celestial_basic_atari

Type-in astronomy programs from the book "Celestial BASIC" by Eric Burgess (hastily) converted to Microsoft BASIC II for the ATARI 800 microcomputer.

Floppy disk images can be found on the releases page.

Book

The book "Celestial BASIC" is available at archive.org. Its author, Eric Burgess, was an interesting person. Read about some of his accomplishments.

Usage

If using the emulator atari800 and assuming it is properly configured with system ROMs, etc and you have a binary image of the Microsoft BASIC II cartridge, then

$ atari800 -atari -nobasic -cart MicrosoftBASIC2.bin -cart-type 2 celestial_basic_side_1.atr

If using a real ATARI 800 computer, then

1. Insert Microsoft BASIC II cartridge
2. Insert disk 1
3. Boot ATARI
4. At the Microsoft BASIC II prompt, enter RUN "D:ASTRO"

OR

If you select a menu item that requires disk 2, then

1. Insert disk 2
2. At the Microsoft BASIC II prompt, enter RUN "D:ASTRO2"

Caveats

• Programs are currently stored on two double-density (180K) floppy disk images. Typical ATARI users who have real floppy disk drives likely won't own a double-density floppy drive, but emulated disk drives should work. I haven't checked yet if the programs will fit on an enhanced-density image.
• Requres Microsoft BASIC II cartridge. Typical ATARI users who have real hardware may not have the Microsoft BASIC II cartidge, but should work with mult-cartridges.