Daily Usage Question?

[+Ripdubski]

I'm curious to the manner in which these old machines are being utilized on a daily basis. I think its incredible that these old computers still get the attention they hd 30 yers ago.

 

I personally haven't used my 8 bit regularly since June 86. That is when I got my 520ST. I used the ST for a few years, but in a far less active fashion. I picked up a 1040ST around 95, fitted a SyQuest Zip drive as a hard drive and used it daily (for everything including banking, word processing, checkbook, some games) up until early 1999. In 1998 I did play with my 130XE for a while, but it didnt stick.

 

Now, i want to use it a few times a week to teach my son "the basics" per say, and some programming.

 

Can you all elaborate on how/what activities you are using these great machines for?

[Level42]

Funny you should say that.....I showed my son two vey simple BASIC programs and a book written for kids to teach the Atari and he asked me to switch computers

 

Honestly I use them for gaming mostly now, but I want to upgrade my 600 XL to make it stereo, extend memory and run demos and stuff....

[russg]

I'm curious to the manner in which these old machines are being utilized on a daily basis. I think its incredible that these old computers still get the attention they hd 30 yers ago.

 

I personally haven't used my 8 bit regularly since June 86. That is when I got my 520ST. I used the ST for a few years, but in a far less active fashion. I picked up a 1040ST around 95, fitted a SyQuest Zip drive as a hard drive and used it daily (for everything including banking, word processing, checkbook, some games) up until early 1999. In 1998 I did play with my 130XE for a while, but it didnt stick.

 

Now, i want to use it a few times a week to teach my son "the basics" per say, and some programming.

 

Can you all elaborate on how/what activities you are using these great machines for?

I've come about full circle. Very early, I was doing BBS modeming and developed a young friend who only had a 1010 tape machine. He wanted me to put disk drive

executables on tape for him. I tried, but wasn't good enough to do it. I recently realized that goal, putting executable onto a boot tape. I used a little bit of USR call for the read from

disk file and write to tape.. I did the opposite way also, tape boot to disk file. My programs only do single stage boot, but I accomplished that goal from about 1984.

I mostly use emulator for developing and playing (Sargon III chess). But I don't think you can do tape reads and writes with emulator. I've done some ASMED, ACTION!

but mostly do Atari BASIC (version B, C locks up more than B). (I've done some Visual BASIC 2010 programs in the last few years, MS Visual BASIC for PC.)

MS Visual Studio.

Edit. Oh, Microsoft VB2010/VIsual Studio is free. It is probably a new version now (VB2013?). (I've done some A86 PC assembler, for MS Quick BASIC 4.5 ML calls)

Edited January 31, 2014 by russg

[+Ripdubski]

Funny you should say that.....I showed my son two vey simple BASIC programs and a book written for kids to teach the Atari and he asked me to switch computers

....

Cool. I pulled the 800 out this past weekend and after 30 years of storage it still works! With just a basic cart in, no sio devices, i wrote a small program to move a ball aroound the screen via joystick. My son, 6, loved it! Wanted it to be a man. I changed it to an atascii man, made mistake and it left a trail. Corrected the trail, then he complained, wanted to turn it on and off. Set it up on the trigger so he could. About 20 lines of code. He was very intrigued that i was typing and the computer was responding. He had allo kinds of ideas for whats next. Then was sad that i coudlnt save it. I told him i saved it in my head . I asked him if he wanted one and he said he would just keep mine. Lol.

 

My wife even thought it was cool and shes not a techie. The Atari she remembered "only had the joystick".

 

It was funny how many memory addresses and poke's i remembered.

[JD6502]

I don't use my XE daily, but do use it regularly, and have since 1985. I do some casual turbo basic programming (simple stuff), use a little program written by a local user group back in the day to track my home budget, and a very slow bit mapped 64 column display prog I wrote to view investment info. On the rare occasions when I need to send a letter I load PaperClip and fire up the old Panasonic nine pin dot matrix. I've only recently started using a PC, and I still trip over the keyboard - the punctuation marks are on the wrong keys!

[+therealbountybob]

I'm pretty much on the 130XE 5 days a week at the moment! (depending on work). I'm still writing my first Assembler game and like to have some gaming sessions - usually just those we play in the HSC and any new releases.

 

You might find the Gaming Survey from last year interesting viewing

[Marius]

My 8bit atari's are used 7 days a week. And I have a small business. I do my entire administration on the 800xl with syncalc.

 

It takes 2 5.25" floppy disk to organize one calendar year of administration. It's rather cool to do that on it. I have a brother laser printer connected to my atari 850 and fixed to a rather small courier font so a lot of data can fit on one paper sheet.

 

Only thing; I am forced to use at least 128kb atari... Since the files are rather big in memory.

 

People think I am crazy that I do my administration on atari, but it's the most reliable computer in the house and I have around 100 spares so nothing else beats that.

[+Ripdubski]

My 8bit atari's are used 7 days a week. And I have a small business. I do my entire administration on the 800xl with syncalc.

 

It takes 2 5.25" floppy disk to organize one calendar year of administration. It's rather cool to do that on it. I have a brother laser printer connected to my atari 850 and fixed to a rather small courier font so a lot of data can fit on one paper sheet.

 

Only thing; I am forced to use at least 128kb atari... Since the files are rather big in memory.

 

People think I am crazy that I do my administration on atari, but it's the most reliable computer in the house and I have around 100 spares so nothing else beats that.

Now thats the kind of real world work I was wondering about. Wow! "If it ain't broke". And you dont have to worry about it being hacked into! Very cool!

[Marius]

Now thats the kind of real world work I was wondering about. Wow! "If it ain't broke". And you dont have to worry about it being hacked into! Very cool!

 

It is cool indeed, but it is very convenient too. When I am on my PC/Mac I got distracted ALL THE TIME by internet (like Atariage haha). When I'm doing the administration on the atari 8bit, the only thing on the screen are those numbers and labels, patiently waiting for me to insert new data.

 

The only thing that it lacks is a decent print-screen feature. So I have always to guess how it will look on paper. But so far, that is only downside, and I'm doing this for a few years on my atari 8bit now, and I do not see any reason to stop doing that.

[Marius]

Funny you should say that.....I showed my son two vey simple BASIC programs and a book written for kids to teach the Atari and he asked me to switch computers

 

Honestly I use them for gaming mostly now, but I want to upgrade my 600 XL to make it stereo, extend memory and run demos and stuff....

 

This is such a great great picture. I have a 5 year old daughter who really enjoys playing the atari too. It's great to see that she gets so excited as I can get with this piece of ancient hardware. I never see her so happy behind the mac or pc. I think the joy atari can bring is universal, and not limited to people from a certain age or era.

 

On the other side I now experience that sharing the joy is even cooler, than having fun on my own with the atari. Even the dumbest games start being cool when I see her having fun with it.

 

I can imagine she will start coding in a few years too.

[gozar]

I used AtariWriter to take notes at a conference this past week (under emulation, but I think it still counts :-).

 

[+slx]

Mine gets used for gaming with the kids about once every two weeks. I'd prefer more but except for weekends there's hardly enough time as it needs to be set up every time for lack of a fixed installation. (But I have resolved to clear a part of my desk to make space for a permanent installation next to my Mac before Christmas....)

[Marius]

Mine gets used for gaming with the kids about once every two weeks. I'd prefer more but except for weekends there's hardly enough time as it needs to be set up every time for lack of a fixed installation. (But I have resolved to clear a part of my desk to make space for a permanent installation next to my Mac before Christmas....)

 

That's why I bought one of these brilliant gadgets like MyIDE, Side or the 4MB cart. An Atari XE does not take much place, and beneath the television-desk is a small row where exact the XE fits. Only thing needed is a joystick and a PSU. Might be something for you too?

[flashjazzcat]

Can you all elaborate on how/what activities you are using these great machines for?

Development/testing, and unfortunately by the time I've done that, there's no time to use them for anything else.

[+slx]

Main TV ist too much in demand to be used for Atari but I already have a multi-input TFT for the study that accepts PAL HF, Composite video, S-Video, SCART-RGB, VGA, DVI and HDMI and thus should be able to link up with more gear than will fit on the desk at any one time (except for my 2 NTSC machines). This screen should be good for the 8-bits as well as 7800, Jaguar and even ST/TT and the desk setup will also allow the neigboring Mac to act as a disc drive if required. An incognito for the 800 is awaiting installation and SIO2USB as well as SIO2SD are ready. I am astonished that even my 30-year old discs still work rather flawlessly.

 

I have spent way too much time acquiring all sorts of Atari equipment and this year it's time to actually use (play!) it.

[kenjennings]

The real Ataris spend their time about 90% running game carts. About 10% running OSS Basic/XL and Mac/65 (my favorite game :-)). I avoid anything to do with the physical disks, since the drives have been dying off. (Oddly, the floppies are usually in pretty good shape after 30 years. Except Verbatim brand disks.) There will be more "disk"-based things done with real Ataris as I get more things copied to ATR files for SIO2SD use. The AWESOME Altirra and Atari++ emulators are used about 90% for developing and other "disk"-based activity -- organizing, fixing atr files, blah, blah..

 

As just a matter of usage, the emulators are used almost exclusively during the (work)week, with the real Ataris being enjoyed on weekends.