.ST and .MSA files, two player games, testing, etc...

[Divarin]

Ok so I picked up a 1040 ST and I'm in the process of testing it all out. The mouse it came with seems to be bad, it doesn't move in the vertical direction and its movement horizontally is weird (sometimes backwards).

 

I have been able to use a dos-box computer to write some 720kb disks with a few games (and a word processor) to test that otherwise the computer seems to be fine. I have another mouse on order from ebay but I'd like to be able to test that port to make sure it's not an issue there. I've been looking around for a game that uses two joysticks (or one that definitely uses port 0, the mouse port). What I'm finding is that the vast majority of disk images out there are .STX files which I can't write to floppy. I've only found a handful of .ST and .MSA files and none of these use two joysticks.

 

What would be a good resource to go to for .ST or .MSA and are there any recommendations of a two player game which would take advantage of the joystick port which the mouse also uses?

[tjlazer]

TOSEC on archive.org is a good source, but there are many out there

Edited July 11, 2018 by tjlazer

[Divarin]

Thanks, those also seems to be STX. I understand that STX is for copy protected disks and from what I am learning it's not possible to copy those onto floppies. Are STX files only useable in emulators or is there any way to get them up and running on a real ST?

[vattari]

Thanks, those also seems to be STX. I understand that STX is for copy protected disks and from what I am learning it's not possible to copy those onto floppies. Are STX files only useable in emulators or is there any way to get them up and running on a real ST?

I haven’t tried it yet, but the HxC solution supports STX format (though it states it’s an alpha version at the moment).

 

http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ParanoidLittleMan]

There is plenty of ST, MSA images and games here, almost everything available: https://www.planetemu.net/

In TOSEC are not only STX images, but ST, MSA too .

 

HxC STX support is abandoned some 5 years ago. With good reason - not possible to support all images.

 

And don't forget this, with not many games, but organized (something rare in ST waters): http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/astgam.php

 

There is plenty of games what can use both joystick ports. Btw. failure is in most cases in mouse cable, part what comes out from mouse is what bends most, so there wires break usually.

[Divarin]

There is plenty of ST, MSA images and games here, almost everything available: https://www.planetemu.net/

In TOSEC are not only STX images, but ST, MSA too .

 

HxC STX support is abandoned some 5 years ago. With good reason - not possible to support all images.

 

And don't forget this, with not many games, but organized (something rare in ST waters): http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/astgam.php

 

There is plenty of games what can use both joystick ports. Btw. failure is in most cases in mouse cable, part what comes out from mouse is what bends most, so there wires break usually.

 

Thanks. I was able to find an .ST 2 player hockey game (Face Off). I'm glad I did because I found out the joystick port was bad. After some dis-assembly I found two pins on the back side of the keyboard where the solder had broken loose. A quick re-solder and the mouse is working. Thanks for the links.

Edited July 12, 2018 by Divarin

[ataricrypt]

Old Games Finder is a good search engine to other sites hosting floppy game images in MSA/ST format: http://www.oldgamesfinder.com/?q=&m=-15
I recently enjoyed this multiplayer game. Simple but great fun https://ataricrypt.blogspot.com/2018/03/bombs-and-bugs.html but of course there are many others.

Edited July 31, 2018 by ataricrypt