This episode features Atari Mailing List, originally released in 1981.  This program for the Atari 8 bit line of computers was written in BASIC and released on cassette.

Podcast: Download

Manual Cover Art

Atari Mailing List in Action

Loading the program using CLOAD and examination of the secondary load.  The first load prepares the loading screen.  The second, forced, load loads the actual program:

 

Loading screen, complete with broken art:

 

Momentary title screen:

 

Main Menu:

 

Resume from BREAK.  Line 100 is the menu input routine:

 

Modifying code for disk use:

 

Adding a record:

 

Filtering data set via Delete function:

 

 

Atari Mailing List Customizer in Action

Title Screen:

 

Step 1: Defining name, number of fields, and number of output lines:

 

Step 2: Defining field labels and field sizes:

 

Step 3: Defining each output line format:

 

Step 4: Saving the customized code:

 

Output and Data File

Data File

Data files are stored in a combination binary and ATASCII format, mainly ATASCII.  Looks like it could easily be completely deciphered.  You can also see in this screenshot the Atari Mailing List program on disk (AMAILLST.BAS), the Atari General List program on disk (AGENLIST.BAS), along with the list modification code created by the customizer (AEMMOD.BAS), a completely merged customized program (AEMAIL.BAS), and last the data file for the customized list (EMAIL).

 

Printer Output

This is output for ALL records sent to the printer:

Ripkowski,Wade 
wade@inverseatascii.info 
 
User,Joe 
juser@someisp.com

Command Cheat Sheet

Download PDF: Cheat Sheet

 

Show Links:

• Atari Mania: http://www.atarimania.com/utility-atari-400-800-xl-xe-mailing-list_12881.html

 

 

Intro music is an excerpt from a chip tune by Wizwars named 8 Bit Raceway.  It is used under Creative Common license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States.