PSYLONE@UOGUELPH.BITNET (Brian Taylor) (08/24/89)
I joined the list in the summer and was merely assuming it was due to the slow-down common to this time. I was wondering why there were no INFO-ATARI8 digests forthcoming (I still get deluged with INFO-ATARI16). I hope the machines aren't extinct as they are nice to hack around with, without having to worry about munging my more expensive and less bumbler-tolerant ST :-). Anyone else out there? - Brian
UCPL030@UNLVM.BITNET ("Douglas J. Evans") (08/31/89)
Well, not dead, but mighty quiet. I have older 8-bit machines, both a 400 and an 800, the latter is used mainly as dial-in-to-mainframe, but still fun with the occasional game. One project started years ago with some friends, but set aside when they went on to bigger machines, was an attempt to network several Ataris, not as in a LAN, but actually running as one game system, with slave Ataris acting as displays to one main system as the game driver. Multi- player games have always been of interest to me, and the thought of invidual Atari screens each being a cockpit view of a plane in a dogfight, or a station on the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise... Original attempt explored both PIA port connections and the serial port, but problems with signalling interupts seemed to be high on the list of obstacles. Anyone having ideas or interest in this subject should probably post to the list. We're trying to generate discussion, right? UPGRADING 800 to 800XL: My hardware knowledge is pretty limited, ergo the moribund project I just described. However, I'm pretty sure that a new OS is required, but not the only change you'd need. For one thing, I remember hearing about upgrades to the screen display chip(s). The XL's 'sharper, brighter' screen was one of it's big selling points. Whether tis necessary, or cosmetic, I have no idea. Lastly, where are you planning on sticking the extra 16K board? I don't think you can just slap in a 32K board in one of the regular slots. I love my lil ole 800, but with the prices I've seen, I suggest looking for XL to purchase over trying to upgrade. Adding a different keyboard(the one thing I decided was worse on the XL) to the XL would be a lot easier.
slackey@bbn.com (Stan Lackey) (08/31/89)
In article <8908311018.AA04330@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> UCPL030@UNLVM.BITNET ("Douglas J. Evans") writes: >Well, not dead, but mighty quiet. >One project started years ago with some friends, but set aside when they >went on to bigger machines, was an attempt to network several Ataris, >not as in a LAN, but actually running as one game system, with slave >Ataris acting as displays to one main system as the game driver. I think a good way to do this, albeit slow, is to use VBI and/or DLI as a 'timebase', and build a simulated UART using the controller ports. Received data can even go into a queue, so that data isn't lost while the CPU goes into a long latency operation. Does anyone know if the VBI is synchronized to the power line? If so, one-bit-per-VBI is possible, even if the two ataris happen to be plugged into opposite phases. It seems with some care, one BYTE per VBI might be possible (if the synchronization is there). I have used the internal timer interrupt for stuff like this, in particular my mouse/trakball driver. There were interactions, though, when I turned on DLI to twiddle the screen; at least a few DLI interrupts were lost, and some VBI's were lost, resulting in a lot of screen flicker because the VBI/DLI's sometimes weren't doing their respective thing. What I ended up doing was to put a DLI on every [text] line, and in the DLI routine inc a line count and check for (do I do something this time?), and not using the timers at all. -Stan