0:08

This is antique. The

0:11

Atari is a podcast.

0:13

Hello everyone and

0:16

welcome to antique

0:18

episode 113. The

0:20

last one. Of 2024.

0:22

That is. Scared me

0:25

there for a minute.

0:27

The last episode

0:29

of 2024. That is. Scared

0:32

me there for a minute.

0:34

The last one. And we're

0:36

recording this on the final

0:39

day of the year. So

0:41

hopefully everyone has a happy

0:44

new year. I've got with

0:46

me my co-host, usual co-host,

0:49

Brad Arnold. Hey, Brad. Hello.

0:51

And Kay Savage, say Kay.

0:54

Howdy, howdy. So let's kick

0:56

off the new year here by

0:58

talking about what we've been

1:00

up to from an Atari

1:03

perspective. Kay, you want to

1:05

kick us off? Sure.

1:07

I've been busy, I guess, apparently,

1:09

looking at, made my little list

1:11

of like, oh, wow. I kind

1:14

of got some stuff moved

1:16

forward in the last month.

1:18

Let's see. I finished

1:20

archiving the disks that Lee

1:22

Poppus of Analog Computing

1:25

Magazine sent me earlier this

1:27

year. I believe I had

1:29

mentioned at some previous time

1:31

that he sent me a

1:33

big box of disks. I had

1:35

already posted on the Atari

1:37

forums earlier this year a

1:39

couple of like clearly interesting things.

1:42

There was a game called

1:44

Titan which was a semi

1:46

playable prototype of an unfinished

1:48

game that analog was working

1:51

on called Titan and there

1:53

was an unfinished game called

1:55

Sunday Driver which I couldn't

1:57

even get to run. and

2:00

I posted those, but there

2:02

were a bunch of other

2:04

disks. So I finally sat

2:07

down this weekend and

2:09

archived the rest of

2:11

the disks, moving them

2:13

using the Apple Sauce

2:15

floppy disk controller to

2:18

ATR files. It took me

2:20

literally all day. These disks were

2:23

dirty and... had to be read

2:25

multiple times. Basically I had for

2:27

all of them, almost all of

2:30

them. I had to take the

2:32

media out of the sleeve and

2:35

wash it and dry it off.

2:37

Oh wow. Pretty dirty. I mean,

2:39

and some of them, like one

2:42

or two of the, there's some

2:44

of them like where you could

2:46

look at them and like, oh,

2:48

that's dirty. It's, I can tell

2:51

it's going to need to be

2:53

cleaned. Oily, it was just like,

2:55

oh my, it was gross. But

2:57

of the, the, I think it

2:59

was about 55 disks, some

3:01

of them were double sided. There

3:03

was only like one or

3:06

two bad sectors across the

3:08

entire thing. It was very,

3:10

after I watched them, it

3:12

was great. That's amazing. So

3:14

I just, I just, I

3:16

mean a well zip files and

3:18

whatnot. And I just, and I

3:20

just a few minutes ago posted.

3:23

the a zip file of the ATR

3:25

files of the disks. And here's what

3:27

I wrote. I'm just going to read

3:29

what I wrote. I had already

3:31

uploaded the obvious cool things

3:34

in the disk collection, but there were

3:36

50 more disks, which I finally

3:38

imaged and have uploaded here. Now

3:40

it's time for a treasure hunt.

3:42

I'm going to take it's going

3:44

to take a team of people

3:46

to look through these files to

3:49

figure out what's already widely available.

3:51

Some of the stuff is clearly

3:53

programs from the magazine or disks

3:55

sold by the magazine versus what's

3:57

new and interesting there could be

3:59

unpublished source code, magazine

4:01

article drafts, random games

4:04

uploaded to analogs, BBS,

4:06

and unarchive things. And

4:08

I already, frankly, spent hours

4:10

and hours archiving the disks, and

4:12

now I'm like throwing it out

4:15

to the community to look at

4:17

the files and tell me what

4:19

you find. So I'm asking people

4:21

to help dig into the files

4:24

and report the interesting things that

4:26

they find. Some of them. It's clearly

4:28

what they are, what they are, you know,

4:30

be like, you know, analog disc number,

4:33

you know, magazine disc number for

4:35

issue 30. Like, fine, that's probably

4:37

not that interesting. But a lot

4:39

of them, the labels had fallen

4:41

off in the last 40 years,

4:43

and just no telling what they are.

4:45

So I have uploaded them. I

4:47

see it's already been downloaded nine

4:49

times. No one's posted anything yet.

4:52

But I really, I want, if you're

4:54

a listener, download this thing and,

4:56

and... take a look and let's

4:58

like find the treasures in this

5:00

box that Lee sent. I don't

5:02

want to be the guy who has

5:04

to do it all by himself and

5:07

I think that this is this would

5:09

be fun little project to just dig

5:11

in and see what's there. So I'm

5:14

happy to have done that and

5:16

that was number one. Number

5:18

two after we recorded our

5:20

last episode Randy you would

5:22

give me the homework assignment

5:25

of getting the Fast Basic

5:27

installed on my Mac.

5:29

Oh, that's right. I totally forget

5:31

about that. Yeah. That we talked

5:33

about a thing to get

5:36

Visual Studio Code IDE working

5:38

to go to Fast Basic.

5:40

And I got it working. Awesome.

5:42

And I've been having a great

5:44

time learning Fast Basic,

5:47

getting into just figuring

5:49

it out. you know, what it's

5:51

about, posted a few things to

5:54

my Blue Sky account. Now seeing

5:56

with DLIs a little bit, doing,

5:58

you know, playing with with player

6:00

missiles. I did a thing where, you know,

6:03

it just draws a little, well,

6:05

I'll be just screwing around, it

6:07

just draws like a little border

6:09

on the screen, it puts a

6:11

robot there, and then I made

6:13

the border, change color every couple

6:16

of lines with the LIs. So

6:18

anyway, it was kind of fun. And

6:20

it's just so fast. I mean,

6:22

I can code something up in

6:25

Visual Studio, and I set that

6:27

the key binding for the backslash.

6:29

to compile. I hit backslash and

6:31

then one second later it's running

6:33

in the Atari 800 madicos specs.

6:35

I know, isn't that nice? It's

6:37

really nice. When you're doing development,

6:40

I mean, it's really a nice

6:42

fast way. It's instant gratification.

6:44

And I want to, I don't know

6:46

if that's going to work. Should I

6:48

try it? Well, it costs like nothing

6:50

to try it. You know, it didn't

6:52

work or whatever. So, that's fun.

6:56

So related to that,

6:59

Atari Orbit just posted the

7:01

other day an article called

7:03

Getting Altarrow running on Macos

7:06

Sequoia. I have had Altarrow

7:08

running before under wine on

7:11

my Mac. It's been a

7:13

couple of years. I'm sure

7:16

it doesn't work anymore.

7:18

I've upgraded operating systems

7:20

and computers and

7:22

things. But the Atari Orbit.

7:25

Log posted a very detailed

7:27

step-by-step guide to Setting up

7:29

Alterra to work on the Mac,

7:31

which is kind of the next thing

7:34

on my to-do list because what I

7:36

want to do is have the chain

7:38

go from visual studio code to

7:40

instead of running Atari 800 to

7:42

go into Alterra Because I

7:45

would because Alterra does Fuji

7:47

net emulation, right? I would

7:49

like to see if I can write a

7:51

ten-line game that uses the Fuji net Oh

7:53

yeah, that would be nice. Tom Cherry Holmes has

7:55

been asking me about this for a long time

7:58

and I'm just like, it's a great idea. I

8:00

think it can be done. I

8:02

don't see why not really. But

8:05

anyway, so I need a terror

8:07

to be running on my Mac

8:09

to do that. So I'm going

8:11

to do that and then see

8:13

if I can make a 10

8:15

line food unit game for

8:17

the contest this year. Well,

8:19

that's great. Yeah, I saw

8:21

I saw that Atari orbit

8:23

had. Had published that but

8:25

I did not take a look at it

8:28

didn't try to do that install on my

8:30

Mac, but I'm gonna have to give that

8:32

a look Let us know that works out

8:34

for you Yeah, sure I will I'm so I haven't

8:37

even tried it at all. You know

8:39

I haven't done the first but

8:41

it's like oh bookmark that and we'll

8:43

get to that so Yeah, and my goal

8:45

isn't even to win with a contest

8:48

and win the or get it even

8:50

getting the first top three of

8:52

the contest this year. I just

8:54

want to make a game

8:56

in that uses Food Unit

8:59

in 10 lines and you

9:01

know as long as it's

9:03

reasonably decent game then I'll

9:05

be happy. And there's that

9:07

utility for Fast Basic that

9:09

will reformat things to 10

9:12

line. I don't know about that. Yeah

9:14

I had a link I think in

9:16

the last show notes about that the

9:18

last show. So you might want to

9:20

take a look at that as well.

9:23

I mean it could help if

9:25

you want to do a 10-liner. Yeah.

9:27

I had forgotten about that.

9:29

If you remember what it's called,

9:31

I'd appreciate you telling me.

9:33

I had very quickly just

9:36

like written a little something

9:38

and fast basic and then

9:40

I compressed it down as quick

9:42

as I could, like just literally

9:45

just like replacing new lines

9:47

with colons and Just making

9:50

it is squishing it down as much

9:52

and you know was ugly was it

9:54

was totally it ran So it does

9:56

it fast basic really doesn't seem to

9:58

care about formatting which is great. So

10:00

anyway, so I think it'll be

10:03

it'll be great for for

10:05

10-line. Let's see what else.

10:07

Eaten by Agru is back,

10:09

Carrington in my podcast about

10:12

adventure games. We had taken

10:14

a break for about a

10:16

year, which was entirely my

10:18

fault. Anyway, so we're back

10:20

and we played Adventure Land

10:23

by Scott Adams. And next

10:25

we're going to... play a

10:27

game called Fish by magnetic

10:29

scrolls. Now that's very Atari

10:31

related, but I thought I

10:34

mentioned it. Oh, many times I

10:36

have mentioned, we have

10:38

mentioned here, Computer Chronicles

10:40

Revisited, which is a

10:42

blog where S. Olivia

10:45

watches Computer Chronicle shows and

10:47

talks about them. They're back,

10:49

they're doing that again. I

10:51

think they had stopped, they're

10:53

taking a break, and they're

10:55

back and doing it. But

10:58

also they posted a nice thing

11:00

about us. They said a friend

11:02

of the blog, antique, the Atari

11:04

8-bit podcast on hybrid arts, and

11:06

SM called out my interviews with

11:08

Frank Foster and Robert Moore of

11:11

hybrid arts, and then

11:13

linked to the Computer Chronicles

11:15

episode where Frank Foster appeared

11:17

talking about meaty stuff. So

11:20

that was neat.

11:22

And finally, in my

11:25

busy month, I found

11:27

out that I was referenced

11:31

in a, an article,

11:33

a like, you know,

11:35

academic type article,

11:38

which was published

11:41

in 2023, and

11:44

the author, Myrna

11:46

Morena Moretti. just told

11:48

me that it had been

11:51

published. The article was called

11:53

Keeping Up with Atari Neoliberal

11:55

Expectations in Early Electronics Advertising,

11:58

and it's basically about. the

12:00

have you played Atari

12:03

today and and what's

12:05

the other one the

12:08

other ads commercials that

12:10

Atari did and just

12:13

kind of like you

12:15

know the dad using

12:18

the computer and the

12:20

mom in the background

12:23

and it just kind

12:25

of this you know

12:28

gender and how things

12:30

were portrayed in these

12:33

commercials. Anyway, I was

12:35

cited in there for

12:38

some of my work

12:40

talking about, you know,

12:43

Atari stuff. So that

12:45

was going to be

12:48

being cited in an

12:50

academic paper, made me

12:53

feel fancy. I'm fancy.

12:55

It's been a busy

12:58

month and next for

13:00

me is writing my

13:03

year and roundup. I

13:05

haven't done that yet.

13:08

Year and roundup of

13:10

archiving activities and seeing

13:13

if I can get

13:15

what's it called ulterior

13:18

running. That's quite a

13:20

bit. That's with all

13:23

the holidays in there.

13:26

Brad, can you can

13:28

you match that, buddy?

13:31

Oh, absolutely. Not. Not

13:33

even close. Basically, my

13:35

month has come down

13:38

to, I don't know

13:40

if I mentioned this

13:43

last month or not.

13:45

I can barely remember

13:47

yesterday, much less last

13:50

month. But anyway, I'm

13:52

working on researching a

13:54

imaging setup. so I

13:57

can image on my

13:59

discettes. The problem

14:01

with it is is has

14:03

to be able to include

14:06

eight inch discettes and which,

14:08

you know, kind of throws

14:10

a little bit of a,

14:12

you know, curve into it

14:15

because several of the things,

14:17

you know, they happily do

14:19

five and a quarter, but

14:22

eight inch, you know, you

14:24

have to really jump through

14:26

some hoops. working on figuring

14:29

out what all the hoops

14:31

are and getting that set

14:33

up because I have enough

14:35

eight inch discets with my

14:38

ATRA thousand that it's, you

14:40

know, they need to get

14:42

imaged because I'm sure, you

14:45

know, they're one offs because

14:47

this guy was a developer,

14:49

I got it from. It's

14:51

worth saving. You know, you

14:54

know, that's always the argument.

14:56

So I'll let someone else

14:58

make that decision. But I'm

15:01

working on that. So if

15:03

anyone has any suggestions for,

15:05

you know, imaging eight inch

15:07

discets, let me know. Do

15:10

you have an eight inch

15:12

drive? Yes, I do. Does

15:14

it have power? Yes, it

15:17

has power? Yes, it does.

15:19

Well, that's been my problem.

15:21

I have a bunch of

15:24

eight-inch disks to archive and

15:26

I have an eight-inch drive,

15:28

but this drive requires both

15:30

DC and AC power. And

15:33

I have AC power supply,

15:35

but the DC is weird.

15:37

I don't know anything about

15:40

power, but it's like it

15:42

wants like minus five and

15:44

plus 18. It wants something

15:46

weird. And I don't have

15:49

a power supply for it.

15:51

I haven't been able to

15:53

do it. Tom Sharon Holmes

15:56

tried to help me and

15:58

I just. I need

16:00

something to plug and play. I'm

16:03

not an electronic guy. I just

16:05

need like, here's the box, plug

16:07

it in, it'll work. And so

16:10

I have everything else. I have

16:12

the, the, it's gonna plug into

16:14

the Apple Sauce Poppist, which should

16:16

be able to read it just

16:19

fine. And I have some amazing

16:21

disks that I need to archive,

16:23

but it's just, it's always something,

16:26

you know. Yeah, it's, it's, it's,

16:28

it's, you know. What model is

16:30

it? Do you know, you can,

16:33

if you don't know, let me

16:35

know and I can compare against

16:37

mine and, you know, maybe we

16:40

can figure something out. Okay. I

16:42

don't know off the top of

16:44

my head what it is, but

16:46

I know, but I don't know.

16:49

And because like you said, mine

16:51

does work. I've taken it to

16:53

several VCFs. you know,

16:56

and demonstrated the ATR 8000,

16:58

you know, running D-base 2

17:00

off of 8-inch discette. Nice.

17:03

And so, anyway, I want

17:05

to get those imaged that

17:07

and a whole bunch of

17:10

double-sided, you know, 360K discates,

17:12

you know, which also were

17:14

on the off of the

17:17

ATR 8000. So, anyway. So

17:19

if you might know anything

17:21

about, you know, a board,

17:24

you know, whether it be

17:26

the, you're using an apple

17:28

sauce and, you know, there's

17:31

the CioFlex and the, what's

17:33

the other one? So some,

17:35

is the grease weasel and,

17:38

yeah, the grease weasel, yeah.

17:40

There's another one, actually the

17:43

one, one I also like,

17:45

I can't think of the

17:47

name of right now, but

17:50

yeah, it's a bunch of

17:52

one. Yeah, so, anyway. I

17:54

almost got an Atari 400

17:57

many. for a Christmas but

17:59

yeah that didn't work out

18:01

so yeah maybe maybe buy

18:04

my birthday yeah there you

18:06

go you can always buy

18:08

it for yourself for your

18:11

birthday yeah well yeah all

18:13

right well I don't even

18:15

own an eight-inch disc not

18:18

a single one and certainly

18:20

don't have an eight-inch drive

18:22

so I certainly can't help

18:25

you out there All

18:28

of my stuff has been

18:30

projects, little projects that I'm

18:33

working on, I made progress

18:35

on, but I haven't completed

18:38

any of them. In the

18:40

last show I mentioned the

18:43

fact that there was a

18:45

fairly inexpensive keyboard that you

18:48

could buy on Amazon and

18:50

then take the domes keyboard

18:53

or the keep... the

18:56

key domes I guess out of

18:58

the out of the inside and

19:00

then put those inside your Exe

19:02

machine and improve the feel of

19:05

the keys on those and I

19:07

got one of the keyboards and

19:09

then I was looking at how

19:11

you do you have to you

19:14

have to take off the my

19:16

art and actually cut out all

19:18

of these individual domes you got

19:20

actually these circular domes you have

19:22

to cut them all out so

19:25

it looks like it's going to

19:27

be rather tedious to do all

19:29

of that but I still want

19:31

to do it I got I

19:34

got the keyboard and I just

19:36

need to sit down sometime and

19:38

start cutting them out so that

19:40

I can put them in my

19:43

130XE that I've got earmarked to

19:45

to get these domes. So I'm

19:47

working on that I'm also working

19:49

on And I think I've probably

19:52

mentioned this on a show before.

19:54

I want to have a portable

19:56

Atari in a case. Since you

19:58

can run. especially

20:01

the the Excel machine, but

20:03

I know you can the

20:05

XE's as well, run those

20:07

off of a USB battery

20:10

and I've got you know

20:12

some some USB batteries that

20:14

I could do that. So

20:17

I've been looking to get

20:19

a case that I could

20:21

buy the phone for and

20:23

then, you know, like that,

20:26

what's it called the pick?

20:28

pick and pack that you just

20:31

cut out in shape of whatever

20:33

you're going to put inside your

20:35

case. And I've got this, I

20:37

bought the foam, I bought the

20:39

case, a couple of cases actually,

20:42

and I want to start

20:45

assembling that and getting probably

20:48

a 600xL put into it, and

20:50

then I've got a little 7

20:52

inch LCD that will fit in

20:54

there that runs off battery as

20:56

well. Just pick a little

20:58

portable Atari out of it. And, uh...

21:01

Oh fun! Yeah, something I can take

21:03

to our club meetings and it'll be

21:05

real easy just to grab it and

21:07

grab it and go. Stick a Fuji net

21:09

in there and, you know, I could run,

21:11

I know that at the meetings it's

21:14

not a problem having access to

21:16

electricity, but it'd be fun just

21:18

to maybe even go to a

21:20

show with with one of these

21:22

and just run it's everything off

21:25

battery. And just

21:27

a fun little project.

21:30

Also, or just

21:32

whatever, just go

21:34

to the forest or

21:36

the beach. Yeah. Go

21:38

to the forest and

21:41

play the latter. Yeah.

21:43

I only have one

21:45

suggestion. What's that? Make

21:47

sure the case does

21:49

not look like a gun

21:52

case. Oh. Good cause it will

21:54

grow wings and just teleport

21:56

away instantaneously. If it looks

21:58

like it can. case it

22:00

will just disappear. And the

22:03

pin at pink and put

22:05

unicorns on it. Then yeah

22:07

and yeah I mean they're

22:09

they're not real wide there

22:11

they have to be wide

22:14

enough to have an Atari

22:16

inside of it but they're

22:18

not wide enough to have

22:20

like a rifle or something

22:22

like that in it but

22:24

yeah I guess they could

22:27

certainly have a handgun. And

22:29

I had a case years

22:31

years ago. And it looked

22:33

like a gun case and

22:35

first time you turn around,

22:38

it's gone. Yeah, oh yeah,

22:40

huh? And actually one time

22:42

it disappeared and I got

22:44

lucky and found it in

22:46

a trash can down the

22:49

hall because whoever swiped it

22:51

opens it up and... That's

22:53

something I'm working on. And

22:55

then the other thing is,

22:57

I still, I don't know,

23:00

I've been on a kick

23:02

to get my 1027 going.

23:04

And you know, there was

23:06

that project a few years

23:08

ago to recreate the print

23:10

heads for the 1027. And

23:13

I bought one then and

23:15

I should have bought multiples.

23:17

As soon as I tried

23:19

it, it busted. And you

23:21

know, I still didn't have

23:24

a working 1027. A gentleman

23:26

who is one of the

23:28

officers of ABAC had some

23:30

printed, and so I am

23:32

purchasing a couple off of

23:35

him. I'm going to get

23:37

another shot and see if

23:39

I can get a 1027

23:41

going. I just really like

23:43

that little printer, and I'd

23:45

like to have a working

23:48

one, even though I'm not

23:50

that much into printers. I'd

23:52

like to have a 1027

23:54

that works. So. Yeah, I

23:56

hope that works out. That'd

23:59

be good So

24:02

that's it that's pretty much

24:04

it what as far as

24:06

what I've been up to

24:08

Next up we typically talk

24:10

about any recent interview shows

24:12

of which there have been

24:14

Numerous thanks to Kay and

24:16

his Basically weekly publication for

24:18

the last couple of months

24:20

of interviews Want to talk

24:22

about that for a sec?

24:24

Okay, well sure my you

24:26

know my goal for the

24:28

year was to do 15

24:30

interviews and I did it

24:32

and you were going to

24:34

do 15 interviews as well

24:36

How'd that go? I don't

24:38

know. I didn't even love

24:40

to see how many ideas.

24:42

I was more focused on

24:44

our final goal, which was

24:46

the, you know, to hit

24:48

500. I see. Anyway, I

24:50

got to be, you know,

24:52

October, I was just like,

24:54

well, if I'm going to

24:56

do 15 interviews, I better

24:58

get on it. And then

25:00

I started doing, you know,

25:02

one a week or so.

25:04

We talked. So I was

25:06

going to ask you, you

25:08

did, you did one with

25:10

DMSC, who did Fast Basic.

25:12

Did that come out of

25:14

your work to actually get

25:16

Fast Basic working? I mean,

25:18

I've been thinking about Fast

25:20

Basic a lot and playing

25:22

with it, and I was

25:24

just like, so I mean,

25:26

it just made sense to

25:28

talk to him. I didn't.

25:30

talk to him because I

25:32

needed help, but I talked

25:34

to him because he was

25:36

on he was top in

25:38

his little program with top

25:40

of mind. So yeah, that

25:42

was the most recent one

25:44

just published yesterday talked to

25:46

Daniel who created Fast Basic

25:48

and he gave a great

25:50

interview before that and some

25:52

of these interviews are I

25:54

mean very recent. I just

25:56

did Daniel's interview the other

25:58

day and some of them

26:00

have been sitting on my

26:02

drive for a while, so

26:04

I'm catching up. And I

26:06

think I've done most of

26:08

the old ones. Before that,

26:10

let's see, I did talk

26:12

to Robert Leeland. He did

26:14

Atari artists and koala painter

26:16

and micro illustrator and murder

26:18

on the Zendenov and alien

26:20

garden and fascinating interview. Great

26:22

interview. If you're like, I

26:24

don't know, trying to lose

26:27

in interviews, Listen to this

26:29

one. It's he's he was

26:31

great before that I talked

26:33

to Tim Bolart. He worked

26:35

at Atari's W. C. I

26:37

labs in New York That

26:39

was a nice interview before

26:41

that I talked to three

26:43

people from hybrid arts the

26:45

meaty mate, meaty maze people

26:47

And that was very interesting

26:49

and before that I talked

26:51

to Mary Eisenhower who was

26:53

editor of Micro Times magazine,

26:55

which was a California computer

26:57

magazine And she was fascinating.

26:59

She was one of my

27:01

favorite interviews lately. So, did

27:03

15 interviews this year and

27:05

I keep going next year.

27:07

Okay. Cool. I were up

27:09

to, as of the one

27:11

that went out yesterday, I

27:13

believe, 451 is the number

27:15

of interviews. And then of

27:17

interview episodes. Right. Episodes. Yeah.

27:19

As an interview interview. We

27:21

have done well over 500

27:23

hundred of us. Yeah. Yeah.

27:25

Yeah. Because sometimes there's some,

27:27

you know, two or three

27:29

people in an episode or

27:31

whatever. But yeah. So 45.

27:33

Yeah, there were quite a

27:35

few of the very early

27:37

ones that we did a

27:39

bunch of interviews that were

27:41

not in separate shows. Right.

27:43

Yeah. Yeah. All right. Very

27:45

good. Well, I suppose it's

27:47

my turn to get a

27:49

few out there now, huh?

27:51

It would be nice. I've

27:53

got a couple sitting on

27:55

my hard drive and a

27:57

couple other that are pretty

27:59

close to being. scheduled so

28:01

I'll start working

28:03

on it. Great. Okay I

28:06

think it's time for

28:08

the Atari news. We'll

28:10

kick it off with

28:13

a kickstarter update.

28:15

We'll kick it

28:17

off with a

28:19

kickstarter update. In fact

28:22

I'm gonna click on

28:24

the link right now just

28:26

to see how this...

28:28

When yeah, okay, so the

28:31

injection mold of clear

28:33

case for the Atari

28:35

800xL Did not make

28:37

it They got eight eleven

28:39

thousand five hundred eighty

28:42

two dollars pledge of

28:44

the thirty thousand dollar

28:46

goal So they Really

28:48

didn't even get very

28:50

close. I did see I saw a

28:53

post by the gentleman

28:55

and I don't remember

28:57

the name who is the head

29:00

of this and he put out

29:02

a post, you know, asking

29:04

people, a lot of people said

29:06

it was just too

29:08

expensive was one of

29:11

the reasons. I think

29:13

the main reasons were

29:15

expense and another was

29:17

people didn't care about

29:19

having a clear case, honestly, but

29:21

you know, he asked. If he

29:24

makes more cases, he can get

29:26

the price down. But of course,

29:29

he's got to have that many more

29:31

people that are willing to buy

29:33

the cases. So he was trying

29:35

to find out what is the best

29:37

price point that people would jump in

29:40

on. And kind of, you know, what

29:42

is that maximum? What's that

29:44

inflection point? What's that

29:46

that maximum? What's that

29:49

inflection point? What's that

29:51

that maximum? That maximum?

29:53

That he can that he can

29:55

sell the most of these

29:58

for what's that price? point.

30:00

Yeah. And so hopefully he

30:02

won't give up on this

30:04

and there still be still

30:06

be something that comes out

30:08

of it. But he just

30:11

needs one buyer willing to

30:13

pay $30,000. There you go.

30:15

Sounds easy. Sorry. There's going

30:17

to be some rich patrons

30:19

out there that could do

30:21

that, right? Okay. That's the

30:23

that's the update on the

30:26

Kickstarter. There also has been

30:28

a Sparta Doss, 4.5 update,

30:30

which has a lot of

30:32

bug fixes in it. I

30:34

didn't see anything in the

30:36

list of improvements that stood

30:38

out to me. There just

30:40

were a lot of bug

30:43

fixes and a lot of

30:45

little improvements in it, but

30:47

they continue to improve Sparta

30:49

Doss. I know a lot

30:51

of people really like Sparta

30:53

Doss. It's got to be

30:55

the premier Atari Doss out

30:57

there. It's great

31:00

to see that that

31:02

continues to to improve.

31:04

Nice. Somebody want to

31:06

talk about the r.m.

31:08

800xel update? I wasn't

31:10

aware. There had been

31:12

an update. Let's see.

31:14

It says. Pictures posted.

31:17

There's pictures? Yeah. All

31:19

right. Philson posted on

31:21

Mastodon on December 9th.

31:23

The Amazing RM 800XL

31:25

project by Revive Machines

31:27

continues and posted some

31:29

pictures and there is

31:31

a black case with

31:33

a keyboard and you

31:35

can see the nine-pin

31:37

joystick ports and USBs

31:39

on the side and

31:42

a look into the

31:44

cartridge port and then

31:46

the back of the

31:48

thing that has the

31:50

SAO and video. Yeah,

31:54

that's HDMI, USB. Yeah, it's got

31:57

a bunch of ports back there.

31:59

Yeah. Nice.

32:01

Well, let's see. I look

32:03

at the official RM 800XL

32:06

site. So if you go

32:08

out to the official site,

32:10

there's really nothing updated there

32:12

on this. I'm not sure

32:14

where Filsen is getting these,

32:16

you know, this inside information,

32:18

but you know, he seems

32:20

to be posting fairly often

32:22

about this update and I

32:24

tried to get an interview

32:26

with him by the way

32:28

and He declined so I'm

32:30

hoping one of these days

32:32

we can still talk with

32:34

him Looks like the official

32:36

site hasn't been updated since

32:38

2023 looks pretty much the

32:40

same Last time I looked

32:42

at it. So all right.

32:44

Well, I can we'll continue

32:46

to tease us at least

32:48

part way into 2025. We'll

32:50

see what happens there Okay,

32:52

well you got a bunch

32:54

of FujiNet news. We were

32:56

hoping that Andy Diller could

32:58

join us he tried to

33:00

he wanted to but apparently

33:02

couldn't couldn't make it we're

33:05

kind of recording at a

33:07

weird time honestly which is

33:09

which is my fault but

33:11

I did want to point

33:13

out there is a lot

33:15

of news out there Andy

33:17

himself posted a what he

33:19

calls you know he calls

33:21

the rapid which is supposed

33:23

to be like a one-pager

33:25

with an update monthly one-page

33:27

update Yeah, and he posted

33:29

number 13, which is actually

33:31

a 2024 wrap-up. It's not

33:33

a single-pager, as you might

33:35

imagine, because there's been a

33:37

lot that's happened in 2024.

33:39

I mean, you could put

33:41

it on one page, but

33:43

you wouldn't be able to

33:45

read it. But there is

33:47

a lot of information there.

33:49

It talks about all of

33:51

the things that the FujiNet

33:53

project has done in 2024,

33:55

all the people that involved.

33:57

what each individual person has

33:59

contributed to the project. And

34:01

so it's been really a

34:03

ton of stuff. They've made

34:06

a lot of progress to

34:08

towards additional platforms as well

34:10

as, you know, and they

34:12

added the cocoa as an

34:14

official platform this year. And,

34:16

you know, there's just a

34:18

lot, a lot going on

34:20

there. So really appreciate what

34:22

Andy does and continues to

34:24

do to get the news

34:26

out as well as just

34:28

the whole FujiNet team. There's

34:30

also been a recent video

34:32

by the event nerd. and

34:34

Brian Cox of future vision

34:36

research. Talking about all of

34:38

the different FujiNet for all

34:40

the different platforms. And so

34:42

that's a great video to

34:44

check out. There is a

34:46

FujiNet news sub stack that

34:48

Brian Cox of future vision

34:50

research puts out. I just

34:52

recently discovered and you can

34:54

subscribe to. Tom

34:57

Cherry homes just today posted

34:59

that he has an early

35:02

draft of the FujiNet users

35:04

manual for Atari users. So

35:07

Thomas continues to put out

35:09

a lot of information about

35:11

FujiNet, but this one is

35:14

targeted for Atari users. And

35:16

if you want to learn

35:19

about FujiNet, go see what

35:21

Tom's done. He's done some

35:24

great work here. So

35:27

that's all the stuff

35:29

going on with Fujinet.

35:31

Beautiful. We also have

35:33

an Atari party east

35:36

update, also from Andy

35:38

Diller. He sent our

35:40

team an email about

35:42

this. He attended the

35:44

Atari party, which happened

35:46

in December in Pennsylvania.

35:49

And he said he

35:51

was there for the

35:53

second half. of it.

35:55

It had amazing Atari

35:57

energy. He's going to

35:59

try to see if

36:01

a summer version could

36:04

actually be done, which

36:06

would be great. He

36:08

also posted some pictures.

36:10

We'll have some links

36:12

in the show notes

36:14

for those photos, if

36:17

you want to see

36:19

photos from the Atari

36:21

Party East. He also

36:23

gave away 10 copies

36:25

of his first info-com

36:27

adventure called Atari Party

36:29

Panic, that he says

36:32

a few people played

36:34

at the party panic.

36:36

Yeah, I haven't seen

36:38

this. I haven't seen

36:40

this new game yet

36:42

that he's done, but

36:45

she sounds like a

36:47

lot of fun. So

36:49

that's a tari-party east.

36:51

So he put, he

36:53

did a whole info-com

36:55

style box and the

36:57

whole thing from the

37:00

pictures here. Very nice.

37:02

Yeah, fun. All right,

37:04

I'll let somebody else

37:06

take this next one.

37:08

Go, Brad, go. All

37:10

right. My tech has

37:13

released a solderless... 1088K

37:15

SRAM based memory replacement

37:17

board. And it's a,

37:19

basically it's a one

37:21

megabyte solderless replacement board

37:23

for a 1200 Excel.

37:25

I forgot to mention

37:28

that at the beginning.

37:30

Yeah, that's kind of

37:32

important. It's for the

37:34

1,000 Excel. Yeah. But

37:36

and and solderless refers

37:38

to the installation. You

37:41

still have to build

37:43

the PCB You got

37:45

to solder your PCB

37:47

because there's You know,

37:49

lots of chips lots

37:51

hundreds thousands thousands of

37:53

chips. I don't think

37:56

so It'll work with

37:58

Now wait a minute,

38:00

this is, it says

38:02

it'll work with stock

38:04

or 800 Excel OS

38:07

MMU modified motherboard. I

38:09

thought this was for

38:11

a 1,200 Excel. Are we

38:14

talking about 800 Excel? Why

38:16

would you put an 8,

38:18

well, can you do that?

38:21

I think some people have

38:23

modified their motherboard for the

38:26

1,200 Excel to use the

38:28

800 Excel OS. I hadn't

38:30

heard of that and I

38:33

hadn't heard of it either. And

38:35

I was about to say, why

38:37

would you do that? But then

38:39

I always never ask

38:41

why in this hobby, because

38:44

it's a silly question.

38:46

But why? No. So yeah,

38:49

I'd never heard of putting

38:51

800 Excel OS and 1,200

38:53

Excel. So, okay, learn

38:56

something. And this. upgrade

38:58

is switchable between

39:00

64K 576 and

39:03

1088 memory convictions.

39:05

It's using the

39:07

Rambo banking scheme. So

39:10

that's interesting if I

39:12

ever get my 1,200

39:14

going again. Yeah, that should

39:16

be on your project though,

39:19

Brad. Yeah. You don't see

39:21

a lot of upgrades for

39:23

the 1,000 Excel. So

39:26

I don't know if it's because

39:28

it's more rare and people

39:31

don't want to modify them

39:33

or or what but It's

39:35

it's perfect as it is

39:37

It's perfect as it is

39:39

With the the keyboard is

39:41

perfect perfectly something

39:44

But yeah, although I do like

39:46

the form factor of the 1200.

39:48

I don't know why it's huge.

39:51

It is huge massive All

39:53

right, okay, I think you're

39:55

I'm up. I am I am a

39:57

fan of ROM chip journal.

40:00

ROMCHIP, a journal of

40:02

game histories, which is an

40:04

academic-style journal that is completely

40:06

free and it's all about

40:08

video games. It's a platform

40:10

designed for the advancement

40:12

of critical historical studies

40:15

of games, broadly imagined

40:17

across a variety of

40:19

fields, disciplines, and professions.

40:21

So, I mean, it's

40:23

an academic-style journal, but it's

40:25

entirely free and often

40:28

very interesting. and in

40:30

the most recent issue

40:32

volume six number two

40:34

there is an article

40:36

worth looking at called

40:39

the joy of sticks

40:41

researching the history of

40:44

game controllers that used

40:46

the Atari standard

40:48

and apparently there

40:50

was a an exhibition

40:53

of joysticks at a

40:55

museum the national the

40:58

Finnish Museum

41:00

of Games. And so this

41:02

is about that and

41:04

kind of about the

41:07

standard how Atari

41:09

created, you know, the

41:11

CX 80, so what was

41:13

CX8, the standard

41:15

joystick that we all

41:18

know, and they patented

41:20

the stick, but they

41:23

didn't patent the

41:25

pinouts. 40. That's funny. They

41:27

didn't have the pinouts. So everybody

41:30

started using this pinouts and then

41:32

we got the Wicco sticks and

41:34

Commodore used it and their Vic

41:36

20 joystick. And so it became

41:38

the standard for for joysticks. And

41:41

so this is about that. And they

41:43

opened up, there's pictures of the

41:45

inside of different joysticks. You can

41:47

see how different ones were made

41:50

and which ones were sturdier. And

41:52

it's an interesting little article about

41:54

about about the Atari joystick

41:56

that became you know pretty standard

41:59

across the the ages

42:01

for quite a while. So

42:03

we're checking out ROM chip

42:05

journal. Cool, never heard

42:08

of that one. Okay,

42:10

Altira, you know, we're

42:12

talking about Altira

42:14

earlier, K. Version 4.30

42:16

is out now and

42:18

they continue to improve

42:21

what is an

42:23

amazing emulator. They've

42:25

added things like the

42:27

MPP 10,000 E.

42:29

10,000, 1,000 e-moding.

42:32

The 820, 2025,

42:34

1025, and 1029

42:37

printers are supported

42:39

now, including graphical

42:42

output. Some fixes

42:46

to some of the

42:48

other devices that

42:50

are available through

42:52

there. There's

42:55

some tape

42:57

improvements. Lots of

42:59

other small improvements to it,

43:01

but looks like a really

43:03

nice new version. So if

43:05

you're into using Alter, run it

43:07

on Windows, or if you have

43:10

it running on your Mac, there

43:12

you go. Go get the latest

43:14

one. Nice. Well, might as well

43:16

use the latest version when

43:19

I install it. Yeah, might as

43:21

well. Might as well. Also, ABIC

43:23

159 is out. Now just the German

43:26

version so far the English translation

43:28

Which I'm involved with has not

43:30

happened yet, but I'm sure that

43:33

pretty soon We'll be working on

43:35

the English translation But and some

43:37

people should be starting to receive

43:39

this in the mail. I haven't

43:42

gotten mine yet, but Should be

43:44

should be coming here How do you

43:46

get the English versions you

43:49

have to log into the

43:51

website? Yeah, right never get

43:53

them right? You have to

43:55

go to the download area

43:57

for members from the abbot.dee

43:59

site. you can download

44:01

there. You can also

44:03

get copies. So there's

44:06

also a disk included

44:08

with this. There's double-sided

44:10

or two sides. Two sides of

44:12

a disk and you can download

44:14

the disk images as well

44:17

from the site if you want

44:19

to try them out. I did

44:21

download those and play them on

44:24

an emulator. So, you know,

44:26

there's lots of cool

44:28

stuff in this. particular

44:30

release. There's a continuing

44:33

series on 40 Years

44:36

of Abek. There's a

44:38

Sembler tutorial. There's

44:40

a UG Basic. There's

44:42

a tutorial on UG

44:44

Basic in there. There's a

44:46

lot of different games that

44:48

are covered, all the game

44:51

news and games like Eat

44:53

Me, Rough in Trouble,

44:55

F16 Falcon Strike,

44:57

Cats. Palo Garcia's game

45:00

called Tetris in action

45:02

is Also there. It's also

45:04

on the disc and a

45:06

text adventure by Aaron Reed

45:09

called you are standing Is

45:11

on the disc as well.

45:13

So lots of stuff and

45:16

Certainly well worth it to

45:18

be a member of abic if

45:20

if you can if you can

45:22

swing it All right, we now

45:24

enter into the games portion of

45:26

our news. We had a bunch

45:28

of different game things and I shoved

45:30

them all here at the end here. But

45:33

I didn't, I actually hadn't heard about

45:35

this until we were reading the show.

45:37

No, it's bubble bubble for Atari 8-bit

45:39

released. Yeah, this is the one in

45:42

the last show I hinted that I

45:44

was involved in helping to test a

45:46

game that was in progress. That was

45:48

bubble bubble bubble. I didn't do that

45:50

much. I ran it on my, I

45:53

ran it on my, NTSC. They wouldn't

45:55

run it on real hardware on NTSC

45:57

machines and you know I ran through

45:59

it. and I gave a little bit

46:01

of feedback, but I can't say that

46:04

I did that much. But yes, it's

46:06

a nice version of bubble-bobble

46:08

that was converted over

46:11

from the BBC micro version

46:13

somewhat, but they practically

46:16

rewrote it in order to

46:18

take advantage of all the

46:20

Atari capabilities. It says it only

46:22

requires 64K and a disk drive.

46:25

There is also a cartridge version.

46:27

and works on NTSC and PAL,

46:30

but the PAL works a little

46:32

faster. That's fine because I need

46:34

it to be as slow as

46:37

possible in order to not suck

46:39

at the game. Nice. All right,

46:41

I've already downloaded it

46:44

and I will be playing it soon.

46:46

Fun. Yeah, very cool. All right,

46:48

who's got the next one? I

46:51

had the next one. Another

46:53

game-related thing, which I saw

46:55

Bill Lange posted on Blue

46:58

Sky, he said he's been

47:00

playing Kaiser, a pretty version

47:03

of Hamarabi or Kingdom on

47:05

the Atari 8-bit. Bill says,

47:07

I translated most of

47:10

the German to English.

47:12

This version is multiplayer

47:14

and mostly uses

47:16

joystick rather than keyboard

47:18

input. And so he links

47:21

to his... where there is

47:23

the English translation

47:25

version of this game, which

47:27

I have never played. At least,

47:30

yeah, I haven't played it. So

47:32

it looks like fun. And so

47:34

I enjoy a, I don't know, it's

47:37

kind of a resource

47:39

management sort of thing,

47:41

and you know, kingdom or

47:43

homorabi or something, you got

47:45

to keep people fed and

47:48

got to grow the crops

47:50

and whatnot. So

47:53

anyway, that sounds like

47:55

fun. Thank you for doing

47:57

that bill. And I also

47:59

saw. at a website

48:01

called Flickering Myth, which I

48:03

don't know this website. It

48:05

says, Archer McClain's drop zone

48:08

returns with 40th anniversary edition.

48:10

Get ready to celebrate 40

48:12

years of the classic Atari

48:14

400 Commodore 64 game drop

48:17

zone as System 3 software

48:19

announced that Archer McClain's drop

48:21

zone 40th anniversary edition will

48:23

be coming to Xbox series

48:25

X slash S PlayStation 5

48:28

Nintendo Switch and Steam. this

48:30

December. There's a gameplay trailer.

48:32

December is now pretty much

48:34

over. I don't know if

48:37

this actually came out, but

48:39

some drop zone lovers might

48:41

want to know about that.

48:43

All right. Well, we do

48:45

have some computer shows coming

48:48

up in 2025 and a

48:50

few that or several that

48:52

you might see Atari computers

48:54

at. You guys want to

48:57

tell us about the shows

48:59

that are coming up? I'll

49:01

start. Okay. Go ahead, Brad.

49:03

Vintage Computer Festival SoCal is

49:05

February 15th to 17th and

49:08

I thought it was two

49:10

days, was it two days

49:12

last year? Yeah, it was,

49:14

I went and I went.

49:17

Now it's three. And in

49:19

Orange California in February, so

49:21

that's the first one on

49:23

our list, so hey. Get

49:25

your plane tickets now? Yeah,

49:28

you can make it. There's

49:30

then the Midwest Gaming Classic

49:32

is in April 4 through

49:34

6 in Milwaukee. Am I

49:37

doing them all? Okay, VCAF

49:39

East. The same weekend, April

49:41

4 through 6 in Wall,

49:43

New Jersey. That's VCAF East.

49:45

I don't know, what is

49:48

that? Like 18 or 19,

49:50

something like that? It's a

49:52

big number. Yeah, it's up

49:54

there. And it's a good

49:57

show, always a good one.

50:00

The, uh, I think

50:02

there's a small one

50:04

up in the Midwest

50:06

somewhere called the Indie

50:08

Classic Computer and Video

50:10

Game Expo. Never heard

50:12

of it. April 12

50:14

through 13 in Indianapolis,

50:16

Indiana. Yeah, this would

50:18

be the third edition.

50:20

It's hard to believe

50:22

that this is the

50:25

third edition of it.

50:27

And April 12 through

50:29

13. And as soon

50:31

as you make it

50:33

three days, Randy, I'll

50:35

come up. Okay, not

50:37

worth it for two

50:39

days to come all

50:41

the way from Atlanta.

50:43

Okay. And then in

50:45

June 20 through 22

50:48

is the Southern Pride

50:50

Gaming Expo, which includes

50:52

vintage computer festival Southeast

50:54

here in Atlanta, Georgia.

50:56

And it's a big

50:58

show. Lots of stuff

51:00

going on. And our

51:02

finished computer festival Southeast

51:04

is a small part

51:06

of it. And which

51:08

is, you know, Southern

51:11

Friday Gaming Expo is,

51:13

you know, if you

51:15

like arcade game, well,

51:17

if you like gaming,

51:19

you'll find something there.

51:21

It's big. I was

51:23

impressed. You know, this

51:25

was the first year

51:27

I had gone to

51:29

that show. And man,

51:31

it is. It is

51:34

big. There's a lot

51:36

there. Yeah, I feel

51:38

like pretty impressive. And

51:40

there's stuff I haven't

51:42

seen. You know, there's

51:44

rooms and venue and

51:46

things. They have concerts.

51:48

They have wrestling. Okay.

51:50

You know, it's, you

51:52

know, popular, I guess,

51:54

popular. Fujiyama is August

51:57

11 through 17th in

51:59

Lagenfield, Germany. And that's,

52:01

that's. Seven days of,

52:03

wait a minute, seven,

52:05

or whatever. You know,

52:07

retro Batari goodness. That's,

52:09

that's the one to

52:11

go to. If you're

52:13

going to one in

52:15

Lincolnville, Germany, go to

52:17

that one. That's our

52:20

list at the moment.

52:22

Only goes to August.

52:24

So if you have

52:26

one, let us know

52:28

so we can add

52:30

it to the list.

52:32

Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm

52:34

sure there will be

52:36

a ton of shows

52:38

in 2025. Just as

52:40

there were in 2024.

52:43

did some searching out

52:45

on YouTube to find

52:47

the videos that were

52:49

most interesting by Atari

52:51

users and came across

52:53

one called how Atari

52:55

8-bit computers work by

52:57

the 8-bit guy. The

52:59

8-bit guy takes a

53:01

look at the history

53:03

of Atari-8-bit computers from

53:06

79-92. And I actually

53:08

have not watched this,

53:10

but it must be

53:12

pretty popular. Right now

53:14

it shows it has

53:16

328,000 views. The Atari,

53:18

how eight bit Atari

53:20

computers work? Yeah. Really?

53:22

Yeah, that's what it's

53:24

showing, that's what I'm

53:26

seeing right now, 328,000

53:28

views. Oh, with 1611

53:31

comments. This guy's got

53:33

1.45 million followers, holy

53:35

moly. And a quarter

53:37

of him, or a

53:39

fit, whatever, 20% have

53:41

already watched it. So

53:43

that's pretty good. So

53:45

that's good. Yeah. Yeah,

53:47

I mean, that's, you

53:49

know, talking about the

53:51

Atari paper computers and

53:54

some nice advertising there.

53:56

Yeah. YouTube videos about

53:58

bubble wobble so if

54:00

you want to see

54:02

what that actually looks

54:04

like before you run

54:06

it. There are a

54:08

couple of links I've

54:10

got here from Sabreman

54:12

Retro News and Atari

54:14

Bits Forever. Also found

54:17

a demo CCA CCA,

54:19

A Atari-E-bit demo scene.

54:21

So basically this is

54:23

exploring demos for the

54:25

Atari-bit, but running them

54:27

on the 400 mini.

54:29

Yeah, so a lot

54:31

of these demos will

54:33

run on the Atari

54:35

or on the 400

54:37

mini. So Coffee Cup

54:40

Arcade put this video

54:42

out there. There's also

54:44

a zero page home

54:46

brew has a video

54:48

called seven amazing new

54:50

Atari epic games including

54:52

bubble bubble, Time Wizard

54:54

Deluxe. It also includes

54:56

Defense Horizon, Horizon. Firefighter

54:58

Tobic 3. I don't

55:00

even know how you

55:03

pronounce. Oh, no, that's

55:05

a name. Time Wizard

55:07

of Doha Edition. So

55:09

there's quite a few

55:11

games they're covering. These

55:13

are games that have

55:15

just recently come out

55:17

for the Atari E-Pits.

55:19

There's another demo called

55:21

Silly Trip for the

55:23

Atari Excel XCE Powell.

55:26

And it was a contribution

55:29

to the Silly Venture 2024

55:31

winter edition. Pretty nice, pretty

55:34

nice demo. The best Atari

55:36

Christmas ever. An Atari bit

55:39

journey into the vertical blank.

55:41

Published by Steve and Jeff

55:44

Fulton of the, of, into

55:46

the vertical blank. And it

55:49

talks about their Christmas

55:51

1983, which was their Atari.

55:53

8 bit computer Christmas. I

55:56

found I found a couple

55:58

I threw them in here.

56:01

watch these because I don't

56:03

watch YouTube very much. But

56:06

Atari, the company that calls

56:08

it self Atari, apparently did

56:11

a recap video talking about

56:13

what they, the products they

56:16

released and such in 2024.

56:18

So you can learn all

56:21

about the liquor dispensers and,

56:23

I don't know, toothbrushes and

56:26

whatever other ridiculous things that

56:28

they released as well as

56:31

the. the 7800 plus. The

56:33

Museum of American Heritage,

56:35

back in August, had Al-Alcorn,

56:38

gave a talk there called

56:40

Early Days of Atari, and

56:43

they recently posted that to

56:45

their website. It's about an

56:48

hour-long talk with Al-Alcorn, talking

56:50

about Atari, if you want

56:53

to hear what he has

56:55

to say there. And

56:58

Tom Cherry Holmes let me

57:00

know. He said, thought you should

57:02

know a Gen Z Coder

57:04

used the copy of Atari Roots

57:07

on Atari Archives.org to do

57:09

a live stream on 6502 coding

57:11

on Atari, learning her way

57:13

through the process, and sent me

57:15

a link to that. That's

57:17

kind of cool. I originally actually

57:20

had that link in there,

57:22

and then I took it out

57:24

because we... had so much

57:26

to talk about, but yeah, there's

57:29

a nice series out there.

57:31

There's a couple of nice series

57:33

on assembly coding on the

57:35

Atari out there. Yeah. I'm glad

57:38

my website was useful to

57:40

someone doing the research. Fun. What's

57:42

new at Archives.org? I don't

57:44

really know. I only, I didn't

57:46

really look. I found a

57:48

couple of things that I stumbled

57:51

upon. both that Alan Bushman

57:53

uploaded. One was Magatar, volume two,

57:55

number four. This was a

57:57

diskette magazine for the Atari. We've

58:00

been trying to find all

58:02

of them. There's a post on

58:04

Atari age about that, where

58:06

we're trying to get them all.

58:08

And he found another, like,

58:10

it was a, you know, there

58:13

was a disk, but also

58:15

like a paper that came with

58:17

it, you know, a little

58:19

actual newsletter. Anyway, so he found

58:22

volume two number four, which doesn't

58:24

seem to have a date.

58:26

not an obvious date on it,

58:28

1983, sometime in 1983. So

58:30

Alan found that and added that

58:33

to the internet's collection. And

58:35

he also uploaded something manual for

58:37

a program called Cheat, Cheat

58:39

by Alpha Systems, publication date 1988.

58:42

It says, about sheet. As

58:44

a manual says, have you ever

58:46

wished you could play a

58:48

game with unlimited lives? Would you

58:51

like to see screens you

58:53

have never seen before or see

58:55

what programs do when you

58:57

win? With cheat, you'll take any

58:59

version of a program. With

59:01

cheat, you can. Cheat will take

59:04

any version of a program.

59:06

A copy of the original, and

59:08

allow you to play with

59:10

unlimited lives. Note, we strongly recommend

59:13

that you use sheet only

59:15

on backup copies of your original.

59:17

It's better to be safe

59:19

than sorry. So I

59:21

have not heard of this

59:24

program for getting a limited

59:26

lives. I wonder how it

59:28

does that. It has a

59:31

list of Easter eggs and

59:33

Dachie Kong and Ghostbusters and

59:35

Preppy and Caverns of Mars.

59:38

So, thank you, Alan, for

59:40

uploading those. And those are

59:43

the only things I found.

59:45

I don't look very hard.

59:47

All right. Well, we do

59:50

have some listener feedback. We're

59:52

going to do our Western

59:54

feedback here. Okay, feedback from

59:57

Carl, I'm sorry, Carl. Cal,

59:59

Franklin. Just one

1:00:01

of those nights. Anyway, Cal

1:00:03

said, I just wanted to

1:00:05

let you know how much

1:00:07

I've enjoyed your podcast. I

1:00:09

just in the last few

1:00:12

months started listening to it

1:00:14

on Spotify while at work

1:00:16

and fell in love with

1:00:18

your dedicated content and interviews.

1:00:20

You have done a great

1:00:22

service to the Atari community,

1:00:24

especially the Atari 8-bit enthusiasts

1:00:26

like myself. bought my first

1:00:28

Atari 8-bit computer, the 65XE,

1:00:30

back in 1985, which I

1:00:32

still own in the original

1:00:34

box. Since then I have

1:00:36

purchased several 800 Excels, a

1:00:39

600-SL, a 400, and several

1:00:41

HCGM machines. With the development

1:00:43

of the FutureNet device, I'm

1:00:45

able to connect my Atari

1:00:47

8-bit machines to the internet.

1:00:49

Thanks again for your podcast

1:00:51

and keep up the great

1:00:53

job. Merry Christmas and happy

1:00:55

new year into your entire

1:00:57

staff. There's a lot of

1:00:59

us too. Yeah, it's a

1:01:01

big staff. Big staff. Thanks

1:01:03

Secretary took the day off.

1:01:06

I'm hardly getting anything done.

1:01:08

It's true. I'm still waiting

1:01:10

for my coffee from the

1:01:12

interns, the intern and come

1:01:14

back yet. All right guys.

1:01:16

Well, sadly, we come to

1:01:18

the end of... our content

1:01:20

for this month. More content.

1:01:22

Demand more content. Thanks everyone.

1:01:24

We really appreciate you listening

1:01:26

to the show for those

1:01:28

that are still with us.

1:01:30

We want to remind you

1:01:33

that we want to we

1:01:35

want to hear any projects

1:01:37

that you're working on. We

1:01:39

tell you what we're working

1:01:41

on every show. We like

1:01:43

to hear what you're working

1:01:45

on. What... Are you writing

1:01:47

a piece of software? Maybe

1:01:49

you're developing a hardware upgrade?

1:01:51

Maybe you're just working on,

1:01:53

you know, some, you know,

1:01:55

an eight inch floppy disk,

1:01:57

archiving project, whatever it is.

1:02:00

Maybe you're trying to

1:02:02

test all of your

1:02:04

joysticks. Whatever it is,

1:02:06

please let us know, share it

1:02:09

with us, and we will mention

1:02:11

your name on the show. There

1:02:13

are many ways you can

1:02:15

contact us. One way that

1:02:17

Kate will tell us about is

1:02:20

via email at... antique

1:02:22

at Atari Podcast.com. And

1:02:24

Brad will tell you about

1:02:27

our Mastodon Contact. At

1:02:30

Atari Podcast at old bites.

1:02:32

Space. Our website with

1:02:34

show notes and links to

1:02:37

all the items we've

1:02:39

talked about is at

1:02:41

Atari Podcast.com. Facebook is

1:02:43

at Facebook.com/groups slash Atari

1:02:45

podcast. We have a

1:02:47

discord server whose link

1:02:49

is at the website.

1:02:51

We also have taken

1:02:53

to all of us

1:02:55

using Blue Sky recently.

1:02:58

I know, so we didn't, we didn't put our,

1:03:00

our boost. We should do that. I am

1:03:02

Sabbath on Blue Sky, S-A-V-E-T-Z. I am floppy

1:03:04

days on there. Brad, what's your, which are

1:03:06

handling? I think I'm sub-y-S-S-B-N. Okay.

1:03:09

Excellent. Very good. I've been looking

1:03:11

at while you've been talking, I

1:03:13

haven't been listening to you, I've been looking

1:03:15

up Eli Tomlinson on I've

1:03:17

been looking at why you've been talking. I

1:03:19

haven't been listening to you. been looking up

1:03:21

Eli Tomlinson on Atari Mania because

1:03:28

He wrote a program called

1:03:30

Chip Monk, which looks some

1:03:32

sort of, I think is

1:03:34

a disc duplicator published

1:03:37

by Alpha Systems. He

1:03:39

wrote a program called

1:03:42

Electronic Drummer, published

1:03:44

by TDC distributors, which

1:03:47

looks like, I don't know,

1:03:49

a little music program. Cheat isn't

1:03:51

even listed. on Atari media, so

1:03:54

it's rare enough that it's not

1:03:56

listed here. But then also there's

1:03:58

a few posts. on Atari

1:04:00

age from Eli. So I

1:04:03

think he's actually might be

1:04:05

part of the modern Atari

1:04:07

users. So, so like, yeah,

1:04:09

maybe he's still out there.

1:04:11

Haken. If you are, Eli,

1:04:14

reach out to me on

1:04:16

an interview you and learn

1:04:18

all about electronic drummer and

1:04:20

cheat. Okay. This is me

1:04:22

getting lazy. If you want

1:04:25

to be interviewed, contact me.

1:04:27

If it's the same guy

1:04:29

at VCF East, I'll look

1:04:31

at my card deck and

1:04:33

see if I still got

1:04:36

it. Great. Okay, anything else

1:04:38

you guys want to mention

1:04:40

before we sign off here?

1:04:42

Happy New Year, thanks for

1:04:44

a fun year of Atari

1:04:47

podcasting. Here's to you all

1:04:49

next year. 2025, yeah. So

1:04:51

we plan to be here.

1:04:53

We will be a constant

1:04:55

in your lives. You can't

1:04:58

get rid of us. All

1:05:00

right. See everyone next time.

1:05:02

All right. Bye. Bye.