Featured Articles

• For the week of May 6 2000: Dot-Matrix Digitizer: Here's a fun hack: Turn your dot-matrix printer into a photographic digitizer for a couple of dollars in electronic parts and some surprisingly simple tinkering.
  
• For the week of May 13 2000: War Games: The story of Strategic Simulations. Learn about the creator of Colonial Conquest, Field of Fire, Computer Ambush, and other strategy game classics.
  
• For the week of May 20 2000: Atari Voices: Experiment with computer speech with these talkative products for the 8-bit and ST computers
  
• For the week of May 27 2000: Everything You Wanted To Know About Every DOS: Why in the world are there so many versions of DOS? Who uses them, and why?
  
• For the week of Jun 3 2000: New Atari Product Line: 17 years ago this month: Four new computers and eight new peripherals were announced by Atari at the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, including the 1450XLD "for less than $1000."
  
• For the week of Jun 10 2000: Atari VCS: "A lot of people like to poke fun at the VCS, saying it's weak and obsolete...the rumored death of the VCS has been slightly exaggerated."
  
• For the week of Jun 17 2000: Antic Pix Games: A selection of some of Antic's favorite Atari games, old and new.
  
• For the week of Jun 24 2000: Talk is Cheap: For about fifteen dollars you can make your ATARI computer speak. In fact you can make it whistle, hum, sing or curse. You can save the speech on a disk for posterity and play it back anytime you like.
  
• For the week of Jul 1 2000: XL Line Debuts: 17 years ago this month: Atari released the 1200XL computer, 1050 disk drive, and other equipment with "sleek styling in black, white and silver."
  
• For the week of Jul 8 2000: The ATR8000: Add IBM Or CP/M Compatibility To Your System. With the 64K ATR8000 ($500) you become the proud owner of a complete CP/M computer.
  
• For the week of Jul 15 2000: Games Computers Play: Remember this online service? "You log onto Games Computers Play and suddenly you're in a wonderland of boldly geometric color graphics, with perspectives that come at you from startling angles."
  
• For the week of Jul 22 2000: Antic Cover Art Contest Winners: See award-winning artwork created on 8-bit Ataris
  
• For the week of Jul 29 2000: Antic Pix Controllers: Remember the Joyboard, the joystick you could stand on? How about the touch-sensitive disk of the Joy-Sensor? See Antic's joystick picks.
  
• For the week of Aug 5 2000: Filling the GAP: The Gap Stores, Inc., national retailer of casual clothing, is one example of an organization using ATARIs for business applications. Their use of microcomputers, including the ATARI 800, has contributed to overall profitability and productivity of the entire company.
  
• For the week of Aug 12 2000: Fractal Zoom: Make fractals on your 8-bit! This BASIC program lets you create, save and zoom in on your own Julia fractal curves.
  
• For the week of Aug 19 2000: Alan Alda: 17 years ago this month, Atari signed Alan Alda as its spokesman. Although not previously an ATARI owner, Alda did have an unnamed computer he stopped using because it was too difficult to understand.
  
• For the week of Aug 26 2000: Lucasfilm and Atari - Creative Partners: 16 years ago, Lucasfilm released Ballblazer and Rescue on Fractalus. The two are among the best games created for the Atari. Ironically, both were "throwaway" games--created simply to teach the programming team how to produce a video game.
  
• For the week of Sep 2 2000: Atari at the Gazette: Would you run a newspaper using Ataris? The folks at Johnson's County Gazette in Olathe, Kansas did. Read all about it!
  
• For the week of Sep 9 2000: Where The Weather Comes From: September 1986: It looks like a suburban house until you see the 24-foot satellite dish antenna on the roof. This is the National Weather Service Forecasting Office in Redwood City, California. Inside this unassuming building, an astonishing array of computers and electronic equipment helps meteorologists make weather forecasts for the Western United States, local TV stations and ships at sea.
  
• For the week of Sep 16 2000: Wizard and the Princess: "My goal is to create the ultimate story. I want to make people so involved that they will feel they're really there." An interview with Sierra On-Line game designer Roberta Williams.
  
• For the week of Sep 23 2000: Nightmare Mission: The assignment? Produce a high-quality game simulating the behavior of a new aircraft from major aerospace manufacturer. The time allowed? Four weeks! To develop over 250 pages of assembly code.
  
• For the week of Sep 30 2000: Shootout of the Video Game Systems: Atari XE Game System Vs. Nintendo And Sega. Today's game systems bear little resemblance to the pioneer models such as the still-available Atari 2600. They are far more powerful, with more colors, more animation, more complexity overall--providing a far superior gaming experience.
  
• For the week of Oct 7 2000: Atari's Bulletin Board System: Here, in a room so narrow you can stretch your arms and touch both walls, is what might be the largest bulletin board system in the country, perhaps the world. Running on five Atari 520ST computers, the 24-hour Atari Base BBS gets some 12,000 calls a month.
  
• For the week of Oct 14 2000: Medal for an Atari: Taegu Air Base is a combination airport/airbase operated by the Republic of Korea Air Force. I was stationed there for two years--and owe my survival to Atari...
  
• For the week of Oct 21 2000: Scott Adams: An interview with Scott Adams, president of Adventure International and the author of 13 popular computer adventures. Adams "is the most well-known and prolific writer of these adventure games."
  
• For the week of Oct 28 2000: E.T. Game - Atari adopts America's favorite alien: July 1983: The tremendous populanty of E.T., the Extraterrestrial, almost guaranteed that an E.T. computer game would appear. There were more ideas for E.T. than ROM space could handle, and the finished game represents only about one-fourth of the game scenario considered during development.
  
• For the week of Nov 4 2000: Star Raiders Academy: The game of Star Raiders was conceived and implemented at Atari by Dave Neubauer, who also designed the POKEY chip. At the time of its design, early in 1979, it was one of the largest games written, requiring 8K of ROM storage.
  
• For the week of Nov 11 2000: Computer Quiz: How many colors are in graphics mode 5? What are two different kinds of interrupts with a 6502 CPU? Take this quiz and find out what you know. And what you don't.
  
• For the week of Nov 18 2000: Mutant Joysticks: Turn that broken-down old joystick into a custom controller. "Have you ever tried to drive a car with a joystick? Why not just adapt an old joystick to suit your needs? All it takes is a little creativity, elbow grease, and time."
  
• For the week of Nov 25 2000: Antic Sampling Processor: Build yourself a sampling processor for under $15 and create sound samples. Antic Sampling Processor requires a bit of hardware construction, with some basic knowledge of electronics and soldering, but the results are well worth the effort.
  
• For the week of Dec 2 2000: Portable Color Entertainment System: Before it was known as the Atari Lynx, it was dubbed the Portable Color Entertainment System. For $149.95, "a unique feature is its ability to network with as many as seven additional units for multi-player games."
  
• For the week of Dec 9 2000: Magic Sac Professional: "Even before going on sale, the Magic Sac had become legendary in the Atari community. The idea of running Macintosh software on an ST brought cries of heresy from Apple users--and smug grins from Atari users." Why would a self-respecting ST owner transform his computer into a Mac? Read on...
  
• For the week of Dec 16 2000: Poland to USA via Antic I/O: Read how Antic Magazine and an Atari 800XL helped a family of Polish political refugees make a new home in America.
  
• For the week of Dec 23 2000: Choosing Your Modem - Strategy for online beginners: Antic's advice in May 1988: If you truly have "the need for speed" online, shop for a good 2400 baud modem.
  
• For the week of Jan 1 2001: Outstanding Atarian Achievements of 1987-1988: The Third Annual Antic Awards show a wide spectrum of large and small companies, individuals and clubs providing outstanding support for the Atari Community. See the people and products that were declared winners.
  
• For the week of Jan 8 2001: Prestidigitization: A review of the Color Computereyes, Print-Technik Realtizer and Navarone video digitizers for the Atari ST. "For a while, it became downright dangerous for any unwary employee to venture up onto the editorial floor of Antic. If they were caught, they were forcibly digitized. We digitized anything and everything..."
  
• For the week of Jan 15 2001: CompuTalk: Texas-Sized BBS: In the Texas tradition of doing things BIG...Computalk of Fort Worth may well be the largest BBS operated by a private individual. Computalk consists of six 48K Atari 800 computers, all linked together via a 20Mb Corvus Hard Disk and Multiplexer.
  
• For the week of Jan 22 2001: Teleprompting with Atari: Whenever you see people speaking on television and looking directly at the camera for more than about 20 seconds, chances are they're using a prompter. Q-Tv of Los Angeles uses Atari 130XE computers as the basis of its prompter system.
  
• For the week of Jan 29 2001: Maverick Atari School: Three years ago a nine-year-old student said "I want to run my Lego motorized stuff from the computer." That's how CAMLU (Computer Activated Motorized Lego Unit) got started as a course of study.
  
• For the week of Feb 5 2001: Atari s New Computers - Triple-header at '87 Winter CES: Atari kicked off 1987 by introducing this high-powered new hardware line-up, including The Mega ST series, starting at about $995; a laser printer priced under $1,500; and the most affordable IBM PC compatible available, at $699.
  
• For the week of Feb 12 2001: Anatomy of an Atari: Have you ever wondered what the inside of your ATARI looks like? This article will show you.
  
• For the week of Feb 19 2001: Now Hear This: How the computer learned to speak, a chronology from the 1930s through the 1980s.
  
• For the week of Feb 26 2001: Carnival of Cartridges: See the latest and greatest 8-bit carts. From the August 1989 issue: Food Fight, Karateka and more hits.
  
• For the week of Mar 5 2001: SpartaDOS X or Atari DOS-XE?: Which is the Number One operating system?
  
• For the week of Mar 12 2001: Artistry in Electronic Gaming: Electronic Arts, a visionary new company in San Mateo, California, has introduced a line of software that could quite possibly change the history of computer gaming. Archon, Murder on the Zinderneuf, Pinball Construction Set, M.U.L.E., and WORMS? are five of the most original and innovative programs that have been produced under the heading of entertainment for any home computer. Indeed, they could be the forerunners of future software that will be more than entertainment.
  
• For the week of Mar 19 2001: Laptop-to-Atari Connection: How to do file transfers from a TRS-80 model 100 to your 8-bit or ST
  
• For the week of Mar 26 2001: 8-Bit Enhancements: Add-ons for your 8-bit Atari including DISKIO, the ICX-85 keypad, Smart Speaker (pictured) and more.
  
• For the week of Apr 2 2001: Polyhedron Designer: Polyhedron Designer is a powerful 3-D graphics tool for craftspeople who work with stained glass or any other medium that creates complex shapes from assembled panals.
  
• For the week of Apr 9 2001: BSRk: Use this type-in home control software on your 8-bit or ST to control X-10 BSR modules. Let your Atari automatically brew your first morning coffee - or any other on/off electrical operation.
  
• For the week of Apr 16 2001: Prolong the Life of Your ST Mouse: The most vulnerable piece of hardware on the ST is the mouse. This article describes simple maintenance procedures for keeping yours alive.
  
• For the week of Apr 23 2001: 1989 Antic Awards for Atarian Achievement: Find out why Easy-Scan (shown) and SpartaDOS X were called breakthrough products in 1989.
  
• For the week of Apr 30 2001: Broadcast Automating Atari: Read how radio station WIMA in Lima, Ohio used an Atari 130XE to control on-air programming.
  
• For the week of May 7 2001: Stepper Motor Robot-Controller: Have you ever wanted to use your Atari to move things? Perhaps to roll a robot around, direct a photocell scanner from across a room, or move a manipulator arm? Stepper motors can do it-with the interface board and software described in this article.
  
• For the week of May 14 2001: Space-Age Atari: In the highly technological and scientific environment of NASA's Langley Research Center at Hampton, Virginia, we use an expanded Atari 8-bit computer system daily...
  
• For the week of May 21 2001: Wild Inventions You Can Build For Pennies: Eccentric do-it-yourself projects, from the "Rube Goldberg" of the Atari
  
• For the week of May 28 2001: Message on the Medium: Find out how the Atari program recorder saves data to a cassette tape. The ATARI computers record data on the tape using a method known as frequency shift keying, or FSK. This means that the computer actually generates sound frequencies and sends them to the recorder. The frequencies generated by the ATARI are very precise at 3995 Hz (for zero) and 5327 Hz (for one)...
  
• For the week of Jun 4 2001: Game Machine Grows Up: My First Computer, an easily-installed plug-in keyboard, converts the Atari 2600 into a programmable 8K computer. A standard cassette tape player can be used for external memory.
  
• For the week of Jun 11 2001: Anatomy of an 800XL: A guided tour of the inside of an Atari 800XL, thanks the engineering staff at Atari.