Atari Basic Rev c confusion

[oo7]

So I was looking at the Atari Basic reference manual that ships with the silver label rev c basic.

 

It mentions the 400/800 and the 1200XL

 

 

Now this is rev c basic.

 

 

Didnt the 600XL and 800XL come out after the 1200xl?

 

So how is basic C on this cart and basic B on those machines.

 

Am I missing something?

 

 

Am I correct on this disconnect?

 

 

Im confused over this lol.

 

[+DrVenkman]

The differences between BASIC revisions don’t affect ordinary functionality. They involve fixes/attempted fixes for internal bugs. Rev A was the first version and came on brown metal carts. Rev B was included internally on most 800XL and 600XL machines. I don’t know about the XE/XEGS machines from personal experience. Rev C came out last and some carts exist but I think Best Electronics had a bunch made with some Rev C ROMs they had along with a bunch of cart shells and PCBs. 

[TGB1718]

From Atari Wiki

 

The version can be determined by typing PRINT PEEK(43234) at the READY prompt. The result is 162 for Revision A, 96 for Revision B, and 234 for Revision C.

 

My 130XE has 234 for Rev C

[oo7]

My confusion is it seems Rev C existed pre 600xl and 800xl yet they shipped mostly with B

 

 

my 130xe and xegs are rev c

Edited March 19, 2021 by oo7

[+DrVenkman]

Just now, oo7 said:

My confusion is it seems Rev C existed pre 600xl and 800xl yet they shipped mostly with B

No it didn’t. 

[oo7]

12 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

No it didn’t. 

The cart for rec c comes with a book mentioning the 400/800 and 1200xl.

 

no mention of the 600xl or 800 xl

 

 

here is the book https://data.atariwiki.org/DOC/Atari_Basic_Reference_Manual_Rev._C.pdf

 

 

this is what got me confused.

 

Not like it matters alot but got me scratching my head.

 

 

to me it seems the 1200 xl as we all know was the first xl and rev c cart was made for it. Im only posting to understand why it seems this way.

 

Edited March 19, 2021 by oo7

[+DrVenkman]

The book predates the updated versions of BASIC and was never updated. 

[oo7]

3 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

The book predates the updated versions of BASIC and was never updated. 

Ok got it.

 

 

that must make sense.

 

 

my understanding always was early xl was rev b, some late xl rev c and all xe rev c.

 

 

so maybe rev c cart didnt actually ship with 1200xl

[+DrVenkman]

3 minutes ago, oo7 said:

so maybe rev c cart didnt actually ship with 1200xl

No, it didn’t. When the 12000XL was sold, rev B BASIC didn’t yet exist. In fact, rev B was never available on a cartridge from Atari. 

[oo7]

4 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

No, it didn’t. When the 12000XL was sold, rev B BASIC didn’t yet exist. In fact, rev B was never available on a cartridge from Atari. 

I see. 

 

So it seems they updated the book for rev c way before release delayed release and didnt continue in updating. ie a rev a book exists, a correction updated rev a book exists cant find a rev b book and rev c looked like a 1200xl target.

[Sinjinhawke]

My 800xl actually has revision c basic built in.  Was a pleasant surprise when I bought it last year.

[manterola]

My PAL 800XL with Freddy also came with Rev.C  it looks like later 800XLs while transitioning to XE systems came with Rev. C  ... it also came with Mitsumi keyboard which is not great...but I happy to have the privilege of running all Demos and New PAL games.

 

[oo7]

Im aware that all late XLs had rev c.

 

one hint if its pal its a late XL for sure.

 

 

initial NTSC shipment had rev b is all.

 

My whole thing was that the rev c book seems to predate the revb xls which has me scratching my head.

 

 

[+DrVenkman]

1 hour ago, oo7 said:

 

My whole thing was that the rev c book seems to predate the revb xls which has me scratching my head.

It’s really not as complicated as you seem to think. The “rev C” book is basically the same as the rev A original with minor updates and additions. It wasn’t a brand new new, from scratch book with complete revision of all content. 

[+Eyvind Bernhardsen]

The story I read in magazines at the time was that Atari had a produced a massive pile of Rev B ROMs and kept putting them into machines until they’d used them up, even though they knew Rev B was buggy.

 

It’s not completely unreasonable, the Rev B bugs don’t prevent BASIC programs from running, they only really manifest when you’re programming (or typing programs in from magazines...). I can see someone making the call not to write those ROMs off.

[oo7]

24 minutes ago, DrVenkman said:

It’s really not as complicated as you seem to think. The “rev C” book is basically the same as the rev A original with minor updates and additions. It wasn’t a brand new new, from scratch book with complete revision of all content. 

right but it was published pre 600xl retail time. With the c revision. thats the complicated part.

Edited March 19, 2021 by oo7

[oo7]

22 minutes ago, Eyvind Bernhardsen said:

The story I read in magazines at the time was that Atari had a produced a massive pile of Rev B ROMs and kept putting them into machines until they’d used them up, even though they knew Rev B was buggy.

 

It’s not completely unreasonable, the Rev B bugs don’t prevent BASIC programs from running, they only really manifest when you’re programming (or typing programs in from magazines...). I can see someone making the call not to write those ROMs off.

this might explain the dates.

 

Cause the book and CXL4002 rev c indicate C was complete Jan 1983.

[+kheller2]

My question would be, why do you think the book is written for and about Rev C BASIC?

maybe it was the 3rd PDF attempt, or the 3rd version of the book cover.

The book itself says REV A on the last page (yes that is the revision of the book, not BASIC, I know.)

 

[chevymad]

Also remember pretty much the only people at the time needing a Basic cartridge would be 400/800 1200xl owners. All others had basic built in. 

[+DrVenkman]

Okay, so now that I'm on my PC and not a tablet, I can finally take a look at the PDF linked above - as I suspected from the title, that book is merely the original "Atari 400/800 BASIC Reference Manual" that's been slightly updated and reformatted to match the '83 revamp of Atari's branding and styling to go with the XL line of machines. The table of contents headings are essentially identical to my own copy of the original I've owned since 1982, and even the example programs in Appendix H appear to be the same. It is not some brand new book supposedly meant to go with Rev C BASIC. In fact, I don't see a reference in there at all to BASIC versions, though I didn't go very deeply into it. 

[Rybags]

When Rev C came out in the XE it became a selling point and it was mentioned in magazines that a cartridge version would be made available for older computers.

 

The old story I think related to Rev A which mentioned it was fixed and sent to Atari but in the meantime they'd ordered (probably 100,000+) buggy mask Roms.

Then someone within Atari "fixed" Rev A to produce Rev B which in itself was worse in some ways.

 

Whether the original fixed Basic came out, who knows?  In the meantime other bugs surfaced which were also fixed along the way, and OSS released their Basic A+ and wasn't that based on their earlier work?

[oo7]

I know the published history or atari basic rev a b and c. I was only questioning when their true existence occurred.

 

any boxed copy of c you can find has this exact book. I guess atari was lazy and didnt update properly. Also note the xe selling point being c is a little wrong. C was released by warner long before the new atari put out the xe. Xe having c was used as a selling point yes but we all know that it came before the xe did

 

 

My debate is it seems it was being produced before the 600 and 800 xl. And after more digging im sure it was. I think atari just didnt wanna waste the chips it already paid for with b.

Edited March 19, 2021 by oo7

[oo7]

Basic a 1979

 

basic b 1982

 

basic c 1983

 

 

600 and 800 xl 83 as well. However i think basic c was complete before 600 and 800 were looking back. 
 

im not debating what chips were in machines. Im stating that c was complete earlier than i would of once though. Did some googling now and found my thought is actually common knowledge.

 

i guess i didn’t expect pre JT warner owned atari to be cheap and use buggy b if c had already gone gold

[+slx]

Another reason for the 600/800XL not being mentioned might be that they have built-in BASIC so most users would not buy a cartridge for them anyway.

 

Probably posted that before, but Atari should have made a backwards compatible licensed BASIC XL/XE with FastChip standard on the later machines. I do understand that the Tramiels wouldn't spend 10 cents per machine to license a better BASIC or FP routines, but I find it strange that with all the crazy stuff Atari worked at before being sold to the Tramiels, they did not consider buying FastChip code or improving the FP ROMs themselves and/or license/improve BASIC for their new top-of-the-line 1200XL. Cost per machine would have been minimal and a better BASIC with P/M commands and a little improved speed would have set it apart from the C64. Maybe cost was too much of an issue by the time the 800XL came out.

[+mytek]

So the lesson to be learned is that we should cut all the present day hardware and software developers some slack, because even the giant corporation that was Atari at the time made some major goofs (e.g. Rev A to Rev B).

 

I think the biggest problem with Rev B BASIC had to do with it slowly consuming memory each time the BASIC program was loaded and then saved. Here's an article discussing it: COMPUTE! ISSUE 61 / JUNE 1985 / PAGE 75