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new to ST, any advice


Van

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Hi all,

I'm expecting a ST within the next few weeks and would like to hear your advice on getting setup.

Got a good deal on a 1040ST, with no mouse or cables. Waiting to hear the full model#, so I'm not sure what options I'll have, but had to jump on it. My main goal is to use it for midi tracking and chip tune stuff.

 

1. I'll need a mouse, right? Any mods to use PS2 or serial mouse on the ST?

2. Video/monitor? Do all the STs have Composite video out? RGB? Any mods for VGA.

3. Memory mods/upgrades?

4. FDD mods? HDD mods?

5. TOS upgrades, boot ROMS?

 

I know this covers allot of ground. I'm trying to get a list of bookmarks, so knowing what has worked for you will help.

Thanks,

Van

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Surprised no answers yet so I will do my best.

 

1. Yes there are adaptors for PS2 I believe, they will cost more than a regular mouse. Best bet may be to get a 3rd party mouse with higher DPI designed specifically for the ST (or ST & Amiga dual function)

 

2. Only the STM or STFM models have composite video out line active on the monitor port. You can get RGB via a SCART cable for ALL ST/STE models. Mono can be displayed on most VGA monitors with a simple adaptor plug, lo-res or medium-res use on a 32khz de-interlaced screen will require a specific scan doubler.

 

3. Some STs and STEs do have SIMM slots to allow you to take the machines up to 4mb. There are 3rd party boards for STFM/STF 1040/520 machines too but these require some soldering and the boards are quite rare I believe.

 

4. Ultrasatan is a CF/SD HDD adaptor, only know of one internal IDE hard drive kit a la Amiga 600/1200. Think it is called AdIDE from ICD. Don't know of any HD floppy adaptors for ST range, could be wrong though.

 

5. TOS is interchangeable with simple replacement of TOS ROMs on all but the first 520 machines that booted TOS from disk to memory like the Amiga 1000 does.

 

Hope this helps.

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There is also the HxC floppy emulator which is a great SD card solution, and can also be used on numerous other systems such as Amiga, TI99,MSX2 etc etc

http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=13

 

There are a load of third party mice which are much better than the ST mouse IMO, the logic3 speed mouse is the one that I use, and it is switchable between ST and Amiga.

 

Buy/build an RGB cable, RF is ok-ish but the system is much better running on RGB

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Only STEs have the SIMMs. And the earliest machines used the non edge-contact type (soldered in?)

 

Choice for a decent budget system comes down to 1040ST/FM or an STE. STE gives the advantage of better capabilities but there are some incompatabilities. Other advantage is that RAM size usually doesn't matter since you can just chuck 4 x 1 Meg SIMMs into it.

 

RAM upgrades for the pre-STEs will be somewhat painful. Obtaining a board or extra chips, then doing all the soldering to upgrade an existing machine is more trouble than it's worth, better to just get a machine that's already got whatever RAM amount you want.

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Only STEs have the SIMMs. And the earliest machines used the non edge-contact type (soldered in?)

 

 

 

the SIMMS had a pin type header soldered to them, horrible, I had one, gave it away the day after I opened it up. It has an Amiga 1200 motherboard in it now :twisted:

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Thanks All

Comfirmed that I have a 1040ST FM coming, yea!! Was hoping I would luck out with a 'E' but at the price I'm happy. I've been searching AA's forum as well as Google for all options.

 

I agree with you on #1, oky2000. Best Electronics has some options; then there's EBay. I'll search for the Logic3 mouse, mimo; do you know a source off hand?

 

On #2, I saw the thread here or was it Atari Forum, about the CGA up-converters for VGA. My box is a FM so I'll give the stock composite signal a try on a TV first, but if anyone has hands on with one of the scan converters I'd like to hear a review. I would like to have one at some point, I have other RGB systems that could share it. Someday I want to have room enough to have more then one or two classic systems setup at a time, with a nice LCD monitor and a beer frig, hahahahah.

 

3. So no 'easy' mem upgrades on a FM. I saw one page showing a upgrade done with a 30pin simm, I think, and flying jumpers to points on the motherboard, but there wasn't a write up on the design. :-( Anyone know the specs on the memory speed, I do have some old PC simms.

 

4. Was looking at the UltraSatan but the HxC floppy Emu is looking good also, mimo. Also saw some pages on FDD conversions, going to a 3.5 1.44MB FDD, didn't look too hard but is it really worth it. No good with original diskettes (but I don't HAVE any) and you still have a mechatronic system, but it does make it easier to move files between the PC and the ST, right? (as long as I have a PC WITH a FDD). I'll have to think this one over for awhile, money wise the Ultrasatan or HxC is worth more then the ST, but FAT32 SD storage is so nice.

 

5. So as far as TOS goes, simple ROM swap upgrade. Is there an improved TOS or is the 'stock' OS good enough? Did Atari issue version updates to TOS? Just SO used to the endless Windoze updates.

 

Thanks again for all your input, is starting to clear up my questions,

Van

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The other guys who have answered are way, way more knowledgeable; I'm not even in the same league. But I'll give a couple simple points.

 

(1) You can find the TOS 1.4 upgrade on Ebay. They're not listed right now, but seller "myatari"....

 

eBay Seller: myatari1?ff3=10&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]

 

....ususally has them listed. You need to know whether or not your machine takes 2-chip or 6-chip ROMS. I have looked in 3 520STs, 1 520STfm, and 1 1040STfm lately, and they all took 6-chips. But you better look first, and maybe by then they will have more listed. After getting mine, I never put them in, so I can't vouch for it, but I understand (correcly?????) that once the TOS 1.4 is installed, there is greater disk compatibility with the IBM.

 

(2) STfm RAM upgrade-ability SUCKS. Fortunately, you have a 1MB machine coming, and that's pretty much plenty.

 

(3) There's a good chance the floppy drive will be toast. Seems a lot of them are on these old machines. There are options to put in a cheap PC floppy drive, but have it function as a 720K drive. I never messed with the 1.44 upgrade, but it's probably complicated and expensive and (in my opinion) not necessary.

 

(4) I have the HxC SD card floppy emulator and it's great! It's just expensive, but it's great! It needs a bit of packaging/casing or something - my "temporary" solution is certainly not elegant - just long cables sticking out of the machine's drive slot and the emulator device sitting naked on the desk.

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Hi wood_jl,

 

"(1) You can find the TOS 1.4 upgrade on Ebay. They're not listed right now, but seller "myatari"....

 

eBay Seller: myatari1?ff3=10&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpt=[CACHEBUSTER]"

Will check that out. As to the need; just read another thread over at Atari Forum about the FDD max sector size and TOS version, so seems to go hand in hand with Ultrasatan.

 

"(2) STfm RAM upgrade-ability SUCKS. Fortunately, you have a 1MB machine coming, and that's pretty much plenty."

As an update to above, I was too hasty, the upgrade at Logicsays.com does indeed have detailed instructions for the 72pin SIMM upgrade.

 

"(3) There's a good chance the floppy drive will be toast."

Yea, I'm thinking that may be the case, but I'll keep my fingers crossed till it gets here.

 

"(4) I have the HxC SD card floppy emulator and it's great!"

So it's fairly easy to load ST files from PC and sneakernet the SD to the ST, any special PC side conversion software?

Van

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For the mouse, pretty much an ebay item, they come up fairly regularly

Don't worry about the TOS version too much, in fact like the Amiga the later revisions have compatability problems with some stuff

It is pretty simple to convert certain PC FDD's to Atari mode, I have never bothered with getting them up to 1.44meg spec, like you say, no good for original discs.

If you want to use your PC to write some floppy discs, the drive on the PC must be connected direct to the PC floppy port, you cant use USB devices.

There is a great PC utility to write ST discs, first you need to install THIS PROGRAM onto your PC and then FloImg. Only use 720k discs though or you will have problems

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Hi mimo,

Thanks for the links, they look like the trick! So I guess using my laptop is 'out' at least for writing diskettes. I was wondering a little about using my USB FDD. I'll have to wait till my Jackintosh shows up to find out if I have an issue with the FDD or not.

Another question, as I start to understand, The UltraSatan connects to the SCSI HDD port and the HxC to the FDD control port, is there a major advantage of one over the other, the ports that is? Both devices can have massive SD storage, both devices can serve the files up as fast as the SD card. So is there a limiting factor with the ST port hardware that gives one design an edge over the other? Is the SCSI port easier to access at run time, or does most software run from ram only?

Thanks again,

Van

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For the mouse, pretty much an ebay item, they come up fairly regularly

 

Best Electronics sells a replacment ST mouse that works great. A bit

pricey, but the feel is much improved over the original. I've got 2

or 3. :)

 

Don't worry about the TOS version too much, in fact like the Amiga the later revisions have compatability problems with some stuff

 

If he's going to be using mass storage systems, then he really needs to be running at least

TOS 1.04. Its file handling, speed, and reliability is much better than previous TOS versions.

 

If he's worried about games compatibility, he could "soft" load an earlier TOS version or try

to check on a TOS switcher setup.

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Don't worry about the TOS version too much, in fact like the Amiga the later revisions have compatability problems with some stuff

 

If he's going to be using mass storage systems, then he really needs to be running at least

TOS 1.04. Its file handling, speed, and reliability is much better than previous TOS versions.

 

If he's worried about games compatibility, he could "soft" load an earlier TOS version or try

to check on a TOS switcher setup.

 

I have finally used Rainbow TOS for the first time in [my little] history.

 

I have also, for the first time in history, easily-swapped disks back and forth between my PC and the ST. The disks read and write on each machine.

THIS IS A HUGE PLUS!!! My gosh, this makes it easy when downloading ST programs and such that are FILES rather than disk images. Oh man, this makes it easy.

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For the mouse, pretty much an ebay item, they come up fairly regularly

Don't worry about the TOS version too much, in fact like the Amiga the later revisions have compatability problems with some stuff

It is pretty simple to convert certain PC FDD's to Atari mode, I have never bothered with getting them up to 1.44meg spec, like you say, no good for original discs.

If you want to use your PC to write some floppy discs, the drive on the PC must be connected direct to the PC floppy port, you cant use USB devices.

There is a great PC utility to write ST discs, first you need to install THIS PROGRAM onto your PC and then FloImg. Only use 720k discs though or you will have problems

 

Hey mimo, tonight's the first night I ever used that program. IT ROCKS!!!! It's so easy!

 

I'd only used the floppy emulator, prior. It took me a long time to get a PC with an actual floppy drive (not a USB crap) and ST with working floppy drive next to each other. LOL.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For the mouse, pretty much an ebay item, they come up fairly regularly

Don't worry about the TOS version too much, in fact like the Amiga the later revisions have compatability problems with some stuff

It is pretty simple to convert certain PC FDD's to Atari mode, I have never bothered with getting them up to 1.44meg spec, like you say, no good for original discs.

If you want to use your PC to write some floppy discs, the drive on the PC must be connected direct to the PC floppy port, you cant use USB devices.

There is a great PC utility to write ST discs, first you need to install THIS PROGRAM onto your PC and then FloImg. Only use 720k discs though or you will have problems

 

This anyone try to use this program LS120? Its got 1.44 compatibility built in.

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Hi Amiman99,

Do you mean a prog or the LS120 drive, kind of like a Zip drive? As I understand, the LS120 drive used a special disk for the 120M format but could also use 1.44M and 720 disks. Not alot of them around now. There was some drivers/software that would work I think Gemulator Exp, but that was for the TT and Falcon(?)

Van

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  • 4 years later...

Holy Cow, where did 4 YEARS go!?! Well, got around to testing this puppy (opened another thread today, forgot about this one.). Google pointed me back here when I was researching the same questions; so sorry for digging up this moldy oldy thread.

So most of it works fine, but the low rez composite video looks messed up abit. Kind of glitchy, scanlines broken between two positions sort of. This could be the LCD display I'm using, will have to test on another display.

At one point the Audio was making a motor boat noise, but it quit after putting the shields back and connecting the KB. Guess grounding and /or having the KB disconnected was a problem? or the PSU needed to warm up. Will prob replace the caps anyway. I was looking over the guide @ exxos' site, for the Mitsumi SR98, mine is an SR 97. I'm sure most the suggested cap replacement values will be fine, but on my PSU (US 110V) the Line filter cap is a 220uF; where as on the SR98 it is 47uF for the 220V AC Line. So I guess something in the 220-470 uF @ >200V range.

The FDD works, YEA! At first it seemed kind of froze, but retrying a few times loosened it up. So on to playing with FloImg and trying out some software.

Yogi

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