2nd Life

Reviewed by Matthias Jaap

What is a Tandy TRS80?

The Tandy is one of the classic computers. It wasn't as well known as the C64 but it sold well in the U.S. and has still a small group of users. Technically it looks similar to a combination of a Sinclair ZX81 and the Spectrum: b/w graphic, sound (1 channel beeper), 64 chars/lines and a Z80A cpu.

Setting up

2nd Life is a cleanly written GEM program. All preferences are made in dialog boxes and the emulator itself is runs in a GEM window. Before you can start you should define which disk image you want to use for each of the 4 disk drives of the emulated TRS-80. Interesting features for TRS-80 experts include the integrated font editor, disassembler and monitor. But you don't need them if you just want to use some programs with the emulator.

Start!

There are four disk images supplied with the emulator. They contain an os, basic, games in assembler or basic and utilities.

The games are of good quality - if you like classic games. One of the highlights is the dancing demon which performs a good, editable, dancing session on your computer screen! Other games include derivations of Pac-Man, Space Invaders and more. The basic seems to be very good and a basic reference table is supplied with the emulator.

Compatibility

None of the programs did hang but it is very difficult to get TRS-80 files so I could only test it with the supplied files. According to the author 2nd life is compatible with the TRS80 emulator for PCs so most programs should run. The compatibility with Atari hardware is very good but you are not able to run the emulator in colour modes. 2nd Life runs under all TOS versions as well as Geneva, N.AES and MagiC.

Speed

The speed is quite satisfying on an Atari Falcon. Users of 8 MHz machines may change the emulator options to increase speed.

Ratings

2nd Life is in my opinion one of the best emulators for the Atari computers. It is the first one to be cleanly written and the number of options is impressive.