Re: [Atari800-users] Atari800-users Digest, Vol 105, Issue 4

[Chris C. <chr...@gm...>]

>
> Date: Mon, 3 Aug 2020 23:20:57 +0530
> From: Hemil Ruparel <hem...@gm...>
> To: ata...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Atari800-users] Introducing myself
>
> I know this sounds silly. But I have never used any 8 bit computer before.
> I got the emulator up and running. When it booted (damn! that was fast), it
> asked me to pick up a cartridge. I chose the first option. 8KB cartridge. I
> was greeted with this screen. But I don't know how to navigate around and
> do something useful. Any suggestions?
>

Welcome, Hemil!   I am of an even older vintage than Bill Kendrick; I
taught myself BASIC from a book in 1977 and got my first taste of other
people's Atari computers in 1981, and my own first Atari 800 in the summer
of 1982.  So I've been in love with the Atari 8-bit line for almost 40
years now.  I "met" Bill and many others online in the early days of the
Internet, specifically on Usenet before there was any such thing as "the
Web."  Heck, before there were GUIs, color, fonts, italics, images, ...
:-)

I am reading this in Digest form so can't see your screenshot, but Bill
says you're at the BASIC prompt.  If you're interested in writing BASIC
programs, be advised that Atari BASIC departs somewhat from the "standard"
in a few areas: Atari-specific functions for graphics, sound, and device
I/O, and a "different" way of handling character strings.  The Atari BASIC
Reference Manual is available online; my favorite in a quick Google search
is this one:

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/Atari-Basic-Reference-Manual-Rev-C.pdf

"Rev C" just means that it's the most recent update in a series of them
that improve on the original (1977 ?) release by fixing bugs and adding
support for new graphics modes that came with a newer version of the
graphics chip.  If Graphics 9, 10, or 11 don't work right, just change the
emulator's video settings from "CTIA" to "GTIA"... ;-)   Actually, you
should be able to find ROMs for all versions of BASIC, if you find there's
something specific that only a particular rev offers.

Note also that a few cool features of the Atari (16-bit sound;
Player-Missile graphics; disk sector I/O; ....) aren't supported by BASIC
commands or statements, but must be performed by PEEK-ing-and-POKE-ing
memory locations.  For that you'll also want the books "De Re Atari" and
"Mapping The Atari" (you want the later edition that covers the XL (and
later) models) .  Maybe the Atari OS Manual (not sure of the exact title;
Bill--?).  Even the assembly source code is available out there.  Other
books cover the "internals"/source code of BASIC and DOS (Disk Operating
System, which you might not have hit upon yet)...

Other BASIC packages with different capabilities are also available for the
Atari 8-bit; Frost BASIC, Turbo BASIC, and Microsoft BASIC are what first
spring to my mind, and I'm sure there must be others that either I'm
forgetting or have never heard about.  Bill probably knows more.

If you don't like BASIC, there are other languages available: Pascal, C,
and of course assembly... and a few Atari-specific languages such as
Action! (the exclamation point is part of the name) and others whose names
I forget.

Chris Chiesa

PS - Hi Bill!  Great to see you "still at it."  Drop me a line sometime. :-)