lbert359@pallas.athenanet.com (Lee Bertagnolli) (02/19/90)
I have in my posessions FIVE (count 'em five) Atari XEP80's. They
are brand new and have never been out off the box. The XEP80 is, or course,
the 80-column option for the Atari 8-bit computers. The XEP80 also has
a standard parallel port.
I would love to dump these things, but will part with them one at a time.
Any reasonable offer will be accepted, but you must pay the shipping.
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+ Springfield, Illinois 62701 + Internet: lbert359@pallas.athenanet.com +Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth) (02/20/90)
Hello I would be interested in knowing at what price you would expect to get for an XEP80. I have been wondering about the usefulness of XEP80z. metalist/Bryan Jones Woodworth
slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey) (02/21/90)
In article <27134@cup.portal.com> Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth) writes: >Hello I would be interested in knowing at what price you would expect to get >for an XEP80. I have been wondering about the usefulness of XEP80z. XEP80's run at around $80 through mail order, don't they? I bought a used one through the net for $40. I would guess that the guy with 5 would probably take $40 or $50 (forgot the name). I think that the Atari is missing something at 40 cols. I think 80 cols almost makes it a computer (now all I need is a hard disk or ramdisk... sigh). Software would be the issue. Any program that dosn't conflict with the driver (in memory), that does standard I/O to the E: device should work. My editor, which simply repaints the screen with any change doesn't, so I am in the process of rewriting it (and am including many other features as well). I think it is a great addition. The XEP80 includes a parallel printer port, which I haven't needed or used yet. -Stan
Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth) (02/27/90)
Stan: Thanks for your input on the XEP80. I have a few questions about 80 column drivers: - Can the XEP80 display crisp 80 column text on a 13" color TV? - Can the XEP80 display ATASCII graphics (the ATASCII character set) On a mono/amber screen monitor? (Or if I were using an XEP80 with a mono monitor, would I need to use ASCII translation when modeming?) - There is a PD 80 column driver I am sure you have seen that sets up 80 columns o the screen. But this won't work with, say, BOBTERMwill it? Upon loading of BOBTERM wouldn't the 80column handler cause some sort of crash?? Thanks!! Metalist/BJW
slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey) (02/27/90)
In article <27342@cup.portal.com> Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth) writes: >- Can the XEP80 display crisp 80 column text on a 13" color TV? Not normally. Regular TV's don't have the bandwidth. Some say a good B&W can be used, but I haven't tried; there's no place to plug in the [unmodulated] composite video signal on mine. :-) Now I use both a "mid-res" color monitor and a hi-res mono; the color for games, and the mono for development. The mid-res has composite and TTL input. When I attempted to use the mid-res for the XEP, it resulted in bad overscan; apparently, real monitors have a different scan setup or picture size or something. >- Can the XEP80 display ATASCII graphics (the ATASCII character set) >On a mono/amber screen monitor? Yes. The XEP has the ATASCII character set (in ROM I assume) internally. It supports reverse video as well. I wonder if it is possible to write the character ROM (that is, put a new character set on RAM and point the internal processor to it, like you do in the Atari). >(Or if I were using an XEP80 with a mono >monitor, would I need to use ASCII translation when modeming?) I don't know. I have never used a modem on an Atari. It seems to me though that a modem program that uses software 80 col would need to be changed to simply write characters to E:. >- There is a PD 80 column driver I am sure you have seen that sets up 80 >columns o the screen. But this won't work with, say, BOBTERMwill it? Upon >loading of BOBTERM wouldn't the 80column >handler cause some sort of crash?? I believe the software-only 80 col emulators set up the screen in bitmap (graphics 8 in BASIC-talk) and do blts to form characters in a 4x8 cell. I never had a tube good enough to display this kind of resolution, including the mid-res one. You might not get a crash; I suspect you'd get a blank screen, because the XEP driver turns off the graphics chip. -Stan
Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth) (03/01/90)
Thanks for th info Stan. metalist
Richardd@cup.portal.com (Richard B Dell) (03/05/90)
Ok .... I know I have tried to ignore Atari's long enough. Now I am trying to use my collection of 800, 400's, and XL's. What I want to know is .... does the XEP80 work on anything OTHER than a straight Atari 800? I do have one of those as a gift to the kids from a friend, but if the XEP80 only works on that 'puter, I am not sure how useful it would be. I would love to get 80 columns on the 800XL's though! Thanks for any information in advance! Richard Dell
slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey) (03/05/90)
In article <27559@cup.portal.com> Richardd@cup.portal.com (Richard B Dell) writes: >know is .... does the XEP80 work on anything OTHER than a straight >Atari 800? I do have one of those as a gift to the kids from a friend, >but if the XEP80 only works on that 'puter, I am not sure how useful >it would be. I would love to get 80 columns on the 800XL's though! I'm not sure why you would think XEP80s would not work on XL/XE. I use an XEP80 with a 65XE (which is pretty much the same thing as your 800XL) nearly every day. -Stan
Ordania-DM@cup.portal.com (Charles K Hughes) (03/06/90)
RE: does the XEP 80 work on all Atari 8-bits? Yep, it sure does. In fact, that is the biggest problem with it. If Atari had made a version that connected to the parallel bus on the 800xl/600xl and 130xe machines, the XEP80 would have been the saving grace of the 8-bit line. Alas, they did not, but they did make it compatible with all the 8-bits by simply using a joystick port. Of course, they also made it compatible with any other machine with a compatible joystick port... Charles_K_Hughes @cup.portal.com
kimes@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (Kit Kimes) (03/07/90)
From article <27342@cup.portal.com>, by Metalist@cup.portal.com (Bryan Jones Woodworth): > > - There is a PD 80 column driver I am sure you have seen that sets up 80 > columns o the screen. But this won't work with, say, BOBTERM will it? Upon > loading of BOBTERM wouldn't the 80column handler cause some sort of crash?? I just set up my configuration for BOBTERM this weekend. It seems like an excellent program (V1.1) and Bob Puff will definitely get my shareware check by the weekend. If you are using Version 1.1 of BobTerm, it allows you to add modules that give you extra capability. This is supposed to be new for V1.1. I did not see V1.0 or earlier so I can't say. Anyway, one of the modules that came with the disk I got from our users group library is a module to allow you to use the XEP80 with BobTerm. I didn't try it because I don't have one, but it is available. Might be just what you are looking for. Kit Kimes AT&T Bell Labs Naperville, IL ...!att!iwtsa!kimes
psu@mtuni.ATT.COM (Paul Siu) (03/07/90)
Atari did not make XEP80 connect to the joystick port because they wanted to be compatible with the old Atari, they did it because their 65XE did not have a parallel expansion port, neither did the XEGS. Otherwise, we might have been seeing good, fast 80-col now.