jetset's "Please help me" thread

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Tue Apr 05, 2005 11:21 pm

Forgot to mention Infocom.

The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is very entertaining (but read the book first).

oesii · Post by **oesii** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:02 am

Yeah I'm a big Infocom fan too. Besides HGTG, I liked Cutthroats and loved Planetfall and Stationfall. I never got t0o far into the Scott Adam's adventures so those are waiting to be discovered for me

You don't need 5.25 floppies to save your games, you can just save the games onto blank .atr images with APE. But you can use floppies if you want, they'll probably only last 20 or 30 years though

If you have a blank floppy (or a blank .atr attached through APE which can create them) you have to go into DOS and simply selecte the Format disk option. That's it.

Loading save game files is variable from game to game, some have menu systems, some you just type Load *.* and others use something like Atari Basic uses, Load "D1:savegame.sav"

Your drives are numbered D1, D2, etc.

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:32 am

Hmmm...yeah maybe I should just learn to use the sio2pc and APE program and just save game progress onto my PC instead of the huge 810 disk drive. I'm running out of room big time and dont need to have the disk drive anyways.
As it is, I'm considering buying an 800xl system partly since it's a much smaller unit (plus some of the game I really want to play are 64k anyways)

Is the power supply for th 800xl the same as the 800 btw...? I know the data cable is the same right?

Post by **Andre** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 6:51 am

oesii wrote:Yeah I'm a big Infocom fan too. Besides HGTG, I liked Cutthroats and loved Planetfall and Stationfall.

If not already done, you should check out the Infocom entries in the database. Most of them come with scanned manual which should be extremely helpful to solve the tales.

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:17 pm

jetset wrote:Is the power supply for th 800xl the same as the 800 btw...? I know the data cable is the same right?

The data (SIO) cables are the same, but the PSUs aren't. The 400,800,810 and 1050 (amongst others) used standard jack plugs to connect, whereas the 800xl used a DIN plug.

More info here:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/fa ... on-35.html

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 12:56 pm

deathtrappomegranate wrote:
jetset wrote:Is the power supply for th 800xl the same as the 800 btw...? I know the data cable is the same right?
The data (SIO) cables are the same, but the PSUs aren't. The 400,800,810 and 1050 (amongst others) used standard jack plugs to connect, whereas the 800xl used a DIN plug.

More info here:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/fa ... on-35.html

Hey, are you proud of me? I actually had that site bookmarked (I think someone here, maybe you? pointed me to it once) and (after I posted the question here) I checked there and found out they are indeed different.
Pretty much though, it seems the 800xl is 99% the same just with enough extra memory to play a handful more games (like {some} of the XE titles) and is smaller and looks better.

Anybody got one for sale btw?

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:01 pm

jetset wrote:Anybody got one for sale btw?

I might actually have an NTSC 800XL somewhere, although the shipping cost from here to there might be quite a bit, especially if you need the PSU. I'll have a look anyway.

There's always ebay...

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 3:16 pm

deathtrappomegranate wrote:
jetset wrote:Anybody got one for sale btw?
I might actually have an NTSC 800XL somewhere, although the shipping cost from here to there might be quite a bit, especially if you need the PSU. I'll have a look anyway.

There's always ebay...

Yooooooooouuuuu

have a PM.

Shadeaux · Post by **Shadeaux** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 10:00 pm

deathtrappomegranate wrote: I might actually have an NTSC 800XL somewhere, although the shipping cost from here to there might be quite a bit,

Where are you?

oesii · Post by **oesii** » Wed Apr 06, 2005 11:44 pm

Pomegranate street? Actually he's in the UK.

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Mon Apr 11, 2005 12:15 am

Well, 'tis been almost a week since my last newbie question...ready for more gents?

Ok...I see there's a way to lump a bunch of games into one .atr file and have a menu to select those games when you load the .atr file. Like the homesoft homepage...all of his are in that format, anywhere from 4-8 or so games, and you just load the atr file, and select the game labelled from "A"-"H".

How can I do that? Is there a freely available software prog ?

Post by **Atari Frog** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 4:13 pm

There are multiple menus which allow you to do this but I don't have any handy at the moment. You could always ask Homesoft if he can send you his version.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Tue Apr 12, 2005 5:37 pm

Atari Frog wrote:There are multiple menus which allow you to do this but I don't have any handy at the moment. You could always ask Homesoft if he can send you his version.

--
Atari Frog
http://www.atarimania.com

Do you know the names of these menu programs? I could of course search the web but would nee to know what it is called.
And, I emailed homesoft a question (on another topic) and he never replied.

jetset · Post by **jetset** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 6:10 pm

I'm ba-a-a-a-ack!
Hey, just got an 800XL today. Hooked up my handy sio2pc adapter and loaded the Ape software (both via Atarimax.com) and....
NOTHING LOADS!!!!

Well, *some* games...Pacman and Missile Command worked fine, but pretty much not much else! Donkey Kong, Galaxian, nothing....either a garbled screen, or an error message. Cartridges work fine.
I'm probably just forgetting to change a setting or something, since all the same games (and more) should work if they worked on the 800.
HELP!!!!

Post by **deathtrappomegranate** » Wed Apr 27, 2005 7:17 pm

Remember that you need to disable the XL's built-in BASIC for many games.