes he'll figure out what 90% of the game is about. He'd probably agree that the dragons look duck-like, but he would assume they're supposed to be dragons simply by how they act and he'd understand that they are to be avoided. To me, that's the mark of a good game concept. About the only thing you'd probably have to tell him is to find the chalice and bring it back to the yellow castle. (In fact, you probably wouldn't even have to tell him it's to put it inside the yellow castle, just tell him to put it where it belongs). The "why" of the game can be expressed in one sentence. The rest of the "story" comes from our cultural familiarity with the quest story. Every fairy tale a kid ever read or had read to him fills in the details. With respect to Crazy Daisy, explaining the "why" of the game (why should a girl be shooting at tanks) is not so easy. I'm not even sure the animation does a good job of that- except they appear to be invading a clean, green city from an ugly, smog covered city in the distance and that alone should be reason to shoot them. What the large blue bird is about is beyond my capacity to understand. Don't get me wrong, it may have a purpose, but without an elaborate explanation in a booklet, it would be difficult to explain through graphics or gameplay. RikFuzz: The bottom line is, it's your project and if you think it can be done, then go for it. That's how great games are made. Please don't take anything I say as anything but constructive criticism. I'm learning this system myself and am by no means proficient in programming or gamemaking, having only an elaborate hack to my credit (and 99% of that was due almost exclusively to the work and help from Nukey Shay). There are great programmers on this site and if you give them an idea that's doable and not just a pipe-dream, they're quick to offer advice and support.

I suppose you're quite right - it's difficult to represent anything that really resembles the animation with the limitations of the console, more so than I'd anticipated, and shoot em ups aren't very original. I hope both issues can be built upon from what's been done so far, but ending up with a hopefuly good but not very original game that somewhat relys on other media to set the scene wouldn't be a bad enough case to merit dropping the whole project now. It's pretty fun to work on, so even if it's ultimately a little pointless I wouldn't personally consider it a wasted effort. Thanks for your honesty though, definately something to think about. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the exercise is wasted time if you learn something in the process and have fun doing it. I've spent countless hours creating my own version of Atari's Adventure even though it's been done to death by countless others. Was it time wasted? Well, not in my opinion. I learned a little 6502 assembly, some electronics, and got to play Atari again. Before I began, I could barely get a lightbulb changed. By the end, I was burning eproms and making cartridges. What I've found is that the more realistic you are with your expectations as to the result, you're much less likely to drop the project. Carry on and good luck with it.