Comments on: Homesoft's Disk Images of Atari 8-bit Games

Homesoft's Disk Images of Atari 8-bit Games

milquetoast — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 07:55:40 -0800

Homesoft's Disk Images. 354 disks full of 8-bit Atari games. Click on game titles for s c r e e n s h o t s.

The links section is a good source for all your Atari emulation needs.

By: Pastabagel

Pastabagel — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:03:16 -0800

Lacks Adventure...

By: chillmost

chillmost — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:20:00 -0800

I need an emulator that runs on Mac OS 10.4.11 and can open pitfall. Stella doesn't seem to work.

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:21:41 -0800

That's because these are XL and XE games. I only had a few games for my XL- one was Ducks Ahoy (misspelled on the site), Facemaker, and some math game which had you on a pogo stick.... does anyone remember the name of that one?

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:24:13 -0800

Oh yeah, I also had River Raid, arguably the best version available. (Well, it is in my opinion.)

By: cimbrog

cimbrog — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:42:24 -0800

Oh. My. God. Red Max. If Alternate Reality was anywhere to be found there, I would be in heaven. The 800XL with 8 channel music was the ONLY way to play that game.

By: cimbrog

cimbrog — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:42:54 -0800

Er - 4 channel music. Not quite an Amiga...

By: mert

mert — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 09:39:46 -0800

I remember making my mom buy these games with incredible cover art depicting spaceships and elaborately drawn battle scenes. And then you put the cassette in the console and encountered this very basic pixilated image and a highly constrained set of actions--but it didn't even matter. I could play for hours. The best part of Adventure was the single hidden pixel that you could find in the catacombs and drag somewhere to display some special message.

By: lumensimus

lumensimus — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 10:39:24 -0800

Vjetnam.hopto.org is one of the better Atari disk image archives. You have to know what you're looking for or be willing to sort through a lot of cruft to get something good, however. This torrent looks jam-packed as well, though I can't vouch for its contents. an incomplete list Atari 800 games that got me through my childhood (because the Vjetnam archive looks like it's okay with remote linking): Star Raiders (a miracle in 8 kilobytes -- make sure you have the manual for full enjoyment of this masterpiece) Missile Command Qix Deluxe Invaders Star Raiders II (I would only later discover that this had been adapted from an unreleased The Last Starfighter game, which is also a lot of fun) Congo Bongo (I woke my parents up to tell them I'd beaten the first level of this isometric Donkey Kong-ish game at age 7 or 8. It had taken me several years.) Koronis Rift Ninja Archon Gumball Jumpman/Jumpman Junior M.U.L.E. Cavelord Spy vs. Spy 3 - Arctic Antics Super Zaxxon Journey to the Planets - this is easily my favorite Atari 8-bit game. It took me until college to beat it -- it's a science fiction action/puzzle/adventure dealie about an astronaut who pilots what looks like a rocket-powered H from planet to confounding planet. Totally singular, unspeakably difficult -- very, very clever.

By: c0nsumer

c0nsumer — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:27:35 -0800

About a year and a half ago I took steps to preserve all my (family's) old Atari 800XL disk images. While I haven't shared them yet (still trying to ensure there's no personal info stored in Atariwriter files on random disks) I did a write-up of the process and hardware used. It can be found here: Atari 800XL Disk Archiving

By: Oops

Oops — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:03:18 -0800

mert - that was my favorite part of Adventure, too. I've no idea why I got so excited as a kid to find a secret room with nothing more than the developer's name, but I did. Incidentally, there's a flash-based version of the game here. Can't remember off the top of my head if the easter egg is in that one.

By: Oops

Oops — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:04:37 -0800

Ah, just saw Pastabagel's link. Just living up to my name, I guess.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:04:01 -0800

lumensimus: Journey to the Planets - this is easily my favorite Atari 8-bit game. It took me until college to beat it -- it's a science fiction action/puzzle/adventure dealie about an astronaut who pilots what looks like a rocket-powered H from planet to confounding planet. I went from "what is he talking about?" to "oh. yeah." I never beat that. It's, um, kinda tempting to bust that out. c0nsumer: You've been having good luck retrieving those floppys? Really? Hm. I think I only had the 850 drive, so maybe no passthrough... I wonder what disks I might still have.

By: Pronoiac

Pronoiac — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 12:53:08 -0800

*hums the theme to "Alternate Reality"*