Atari 400 User Manual page 15

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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