¢ATARI 8-BIT TRIVIA¢¢ Hello and welcome back to Atari 8-bit Trivia. This time we have something a little different. Kevin Cooke has written with some tasty trivia for you to chew over. He has also included a trivia challenge. Over to you Kevin...¢¢¢ "I want to know about ANY interesting pieces of Atari "stuff" which you may own or know about. This could include software, books, Atari merchandise, something that no one else knows... anything in fact, as long as it's a little rare, unusual or interesting. I'll start off this issue by listing a few things and then, from next issue, it's over to YOU. Don't worry if your finished piece is a bit short as it can be put together with others for a bumper column.¢¢ Well, what did I find when looking through my mountains of Atari bits 'n' bobs?¢¢1) THE ALCHEMIST¢¢ This is a fairly old tape to disk transfer system, published by Softscan. OK, I know that there are a few copies about but a lot of people still haven't heard of or seen it. Basically, your finished disk versions of cassette games would either load as stand-alone programs (about a 20% chance) or would, very annoyingly, require one of the specified "loaders" on the Alchemist disk to be pre-loaded on EVERY occassion. However, it was the first tape to disk program I owned so it holds a special place in my heart (sniff).¢¢¢2) THE ATARI XE ADVANTAGE POSTER¢¢ I've always been pleased with this poster because, unless you know differently, there aren't many about. I got my one free inside the box of my Karateka cartridge.¢¢ For those who haven't seen it, one side contains a mixture of artistic impressions of characters from Atari ROM cartridge games with a big "THE ATARI ADVANTAGE" logo in the middle of the page. At the bottom is an artist's drawing of the 7800, 2600 and Atari XE games consoles.¢¢ The reverse side shows one screenshot from each of the Atari games released onto cartridge for the XE games console promotion. Pictured are 36 different games. Below are the details of a promotion that Atari were running whereby you had to collect the barcodes from the cartridge boxes to claim various prizes.¢¢ Five barcodes got you a free T-Shirt (black with "Atari" written on it in yellow letters - no Atari Fuji logo though!). Fifteen barcodes got you a free cartridge and twenty five allowed a choice of:¢¢a) A 7800 system for $25¢¢or¢¢b) An XE system or XE disk drive for $50¢¢ There was also a chance to win a visit to California for a visit to Atari headquarters and a look at some of California's attractions.¢¢¢ OK, so I've started you off. Now why not look through your Atari things and find something that others might like to hear about? As one particularly annoying TV star might say, "Who knows, next time the star could be YOU!!".¢
