jedinovice

Many thanks. I've had to put the ST into storage now fo rthe monet as I am very busy. I'll look at this when I get realistic chance.

OK, here's the data: I have two disk drives - one a bona fide SF314 and the other a 3rd party disk drive, couldn;t tell yu the make but it's slimline. I have formatted the disks on PC disk drive - I just like the ST to have the option. It *can* do it but it's hit and miss. As I say, it seems to put the directory in the wrong place. I am definately using DD disk and not HD disks, indeed, I bought 100 DD disks and was given 50 more by an ex-ST user. I get the same problems on both disks - though I'll doubt check. I can read all ST disks including 'oddly' formatted ones.

I'll give that util a try. But fool that I am I AM using CDFORMATTER!!! It's with that program I have these troubles. Weird. It's as if TOS 1.0 has more disk woes than (say) 1.2 or 1.4.

Easiest of all,use Double Click Software's DC Formatter! Sound great. Er, were do I get it? Can't see anything online immediately.

Win32 only appplies to hard disk, not to floppies. Windows 98+ still formats floppies the same old FAT way. The Gemulator I will try but I'd rather have an ST side solution if possible.

I'm having great fun with transfering data from my ST to PC and vice versa. OK, I know it's because I'm running an ancient ST with TOS 1.0. :-) However, there must be a utility somewhere to sort this. I have half a dozen PC format programs. They kind of work but not quite. What I am finding is that if I format a PC disk on the ST, while the disk is recognisable to DOS/Windows when I save data to the disk, wait for it, files wring on the St are readable on the ST but the disk is regarded as blank on the PC and files written to the disk by the PC are not picked up by the ST! Wow!!! Two seperate directories!!! I *can* get data transferred but it's a bit hit and miss - format a disk, re-write the book block, click your heels and do the magic pixie dance and the disk become readable both ways - for a while. I'm slowly getting the ST tamed and it's time I got this useable. Is there a RELIABLE utility to allow the formatting, writing and reading of PC disks? I'm putting the ST to serious use and need this. I'm also getting sick of downloading PC format program after PC format program only to get the same problems. I need a pointer to a REAL solution. Many thanks. You guys have been great so far!

Wow! That woke everyone up! I look forward to discussion and (possible resolution) What was the true story ofthe development of the ST then, BTW? Every source I have read indicates the ST was built in reaction the coming Amiga. There is another story?

I'm curious because it seems such a feeble choice. (I'm not knocking the ST overall, neither am I complaining, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning.) Atari know the Amiga was coming (that's how the ST was born, we all know.) The SID chip was famous. Atari had the POKEY chip already. The SID was out of their hands - it was owned by Commodore - but the POKEY chip was there, ready to be used, surely? If not, Yamaha must have had better chips available! After all, the DX7 was out in 1985! Why did they choose a sound chip used by 8 bitters, one inferior to the C64 and the 8 bit ataris? I mean, everything else made sense - it had a decent graphics chip, decent OS (for the time) and decent disk drive. We might complain about single sided disks now but 360K compared very well with other disks at the time and cut costs which was important for the ST to succeed. I can understand every decision Atari made EXCEPT the 2149. Surely for a few pennies they could have used something better - indeed, why not POKEY? Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the ST. I find the idea of a 68000 driving the soundchip of the Oric-1 quite amusing (in a nice way!) I just to understand the reasoning. It's almost as if the execs saud, "What's the cheapest chip we can throw in?" and that was it. It might have been the reasoning but it defies the rest of the machine and why didn't they use POKEY? They owned it, surely?! I'm just trying to understand my 'new' machine better.

Sorry. I missed it. I've have to look later. Many thanks.

YES! I asked a guy on Atari-Home whom I suspected to use this or at least know this, and he actually uses it. My slightly modded ( ) translation follows: - - - - - Bible ST is not supported or sold anymore. It used to run (and for some people still runs) under emulation, TOS, MagiC, on Milan 040/ 060, on the FAlcon with or without CT60 or graphics card - very cleanly programmed. However the printing via Nvdi is a bit strange. Export to Papyrus seems to be the right way here. There were different bibles to use, which were all relatively expensive. A Luther version cost 180,- DM which are about 90,- Euros now. The prog came without bible, so you had to buy one. It is possible to make notes to anything, and there was a hypertext encyclopadia to get as add-on. Searching functions are mighty, well done and extremely fast. Four megs of ram should be there and a hard drive is a must! - - - - - Hope that helps. All very helpful input. Alas, I don't have Bible St, I don't have a bible disk and I only have an Atari ST(M) with 1MB and two floppies! :-)

Just as a comparison in my own mind, how did the Yamaha YM2149 compare with the famous Commodore SID chip? It was, I believe, universally regarded as inferior, but I don't know the details, I played around with the SID chip on the C128 I had but these days I have to do thing sother than program or read tech specs. Overall, how did the two compare? Thanks. Curious.

Potentially looks good. Thanks. Any further advance? :-)

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv3n11/productsupdate.html from a quick search of atarimagazines.com great site. -rick Great. One did exist then. I'd like to try my hand at COBOL some time. But I'm a writer. I don't mind verbose languages! Or ones that's reak of punch tape! :-)

Thanks. Er, any advance on that?

Oh, one last crazy question - was there ever a COBOL compiler for the ST? Don't ask!!! :-)