ATARI DICE

HARDWARE CONFIGURATION:
- Atari 400/800/600XL/800XL with the Atari BASIC cartridge

LANGUAGE:
Atari BASIC

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS USED:
- Notepad++ (code editing)

SUGGESTED EMULATOR FOR WINDOWS:
Altirra

HOW TO LOAD THE PROGRAM IN THE EMULATOR:
- set the model to Atari 400/800, with any amount of RAM
- choose "File-Load State"
- open "ataridice.atstate2"
OR (for a more realistic TAPE experience)
- set the model to Atari 400/800, with any amount of RAM
- choose "File-Cassette-Load"
- open "ataridice.cas"
- type CLOAD
- type RUN
OR (for a more realistic DISK experience)
- set the model to Atari 400/800 and the RAM to at least 16K
- attach an Atari DOS 2.0 image to disk drive 1, and the adice.atr disk image to disk drive 2
- cold boot the emulated machine
- type LOAD"D2:ADICE.BAS"
- type RUN

NOTES ABOUT THIS VERSION:
- strings are treated as arrays in Atari BASIC, so they must be DIMmed in advance
- the PRINT AT statement's equivalent is the POSITION statement
- in text mode, color management is limited: text is always the same color as the background, and can only differ in brigthness; also, changes in color affect the whole screen, so this version is basically monochrome with the exception of a green border
- Atari BASIC has a peculiar way to handle keyboard input, which requires opening a data channel; also by default the cursor is visible, luckily it can be POKEd to invisibility; unfortunately on the 400/800 (as opposed to the XL series) there is no ordinary way to disable the keypress beep
- the ATASCII character set came in handy to draw the dice (but entering the correct UTF codes in Notepad++ for the ATASCII semigraphic characters was a challenge)