oracle_jedi

Okay thanks guys. After testing the 3x2 jumper block a number of different ways, I found that this enables stereo and allows programs to detect it. Moving the two jumpers to the right-hand position disables stereo, and provides two mono channels instead. To me at least that wasn't very clear from the install guide. The USwitch was tricky as I have an early U1MB and so have Dropcheck's MMU adapter board installed. That means I can't solder the USwitch directly to the Stereo Board. I created a rather ugly six-pin jumper cable, and then ran +5V and GND from the motherboard. The red wire visible just below the CPU is +5V, the black wire visible just to the right of the CPU is GND. I found space for the stereo RCA jacks behind the rectifier. If you bend the ears flat on the RCA jacks, you can wire them in and still slide the motherboard back into position. That allows for a rather elegant installation from the rear of the machine. I going to do some testing with the machine to see if it is stable, but so far so good. Thanks to flashjazzcat and mytekcontrols for the help.

Hey guys, Anyone who has successfully installed a Lotharek Simple Stereo board in a 1200XL, I'd like to check a couple of points: I get sound on the left channel only. Inverting the L/R sound Dupont connector on the board send sound to the opposite channel, so the soldering downstream of the board seems ok. Swapping the POKEY chips makes no difference. Yoomp detects Stereo. Keyboard click, and sound through the five pin audio/video output is normal. I have an U1MB installed but I don't have the USwitch installed (yet). The 6-pin (3x2) switch headers on the stereo board are all open. The SR pin is not connected to anything (instructions did not say to connect to anything - even though this project http://raster.infos.cz/atari/hw/stereo/stereoen.htm says to connect the SR line to U1B (LM358) pin 6. The A4 line is connected to pin 13 of the CPU (actually a pad under the chip). Yes I did solder that in before posting this... The Bell is taken from the right side of what appears to be R103: I think this part is working too, as if I remove the A4/Bell Dupont connector from the Stereo board, Yoomp no longer detects stereo and I get no sound at all. The U1MB ROM adapter was moved to the second ROM socket (as advised by flashjazzcat) and the jumpers moved to just close W1 (otherwise the audio self test does really weird things). The Stereo board fits snugly into the POKEY socket and does touch the ROM interface, but this does not appear to inhibit function. I am guessing this is not the cause of single channel sound - otherwise both POKEYs would be non functional. Does this look like a bad Stereo board, or is there something else here that needs to be tested/tried first? Would appreciate any pointers. Thanks Graham

I think the "we can't get the parts anymore" argument was bunk. More of the Battlesphere lore and legend. The BSG ROM can be burned to a pair of 27C160 EPROMs which are easily available. The 93C86 SRAM chip seems to work just fine for BS save game/settings. Even in 2002/03 I find it hard to believe those parts were hard to source. Perhaps I am wrong. As for the Scatbox I have no idea. You don't need it to play BS in single player mode. The multicart caught my eye too. $295 for four games, two are hard to get. NBA Jam doesn't seem rare to me. I don't know about Total Carnage. Is it rare? My recollection of these multi-carts, which I think were made by Retrokidz, was that the save-game function didn't work very well. I am guessing it wouldn't work at all for Battlesphere which needs the larger SRAM. Also the "Today Only" "Then I will end the listing. I need the quick sale because I need to pay for an expensive item" is code for he doesn't want the 4Play guys contacting Ebay and demanding the auction be stopped. I'm told they are still quick to take action against people trying to sell duplicates, although I have seen reproduction Battlesphere Gold reproduction carts for sale on other sites for much less than what kevincal is demanding. Hopefully the Jag SD cartridge will put a stop to this nonsense for good.

Is there any obvious advantage to Wizztronics over Rambo? I thought they were basically clones of each other, is that not the case?

Bought a 520ST in 1987 with an SF354 disk drive, but save for a handful of great games, was always underwhelmed by it. Got more into programming and wanted to run Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. Used PC Ditto and was about to buy a hardware emulator when I had the epiphany; "If I am trying so hard to make the ST think its a PC, sell the ST and buy a PC". I did that in 1989 or 1990. I still use my 8-bit Ataris. I have never missed the ST.

If you make a run of these i'd be interested in buying two for when I get around to adding VBXEs to my 1200XLs.

I kept the lower RF shield in place as I like the extra weight it adds to the unit. I think I manage to shift that out of position so it bridged something it shouldn't have. Now the unit is running again, and Yoomp detects stereo - but I only have sound on one channel. Swapped POKEYs and swapped the Dupont connector on the Lotharek board to test all connections downstream of the mod board. Everything is fine but I am getting nothing from the right channel. Hope you have more luck than me with this!

Thanks guys. I pulled the unit open and as JoSch stated, they are 250V 5A fuses - even in the adaptor designed for the U.S. market. I tried mounting a panel mount fuse to the unit but there isn't enough room to do it, so I got an inline fuse holder from Radio Shack and some fuses, and the power supplies are running again.

Cool thanks! I will have to replace the 24pin seat in the 2nd ROM socket with a 28-pin one. Do I need to move any of the jumpers or are they good to go? Right now I have J11/J12/J13 jumpered.

Does anyone know what rating the fuse in the 9VAC power supply is? While trying to install a stereo mod in my 1200XL today, I managed to do something dumb, and blew the fuses on 2 power supplies.

How did you guys get the Stereo board to fit? I tried to mount one in a 1200XL today that has an Ultimate 1MB in it, and found that the keyboard would not go back on. I removed one of the two risers on the Stereo board, and then found it did not have enough clearance next to the ROM socket.

Loved the game on the ST back in the day, wondering if the Amiga version has NTSC/PAL timing issues, and does it run ok on NTSC Amigas?

In fact, the original Llamasoft release in the U.K. in 1982 was on tape cassette, and ran on an un-expanded VIC-20. The program appears to be exactly 3583 bytes, and was so tight with the VIC20's 5K memory that Jeff Minter noted in the liner notes of "Viva Vic": "I got so tight on memory that I couldn't even put my full name on the title page; I had to make do with my initials 'JCM' instead." When HES licensed the title and released it in the U.S. the code was converted to run as a 4K ROM cartridge, the extra space allowing Minter to add his full name to the title page, the "© 1982 H.E.S.", the message "PRESS FIRE TO BEGIN" and some graphical highlight effects. In the original Llamasoft release the simple message "©1982JCM" appears.

"Of course all these games are awesome and deserve full boxed and manual releases..." No not really. Games like Blacklamp and R-Type remind me of why I got rid of my ST back in 1989 and traded it for a PC/286. Not a reflection of the conversion-to-Jag work, but the ST struggled with some games and some of the developers were not as skilled as others. Then again IK+ and Bubble Bobble remind me of why I spent so many hours playing games on the ST. Love those and would pay to own an official release. I could never find an executable of Virus for the ST. I know it is on the list but there wasn't a link when I looked. I loved that game. Was the conversion finished for the Jag? And Frontier; Elite II was my all time favorite ST game. I have an early conversion but it only seems to run the intro and not much else. I would definitely pay $$$ for a finished cart of this for the Jag with game-save functionality.

Awesome, thanks

In the end I disabled GWX to stop the nagware, but I am told the free upgrade to Windows 10 ends soon. Can anyone confirm if Atarimax's SIO2USB and APE software works ok under Windows 10?

My entry for the Ass-Rigger Award. When the pins are bent flat there is actually enough room under the keyboard for this hack to work. I insulated the contacts in electrical tape to prevent any shorts against the resistors that lie immediately behind the joystick ports. The keyboard works best now if you press on the right, but that's still better than no spacebar at all.

Note: Above BOM should have read: 1 x Socketed EPROM board (for testing a good burn) = $20 20 x "JAG27C160 27C160 EPROM 42 PIN" = $140 1 x "JAGUAR CARTRIDGE BOARDS DEAD GAME 10 PCB 10.00 USED" = $10 1 x "JAGSHE1 Jaguar 10 each Cartridge case/shell 30.00 Pulls" = $30

Great advice, and some new links I didn't know about. Since we are talking about Skunkboards and burning games to CD, let's also include a link to Rayik's outstanding article on burning your own cartridge EPROMs: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/235779-create-and-burn-eproms-for-standard-jaguar-2-chip-cartridges/ I went down this route due to the price, scarcity and lock-out issues of the Skunkboard. My costs were something like this: EPROM Programmer with adapters for 27C160 EPROMs - $149 I bought mine from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/PRG-113-GQ-universal-programmer-Adapter/dp/B011HVON3A/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00&linkCode=ll1&tag=atariage&linkId=b1f2e4fad1135ab7b95d5e7ae349a57e 1 x Socketed EPROM board (for testing a good burn) = $20 20 x "JAGEP2 JAGUAR EPROM CARTRIDGES 2X16MEG 20.00 W/SOCKETS" = $140 1 x "JAGUAR CARTRIDGE BOARDS DEAD GAME 10 PCB 10.00 USED" = $10 ** 1 x "JAGSHE1 Jaguar 10 each Cartridge case/shell 30.00 Pulls" = $30 I got these from B&C Computervisions: http://www.myatari.com/atarijag.txt ** - these are ten-packs of defective game boards. They include the bypass caps and a 93C46 SRAM which is the right chip for most games. I also ended up buying a heat gun from Harbor Freight to rapidly de-solder the existing ROMs which I can now do in about five minutes per board. Much faster than solder-pulting 84 separate through-hole pins. B&C also sells bare boards that need the capacitors and the SRAM added, and I think work out at about $9 each. So for about $350 plus assorted shipping costs, I was able to manufacture ten of my own carts to play games that are no longer available for sale, by-passing the absurdity of Ebay price gouging. Of course you will also need a soldering iron to be able to mount EPROMs to the non-socketed boards. To echo Sauron's comments from earlier - please do not use this approach to create pirates of games still sold by the creators or vendors such as AtariAge, Best Electronics or B&C. The idea is to allow us to play out-of-print/stock games without having to skip rent, not to kill off the few remaining supporters of the Jag community we have left. Also remember that Cyrano Jones has made it clear he does not want any of the ST ports being sold this way. So make them for yourself, but don't sell them on. For newbies, note I had never used an EPROM programmer before I attempted any of this, but Rayik's article is very detailed and walks you through this step by step. Of course after I did this, I managed to acquire a Skunkboard at a high, but not insane price. However note that the Skunkboard does not allow game-saves, so for games like Rayman, having the game on a physical cartridge is essential for clumsy players like me to make any headway in the game. Thanks again to TravisTouchdown for some great advice.

I used this latest updater and the 2016/04 Incognito Firmware Package from http://atari8.co.uk/firmware/incognito to update my Incognito on an NTSC 800. The XL self-test no longer executes the sound test correctly. Is that expected behaviour or did I miss a step? This is my first time trying to flash the Incognito using the uflash tool.

My memory is Dropzone taking something like 40 minutes to load off tape. Maybe I am remembering that wrong, but I was not sorry to see computer data tapes go. The audio track playing while "European Countries and Capitals" loaded was a cool feature, but not enough to overcome the tedium of long load times, or the morale crushing "BOOT ERROR" appearing after waiting thirty or so minutes for a game to load.

I sold the following two units: 83S DA 020878 073 83S DA 79889 143 I also sold one that was never registered here: 83S DA 013257 133 I am now down to just 4 1200XLs - no longer a high roller!

Wow. Really beautiful! Congrats on completing the set! I remember seeing many of those titles for sale in Toys R'Us back around 1991, and thinking "well I already have those on disk... so I will save my money and buy games like Hawkquest instead". Regret that decision now, just like I regret not picking up Rayman and Tempest 2000 for the Jag when they were on close out.