Finally got an 800XL again!

[+DarkLord]

Wheee, I finally won an E-bay auction and got an 800XL again. The 800XL was the first computer I ever owned, way back in 1983. I've already ordered some games from a couple of different places (Ultima 3 on cartridge - thats cool!).

 

Now, here is my question for all the regulars:

 

What would you consider to be the top ten "must have' accessories for an 800XL?

 

Hardware, software, or mixed lists, doesn't matter, as long as its available.

 

Thanks everyone. I'm really looking forward to expanding my personal Atari 8-bit retro scene! :-)

[82atari5200]

Awesome. I won an 800xl a couple years ago. Really all you need is a sio2pc cable so you can load up the images of your computers hard drive. I have 3 1050's 2 1010 tape drives and a 1027 printer..If the keyboard doesn't work.(mine didn't) there are 2 i.c.s that need to be replaced.

[82atari5200]

Awesome. I won an 800xl a couple years ago. Really all you need is a sio2pc cable so you can load up the images of your computers hard drive. I have 3 1050's 2 1010 tape drives and a 1027 printer..If the keyboard doesn't work.(mine didn't) there are 2 i.c.s that need to be replaced.

[+DarkLord]

Awesome.  I won an 800xl a couple years ago. Really all you need is a sio2pc cable so you can load up the images of your computers hard drive. I have 3 1050's 2 1010 tape drives and a 1027 printer..If the keyboard doesn't work.(mine didn't) there are 2 i.c.s that need to be replaced.

952953[/snapback]

 

Hmm, as far as the ICs go, I've not had a chance to hook it up to anything just yet. As soon as I get some software in though... :-)

 

Now...about the sio2pc cable...does that slave your 8bit to a PC? Does it have to be running Windows? I'm asking because, while I don't want to start a flameware about MS products - I'll never use one in this household. Atari and Linux is all that is used here.

 

I think I'd actually prefer to have my 800XL operating on its own.

 

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated! :-)

[krupkaj]

What I know there are 2 SIO Linux projects. AtariSIO which is kernel module and second is sio2linux. Here are the links:

http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/

http://www.crowcastle.net/preston/atari/

[+DarkLord]

What I know there are 2 SIO Linux projects. AtariSIO which is kernel module and second is sio2linux. Here are the links:

http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/

http://www.crowcastle.net/preston/atari/

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Okay thanks! I'll check them out.

 

I still think I like the idea of my 8bit (or any Atari for that matter) doing its own thing though. :-)

[82atari5200]

For playing disk based games it's about the only way though. You can hook up the sio2pc cable in the chain of peripherals and copy the image file onto an actual disk.

[+DarkLord]

For playing disk based games it's about the only way though. You can hook up the sio2pc cable in the chain of peripherals and copy the image file onto an actual disk.

953162[/snapback]

 

Hmm. You can't play disk games with a <cough> floppy drive such as the 810, 1050, or XF551? :-)

 

Ah...or did you mean if I just had the 800XL and didn't have a floppy drive available? (I'm betting thats what you meant, didn't mean to sound like a smart-alec). :-)

 

Thanks!

[ijor]

Ah...or did you mean if I just had the 800XL and didn't have a floppy drive available?

 

I think that he meant that a SIO2PC cable is the only way to transfer software you get on-line, back to a physical floppy disk.

 

I wouldn't say it is the only way, but it is likely the simplest. Hey, I remember at the old days tranferring DCM images over a null-modem cable and an 850 (but you probably don't want to do it that way

[Mindfield]

If you get an SIO2PC cable, get the 3-in-1 ... that one lets you either slave your PC's hard drive as the 8-bit's, or hook up an 8-bit disk drive directly to your PC to write out (or read from) real 8-bit disks. It also supports all known programs that use it. I picked one up a few weeks ago, though I haven't had a chance to really try it out yet.

[jaybird3rd]

If you want to be able to slave your 800XL off of your PC using Linux, I'd recommend getting the DOS version of APE and running it inside an emulator such as VMWare. I used a similar setup on my FreeBSD workstation until I got an XF551 and put a 3.5-inch floppy drive mechanism in it, which gives me 720K per disk and pretty much eliminates the need to load programs off of the PC.

 

As far as must-have accessories for the 800XL, if you don't already have one, get your hands on a monitor cable and run the 800XL using composite video instead of the RF modulator; the picture quality is so much better. Another one is a translator disk, which will let you run programs designed for the Atari 400 and 800 computers that won't work on later models (most programs will run fine but there are a few that won't, including some games). Also, if you use the 800XL regularly and are anything like me, you'll rapidly tire of having to power up your PC and load SIO2PC or APE every time you want to use it, so I'd also recommend looking around for a good diskette drive so you can use the 800XL independently. A 720K XF551 like the one I'm running is unfortunately a little hard to come by; XF551 drives are expensive and I haven't seen one on eBay lately, and of course you have to have the parts/tools you need to perform the 3.5-inch drive modification. In my experience the 1050 is a solid floppy drive that can be found fairly easily; or, you can invest a little money into a MyIDE interface and add a hard drive to your 800XL.

 

I'm sure I'll think of more items later (I've used Atari computers for over 20 years), but this will give you something to start with.

[Scream And Fly]

Ah, the 800XL - what memories. I still have my 1050 drives, XF551, 1027, and cassette drives. I remember countless hours spent playing Joust, Defender, Boulder Dash, and Blue Max.

 

Enjoy it man!

Greg

[jaybird3rd]

Ah, the 800XL - what memories.  I still have my 1050 drives, XF551, 1027, and cassette drives.  I remember countless hours spent playing Joust, Defender, Boulder Dash, and Blue Max.

 

Enjoy it man!

Greg

953365[/snapback]

I believe it's one of the best computers ever made. It got overshadowed by the Commodore 64 for much of its life, mostly because the C64 was CHEAP, but that was one butt-ugly machine that wasn't nearly as elegant or user-friendly as the Atari offerings. But I don't want to start a platform war here ...

[BydoEmpire]

Cool, I just got an 800XL off ebay, too (though it hasn't arrived yet). I was always a C64 and Apple ][ man back in the day, so this will be my first Atari 8 bit computer. I still have a Rescue on Fractalus disk - it had the c64 version on one side, and the Atari version on the other. I should do a side-by-side.

[+DarkLord]

Well, I'd certainly like to thank everyone who has responded. The 8bit community is pretty much as I remembered it - awesome! :-)

 

I'm probably going to try to find a good 1050 or xf551, as time and funds allow. Then a good monitor and cable. Of course, there are lots of games I remember playing and I want them all back <smile>.

 

I do have some more questions (of course!).

 

How hard is it to hook up a hard drive to the 800XL? Can it be done internally with something like a 2.5" drive? What interface is used? Also, can any/some/most of the floppy disk games be installed to and used from hard disk?

 

Thanks as always.

[krupkaj]

There asre several ways how to connect IDE disk. I think that most often used is MyIDE from Mr. Atari. I am using SIO2IDE.

http://www.mr-atari.com/

http://atariarea.histeria.pl/sio2ide/

SIO2IDE page is in Polish but there are English texts inside the archive you can download there. Both interfaces support CF cards

[Mindfield]

How hard is it to hook up a hard drive to the 800XL? Can it be done internally with something like a 2.5" drive? What interface is used? Also, can any/some/most of the floppy disk games be installed to and used from hard disk?

953558[/snapback]

 

Well, the cool thing about the 8-bit scene these days is that there are still dedicated hackers out there to bring the 8-bit up to speed with current tech. In that regard you have several options:

 

- IDE interface. Hook up an IDE hard drive (you'll need to power it somehow too) to your 8-bit and use that.

 

Or, my favourite option, and one I'm seriously considering:

 

- IDE interface + Compact Flash interface. This lets you hook up a compact flash card to your 8-bit and use it like an IDE hard drive. I love this concept! Small, compact, self-powered, no potential hard disk failures, and CF cards are cheap.

 

I'd love to try option to, possibly even mod my 130XE so that it all resides indernally, with a slot out one side to swap CF cards.

[+DarkLord]

Well, the cool thing about the 8-bit scene these days is that there are still dedicated hackers out there to bring the 8-bit up to speed with current tech.  In that regard you have several options:

 

- IDE interface.  Hook up an IDE hard drive (you'll need to power it somehow too) to your 8-bit and use that.

 

Or, my favourite option, and one I'm seriously considering:

 

- IDE interface + Compact Flash interface.  This lets you hook up a compact flash card to your 8-bit and use it like an IDE hard drive.  I love this concept!  Small, compact, self-powered, no potential hard disk failures, and CF cards are cheap.

 

I'd love to try option to, possibly even mod my 130XE so that it all resides indernally, with a slot out one side to swap CF cards.

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Man, now that sounds way cool! :-)

[Wrathchild]

Hi,

 

Some 27c128 eeproms arrived from the US and so, with luck,

this Wednesday I'll be blowing one with the MyIDE 4 ROM and

having it put inside an XL. I've used the older disk based

replacement (software) rom - and so I'm looking to see if this

allows me to run 64K titles from HD and handles multi-part loaders

on disk images to load properly.

 

Piccies of my XL can be found on:

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...pic=46316&st=25

 

Regards,

Mark

[Gunstar]

What I know there are 2 SIO Linux projects. AtariSIO which is kernel module and second is sio2linux. Here are the links:

http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/

http://www.crowcastle.net/preston/atari/

952976[/snapback]

 

Okay thanks! I'll check them out.

 

I still think I like the idea of my 8bit (or any Atari for that matter) doing its own thing though. :-)

952993[/snapback]

I know what you mean, in a way, I still have 3 1050's hooked up to my 1200/130, and I still use them more than my SIO2PC, but all this really does is just to set up a program on the PC that makes the Atari think the PC is disk drive through the Atari's SIO port. In all actuality, the PC is SLAVE to the ATARI, not the other way around. I think there is an older project, pre SIO2PC that was SIO2ST back in the day and you could store 8-bit disk images on your ST HD and slave it out to the 8-bit too. It basically just turns your Linux, Wintel or ST into a file server, that's all.

[+DarkLord]

I know what you mean, in a way, I still have 3 1050's hooked up to my 1200/130, and I still use them more than my SIO2PC, but all this really does is just to set up a program on the PC that makes the Atari think the PC is disk drive through the Atari's SIO port. In all actuality, the PC is SLAVE to the ATARI, not the other way around. I think there is an older project, pre SIO2PC that was SIO2ST back in the day and you could store 8-bit disk images on your ST HD and slave it out to the 8-bit too. It basically just turns your Linux, Wintel or ST into a file server, that's all.

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Okay, thanks for the info!.

 

PS Somehow I like the idea of Windoze machines being nothing more than file servers, and slave to my Atari. :-)