• Tag Archives Atari 8-bit

  • Compute! (August 1981)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

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    Source: Compute! – Issue Number 15 – August 1981

    If you happened to be a computer owner in 1981 then Compute! would have definitely been a magazine that you would have wanted to subscribe to. The magazine lasted for more than a decade and in these early days it was exclusively covering 8-bit computers based on the 6502 processor. There were more of these than you might think.

    The August 1981 issue includes:

    • The Editor’s Notes
    • Ask The Readers
    • Computers And Society: Some Speculations On The Well-Played Game, Part II
    • The Beginner’s Page
    • Basically Useful Basic: Checking Randomness Of Random Number Generators
    • Trenton: The Original Computer Festival
    • Basic Oneliners: Minimize Code And Maximize Speed
    • Computer Assisted Instruction – Worth The Effort?
    • Wolves, Caribou, And Other Problems
    • Add A Programmable Sound Generator
    • The Carry Bit – What It Is And How It Works
    • The Floating-Point Division Routine
    • Practical Aspects Of Assembly Language: Part II
    • The Apple Gazette
      • Apple Disk Motor Control
      • Interfacing The Apple To 6500 Family Peripherals
      • A Cassette Tape Monitor For The Apple
      • Diskette Sector Space In A Greeting Program
    • The Atari Gazette
      • Restoring And Updating Data On The Atari
      • Easy Reading Of The Atari Joystick
      • Poem Writer
      • Supercube Update
      • Atari Sound Utility
      • Blockade For The Atari
      • Define A Line On The Atari
    • The OSI Gazette
      • The OSI RS232 Port And The High Speed Printer Interface
    • The Pet Gazette
      • The CBM “Fat 40” – Boon Or Bane?
      • Digital Arrayment
      • Keyword
      • CBM/PET Loading, Chaining And Overlaying
      • Converting Pet Basic Programs To ASCII Files
    • The Single Board Computer Gazette
      • The Single Board 6502
      • Nuts And Volts: Build Your Own Controllers Part II
    • New Products
    • Advertiser’s Index

    …and more!


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  • S.A.M. (Atari 400/800, Apple II/II+)

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

    incider_1983-03-118

    Source: inCider – March 1983

    Speech synthesis seemed to be all the rage in the early to mid 1980s. S.A.M. is one of a variety of speech synthesis products available during that time. S.A.M. is short for Software Automatic Mouth (I can see why they abbreviated it) and was available for the Atari 400/800 and Apple II/II+. This was a product primarily designed to incorporate speech into your own programs.

    Advertised as “cheap”, I suppose that’s a matter of opinion. The Atari version was priced fairly typically for the time at $49.95. However, the Apple II version required additional hardware and cost $124.95. Not really cheap in my opinion, especially for the time. The Atari sound chip was sophisticated enough not to require additional hardware for speech synthesis of acceptable quality at the time. Despite the limitations (iffy speech quality and having to blank the screen for maximum quality among others), these products were fairly popular and S.A.M. was one of the better known products of its type.

    The whole talking computer thing never really appealed to me that much (though we have it now more or less with products like Alexa). I guess after the movie Wargames, everyone wanted a talking computer…or something.

    This ad is from the March 1983 issue of inCider.


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  • MicroLeague Baseball

    Posted on by Azrael Comment

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    Source: Compute!’s PC Magazine – Issue 2 – Volume 1, Number 2 – November 1987

    MicroLeague Baseball was an early classic baseball game for computers. This particular ad mentions the Commodore 64, DOS, Apple II and Atari 8-bit line though it was also later released for the Amiga and Atari ST. Like most other MicroLeague sports games, this one was strategic in nature instead of a more typical arcade style game.

    In MicroLeague Baseball, you take the roll of a manager. MicroLeague used real teams in addition to real stats from real players licensed from the Major League Players Association. You could choose to manage any team from any year and match them up any way you wanted. As the manager, you got to choose the line-up, when to steal, when to send in relief pitchers, pinch hitters, etc. You could play vs. another human player or against a manager controlled by the computer. There were various expansions for this game including a Box Score/Stats Compiler Disk that allowed you to save the results of every game played and compile statistics for every player as well as a General Manager/Owners disk that you to make trades and create your own players and teams. Various data disks were released as well. While maybe not for everyone, MicroLeague Baseball was a statisticians dream.

    As far as I know, this game has never been re-released which is a shame as the MicroLeague line is rather unique in the baseball video game world. There were several sequels culminating with MicroLeague Baseball IV in 1993. I tend to like turn-based strategy games and if there were more sports games like this today I would probably play them more.

    The above ad is from the November 1987 issue of Compute!’s PC Magazine and the screen shots are from the Commodore 64 version of the game.





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