Great video John !
The best 8 bit computer ever and the best DK ever !
Doesn't that TV have a composite video input ? You really need to ditch the RF set-up, it sucks even if you could get rid of the static.
Or get a Commodore 1084 or similar monitor for a few bucks and use that,although I understand the nostalgia for your TV.
I bought a 600XL and a 1010 cassette recorder after having owned the 2600. It was my first computer and buying it sent tingles up and down my body. Here I was buying the latest that technology could offer, it was like stepping into another world.
Loved the ATASCII art, kinda forgot about that. ASCII was (still is ?) a standard code that represented characters in a binary format. f.I. The letter A is 65 in decimal, 1000001 binary (ASCII is 7 bits). The system dates back from the very old computers that used punch tape for storage. apart from defining all the letters and numbers there were also lots of codes to control stuff like the cursor etc.
Atari extended on the basic ASCII and used 8 bits IIRC so they could add 128 characters.
The biggest benefit is that an animation like you showed took up very little storage space and thus could be easily transferred over the slow modems of those days.
When I started with the XL I knew nobody at all with the same machine. I decided to go with that machine because I liked Atari (the 2600 and arcade games) and I had seen the C64 at my cousins and didn't like a lot about that machine. However, the definite moment that I decided I wanted this machine was when I played DK for the first time on it. I just HAD to have that, because it blew away the Colecovison version which I considered the best home version until then. It was also one of the rare original cartridges I bought very quickly.
I learned a LOT from this machine because basically I couldn't get any pirate software for it for some time, but very soon an Atari club was erected in Holland and I got in contact with local guys (one is still a good friend) and soon the tapes and later the floppies were going around....we ended up having contacts in the US and Australia and floppies were flying all over the globe
Really hope you'll do more A8 videos, may I suggest showing some of the best games on it: Alley Cat, Star Raiders, Bounty Bob Strikes Back, Dropzone, Mr.Robot, Berzerk and the countless of great arcade conversions.
By the way, I never knew Gauntlet got released for it. Not that I'm a big fan of that game.
Drol was one of my favorites too ! I first found the name vey weird though because in Dutch "drol" is a pile of shit
I am VERY jealous of your Indus GT drive. I clearly remember seeing an ad for it in American Atari magazines that I bought here and I was like drooling over that page sized ad for sometimes like 10 minutes. All we got here was Atari's 1050 which wasn't bad bit still very expensive for a school kid, it took years before I could buy one.
You need a better joystick to come close to my WR buddy, get a Suzo Competition Pro !
