john-m

I downloaded some 16meg disk images that were called DISK1, DISK2,etc. They are set up for use with PicoDos with menus. On one of them are some text adventures I would like to play on my Atari. But I do not know the passwords for each game to be able to play them. Can anyone help me out with a list of the games and password required to play each one? Or am I asking too much? I was planning on playing them with the Altirra emulator.

Just curious as to if you plugged in both the ribbon part of the keyboard connector and the clear part together. As the ribbon cable by itself may not make good connection in the slot. Also, it might be a good idea to clean the slot.

The link you supplied looks just like my keyboard and the way it is connected with wires instead of a ribbon cable. The part of the picture that shows the wires going into the keyboard are corroded on mine. I tried my best to get the keyboard header to disconnect from the motherboard riser. But quit before the force involved damaged the header. I have not tried to disassemble the keyboard taking out all the small screws and separating the sections of it as to the PCB, keyboard membrane, and the keys. I am concerned about possible damage to the membrane such as tearing. Also, I will have to ohm out the wires to it after cleaning up the corrosion to check for continuity. I have checked on replacement keyboards; but the only ones I can find in very limited supply are the ribbon cable type and am unsure of what would be required as to connector modification. For now, this project is on the back burner.

In looking back at my Antic and Analog magazines, they both had articles that included type-in software and articles on Basic and machine language programming on the Atari 8-bit computers. They also had a fair amount of advertising of various hardware and software offerings. Do you plan on including advertising of the My_IDE hardware as well as other hardware offerings that I read about on the forum as well as informational articles about the same? Some of the older Atari software could again be brought to light too.

I have an Atari 800 with a partially working keyboard. When I say partially, very few of the keys work at all But there is one big difference from yours! Instead of a ribbon cable connecting the keyboard, it is all hard wired. I read somewhere that a person that had my style keyboard connector sent it to Atari for repair and that both the keyboard and motherboard were replaced. On my keyboard, there is green corrosion at the points where the wires connect to the keyboard and the header at the other end fails to unplug from the right angle curved wire risers coming from the motherboard. Any suggestions in what steps I should take to try to rectify this situation? Also, with the wired keyboard connector vs a ribbon cable connector, about what vintage would you think the 800 was?

I remember reading that their emulator for use in a browser currently does not support sound in the games. One could consider it a work in progress and hope they have some good programmers to get a good interface developed.

Be aware though that some software conflicts with the software that composes the modified OS that MyIde uses and will not work. Just for the h of it, I typed in a Compute magazine proofreader that would work in an emulator and work on an Atari but only without MyIde attached. I am unsure of any increase in compatability if one uses a burned modified OS chip in place of the Atari OS.

I recently saw in the news of Internet Archive releasing a bunch of titles for the Atari 2600 and 8-bit computers. The complete 8-bit archive is downloadable as a zip file containing many sub-catagories with more zipped files. But they are also planning on setting up to be able to play the Atari games on-line in your browser. I have not investigated the collection very far. But it contains loads of demos of various sorts, games, games from Antic and Analog, OSes, Roms, etc. It may be worth a look.

I have never used an 850 interface. But depending on the cost of shipping to Grants Pass, Oregon I would be interested in it and any other hardware you may want to part with. I know one gets complaints when posting an email address, but anyway you can email me at johnmeyer126@gmail.com.

Is Altirra usable with the Maxflash Cartridge Studio as a preview application? And is there a command line to load the cartridge data from the Studio?

I had heard that the Incognito Board was for Atari 800 and support for the XL series had been dropped. I have an 800XL, a 65XE, and a 600XL that work. So are any of them still supported in connecting this hardware?

I bought a 600XL with a 64K memory upgrade, a video upgrade, and an Atarimax 1meg cartridge with games for $75.00. So that $250.00 asking price is wishful thinking on the sellers part.

If the XF551 fails to boot or read a known good disk, be sure to check the SIO ports as they had a problem with weak connections to the motherboard and the traces would break. I remember repairing an XF551 that had that problem. Drive number switch settings Drive 1 -Both switches down Drive 2 -First switch down second switch up Drive 3 -First switch up second switch down Drive 4 - Both switches up Hope that helps.

If I am remembering rightly, that program was called Easy80.It was an example of text and graphics in Graphics mode 8.I played with it and was able to modify it to save the text typed on the screen to a file.But I found the text was more readable using a monitor and even better with svideo.

Also, at the end of the APE for DOS manual, there are instructions for building an SIO2PC cable the only uses one chip. It is very easy to build. But will not work as a 1050toPC cable. In my case though, I just copy disks or files to or from the PC or Atari with a drive connected to the Atari.