On the Atari 8-bit you have several standard startup keystrokes you can
use to customize your environment. The most known of these is holding
down OPTION while powering the machine. This disables internal BASIC on
all atari XL/XE machines but yours. On the XEGS it ENABLES internal BASIC
which is a welcome change for most 8-bitters.
Another is holding the START key while powering which causes the machine
to BEEP indicating that you should cue the cassette drive for a boot from
cassette. START and OPTION can be combined to produce a binary bootstrap
without internal basic except with your XEGS which would produce a binary
boot with BASIC enabled....
The other three keys are unused in this way and thus were used to select
the additional game roms built in to the XEGS which was a full Atari 8-bit
billed as a game machine in 88'?
The three function keys are not regular keys and are controlled by a
different IC. They can be compined to produce 16 combinations of codes. I
think the other game beside Missile Command was Asteroids but I can't be
sure not having an XEGS (got almost all the others though ;-).
If you want any support or software for your new machine, contact me via
e-mail and I will help you get going. I have MEGS and MEGS of software
and games, languages, terminal software, you name it, I got it. Too bad
you didn't get the keyboard with it though. You can get one from B&C
Computervisions in San Jose CA or from San Jose Computers in the same
town.
It is a surprisingly solid, full-stroke XE keyboard that is as useable as
any xe keyboard. The Xe machines' keyboards had a rep for a 'spongy' feel
but I have used one for 15 years and call it 'light touch'. Very little
pressure is required to produce a character.
--
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Jeffrey S. Worley
Technical Services
Bits & Bytes Computer Services Inc.
1979B Hendersonville Road
Asheville, NC 28803
828-684-8953 - voice 0900-1700 five days
828-687-9284 - 24hr fax
Who is General Failure and why is he reading my hard disk?
Technoid_at_Cheta.net
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Received on Sun Mar 19 2000 - 19:53:57 GMT