Cartridges
A cartridge contains electronic chips in
which
a
program
is
stored.
To
use
a cartridge-based pro-
gram,
no
special equipment
is
generally re-
quired; the cartridge plugs
right
into
your
Atari
computer. A cartridge program usually cannot
be
altered,
is
completely self-contained, and
is
automatically loaded into
your
computer's mem-
ory
when
y.ou
turn on
your
computer.
Cartridge programs are very reliable and rarely
ever
go
bad. Their principal drawbacks are
that
they are limited in the
size
of
the programs they
can
hold and are usually a
bit
more expensive
than cassette-
or
diskette-based software.
You
can
't store
your
own
programs
or
other files
that
you create on a cartridge, either.
To
store
your
own
work,
you
will need to
use
a blank
cassette or diskette.
Cassettes
There are many software programs available in
the cassette format.
You
can
also
buy
blank
cas-
settes on which
to
store
your
own
work.
While a cartridge-based program
is
loaded
directly into the computer,
you
will
need a
cas-
sette recorder
to
load a cassette-based program
from the cassette into the computer's memory
In
comparison
to
the peripheral needed
to
load a
diskette-based program
(a
disk drive), a cassette
recorder
is
the least expensive type
of
data stor-
age and retrieval device available for Atari home
computers. However, while
they
are
low
in cost
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