Atari 8-Bit Computers

[Chris23235]

Just realised that the forum still lacks an Atari 8-Bit topic.

What a great machine, I love the wonderful noisy Pokey sound (and the fantastic Pokey Music in Alternate Reality and Trail of Beta Lyrae).

The core is already very mature, I didn't found anything that doesn't work (even the homebrew Space Harrier cartridge), but I guess new users will have questions now and then so this thread my become useful to them.

[LeftEmpty]

I can't wait to try 4 players M.U.L.E-ing on it.
I just need for the COVID to go away. And to make three friends :O

[Neo666]

AtariBlast is VERY cool on the Atari 800 core! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWUCsQgPE3c

[Chris23235]

If we are doing recommendations for the core, I can't praise Space Harrier enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEwKrIPj7Xs

[Xbytez]

What a great machine, I love the wonderful noisy Pokey sound (and the fantastic Pokey Music in Alternate Reality and Trail of Beta Lyrae).

I've always enjoyed Alternate Reality The City and The Dungeon, the music by Gary Gilbertson in both really is great. It is a shame the series never reached full potential with all the proposed expansions.

[Chris23235]

Yes, thats true, I always imagine what could become of the series, when the publisher didn't decide to screw Price and Gilbertson. I imagine the final game a little bit like Ultima Underworld only years before Ultima Underworld.

If you like Gary Gilbertson's music, try the music disc that Gilbertson and Price made before Trail... but then I think you may be already familiar with it

[vanfanel]

@Sorgelig:

There are updated souces for this FANTASTIC core by Mark Watson (foft) here:
http://www.64kib.com/atarixlfpga_svn/tr ... 00xl/mist/

These are for MiST, but since our MiSTer core is directly based on the MiST one, these updates should be easily imported, right? Please correct me if I am wrong.
These changes include the fixes so the FORMAT command from AtariDOS work (it fails on current MiSTer core).

[seastalker]

Also adding support for the Alternate Reality series, especially the Dungeon. To this very day, I wish someone would buy the rights to the series and continue it, preferably with the original creators. I'm hoping the Dungeon's opening theme will get a Video Games Live treatment when Tommy Tallarico does another one- he's a little busy right now though.

For people testing the core, some fun games are Raid Over Moscow, Beach Head 2, Panther, and Turmoil to name a handful.

[werpu]

What a great machine, I love the wonderful noisy Pokey sound (and the fantastic Pokey Music in Alternate Reality and Trail of Beta Lyrae).

I've always enjoyed Alternate Reality The City and The Dungeon, the music by Gary Gilbertson in both really is great. It is a shame the series never reached full potential with all the proposed expansions.

Alternate Reality was supposed to have 7 parts, it never made it post part 2 though
It was groundbreaking and definitely better than the more famous Bards Tale.

[moralek]

Adam Gilmore's music is great, what do you think?
https://youtu.be/sJFPRtybErY

[thepulserifle]

My kingdom for a core revision that would allow both cassette tape loading as well as SNAC support for the DB9 (*whispered falsetto* Genesis does?). Then, and only then, would I begin to consider mothballing my 800.

[akeley]

Having tape loading would be awesome. There are a lot of early games which have not been converted yet.

[moralek]

Having tape loading would be awesome. There are a lot of early games which have not been converted yet.

oh yes, but right now, how can I convert my audio files (.wav) to .atr format for play in MiSTer?

[Chris23235]

Having tape loading would be awesome. There are a lot of early games which have not been converted yet.

Are there really so many tapes that haven't been converted? I always had the impression that every game was converted to xex, which can easily converted to atr for the Atari 8-Bit core.

[akeley]

Are there really so many tapes that haven't been converted? I always had the impression that every game was converted to xex, which can easily converted to atr for the Atari 8-Bit core.

Look at 1979-83 titles, in Gamebase for example. There's quite a few. Of course most of the popular ones are done, but I like to check obscure stuff too.

[moralek]

Having tape loading would be awesome. There are a lot of early games which have not been converted yet.

Are there really so many tapes that haven't been converted? I always had the impression that every game was converted to xex, which can easily converted to atr for the Atari 8-Bit core.

I have files in .xex format that work directly in the core,
but I would need to be able to play .cas files (or .wav files) or convert ... cas2exe? :/

[RealLarry]

I'm relatively sure that almost all commercial software got converted from cassettes to whatever. But I still have some cassettes of myself with some nice programs they never appeared somewhere at archives. I converted some programs by recording them from cassette player->line out->PC and saved them as .CAS format, but this is really an annoying and time consuming task

Have a look at http://www.mushca.com/f/atari/ and http://a8.fandal.cz/, these are probably the most complete archives...

[akeley]

Fandal & Homesoft are great resources, when it comes to disks. Nevertheless there is still stuff that's available on .cas only.

But it's not the main point, because tape functionality is an essential part of the legacy of the 8-bit micros. If we're aiming for the complete package here then it should be available, even if every single title was converted to .atr. It's already a feature in cores for most (all?) of its peers, you can even load games from real tape via the ADC input on some of them.

[RealLarry]

You're absolutely right. I wish someone would create a small interface for MiSTer's GPIO<->SIO to be able to connect all Atari devices which are using SIO bus.
Should be doable with no great witchcraft as very similar interfaces exists for Arduino, PCs and many others. The tricky part would be to implement this into the atari800 core...

[rolopolo]

It would be nice to see a little more work on the core compatibility. A few things fail in quite odd ways. Boulderdash does not move the character in the correct path in for the demo. Perhaps the random number gen. I can't say I know much of the core inner workings. Bandits fails, perhaps it has remnants of disk copy protection. Whomper Stomper does amazing stuff with the video output.

[Skeeter]

Bandits fails, perhaps it has remnants of disk copy protection.

There's a "fixed" version out there that works.

Thanks to the devs for this core. I just got my MiSTer a few days ago and being the A8 fan I am I'm having a blast with it.

Edit:...after further testing seems that "fixed" version of Bandits freezes after the first level. It works without issue on the A8 emulator Altirra. Sorry for the bad info.

[Skeeter]

Today I added the 128MB SDRAM to my new MiSTer which among other things, allows cartridges to run in the Atari 8-bit core. Happy to say the fixed version of Bandits in .CAR format works like a dream. I had to use the XL bios (without Basic) and not OS-B but by doing this it runs well and I got 3-4 levels past the first level freeze up.

[WolfgangBlack]

I thought cartidges ran fine with the 32mb memory module.
Since when does it require 128mb?
An Atari 800xl never had even 1mb of memory....

[rolopolo]

Bandits fails, perhaps it has remnants of disk copy protection.

There's a "fixed" version out there that works.

Thanks to the devs for this core. I just got my MiSTer a few days ago and being the A8 fan I am I'm having a blast with it.

Edit:...after further testing seems that "fixed" version of Bandits freezes after the first level. It works without issue on the A8 emulator Altirra. Sorry for the bad info.

Thanks for a quick reply. I had the original disk of Bandits in the day. Close to retirement I have recreated a real hardware setup but enjoyed using mister for the 8Bit Atari but not being able to write to disk is a real spoiler for doing some coding. I think I must have had the original 800 for Bandits. The 800xl and 1050 came later. I have no recollection of what happened to the 800. The 810 was lost by Post Office Parcels!

[Skeeter]

I thought cartidges ran fine with the 32mb memory module.
Since when does it require 128mb?

I didn't have any SDRAM before and carts wouldn't load until after I added it. 32 is probably fine for this, I just added 128 to cover everything for now.

[rcade]

The last released version of the core is broken- at least with 32M SDRAM. I don't have 128M to test. The previous version of the core, however, still works fine with carts and 32M.

[WolfgangBlack]

I didn't have any SDRAM before and carts wouldn't load until after I added it. 32 is probably fine for this, I just added 128 to cover everything for now.

Ah!
How are you enjoying your system now?

[LeftEmpty]

I seem to have an issue now: I can't run anything but cartridges.
When I try to run my Seven Cities of Gold or MULE floppies, it either tells be to not use a custom OS, or to remove the cartridge in the cartridge slot (which there is none inserted, obviously), depending on the machine type.
Help :O

[Skeeter]

I didn't have any SDRAM before and carts wouldn't load until after I added it. 32 is probably fine for this, I just added 128 to cover everything for now.

Ah!
How are you enjoying your system now?

Loving it!

[Lencio]

With 32MB of RAM Atari Xl CART support is totally broken since all 2020 versions. I rolled back to Atari800_20190927.rbf and I can run carts again.