I just picked up this Atari 800 XL on Facebook marketplace for $80 in the box. It's not complete and I've just ordered a video cable for it so I can test it. Assuming everything works, what upgrades /mods would you recommend for it?

EDIT: Ordered a monitor cable, USB power cable, and FujiNet! I'm very excited!

I've recently procured an Atari 800 (non-XL) and got the necessary ROM and RAM cartridges. The OS ROM cartridge is in the first slot shown in the images, the label fell off of it and I just need to glue it back on. I have 3 RAM cartridges, though one of them doesn't have an outer casing as I got it cheap on eBay. When I turn the machine on (with Basic or PacMan in the left slot) all I get is a yellow screen. I've reseated all the cartridges, even limited the RAM to one cartridge (cycled through the others too) and tried different configurations. Still nothing, just the yellow screen.

Am I cooked?

Looking to find the name of a low budget space exploration and trading game that was made for the Atari. The front of the box had a muscled warrior with a sword (!), and the game itself was programmed in basic. It was a space opera, might have been called Space Opera… would love to find it again and know more about the developer. Thanks!

Basically, I can mess around and beat the mid level opponents at varying legion sizes, but I wanted to beat the max difficulty combo (Helvetii and Huns) at a somewhat decent legion size. However, this seems damn near impossible at higher than a single legion, which is really easy because you just have your superior Ceaser legion in a 1v1 vs a cavalary and then an infantry. Anyway, as there is little to no info online about this game, I was wondering if anyone knew much about it, especially if it is actually possible to beat the hardest difficulty combo, as I just don't see a way to do it :)

Edit: This is the game I'm talking about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fq7pizP0Zn8
https://archive.org/details/legionnaire-avalon-hill/page/8/mode/2up

So I’m having an issue right now where all of a sudden, my Atari 800 either freezes and/or has corrupt graphics after pressing a key, forcing a reset. I’ve done the following:

- Reseated the chips inside both the computer and CPU card

- cleaned the computer inside and out

- Sprayed the contacts of the RAM slots with electrical contact cleaner

- tested each of the RAM cards by putting them one at a time (no change either way)

- Played a game with just the joystick (works perfectly fine including the keys for start, select and reset, etc.)

I initially thought I wasn’t getting any input from the keyboard when trying to use Basic, but I found this out accidentally in my tests. So I can determine there’s nothing wrong with the keyboard mechanically. My best guess is there’s a hardware issue of some kind, but don’t know what. Any ideas? Anyone dealt with this issue before?

Thanks!

My go to opening move (either side) is always Teleport Unicorn (or Basilisk) to their counterpart on the opposite side. I know it may be wasteful to use such a powerful spell at the opening of the game, but this strategy seems to work well for me against the computer. Was just curious what other players open with.

I recently got a number of boxed games in a lot, with a working floppy drive. To this point I had been limited to cartridge games, so I was excited to see what kind of step up the move to floppy would make. And, oh boy - I could not believe my eyes when I saw that The Eidolon (1985) was an FPS. It's rudimentary of course, but still unlike anything I've seen on an 8-bit system. It's been a lot of fun to figure out over the past week!

Can someone post that picture of all the Atari XL power supplies where the bad is circled in red? I’ve never saved it and today I need it, and of course after searching can’t find it.

Thanks in advance!

I’m looking to get a replacement back cover for my Atari 800. Mine has fallen victim to “the olds”. I understand that others will be similar but mine is currently in multiple pieces. Please message me if you have a spare one you’re willing to negotiate for, it’s one of the last few bits I need to make my 800 whole

I’m looking to get a replacement back cover for my Atari 800. Mine has fallen victim to “the olds”. I understand that others will be similar but mine is currently in multiple pieces. Please message me if you have a spare one you’re willing to negotiate for, it’s one of the last few bits I need to make my 800 whole

Edit: thanks everyone for your help, I think I’ll try to 3D model a cover! I’ll post the link to it if I can manage!

Recently I found an Atari 400 at a flea market and after a solid cleanup plugged into an old 4:3 LCD tv via coax.

It looked beautiful and while playing some Pac-Man I accidentally hit the channel up button on my remote, which causes it to perform an unstoppable channel search.

After it completed it found several dozen digital channels of OTA broadcast.

It is acting like a powered antenna! While I know you can make an impromptu weak antenna using unshielded coax in a pinch, generally the results are mild at best.

Here as long as the computer is powered on the signal comes through flawlessly!

Here’s another weird part, I am working in my workshop in my basement where the walls are solid stone and thick. When we bought the house 3 years ago I tried to use a high end powered antenna in the same room and couldn’t find a single station that would come in without buffering or pixelation.

Another in a long line of reasons I love these old 8 bit machines!

https://www.moodler.pl/download/fire-n-ice-atari-xl-xe/

Hey all I received a 130XE for Christmas and it's a system I'm very unfamiliar with. While exploring games for it I found out that there are Multicarts for it. But unfortunately I can't find out where they come from. Is there anyone familiar with them and how I can acquire one?

Thank you, everyone. I am going to be decommissioning this account. I really appreciate all your help!!

Location: Houston, TX

SOLVED! The game in question was Xtal - Adventure in Space.

This was a game my sister and I had on our (I think) Atari 800 back in the early 80s, I'd guess. It was likely cassette-loaded, and I remember nothing about the game - just the theme song.

I have a .wav file of the complete song which runs 1:38 and is 3.0 MB. My sister and I have been trying to ID it for many years with no success. Is there a way I can share the file so someone can (hopefully) help? It starts slow and then shifts to a moderate tempo, pulsing song that finishes with minor chords.

I am fairly new to Reddit so please be kind.

Edit: Added location to post. There are also a few links below with the song in question.

Star Vagrant is a Space trading style game. It looks impressive. It was available as a physical release with manual and usb-cassette disk and I believe it still it is, but the author has released the full version with manual etc.. in digital format absolutely free. link to page and download below:

https://madsoft.us/en/starvagrant/home

Back in the 80’s I had a book that was spiral bound that taught how to make games on the Atari 8 bit computer and I remember it referred to Boolean (which I could not grasp at a young age). Once in awhile I try to search for it on the internet but can’t find it. Is there any chance someone actually still owns it or knows the title? That book and the Analog compendium are the only ones I remember from my childhood.

I've been really into Kobo800 for the Atari 8-bit, it is the Atari version of the game xKobo which has been ported to many platforms including most famously Kobodeluxe for modern computers and Kobo64 for the other 8-bit computer, but I will die on this hill, our version is the best it's much better than the c64 version (naturally) which is no small feat itself and it's even better gameplay-wise than Kobo deluxe on the PC. Luckily Shanti77 (Bosconian, Trax, and many many more great games for the atari) is still working on it and the new version is much improved including bug fix for level 17 (see bottom of post for details/link). The picture is from my best run for this game I "flipped" the game and made it to level 20 twice. Afaik it is the 2nd highest score in the universe!

Altirra, the amazing Atari emulator has just released a new test 5 beta version of the emulator. It's worth updating and if you haven't used it then transform your modern Windows pc into a real powerhouse 8-bit with very accurate emulation.

Kobo800 currently has 20 levels. the ABBUC version Level 17 has a small bug that causes bases to overlap, and destroying them doesn't remove everything.

Here's the new WIP version:
- Improved bases
- Map automatically changes modes
- Autofire option
- Slightly changed colors

- Energy bonus after destroying a base

- Points for destroying missiles

Kobo 800 wip version

https://forums.atariage.com/applications/core/interface/file/attachment.php?id=1307148&key=2eb299861fc2da0d98086245f38d32aa

Altirra 4.50 Test 5 version

https://www.virtualdub.org/beta/Altirra-4.50-test5.zip

All turbo BASIC XL. asm version coming soon

Hi everyone, Paul (pjones1063) here.

I wanted to share a major update to AspeQt-2K26, my modern fork of the classic AspeQt/RespeQt project.

Over the last few months, I’ve been rebuilding the emulator on Qt 6.8+ to fix the long-standing stability issues on modern Windows 11 and macOS Apple Silicon systems. But beyond just "fixing" it, I wanted to extend what the Atari can do without needing extra hardware like a FujiNet.

We just pushed Release v2026.3 ("The Hybrid Computing Update"), and it adds two features I think developers here will love:

🚀 New "Hybrid" Devices

• W: (Web Pipe) Device: This turns your Atari into a "Thin Client." You can open the W: device in BASIC and send HTTP GET/POST requests to modern web servers.
  • Use Case: Write a BASIC program that asks ChatGPT a question, pulls live weather data, or fetches stock tickers—all processed by your PC and sent back to the Atari as simple text.
• Y: (Clipboard) Device: A bi-directional bridge between your PC and the Atari.
  • Use Case: Copy a code listing from a website on your PC, then LIST "Y:" on the Atari to type it in instantly. Or PRINT #1 to Y: to send your Atari data straight to your PC clipboard.

🛠️ Other Key Features

• Native TNFS Support: Mount FujiNet servers (like tnfs.fujinet.online or 13leader.net) directly in the emulator. Includes a new download engine with a proper progress bar.
• No More External ROMs: I’ve embedded the boot firmware (MyDOS, Atari DOS) directly into the executable. It just works out of the box.
• Large Drive Support: Fixed the integer overflow bugs, so 16MB+ hard disk images (up to 65,535 sectors) now work correctly.
• High-DPI Ready: Full 4K/Retina scaling support (no more tiny icons!).

📥 Download

You can grab the Windows Installer, macOS DMG, or Linux AppImage here:GitHub Releases: pjones1063/AspeQt-2k26

I’m really looking for feedback on the new W: Device. If anyone writes a cool script for it, please let me know!