What hardware should I look out for?

[PeteD]

As I'm getting into coding the A8 I suppose some real hardware should be used at some point What is the best kit to look out for on ebay etc? 800xe/xl? 65xe? Once I've got something what are the options for connecting it to a PC for file download?

 

 

Pete

[+Philsan]

I prefer Atari 130XE: built-in s-video output and 128KB.

Atari 800XL keyboard is better, but I don't think you will type code using real hardware.

 

If you have and want a PC near to your Atari you can buy SIO2PC (I prefer USB version, AtariAge user classics $60):

http://www.atarimax.com/sio2pc/documentation/

Otherwise you can buy independent self-powered devices like SIO2SD:

http://marcinprusisz.pl/ (AtariAge user Pigula, $50)

http://www.mmj.pl/~lotharek/atari/ (AtariAge user lotharek, €90 with case)

http://mega-hz.no-ip.com/Angebote/SIO2SD/SIO2SD%20rev.2.html (€80 with case)

or Sdrive:

http://nuxx.net/wiki/SDrive_NUXX (AtariAge user c0nsumer, $150 with case)

http://morethangames.a8maestro.com/proda8/adv-ek0130.htm

 

Of course if you are able you can build yourself these devices.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Philsan

[Tezz]

I second the 130xe choice and the above upgrades/devices however the downside is the spongy keyboard and the low quality of the ram chips used which often fail (but can be replaced easily). The 800XL is a popular choice of the A8 range. A lot of the earlier built models in particular were pretty solid so you'd be set with either really. I'd personally add extra ram too so you're able to take things further but that's not essential.

Edited July 29, 2009 by Tezz

[Fres]

I like the 130XE too. Regarding the ram chips (which often fail) where can you get replacements? I'm in the US.

[Urchlay]

I prefer to code for the 800. To my way of thinking, the 800 with an 810 and DOS 2.0S is the standard Atari 8-bit platform... even programs that can take advantage of the XL/XE extra memory and/or features of something like SpartaDOS, should still be able to run on the 800 (possibly with some functions disabled).

 

Ideally, I test all my code on an 800, a 1200XL, and an 800XL. In practice I only have room to keep one Atari hooked up, and it's a pain to switch them out... the 800 stays hooked up most of the time because it has the nicest keyboard (and what I'm coding just lately is an IRC client, so I really do need to type a lot on the Atari keyboard).

[PeteD]

800 is THE Atari to me. It's what my friend had when I had a C64 and I fell in love with the look of it. Only 8k though yeah? nooo way would anything I'm working on fit in that

 

 

Pete

[Tezz]

I like the 130XE too. Regarding the ram chips (which often fail) where can you get replacements? I'm in the US.

It's really easy to obtain the chips in the US. It's the 41256's you'll need. I'll leave it for the US members to advise where best to get them from. There's a lot of old threads here about replacing the ram, the subject comes up quite regularly so you should find all the info with a quick search here. The cheap and easy Perterson mod can be done also using those 41256's to increase your ram to 320k using the untapped banks in those chips. Edited July 29, 2009 by Tezz

[Urchlay]

800 is THE Atari to me. It's what my friend had when I had a C64 and I fell in love with the look of it. Only 8k though yeah? nooo way would anything I'm working on fit in that

 

Eh, yeah, I should have said "the 48K 800"... By this point, there probably aren't many 800s left that haven't been upgraded to 48K.

[PeteD]

I didn't know there were any 48k ones Still might not be enough though

 

Pete

[Tezz]

I didn't know there were any 48k ones Still might not be enough though

 

Pete

Take a look at this thread Pete http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...&hl=64k+800

[PeteD]

Looks scary

[dwhyte]

I'd also recommend a Maxflash cartridge from AtariMax... It'll come in handy if you want to run the #1 DOS solution on an A8...

[Rybags]

130XE or 800XL, as has been said before.

 

I'd recommend aiming for 48K as the target audience if you're writing software. Remembering that we have a half-decent disk drive that by default can load ~ 1K per second.

 

The extra 14K or 78K available on later machines can be used as a RAMDisk/cache, or if you really need to, for those extra big program projects.

[Bryan]

What hardware should I look out for?

 

Daisy wheel printers... they're sneaky.

 

(Sorry, bad joke)

 

I prefer the 800XL. Of course, most of them need a few mods to produce a decent picture.

[+bf2k+]

I prefer 800xl and 130xe mainly because I use SpartaDOS 99.9% of the time and it won't run on a 800. My 800 is in storage.

[Shawn Jefferson]

While a lot of people like the 400/800 design, most of the newer games/demos won't work on it, since with the XL/XE series you can turn off the ROM and access the RAM underneath (the 400/800 doesn't have RAM there). I'd suggest either an 800XL or 130XE, and then think about memory upgrades afterwards.

Edited July 30, 2009 by Shawn Jefferson

[PeteD]

What hardware should I look out for?

 

Daisy wheel printers... they're sneaky.

 

(Sorry, bad joke)

 

lol, no, good joke That's put a smile on my face that should last for at least an hour

 

 

Pete

[atariksi]

Looks scary

 

I would go for the standard Atari 800 or 800XL set up if you intend to distribute to maximum number of users. You can't rely on people having soldered stuff into their machines. Standard Atari 800 is 48K-- you will have a hard time finding Atari 800 on Ebay that has less than 48K. And in case someone travelled into the future and gave you an 8K Atari 800, it's expandable to 48K without soldering and without unscrewing the machine. Having said that, 800XL is cheaper than Atari 800 on Ebay by a lot. With Atari 800 and some revisions of 800XL, you have a machine where chips are socketed so easily can be replaced. Video quality is slightly better on 800XL especially GTIA modes. If you need RAM, I would go with some plug-in device rather than solder-in device. You can also do a virtual RAM using PC<->Atari interface (through joystick ports like my project or through SIO I suppose). I would go for both-- Atari 800 and 800XL-- that you have legal rights to copy the Atari 800 ROM into 800XL RAM and disable ROM and have 52K linear RAM available for your game without bank switching (if you don't intend to use ROM, you have 62K RAM).

 

Now, if you wanted to distribute to least number of users, you could pop in a 65c02 into the Atari 800 and solder in some board that uses the 4K RAM banks at $C000...$CFFF from a Gig of RAM and if the game is real good people will buy your hardware along with your game.

[+Stephen]

I second the 130xe choice and the above upgrades/devices however the downside is the spongy keyboard and the low quality of the ram chips used which often fail (but can be replaced easily). The 800XL is a popular choice of the A8 range. A lot of the earlier built models in particular were pretty solid so you'd be set with either really. I'd personally add extra ram too so you're able to take things further but that's not essential.

The spongy keyboard is cheap & easy to fix though. I did the "cup" upgrade from B&C Computervisions in mine, and I now prefer typing on it to my 1200XLs.

 

Stephen Anderson

[MEtalGuy66]

I would seriously consider some extended ram, because these days alot of the better games & demos need it. It's true that if you are trying to hit the absolute largest common denominator for compatability, a 64k XL/XE makes sense, but noone is buying BRAND NEW ataris anymore.. 90% of your enthusiasts who own ataris have at least one machine with extended ram. It's not hard to do a "Bucholz/Rambo" 256k upgrade to an 800XL, and its really easy to do a 320k upgrade to a 130xe.

 

As far as drives, flash-carts, hard-disks, etc. go.... I wouldnt bother... 90% of the most excellent development tools for the 8-bit atari run on a PC nowadayze.. get (or build) a simple SIO2PC interface, and youve got the ability to quickly excahnge data of all types between your PC and ATARI.

 

There are alot of really kewl/novel devices out there nowadayze to interface everything from hardisks to SD cards to USB storage devices with the atari... Are they kewl? yes... Will not having them make the coding/debugging process any more cumbersome/less efficient? Absolutley not.. SIo2PC is by far the hugest value you can get in terms of useful hardware these days..

 

SIO2PC with APE software allows your windows PC to emulate/manage 8 virtual disk drives, printer, plotter, and modem. It allows your atari to quickly & easily utilize all the resources it needs from your windows PC, including the internet.

 

The only reason you may want a standalone storage device is for the purpose of taking the atari somewhere, and being able to load your finished software without having a PC nearby.. Another reason you may want an ATARIMAX flash cart, in particular, is to run SpartaDOS X 4.42.. This is by far the most advanced/capable DOS ever written for the ATARI, and the easiest way to get it is to flash it onto an ATARIMAX flash cart.

 

You can order APE/SIO2PC and ATARIMAX Flash Carts from http://www.atarimax.com.

[Heaven/TQA]

Pete...

 

you gonna code anyway on Emulator/MADS so real hardware is only needed for final testing...

 

Polish coders define XL/XE model with 320kb (64k+256kb extra ram) as minimum why I am back to 64k 800xl as base machine or at least 130xe...

 

you are from c64 scene so you are loved to use 64k ram max...

 

but most important device is a so called sio2pc device, doesn't matter if it is a sio2pc, sio2usb or sio2sd or whatever.

 

as you are uk based you can get these devices very easily...as Abbuc member please look here, f.e.

 

www.abbuc.de

[PeteD]

Yeah, I NEED my 64k I noticed that IK+ needs a 130xe to run so I presume it's using 128k.

 

Is there anything on the emulators that doesn't work correctly? The code I'm working on for WotEF and some other stuff isn't doing anything special but it would be nice to get advanced warning of anything that they don't emulate in case I spend hours trying to fix bugs in my code that don't exist. Which is the best emulator? I've been using Atari800Win plus.

 

 

Pete

[Rybags]

Advanced sound stuff no so great.

Digitized sound tends to be off unless it uses a sampling rate that's reasonably close to a factor of the sample rate your sound output is set to.

Triangle waves don't work... I think sawtooth might work in later versions.

Two-tone doesn't work, although I've read it's implemented in later versions of Atari++

 

Overall though, sound pretty spot on for 95% + of games/apps. Fine for most types of dev work.

 

Graphics... interlace implemented and fairly accurate on a recent Atari++ release. Mid-line switching among GTIA modes, AFAIK, isn't 100% accurate on any emulator.

Horizontal scrolling - emulators can sometimes have seemingly fine scrolling in cases that cause corruption on real hardware.

 

All up - unless you're doing bleeding edge stuff using recent or unusual techniques, the emulators are pretty fine.

[mimo]

I have got a spare 65xe (mint in box) with socketed RAM, and a spare vgc 800xl if you are interested in avoiding evil bay

[PeteD]

I have got a spare 65xe (mint in box) with socketed RAM, and a spare vgc 800xl if you are interested in avoiding evil bay

 

Cheers, I'll have to get back to you later though as I've just had some expenses I wasn't expecting Roof needs a repair, I owe the council some £ etc etc Sometimes it sucks being self employed when there's no work around.

 

 

Pete