8 replies to this topic

[jcbstein]

Does anyone know if their is a utility that allows the playing of cartridges that were for the 400/800 only on an xl/xe machine. I just picked up the game Fort Apocalypse on cartridge, on ebay but it wont play on my 800xl and I dont want to have to set up the 800 to play 1 game.

Any suggestions will be gladly accepted.

[jaybird3rd]

First of all, welcome to AtariAge!

Most 400/800 games will play just fine on the XL/XE series, but as you may know, there are a few of them (Fort Apocalypse may be one) that will not work because of some operating system changes that were made with the later machines. There are "translators" which load the 800 OS into RAM and allow incompatible software to run on an XL/XE, but I don't know of a way to use them with cartridge software. You may be interested in obtaining a disk-based copy of Fort Apocalypse instead (you can download a diskette image at AtariMania); if you find that it doesn't work on the 800XL by itself, you can use it with a translator.

[geosteve]

I have used several old carts on both the 800XL and 130XE systems with no trouble sorry I don't recall any monthly Atari magazine articles mentioning there was a list of 400/800 carts that didn't work (I collected many)

[Rybags]

I think there might be one or more non-Atari Translator programs which should work with carts.

But, given the time taken to load, and then have to insert the cartridge, you would be better off just playing the disk based version of the game.

Another possibility might be a multi-OS hardware upgrade like APE Warp+ 32 in 1 http://atarimax.com/.../documentation/

[vdub_bobby]

geosteve, on Wed Jun 28, 2006 5:56 AM, said:

I have used several old carts on both the 800XL and 130XE systems with no trouble sorry I don't recall any monthly Atari magazine articles mentioning there was a list of 400/800 carts that didn't work (I collected many)

There are a bunch. Astrochase is one - I own the cart and a 130XE and the two don't mix. I think Embargo (see current HSC) is another. At least I couldn't get it to work in emulation until I switched to OS-B.

[highendsystems]

The disk version I have works great on XL/XE's. For the price of a floppy, and shipping I would be glad to send it to you. Do you have a 1050 drive? I think it's in Enhanced density....

[CharlieChaplin]

Well,
to play 400/800 only carts on an XL/XE computer you may:
1) install an alternative OS that supports 400/800 carts into your XL/XE (original 800 OS, SPOS, My-IDE OS, QMEG-OS, etc.) with a switch; so you can always switch between the XL/XE OS and the alternative OS when required...
2) use a translator that supports carts, currently I only remember the Ultra-Translator (by Tim Fitzpatrick or so), it can be found on some PD disks or PD libraries, think Video 61 is selling this translator as a cartriodge as well (one of those plug it in - and then pull it out again carts); you have to press a certain key-combination in the Ultra translator, then the whole screen turns to one single color without any text and at this point you can insert your 800 cart... (without the need to hurry)...

greetings, Andreas Magenheimer.

[ijor]

CharlieChaplin, on Thu Jun 29, 2006 4:09 PM, said:

1) install an alternative OS that supports 400/800 carts into your XL/XE (original 800 OS, SPOS, My-IDE OS, QMEG-OS, etc.) with a switch; so you can always switch between the XL/XE OS and the alternative OS when required...

Alternate/switchable OS Roms are great, but not perfect. A few games (probably not too many) won't run under any translator. One example is the original disk of Worms?. I don't know if there any cartridges affected though, probably only disks.

[a8isa1]

geosteve, on Wed Jun 28, 2006 8:56 AM, said:

I have used several old carts on both the 800XL and 130XE systems with no trouble sorry I don't recall any monthly Atari magazine articles mentioning there was a list of 400/800 carts that didn't work (I collected many)

The Atari 8-bit FAQ has a list of software that was 400/800 only. A few are cartridges but not identified as such in that list.

Link
http://www.cs.uu.nl/...-8-bit/faq.html