Autobooting Atari

Is there any way you can make a program run right after it has been loaded into your computer from tape or disk? This would prevent anyone from seeing the special codes in the program.

Mark Zobel

We assume you are using a password or are disabling the break key and system reset. If the program didn't run automatically, anyone could LIST the program and remove the protection. Although you can't completely bar an experienced, enthusiastic invader, you can make a program run automatically from disk when you boot up your system. See "Automate Your Atari" in COMPUTE's Third Book of Atari.

Although it is possible to create a boot tape that does the same thing, we don't know of a specific program. There are techniques for making BASIC programs RUN automatically when LOADed on Commodore machines (for example, having the program load in memory low enough to change some vectors), but the technique is too involved to cover here. See "Commodore Autoboot" elsewhere in this issue.