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I went from the Atari 400 to the Atari 130XE. I was a bit miffed about losing two joystick ports (MULE is everything). The keyboard was so much better. I had

I went from the Atari 400 to the Atari 130XE. I was a bit miffed about losing two joystick ports (MULE is everything). The keyboard was so much better. I had the Indus Disk Drive[1] and I swear I opened that cover way too often because of how smooth it rose. I still think MULE is the perfect game. Seven Cities of Gold can never be done again, but it did provide some serious amusement ("See, I can trade only, hey back off, why is that drum playing, I'm one of you, oh crud, well its on now.") 1) https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2up?view=theater https://archive.org/details/run-magazine-20/page/n25/mode/2u...

meepmorp 6y ago
I'm not sure it's fair to describe the membrane thing on the 400 as a keyboard. I typed in everything in the Basic manual, and thinking about it now makes my hands ache.
- ddingus 6y ago
  Yes. I got a real keyboard for mine back in the day. Today I have one. It has one purpose: run "Star Raiders." I love that game. And the 400 looks seriously cool. Never fails to get some attention running that game. Then people experience the feel of that cool looking keyboard... oh well. It is fine for the game.
  - PostThisTooFast 6y ago
    The Atari 400 keyboard is where Apple keyboards are going.
lowercased 6y ago
Many of those early EA games were so... well done, inventive, and really captured your imagination. MULE, 7 Cities, Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Skyfox, Adventure Construction Set, Music Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, Heart Of Africa and Bards Tale were all... relatively mind-blowing (although my mind was only... 12-13 at the time!). They seemed to be capable of both pushing the computer past its limits and expanding the idea of what was possible in game (or just... with the 'construction sets'... what was possible).
- ofrzeta 6y ago
  Also the Lucasfilm games such as Rescue on Fractalus or Koronis Rift. And Mercenary by Novagen.
  - lowercased 6y ago
    indeed the list goes on. i was trying to just list some EA games, but Epyx ('summer games'!!!), Infocom, Lucasfilm and others all produced some groundbreaking work for their time.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
I went from the Atari 800 to the 130XE - also had the Indus Disk Drive! That thing was a tank, especially with all the disk-switching that went on in those days. One of the things I remember most about the Atari 8 bit family was the superior graphics and sound as compared to the early generation of dos-based PCs that came years later. The haunting melody from the splash screen of 7 Cities of Gold was classic. And it still blows me away to see what the Atari 8-bit was capable of with games like Alternate Reality: The City!
- protomyth 6y ago
  Jay Miner's team doing their own chips (Antic, Pokey, C/GTIA) instead of assembling a machine off the shelf. It was a truly fun machine to program. It was amazing what could be done on the Atari machines that couldn't be done on the Apple ][.
  - ddingus 6y ago
    I have a love of both. Atari was a chip playground. And the SIO system was very forward looking for the time. Look at FujiNet for an example. Old software working across the Internet! The Apple was a tank, fast workstation. (Assuming one boosted the 1Mhz CPU.) I had 4Mhz at one point then. My //e can run at 16Mhz. Crazy fast. Makes it useful today. Atari machines can get a high Mhz upgrade, and if one wants to do it, a 6809!
PostThisTooFast 6y ago
The musical intro to M.U.L.E. was GREAT. I worked at a computer store at the time and I just had it running all day. I had the Atari 400 then 800. After losing days of work to unreliable cassette storage, getting a disk drive (the Trak) was momentous. Being able to NAME files was a bonus on merely being able to read and write them reliably. I still have the whole system, and my Commodore 1702. That thing needs to be re-capped.
- protomyth 6y ago
  The M.U.L.E. music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EubKmtFBXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EubKmtFBXY

meepmorp 6y ago

I'm not sure it's fair to describe the membrane thing on the 400 as a keyboard. I typed in everything in the Basic manual, and thinking about it now makes my hands ache.

ddingus 6y ago
Yes. I got a real keyboard for mine back in the day. Today I have one. It has one purpose: run "Star Raiders." I love that game. And the 400 looks seriously cool. Never fails to get some attention running that game. Then people experience the feel of that cool looking keyboard... oh well. It is fine for the game.
- PostThisTooFast 6y ago
  The Atari 400 keyboard is where Apple keyboards are going.

lowercased 6y ago

Many of those early EA games were so... well done, inventive, and really captured your imagination. MULE, 7 Cities, Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Skyfox, Adventure Construction Set, Music Construction Set, Racing Destruction Set, Heart Of Africa and Bards Tale were all... relatively mind-blowing (although my mind was only... 12-13 at the time!). They seemed to be capable of both pushing the computer past its limits and expanding the idea of what was possible in game (or just... with the 'construction sets'... what was possible).

ofrzeta 6y ago
Also the Lucasfilm games such as Rescue on Fractalus or Koronis Rift. And Mercenary by Novagen.
- lowercased 6y ago
  indeed the list goes on. i was trying to just list some EA games, but Epyx ('summer games'!!!), Infocom, Lucasfilm and others all produced some groundbreaking work for their time.

StanislavPetrov 6y ago

I went from the Atari 800 to the 130XE - also had the Indus Disk Drive! That thing was a tank, especially with all the disk-switching that went on in those days. One of the things I remember most about the Atari 8 bit family was the superior graphics and sound as compared to the early generation of dos-based PCs that came years later. The haunting melody from the splash screen of 7 Cities of Gold was classic. And it still blows me away to see what the Atari 8-bit was capable of with games like Alternate Reality: The City!

protomyth 6y ago
Jay Miner's team doing their own chips (Antic, Pokey, C/GTIA) instead of assembling a machine off the shelf. It was a truly fun machine to program. It was amazing what could be done on the Atari machines that couldn't be done on the Apple ][.
- ddingus 6y ago
  I have a love of both. Atari was a chip playground. And the SIO system was very forward looking for the time. Look at FujiNet for an example. Old software working across the Internet! The Apple was a tank, fast workstation. (Assuming one boosted the 1Mhz CPU.) I had 4Mhz at one point then. My //e can run at 16Mhz. Crazy fast. Makes it useful today. Atari machines can get a high Mhz upgrade, and if one wants to do it, a 6809!

PostThisTooFast 6y ago

The musical intro to M.U.L.E. was GREAT. I worked at a computer store at the time and I just had it running all day. I had the Atari 400 then 800. After losing days of work to unreliable cassette storage, getting a disk drive (the Trak) was momentous. Being able to NAME files was a bonus on merely being able to read and write them reliably. I still have the whole system, and my Commodore 1702. That thing needs to be re-capped.

protomyth 6y ago
The M.U.L.E. music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EubKmtFBXY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EubKmtFBXY