(Atari800) Sixies

First release of Sixies for Atari 400/800 XL/XE systems with 64K support and enhanced 128K title caching. Includes a bootable ATR and standalone normal and compressed XEX builds

Real Hardware:

• Atari 800XL with 64K RAM, or Atari 130XE with 128K RAM.
• XL/XE operating system ROM.
• BASIC disabled—hold OPTION while booting.
• NTSC machine recommended. PAL works, but animations run about 20% slower and title music is NTSC-tuned.
• Joystick in port 1, or the computer keyboard using WASD.
• TV/monitor and normal POKEY audio output.

Loading the game

Recommended: mount sixies.atr using FujiNet, SIO2SD, SDrive-MAX, or write it to a 90K single-density floppy. It boots directly and does not require DOS.

The standalone sixies.xex and sixies-crunched.xex can also be loaded using a compatible XEX loader, but high scores only persist when using the writable ATR image.

The 128K model runs the same game binary; its extra memory provides faster title-screen restoration. Stock original Atari 400/800 machines with only 16–48K are not currently supported.

Atari XL/XE emulator, you only need:

• An Atari 8-bit emulator such as Atari800, Atari800MacX, or Altirra.
• An Atari XL/XE OS ROM (ATARIXL.ROM).
• Atari Emulator here: index.html

Configure the emulator as:

• Machine: Atari 800XL
• Memory: 64K minimum; 128K/130XE optional
• Video: NTSC recommended
• BASIC: disabled
• Disk 1: mount sixies.atr
• Disk access: read/write if you want persistent high scores
• Input: keyboard or joystick

Then cold-boot the emulator. No compiler or development tools are required.