On Tuesday, December 5th, 1995 - Steve Sweet wrote:
 
SS> Listening to all you guy's chatting about your 8 bitters makes me 
SS> feel kind of nostalgic, i must dig out some of my 8 bit stuff for a 
SS> session soon. 
 
Welcome back to the wacky world of 8-bit insanity.  :-)
 
SS> until i ditched the PSU. I also have a 256K 800XL, 2 US doubled 
SS> 1050's a stock 1050, an 810 drive, an 850 interface and a couple of 
SS> tape deck's. 
SS> I used to spend the twilight hours programming in assembler doing 
SS> nothing much more than 'just for the hell of it' type prog's. My 
 
The past few days, I spent the twilight hours playing a very old game on 
my Atari 800.  The game is an 1981 release called Ali Baba and the Forty 
Thieves, a type of graphical arcade-like adventure game with many many
rooms and up to 4-player capability (it will not run on the 800XL).  Ali 
Baba featured elements of the original story, plus D&D lore and Ancient
Greek elements (like the Minotaur).  Anyway, I had a game saved on the
flip side of the disk that my friend and I had been playing.  But years
had passed and I finally realized we were never going to finish our
game.  So I decided to start over from scratch and play the whole game
myself.  I finally did it - I made it through all the mazes and rescued
the princess.
 
I'm still impressed by this old game, where minimal animation, crude
noises, and rudimentary shapes manage to thoroughly involve me in a
world of adventure.  It's amazing how simple color changes on the screen 
in certain areas give you the "feel" that you are plunging into a dark
dungeon.
 
SS> Nowadays im running a Mega STE with a 365M hard drive + 2Gig DAT 
SS> drive, my favourite pastime is still assembly programming and 
 
I have a couple of Atari ST computers and several of the goodies that go 
with them too.  And I have other computers also.  My first computer was
the Atari 800 (which I am typing this message on right now in fact).
 
SS> Ive only recently plugged into the 8 bitters base, but dont see a 
SS> situation where i'l be disconnecting in the near future.
 
Welcome aboard, I hope to see you here in the future.  I don't remember
seeing you over on the Atari_ST or ST_PROG conferences.   Why don't you
join us there also?
 
SS> Let me know what your setup is and your reason for not going to the 
SS> next link in the Atari chain.
 
Well, don't assume that we haven't.  Many of use die-hard super-fanatic
Atari 8-bitters also have an Atari ST or two (or three or four in some
cases).  I also have a PC clone as do many here.  And I've also gotten
into Commodore now too.  But my Atari 8-bits still have a place of
honor.
 
My main Atari 8-bit setup consists of my original unmodified Atari 800,
Indus GT disk drives, 850 Interface, 2400 modem, and other goodies.  I
have an XEGS set up which I don't boot up too often.  I have several
800XLs and lots of Atari 800s and Atari 400s, and lots of 810 disk
drives, and Percom drives, 410s and 1010s, and other miscellaneous
stuff.
 
No matter what other computers I add to my collection, I will not get
rid of my Atari 800.  I still think of it as my main game computer too.
 
--- RiBBS v2.10        

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