Atari XE GS

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. -- ----------------------------------------------------------- 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(a)Cheta.net -----------------------------------------------------------