What games will work on the 600XL?

[ApolloBoy]

I'm getting a 600XL off eBay soon, so what games will work with the 600XL? I mean, it has 16 KB of memory, so I'm very sure some games won't work with it.

[Nukey Shay]

Many games say right on the disk how much memory is required to run the game (Archon says 32k on the disk, for example). Ram was so expensive back in the old days that I'd guess the older the game is, the better chance that it's 16k or less.

[Super-Genius!]

For about $5.00 (and a little time)

you can upgrade your 600XL to 64K and then you can

play anything you like!!

 

Mark

[ApolloBoy]

Many games say right on the disk how much memory is required to run the game (Archon says 32k on the disk, for example).  Ram was so expensive back in the old days that I'd guess the older the game is, the better chance that it's 16k or less.

 

What about carts?

[Nukey Shay]

What about carts?

 

Cartridges are Rom...the programs they contain are not fed into Ram. In fact, a 16k cartridge would partially overlap upper Ram memory in a 48k/64k machine. This means that the majority of your 16k is untouched by the program itself...but requires whatever it needs to build it's graphic screen, P/M image data, program variables, etc. FYI the highest graphic mode uses nearly 8k of Ram...the highest P/M mode uses 1.5k of Ram. Redefined characters can be in Rom...unchanging display lists can be in Rom...static unchanging graphic screens can be in Rom.

Does anyone know which carts require more than 16k? There's probably a few.

[Lord-Chaos]

Most of the ATARI XL carts (in silver boxes) or old ATARI 400/800 carts will work.That means games like Dig Dug,Pengo,Moon Patrol or Galaxian,Defender , Space Invaders etc.

 

But most (or all ?) ATARI XE carts , in the blue boxes , not.Most of these games require 48K , some like Airball 64K !

 

I don´t know about non-ATARI games - the old ones should work with 16K , but some may only work with 48K.

 

Thimo