Several Questions I have regarding Atari Computers.?

Question

If you are able to answer any of these questions I would greatly appreciate it. I can't really find anyone who knows a lot about these things. If you know anything about Atari computers or have owned one please take a look at this.

1. What Atari computers other than their IBM compatible line took 5.25" disks? I saw an atari 800 online and did not see a 5.25 slot. Only cartridges.

2. I have a box load of games and programs for an Atari computer. I do not know which model but they are on 5.25" floppies. What model are these likely for?

3. Regarding my floppies, I am currently building a NEW computer and am going to be putting a 5.25" disk drive on it specifically for the purpose of transferring my enormous library of 5.25" floppies (both atari and IBM) on to cd-roms. With the Current Atari emulators out there could I play my atari games on my new pc by loading them from the disk and running them with the emulator?

4. Was the Atari Falcon series that ran multi TOS compatible with previous Atari computers? How far did it go back? Atari 800?

5. Is there any drive, or device that would allow me to transfer data from 400/800 tapes/cartridges to my new computer in order to write them to disk so that one would be able to play them with an emulator? Or would I need an old atari that could read them, and a floppy drive, transfer them to disk, and then load the disk on the new comp.?

Thank you in advance for anyone who would know about this stuff.

Answer 1

1) my Atari 800 had a 5.25" floppy drive - is was an external attachment. I actually still have it but at my parents house. Last time I saw it it was being used as a monitor stand. LOL



2) are these games - store bought games or games created by Basic, Fortran and whatever programming language were available at the time



3) I haven't used any of the emulators but from what I've read you should be able to play all of them.



4 & 5) you should try this site for more info: http://www.atari.org/

Answer 2

The 400 and 800 took 5" floppies.



2) The 400 or the 800. But I doubt that they'd still be usable after all this time. The Earth's magnetic field, and all the magnetic fields generated by electricity flowing all over, are tiny but over enough time they tend to degrade old floppies.



3) No. Totally different computers. (IIRC, the old Ataris used 6502 CPUs [it's been 30 years, and memory fades like floppies].)



4) No. Again, different CPUs.



5) You can't play them on an Atari game emulator - totally different hardware. The 2600, the game box of the time, used sprites, not what we would consider "normal" graphics. The 400 and 800 used plain old graphics. A 2600 emulator wouldn't know what to do with those games and a later emulator wouldn't know what to do with the code. The 400 and 800 games were written in BASIC, though, so you might be able to fix the errors when you try to run them in QBasic or GWBasic, both of which are still available on the web.



Copying the disks is another matter. From everything I've found, there's no hardware currently available, other than an Atari, that can read the disks. You could use a communications program (one that would normally drive a modem) in the Atari to read the disk and send the data out the serial port. Connect that to a PC serial port (or USB-Serial adapter), read the data in and save it to the hard drive. (We did just that in the 1980s to transfer programs written on the Apple II to the Atari 400 and 800.) What you do with the data after you get it is another matter. (There was one board available for the PC that would read a number of disk formats, including Atate. It was really a RAM board - it had about 192kb of RAM on board, but it also did disk I/O. Can't remember the name, though - "Blue-" something, maybe. It was a full length ISA board, of course.)



If you're going to fool around with old Ataris, you may want to print this book out http://www.atariarchives.org/c1ba/index.php

Answer 3

Yes obviously if he is changing his password all the time he is still hiding this from you. If he said he would give you complete access then gets mad when you ask to see then he has not changed. All you wanted was assurance you could trust him again. All he wanted was an argument. The whole suicide thing, I think is a way to control you. He knows it scares you. You don't want to see him hurt so that's your reason to stay. If you really think his suicide attempts are an issue and you love him get help for him even if you have to get a hold of a mental hospital because obviously therapy isn't working out too well.