Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA!jhs
From: jhs@MITRE-BEDFORD.ARPA
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.8bit
Subject: connecting two Atari computers
Message-ID: <8802212015.AA13779@mitre-bedford.ARPA>
Date: 21 Feb 88 20:15:19 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 21

>  So how many joystick ports are there?  My 800/Fossil has four.  Is there
>  only one on an XL?

There are two joystick ports on the XL/XE series machines.  I guess I was
thinking that both would be used to provide an 8-bit-wide parallel port
such as the fellow referred to, since each has just 4 parallel bits.

You could, of course, use just one joystick port to get a 4-bit parallel
path, leaving the other port free for a normal joystick.  I believe the
individual pins can be programmed for input or output separately, so you could
even set it up with two 1-bit inputs and 2 1-bit outputs.  Hmm... this would
let you implement two separate bidirectional serial ports.  In turn this would
let you set up a RING of serial ports with as many Ataris around the ring as
you wished.  Or you could set up two independent unidirectional rings.  I can
see there are a lot of communication possibilities I never even thought of,
using the joystick ports.

However, if you want to do an 8-bit parallel connection there, it would tie up
both ports as I indicated previously.

-John Sangster, jhs@mitre-bedford.arpa