Monthly Archives: September 2009

Video Games

Benheck Atari Disk Archive

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When I was young I used to do a lot of BASIC programming on my Atari 800 computer. Many years later I got an SIO2PC cable from eBay, which allows you to use your PC as a virtual disk drive with an old Atari. This allows a person to make disk images of their old stuff. Knowing how fragile the old FM disks were, I was excited to make backups.

Sadly, about 3 minutes after getting the transfer cable my 810 drive conked out. However recently a customer found me a working 1050 drive at a thrift store (how come thrift stores in Wisconsin aren’t that cool?) so once again I can share these old games with the world!

If you ever wondered what the “amazing” Ben Heck was doing at age 11, now you can find out! Though a programmed a lot of stuff, I’m only including what is complete or fairly playable.

Should run on most modern emulators, or a real Atari if you have an SIO2PC cable. Enjoy!

Ben’s Atari 800 Games

Video Games

A blast from the past!

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Thanks to Michael Bonkowski – the person who commissioned the Atari 800 laptop – I now have an Atari 1050 disk drive!

As some of you may know the Atari 800 was my first computer at age 11 (myself, not the computer). Sure even then it was fairly old, but still awesome. Over the years I programmed (or tried to program) many a game for it in BASIC. While the hobby never really accomplished much at the time, I give the experience a lot of credit for the computer knowledge I have today.

Several years ago I bought an SIO2PC cable, which allows you to hook up your Atari to a PC and use the PC as a virtual disk drive. You can play disk images off your PC, or make images of your original floppies. That was all well and good, but my Atari 810 disk drive failed shortly after getting this cable. So I didn’t manage to copy much.

But now thanks to Michael I can finally back up those old disks and realize just many games I never finished! However what was somewhat complete or playable has been made into ATR disk images and you can check them out here.

Should be good for a laugh, enjoy!

Video Games

Regarding Controller Monitors

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There’s been a lot of interest lately in my Controller Monitor. So I thought I’d reiterate some things about it for interested parties:

  1. Currently Xbox 360 only. I’ve been thinking about a PS3 version, it would require a different approach, but more importantly, would companies want it? Please let me know.
  2. Size of display is 8″ x 8″ x 1.5″. It connects via a 6′ cable to a wireless Xbox 360 controller. (Granted, it’s no longer “free of wires” but you know what I mean) There are screw holes in the four corners for mounting as you choose.
  3. The connector for the cable replaces the headphone / keyboard jack on the bottom of the controller. Charge & Play kits still fit.
  4. Display indicates the following: D-pad, A B X Y, left and right bumpers, left and right triggers, both analog sticks. Currently L3 / R3 (depressing the thumbsticks) is not represented.
  5. For the analog indicators there are 3 LED’s per direction. These indicate “any motion at all”, “halfway there” and “all the way over”.
  6. Cost is $650 US, includes controller. Shipping is extra.

If this sounds like something that would be useful for your company please drop me a line to discuss. I’m setting up a batch within the next few weeks.

Video Games

Planning trip to ECCC in Chicago

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Greetings, citizens of the internet! I am planning to attend the Emergency Chicagoland Commodore Convention, taking place September 26th.

You can check out their website here. I’m going to bring my Atari 800 laptop (before it goes out to the customer) so hopefully I won’t get beat up too badly. I’m sure it will be fun for computer geeks of all backgrounds.

So if you’re in the area why not check it later?