ataridano

Be careful using a game port extension, the DB15 hoods will hit the side of the computer housing. Several years ago I bought a couple 5200 joystick extension cables. Got the from someone on Atariage. Ended up selling them and my XEGS, but at the time I was told that they were the best option.

Here are my thought, in random order: Having the GUI merged with the OS is fairly logical, yet I feel an argument can also be made for having the GUI as a separate library or program, especially in a single-tasking system. An example being DOS programs loading their own GUI at run time. I agree with others here that touch is great and has it's place, but can't really replace other forms of input in the long term. It's nice to have a GUI for basic file management, but I think a command line has to be optional as well. One thing that Windows has been good about (one of my few compliments) is having a way to access most menu options using the keyboard. A GUI is still useful without a mouse or trackball. This is an Atari forum, so I assume that a GUI on the 8-bit specifically is relevant too The problem with something like that on a machine with limited resources has always been the overhead. I'm not saying it can't work, but just that there will always be that temptation for the coder to get rid of the GUI so he has more resources for his code. On the plus side, having a GUI available can make GUI-based programs much easier to write because many of the I/O functions are already available. Another A-8 consideration is the limited screen size and the tradeoff of features vs. available space. Last comment: One thing I've noticed in recent years is the move to flashier neater looking desktops. While it may be cool, often I find it slows things down or clutters things up. I'm still trying to decide what my ideal desktop looks like

Actually there are a few parts that will interchange. As far as drives go, the 1581 uses a standard mechanism that can be used in a XF551, or as an external drive on a Percom or similar. Of course you'd probably be better off selling the 1581 and buying a generic 3.5" mechanism with change left over. Several printers were made by the same parent company, and put in custom cases by Commodore and Atari. One example is the little pen plotter that they made, I actually bought a Commodore version just to have as a backup for my Atari one. The serial interface is different, but on dot matrix printers the ribbons, heads, etc would be the same. I also remember that some ST monitors were were the same internally as some Commodore models.

The 850 would be the most common solution, but this uses the SIO hardware in the Atari as the UART and is somewhat limited. I would suggest looking at the MIO board. It would give you a PBI based serial port w/ UART and flow control, and you could probably use the MIO's ROM to supply the needed driver.

I remember Metalguy66's bank switching idea, as I recall, it wasn't a replacement of the XE banking at all, but rather just adding memory using the 130XE's same banking scheme, where the Antic and 6502 could access different banks at the same time. As far as having a 64k page that gets swapped out, the problem with that is you'd be swapping the entire 6502's memory, so whatever code you'd were running would be gone when the bank changed. The only way I could think to make that work would be to put "bank manager" code in the OS ROM that loaded something useful in RAM after each bank switch. I'd say, stick with the existing upgrades or skip the clunky banking thing all together and get a 65816 with a ton of RAM.

Without a doubt. I still favour an LCD with stock machines (luma/chroma) any day, but with RGB, a good CRT is in a class of its own. Actually that's what I'm doing now, I have a HP monitor that has VGA, S-video, and composite, and I've been using composite for the 130XE, VIC-20, and Amiga 1000 just because I'm totally out of space (part of the joy of collecting old electronics I suppose). I still haven't installed my VBXE but when I do I'll probably somehow squeeze in my SC1224 and use it for the XE and A1000 (might as well use RGB for it too if I have the monitor setup, I got the inline DIN 13 to build an adaptor for it). I'll miss the space savings of the HP monitor, but I think the improved picture quality will justify having two monitors.

How about a ST harddrive case? A little big I know but at least a matching style. If you're willing to pay shipping from the US, I have a ton of old SCSI drive cases around. Probably a little bigger and uglier than you want, but you'd get a power supply for the drive too.

I had thought about moding a CS monitor to take composite in when this thread first started, but for the money I'd spend buying monitors on eBay, getting a VBXE2 and using my SC1224 is definetly the way to go. Strangly just today I got one of those Magnavox monitors that matches the XL today at the thrift store for $4. I didn't realize that it has RGB in as well as composite. I don't really have a place to set up the XL but I couldn't pass this up

My main A8 is a 130 XE that I plan to install a VBXE2 in soon. I have an SIO2SD, MIO, and SC1224 (for RGB, you know) but those aren't really mods as much as they are external add-ons. Otherwise I have several stock machines in the collection

My understanding is a little different, unlike 5.25" drives, 3.5" drives determine the type of media inserted by checking for the hole in the disk, that is not communicated over the data cable, so when a 720k disk is inserted in a high density drive, it's functionally exactly the same as a low density drive. The only place where I've run into problems using high density drives is on the Amiga, where the controller is looking for a signal on pin 2, which was later used as density select on 1.2M drives. The XF551 won't have this so it won't be a problem. I've never seen a combo drive that could be jumpered to work as a 40 track 5.25, and without compatibility to exchange disks with other atari drives, I saw no point in having the 5.25" mechanism there.

For what it's worth, I had a little trouble at first. I was just wanting to download pre-made images and put them on carts. I think I had to sign in or do something on Steve's site to allow the .atr's to show up in the forum. After figuring that out, I copied them to SD card and used my SIO2SD with no problems! I think there are some "how-to" postings on the atarimax forums, I would suggest starting there.

Kinda surprised nobody seems to have answered your origional questions. You can use a flat panel monitor as long as it has composite or S-video inputs on it, and of course you need the right cable to hook to the DIN connector on the 800. I have a HP computer monitor w/ composite inputs, a LCD TV will work too as the computer monitors aren't all that common. There are kits to add a second Pokey chip for stereo sound, don't know much about them though, not really my thing. Don't know what to tell you on the space issue, you've got all the cool 8xx series accessories, it's a shame to not have them out, but I have the same space issues myself and have to put things away when they're not being used. I use SIO2SD which allows me to use a SD card on the Atari instead of floppy, this way I'm not teathered to a PC and it's way smaller than any floppy drive.

I'd love to get one too if it's not too late.

This may get me some flames, but what about a PBI device? Maybe not a true PBI device so much, but use a small sliver of the PBI address range and be careful not to conflict with any other devices. If nothing else, I would love to see a PBI board that was backward compatible with a cartridge version, just to make the hardware a little neater. Also, if SDX used drivers instead of direct hardware access, it sounds like some thought went into makeing the RTC hardware independant. I don't ask this to be picky, but there's a whole other thread about SpartaDOS 3.3x, does it use the drivers or is it hard coded like 3.2? If it uses the driver method, then 3.2 users could always upgrade.

I have a Seatage ST225N hard drive for sale. This is the 20 meg (formatted) drive with SCSI interface that will work with smaller sector sizes, making it one of the few drives that'll work with an origional MIO controller for the A8. I believe similar drives were used on the ST by Atari too. I have had this drive stashed for years and just don't see myself using it any time soon, so I'd like to get it to someone who will. I just don't have the time to go through and fully test it, but will make sure it spins up okay. I'm asking $50 plus shipping, located in Oregon USA. Please PM me if interested. Thanks!!