t.skid Posted January 4, 2003 Share Posted January 4, 2003 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...item=2086376077 Atari 65XE Arabic... it was at 50 Pounds BIN... Obviously someone bought it almost immediately...!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+davidcalgary29 Posted January 5, 2003 Share Posted January 5, 2003 Nir Dary has told me that he has a modified XE with a Hebrew ROM character set. That's something that I'd really like to see go on auction! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.skid Posted January 5, 2003 Author Share Posted January 5, 2003 Nir Dary has told me that he has a modified XE with a Hebrew ROM character set. That's something that I'd really like to see go on auction! Wow, nice... but I'm sure that Nir will keep it It have to be rare! I read something about Hebrew XE on the 'net, but I don't recall the owner; maybe was Nir himself :-) About the arabic XE, probably the seller made a wrong decision to put a BIN; price could be higher than 50 pounds. It's a prototype, sold at same price of a standard XE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted January 6, 2003 Share Posted January 6, 2003 The Hebrew Atari i have is a 800XL not a 130xe.. but its more advanced then the Arabic OS. i will explain.. in the Arabic Atari only the charecters are changed.. (changing the International Charecters with Arabic ones).. i have such computer here.. but Arabic like hebrew you write from right to left (not like english - left to right). so in the atari computer if you need to write arabic you need to do this from the end of the line to the begining.. i guess there should be some arabic text editor that fixes this.. in the hebrew atari. you have a hotkey, CTRL + TAB (if i remeber well) that will allow you to write hebrew fonts from right to left. there is also a hotkey for an-insert mode allowing you to write both english & hebrew in the same line.. (writing a basic program in english & inserting the hebrew text).. there are few other keys to auto-switch the fonts. etc.. there were several programs in hebrew written for the atari.. mostly are educational software.. best regards nir dary Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted January 6, 2003 Share Posted January 6, 2003 Did you save a copy of the OS ROM??? Can you post it for others to examine and try out on their systems? Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted January 6, 2003 Share Posted January 6, 2003 Hi Curt. the eprom is soldered onto the motherboard.. i did not had the chance to unsolder it and make an eprom image of it.. but its one of my todo list.. i may get another atari hebrew computer.. so it will be easier for me and less painfull if something goes wrong Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted January 6, 2003 Share Posted January 6, 2003 Hi Nir, Just dump the rom to a file I think Frankenstein of the Megamagazine had a little tool to do it.... TXG/MNX Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.skid Posted January 6, 2003 Author Share Posted January 6, 2003 The Hebrew Atari i have is a 800XL not a 130xe.. but its more advanced then the Arabic OS. i will explain.. in the Arabic Atari only the charecters are changed.. (changing the International Charecters with Arabic ones).. i have such computer here.. Nir, could I ask you if your XL is a proto or it was normally sold by Atari? Curt: Do you have an idea of how many Arabic protos there was around? I'm wondering about rarity... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ndary Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 i would consider the atari as prototype.. the atari that was sold in israel was a normal atari with the international charecters.. etc.. and there was a software driver to enable the hebrew code.. there was an attempt to embeed the driver within the rom of the computer.. and this is the atari computer that i have.. i even managed to track down the coder of the atari company in israel (he works now on developing software/code for mobile phone technology).. he told me nice stories.. about the atari hebrew user guide they wrote.. that how it got to be translated and sold in neighbour arab countries.. (remeber that was back in the early 80th.. when we did not have any peace agreement with jordan)... he also told me about a modem cartridge the company develoed (and i remebr seeing it when i was 15 years old.. at a friend house).. this modem/cartridge allowed you to dial into your bank and check your bank account status, get stocks report etc.. the screen was transfered in colors, like tv teletext information(again this was done back in the early 80th) not meny was made and i remeber that the cartride was havely protected.. they actually filled the whole cartridge with poxy glue (since the cartridges was so heavy.. me and my friend made jokes that if we through this cart on someone we will kill him on sport ).. i am trying to locate this hardware in the past 5 years.. sorry for my spelling.. nir 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Curt Vendel Posted January 7, 2003 Share Posted January 7, 2003 The only ones I know of are this one and the one owned by Kevin Savetz of Atarimagazines/Atariarchives. Curt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
t.skid Posted January 7, 2003 Author Share Posted January 7, 2003 The only ones I know of are this one and the one owned by Kevin Savetz of Atarimagazines/Atariarchives. Curt Then, seems there are only 2 of them? So, 50 pounds was a real bargain for a rare proto! Nir: Thank you for your explanation! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenjennings Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 ndary, (et al) Was a successful dump of this ROM with the hebrew modifications ever completed? Is there a place to download it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 There are at least 10 of those ARABIC 65XEs in collections that I know of. I have a mint in box one, myself.. It's no proto.. It was a production machine, sold for a short period of time in several arab countries.. Both PAL and NTSC versions exist.. A company in Saudi Arabia made quite a few carts for it.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 (edited) The Hebrew Atari i have is a 800XL not a 130xe.. but its more advanced then the Arabic OS. i will explain.. in the Arabic Atari only the charecters are changed.. (changing the International Charecters with Arabic ones).. i have such computer here.. but Arabic like hebrew you write from right to left (not like english - left to right). so in the atari computer if you need to write arabic you need to do this from the end of the line to the begining.. i guess there should be some arabic text editor that fixes this.. in the hebrew atari. you have a hotkey, CTRL + TAB (if i remeber well) that will allow you to write hebrew fonts from right to left. there is also a hotkey for an-insert mode allowing you to write both english & hebrew in the same line.. (writing a basic program in english & inserting the hebrew text).. there are few other keys to auto-switch the fonts. etc.. there were several programs in hebrew written for the atari.. mostly are educational software.. best regards nir dary Sorry nir.. You are wrong about that.. On the Production Arabic 65XE rom, it does in fact write from right to left when in arabic mode (and as you said theres a key combination you can use to toggle between arabic and english modes of operation).. Additionally, when you are typing and you finish a word (by hitting the space bar) it even automatically changes the last character you typed from the medial form of the letter to the final form.. (arabic letters have 3 forms, initial, medial, and final depending on where in the word they are used) So its actually pretty damned advanced.. I was very surprised.. Maybe the arabic rom you have is an early hack or leaked prototype rom.. But, the production machine is what I have.. And it works as I described above.. Edited May 15, 2013 by MEtalGuy66 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 Did anyone bother to check that the original thread was from 2003? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 Doesnt matter.. I was just correcting misinformation.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 Doesnt matter.. I was just correcting misinformation.. No problem. I was just pointing it out so people don't think this is something Nir is still looking into. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kenjennings Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 I was asking if someone had acquired a dump of the HEBREW modified OS, not the Arabic version (I did find a dump of the arabic ROM elsewhere). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted May 15, 2013 Share Posted May 15, 2013 (edited) Sorry nir.. You are wrong about that.. On the Production Arabic 65XE rom, it does in fact write from right to left when in arabic mode (and as you said theres a key combination you can use to toggle between arabic and english modes of operation).. Additionally, when you are typing and you finish a word (by hitting the space bar) it even automatically changes the last character you typed from the medial form of the letter to the final form.. (arabic letters have 3 forms, initial, medial, and final depending on where in the word they are used) So its actually pretty damned advanced.. I was very surprised.. Maybe the arabic rom you have is an early hack or leaked prototype rom.. But, the production machine is what I have.. And it works as I described above.. There are indeed two versions of the Arabic OS. All Arabic 65XEs that I've heard of to this day, that were imported from Egypt, contained the simpler version. That OS version does not change the last character automatically from medial to final. Examples are Laurent Delsarte's unit and the one bought by Nosty. This OS version can be easily recognised - the Esc symbol visible on the Keyboard Test screen has the shape of a dot, while it looks more normal on the later Arabic OS. The more advanced Arabic OS you mention, was so far only found in the unit obtained by Kevin Savetz, which was an NTSC unit, and for this reason was considered a prototype by me. Yours would be the first production unit with the advanced Arabic ROM known to me. Are you sure it is really a non-modified production unit? What is the part number on your ROM chip? Could you dump it, for comparison/reference? (Kevin Savetz made a ROM dump from his machine, but the file available on his site is broken. Thankfully, it was mirrored while it was still correct - the working ROM is available here.) Edited May 15, 2013 by Kr0tki Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliecron Posted May 16, 2013 Share Posted May 16, 2013 I got one in bad shape off ebay. I'm pretty sure it's NTSC and can do left->right typing and changes the last character. Here's a pic. I appear to have a funky OS ROM here though so who knows if someone put that there or it came like this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted May 16, 2013 Share Posted May 16, 2013 (edited) Krotki: I don't remember ever taking mine apart (nor will I unless I have a functional reason to). It is mint and I have the machine stored in a padded aluminum case, and the original box is unfolded and preserved between 2 sheets of lexan (I steamed the glue joints apart). Im fairly sure it came from Saudi Arabia, as it has a big SA sticker on it right next to the serial number on the box. (also, I bought it from an Arab guy in michigan and thats where he said it came from.) It is a PAL machine with a full ECI bus, and the power LED Insert is clear. The serial number on the machine matches what's on the box. Also, I am a Sunni Muslim. I know ALOT of Arab people from Saudi, Libya, Lebanon, etc. I have showed the machine to quite a few people, at least 3 or 4 of whom said they remember it being sold in stores, or even knew people who owned one. I'd be willing to take my machine apart and rip the ROM, if you can convince NOSTY to dump the ROMS of all the arabic carts he has.. Id love to have those rom images. Charliecron's Picture: First of all, that is a PAL machine. Second, that is an OTP eprom, which makes perfect sense, considering the apparent limited production numbers of these machines and the considerable setup costs involved in an actual production run of masked ROMs back then. Does it have a legible serial number sticker on the machine? Edited May 16, 2013 by MEtalGuy66 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted May 16, 2013 Share Posted May 16, 2013 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
charliecron Posted May 16, 2013 Share Posted May 16, 2013 Hmm I guess your right. I can't get video. But the machine doesn't appear to be doing anything so maybe it died. No sound or anything. I know I've used this machine and if it's PAL don't know how I would have accomplished that. No serial.. no tag at all, but you can tell there used to be one there. Just sort of a papery residue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 BUMP! MEtalGuy66, do you still own that Arabic machine? I won't bother you with any requests to take it apart anymore, instead I'd like to ask for another favor - could you report values of the checksum bytes of the OS in that machine? (Locations $C000, $C001, $FFF8, $FFF9). That way I could verify if your OS is indeed identical to the one from Kevin Savetz. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted June 13, 2014 Share Posted June 13, 2014 Charliecron's Picture: First of all, that is a PAL machine. Second, that is an OTP eprom, which makes perfect sense, considering the apparent limited production numbers of these machines and the considerable setup costs involved in an actual production run of masked ROMs back then. Does it have a legible serial number sticker on the machine? Well it is PAL indeed, since it has PAL ANTIC and GTIA but... I got one in bad shape off ebay. I'm pretty sure it's NTSC and can do left->right typing and changes the last character. Here's a pic. I appear to have a funky OS ROM here though so who knows if someone put that there or it came like this. It is a weird PCB, since (most) PAL 65XE's sold here in this region (Netherlands) are in fact 130XE's with 64KB and 3 0 Ohm resistors in place of the XE-MMU. On the picture this is not there. And the N after 65XE (65XEN) is bothering me too. That is definitely not there on PAL 65XE's sold in this region Perhaps you can't get image since the POT-meter is not there? Or did you remove it yourself? Is it needed for image, or only for color? I remember I had a broken potmeter and I had black/white image, but I'm not sure what would happen if there is none. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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