oracle_jedi

$75 for a boxed working Commodore 64 is no bargain unless it is an early silver-label unit in which case grab it, working or not. On feeBay, proven working boxed units in reasonable cosmetic condition would I believe, struggle to fetch $50 Stateside. Commodore sold something like 20 million of these, and the build quality was more than enough that even modestly well cared for units continue to give sterling service today. Even though there are still a lot of enthusiastic C64 users, there is also a plentiful supply of machines, hence prices are not high. If memory serves, my boxed working C64 cost me $100 with two working 1702 monitors and a 1541 drive off Craiglist in Chicago, although that was five years ago and prices of all things retro have gone up. If however you have the advantage of local pickup, then you can factor the savings of not having to pay for shipping, which may mean your $75 purchase is about what you would end up paying elsewhere to have a unit shipped to you. If it is working, $75 is a reasonable sum, but still no bargain. If it is not working, walk away. C64s are just too plentiful to waste time fixing unless you have passion for such things, or a ready supply of spares to swap out, which I am guessing you don't. Powering up the unit (I am assuming the unit includes the Commodore power brick) should illuminate the red LED. This does not however prove the unit works, only that the transformer works and the power circuit is operational. To really know you will need a monitor or TV, or failing that a tape deck or a disc drive. If you have a tape deck, connect it to the C64 and press the PLAY key. Nothing should happen. Hold the shift key and press RUN STOP, and the tape counter should start to advance. That indicates the C64 is alive. If you only have a disc drive. Connect that and power it up. Then start the C64 and type as best you can: LOAD "*",8 and then press RETURN. The busy light on the drive should flash. If you have neither monitor, nor tape deck nor disc drive, you're taking a chance. C64s were generally well built so if it powers up your chances are fair it is in working condition.

No, that idea would not work. The 19-pin Falcon video output has pins 18 and 19 assigned as M1 and M0 respectively. These two pins determine how video output from the Falcon will be generated thus: M0 M1 Monitor 0 0 Mono 0 1 VGA 1 0 RGB 1 1 TV So the VGA cable in question has M0 connected to ground, and M1 left open. That disables the composite video output, so even if you soldered on to pin 12 for composite video, you'd get nothing.

Thanks guys, appreciate the insights.

Hey guys, My son bought a Sega Saturn, and I know he wants to get Bomberman. Where are the best places to look for this and what is a fair market price these days? I am assuming EU and Japan imports won't work on his U.S. Saturn right? Would appreciate any advice.

Correct. You need an 8372A or 8375 Fat Agnus chip which can switch between NTSC and PAL modes. Earlier 8370 chips could not do this. The chip should be socketed but be careful and ideally use a chip puller. I have used tiny screwdrivers to remove and reseat them in the past but PLCC chips are a little more delicate than DIP.

Congrats on getting a Falcon! I've had mine for about a month now and it has become my favorite retro machine. I intend to keep my stock, and use it for games and demos. I will buy a CT63 if another run is done (http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=97&t=28023), or if Exxos [http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/] creates something amazing for it, but otherwise I will pass for the reasons cited by Christos, and that I have read that Nemesis accelerators have a habit of destroying Falcons. For games, ParanoidLittleMan gave you a good start. You can also download a ready-made image for CF cards with many games already installed and configured from http://atari.8bitchip.info/DiskImgPP1.html. For Falcons you have overwrite the first image with the second 1GB_IDE.IMG file. To read and write directly to the CF card from a Windows machine, you can use this http://atari.8bitchip.info/floimgd.php I use a USB mounted CF card reader to read and write files to the CF card that replaced the HD in the Falcon. This is by far the simplest way to move files onto the Falcon from your Windows machine. I don't know if any such solution exists for Mac or Linux. Another archive can be found at the D-Bug Patch page at http://dbug.kicks-ass.net/patch.php For other games, be sure to check Downfall from Reboot. The game was written for the Jaguar, but then ported to the Falcon. There is a 4MB version and a 14MB version that uses the extra memory to support more detailed backgrounds and better music. You can download it here: http://reboot.atari.org/new-reboot/downfallfalcon.html Another game I love is Impulse X. Also written for the Jaguar and then ported to the Falcon, the game makes amazing use of the color and sound capabilities of the Falcon. You can find it here: http://duranik.com/falcon.html Orion, who has released many great games for the Jaguar, released his Elansar, Philia and Alice's Mom's Rescue for the Falcon. Since I do not own a CD for my Jag, I was happy to be able to buy and download Elansar for the Falcon. The game requires VGA mode but is absolutely beautiful. You can buy Orion's games here: https://orionsoft.itch.io/ For the memory, Lynxman here on AtariAge still sells 14MB memory expansion boards for the Falcon [http://atariage.com/forums/topic/167006-new-14mb-falcon-memory-boards/] I bought one from him recently as I wanted to be able to keep the full RF shield in place, and the original Actionsoft board did not allow for that. In fact someone forced the RF shield back into place over the Actionsoft board, which caused the whole case to warp. Luckily after I corrected this, the case returned to true and once again sits flat on the desk. Note that the internal speaker in the Falcon is just plain annoying, and I have now disabled it. Turning it off with the Accessory Panel does not work for all games as some software forces it back on again. The FPU is still listed at Best Electronics, but I have not checked with Brad to know if he really has any left. I have not found any software that needs it, but I read somewhere that Linux M68K needs it, so if you want to run M68K Linux then you might want to check further. For file transfer I already mentioned the floppy Image and file transfer program to read and write from the CF card, and the 1GB image I listed actually shows up in Windows as a FAT image so you can just drag and drop files onto the Falcon's C: partition. Note that some newer versions of Windows complain that your Falcon CF card is not formatted. I use Windows XP in a VM to make my life simpler. But for simple single file transfers I use an RS232 cable and Null Modem Cable adapter with XModem to transfer files. At this site https://sites.google.com/site/stessential/communications has several communications packages that run under TOS. The Flash VT100 utility works on the Falcon and allows files to be quickly uploaded or downloaded. I use 19200 baud, 8 bits, no parity, 1 stop bit. On the PC side, since my laptop does not have an RS232 port, I use a Gear Mo USB RS-232 Serial Adapter which I got from Amazon. That has worked well for file transfers to the Falcon, the Amiga and my TI99/4A where it works well with the CFHDX program. Hope that helps and I look forward to your Youtube videos!

Hey guys, thanks for bumping this thread. Otherwise I would never have found this. Loved "Rescue on Fractalus" on my Atari 800, and this game captures that game-play beautifully. Thank you to Dr. Typo!

Not enough space here for a dedicated game room, so the Jag sits in the corner of my home-office:

I also need a 56C774A (A1200-A) Amiga keyboard membrane. Please let me know when they are available! Thanks

I'm assuming you mean since we got our first TI. In that time I have owned 4 consoles, a PEB with 32K and disk drive, the 10" TI Color Monitor, a CC9900 Mini-Expansion, an MBX, 2 CF7s and an SVD. I have also owned over 200 cartridges including new releases such as Pitfall, Scramble and Jet Set Willy. I still have most of those, but I am down to a single console with the 9900 Mini-Expansion and the CF7s. The PEB, Monitor, MBX and spare consoles are all gone. So over 22 years (got my first PAL TI-99/4A at a car boot sale in Milton Keynes in 1994) I reckon I've spent about $1700 with tax and shipping. So about $77/yr. If I take out the prices I got when I sold stuff the amount is even lower. Much cheaper than my Scotch habit. However I will admit that the $400 or so I spent on the CC9900 and SVD was entirely motivated by the desire to play Thorn EMI's Submarine Commander on the TI. That remains the most expensive single "price to play" for a game, second only to the $300 I spent to acquire the parts to build Atari Jaguar carts so I could play Battlesphere, or the more-than-$200 I spent to get an ACA500 for my Amiga so I could play Frontier at a decent frame rate. I still play Submarine Commander. It still rocks.

All, It seems Candle's original page for installing the Atari 800 Incognito board is down, or gone. I used the Internet Wayback Machine to access the page as it stood before. I am posting it here with appropriate tags so others can hopefully find it with Google. I hope this is not a violation of TOS or Candle's IP. Retrieved using The Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20130513213503/http://spiflash.org/index.php/block/30.html 3 Sept 2016 Multiple personalities for trusty old Atari 800 Opening your 800 This is quite easy. All you need to do is remove trap-door, all the expansion card that you have inside (this includes all three RAM carts plus Personality/ROM board. After this, you'll have to turn the unit upside-down, and unscrew 5 screws in the corners, and in the middle of front edge. Now you're able to open the case - lift top of the enclosure just enough to get a hold on keyboard ribbon - disconnect it from the backplane - please take a closer look on how it is connected - ribbon has plug wider than the connector on backplane (motherboard) and you'll have to connect it back just the way it was when reassembling the unit. Now, since you have clear view of power board and aluminium casting covering most of the backplane, disconnect the internal speaker and remove whole casting with all what is connected to it from the case. You'll find loads of screws to be removed on bottom side of the cast holding an aluminium plate to the top part. After this, disconnect 4 pin header leading from backplane to power board, and try to separate the casting from backplane - it will come off with power board, but this is the way it should be. Now the aluminium plate - it holds to the PCB by 4 expansion plugs - they are made from two parts - one is a pin that was inserted in the collar that expanded and made connection permanent, you need to use small flat-headed screwdriver to push it all the way out, so you'll be able to remove the collar. What you should have now, is the backplane PCB together with CPU board and plastic part that forms cartridge slot covers and expansion cards compartment. To get rid of it you'll have to gently pry and push four snap-ins you find accessible on the bottom of backplane PCB. Since you already have all that was required separate, you may proceed with installation. Readjusting the cutout It is nice to have Personality slot opening a bit wider than it is originally, so you can pass ribbon cable and auxiliary connectors cables freely. Please see the picture for the details. Some might think it not the best idea, but this way nothing gets compressed as it will be reassembled and the chances of getting something short-circuit are almost nil. Jumper wires You'll have to make two jumper connections on your board (see the pictures) - one connects REF signal from memory slots to the not used pin on personality slot - and this is essential for emulated MMU chip on Incognito board The other is a jumper between RNMI and COLD-RESET pins, so that CPU would be in known state when the board is re-initialised. Remember than 400/800 had no real RESET, instead it had Request NMI line (sometimes referred as to RESET NMI) that did some kind of software reset - as this was OK for 400/800 system, when ROM was connected to the system bus permanently, it's not acceptable for XL/XE when you can disconnect ROM by writing to PORTB. BIOS will handle RESET vector and redirect CPU to the valid location instead. Making connections for auxiliary header P5 This is essential for true XL/XE compatibility, as there are signals you need to tap in that are not present anywhere else in the system. These are: • pin #1 - HALT - necessary for ANTIC extended memory access (so called CompyShop mode) • pin #2 - IRQ - required by some PBI devices • pin #3 & 4 - RD4 and RD5 - controlling cartridge port in XL/XE series (mandatory) • pin #5 - RNMI - that becomes our RESET line (mandatory) • pin #6 - RDY - another signal required only by some PBI devices Please see the picture for tapping points for all these signals. Additionally, you may want to replace RD4/RD5 pulldown resistors to something ranging from 1.5k to 2.2kOhms. It will improve compatibility with cartridges, as protection resistors on Incognito board form with original ones voltage divider that may render some carts unusable. ATR change button, HDD activity LED, connector P6 If you want to use these features, you'll have to make some readjustments to power board - this way you won't have to drill any ugly holes in your 800 case, instead it will be as discreet as it can be - after this, your light conductor just under START button becomes another button, just for cycling mounted ATR files, and it still serves it purpose as power indicator plus hard disk activity indicator. P6 pinout goes as follows: • pin #1 - HDD LED anode • pin #2 - HDD LED cathode • pin #3 - switch To accomplish this, follow the pictures. Replacing 74LS42 with ribbon cable You need to remove 74LS42 chip (location Z101) and replace it with ribbon cable that was included in the kit. Fold the cable as shown. Putting everything back together Now you should have everything prepared for the Incognito board, all you have to do is to reassemble your unit. Start with taking the ribbon and the P5 and P6 header cables through the opening you cut in the plastic part of expansion boards compartment. When you done, put the compartment back in its place - it should snap back in and stay firmly attached to the PCB. Now proceed with the aluminium plate. Align it so holes in PCB match holes in the plate, and then put the expandable collars in those holes. When you put first one take that pin you've taken out of it, and put it back - this will fix the plate and easier the align of remaining holes. When completed you should reassemble the casting with the backplane PCB - just don't start screwing it tight again, as it will be better if you check everything up before you do that. Install the Incognito board in first slot (the one that was occupied by ROM board) and turn the unit on - Incognito BIOS screen should show up. If it doesn't - recheck all your connections, especially those two jumper wires and RD4/RD5/RNMI lines. Please make sure you didn't short circuit anything during the reassembly, as shorting any xilinx pin directly to the one of power rails (5V -5V or 12V) will kill it instantly

Does anyone have a copy of the Incognito install guide? The page on Lotharek's site appears to be gone. I seem to remember a section on modifying the power LED lens to be a momentary switch for swapping virtual disks on the CF card, but now I can't find that anywhere. Thanks

Amiga A500s and A600s are pretty common. If they include power supplies and mice they are worth a little more. Boxed is more again. Ebay prices seem to be about $75 to $200 ranging from unboxed/untested to boxed/tested/proven working. Amiga A500s are built like tanks and should run forever. Amiga A600s are less well made but have the advantage of being able to be expanded with the Vampire accelerator. Many Amiga A500 Plus and Amiga A600 machines suffered from battery leakage that destroyed the motherboards. Amiga A1000s seem to be similar prices to the A500s. They are more limited and really only of interest to collectors. Amiga A1200s are less common but attractive due to the 68020 CPU, 2MB RAM and AGA chipset. However problems with leaking batteries and failing keyboards mean buyers need to be cautious. The 1200 case seems especially prone to discoloration. Ebay prices are probably twice that of the 500/600 series. Amiga A2000s (plus derivatives A1500 and A2500) are common and priced similar to 500s/600s. Bulky, they are of interest to those who want to explore video toasters, hard disks and original-era memory expansion cards, but require a substantial investment in desk space to realize their potential. Amiga A3000s are pricey. Great machines, with faster 68030 processors and a beautiful case, some Amiga enthusiasts consider the 3000 to be the best of the Amiga line. Prices seem to be $600 and up. Amiga A4000s were the last of the line. The fastest original Amiga and featuring the same AGA chipset as the 1200, they were powerful but also kinda ugly to look at. If you are a serious Amiga user, the A4000 is the one you want. Note that U.S. prices are higher than U.K./German prices due to the Amiga being less popular in the U.S. than it was in Europe. Similar story for Atari ST. Many Amiga and ST enthusiasts now seem to prefer Amibay and/or Atari-Forum to selling on Ebay. Prices on those forums are typically a little lower than Ebay, but there is no Ebay/Paypal tax to pay, and sellers usually demand Paypal gift payments to prevent charge-backs. If you find a working A1200 let me know. I may be interested in making you an offer on it. HTH

The problem was not with the SIO interface itself, but Atari's decision to only provide RS232 and Parallel Printer interfaces in the expensive/hard-to-find Atari 850. I also used to have a cheap and simple SIO to Centronics interface that drew its power from the SIO port, and connected my Atari 800XL to an Epson LX800 printer. I think it was made by ICD, but it was a long time ago. The Apple II did not provide RS232 or Parallel interfaces as standard either. According to a quick Google search, the list price of the Apple II Parallel Printer Interface Card was about $180. The list price of the 850 at the time was about $220 and provided four serial ports as well as a parallel printer port. To be sure an expensive option for the late 70s/early 80s, but inline with other vendors of the time.

Agreed! I would have liked to see a 1400XL standard that featured 80-columns and 128K of RAM as standard, rather than the voice synthesizer/modem combo that Atari seemed to think would find a market. Atari was right to kill the 1400XL/1450XLD/1090 triumvirate. Although sexy for collectors, in 1983/84 they would have been another Atari turkey.

And for the benefit of any other NTSC Amiga users, the answer is that Frontier runs fine on an NTSC Amiga

The plastic cases used by Thorn EMI were identical to the hard plastic clam shell cases used for Betamax tapes. Looking at those images, they look like the cartridges might have plugged into the expansion port like the Tigervision cartridges.

So I decided to order a replacement switch from https://www.thefuturewas8bit.com/shop/commodore/commodore-spares/1084switch.html With shipping to the U.S.A. it came out under $12 and arrived within 7 days, so I was pretty happy about that. To replace the broken switch, remove the four screws on the back of the monitor and slide the CRT forward. You will have just enough room to access the switch mounting. Release the small brass screw on the mounting bracket and the switch will come free and can now be moved out from inside the monitor casing. A further two screws release the switch from the mounting bracket. The black plastic mounting plate needs to be removed from the old switch and kept for the new one. I simply bent the red and black wires back and forth until they broke off from the broken switch. I found I needed to strip back the wires slightly and desolder the remains of the old pins. It was then fairly straightforward to feed the wires through the small holes on the pins of the new switch, and then solder them into place. The most difficult part of all was removing the small metal mounting plate on the new switch. Initially I tried to twist it off, but found that the plastic of the switch housing was buckling and indeed a small part broke off. In the end I used pliers to pull the plate off, which took some effort to do without breaking the entire switch. With the monitor reassembled, the switch latches properly and looks great.

I'd have to agree that SIO2PC was the best peripheral for the Atari past or present. Today we take for granted that we can download disk images from an online repository, copy them to an SD card or mount them via APE, and load them into a real Atari, but when Nick Kennedy introduced SIO2PC in the early 90s it was a revelation, and I believe had a major impact on the Atari community's ability to share abandonware and keep interest in the platform going. Beyond that probably the Atari disk drives. They were fast, reliable and opened up a world of opportunities not available to tape and ROM based users. The TRS CoCo needed a quirky cartridge adapter-interface to use disks, the TI needed an expensive expansion box, the Apple was insanely expensive and the Commodore 1541 was as slow as using tape. But the Atari design, including the best of breed Indus GT, was simple, quick and plug and play.

I regretted selling my 48K PAL Atari 800, mint in the box, to my neighbour who wanted it for his daughter to learn on. I later swapped an 800XL with some extra goodies to get it back. I had to spend a day carefully peeling princess stickers off it, but otherwise machine, documentation and box all survived the ordeal, and I was relieved to have them back.

Been playing the 2016-06-04 ROM as time allows. All of the issues with Kombateroids seem to have been resolved. I was unable to get the game to fail in any way. My only remaining comment is that on NTSC machines, there is a small area outside of the visible play area where rocks can float and the player can't see them. If that's an intended feature ok, but I am wondering if on PAL machines there is more of the play area visible on screen. Great game and I look forward to the official "put me on the list" thread

Yep. Nothing happened.

Got the same problem on a 1989 1084-D monitor. Nice picture, cosmetically excellent, and I am hoping to use the RGB mode for a VBXE mod on an Atari 1200XL, but would like to fix the power switch first. If I bypass the switch I am assuming red-to-red and black-to-black right? Obvious I hope but you know what they say about assumptions. Also what is the rating of the switch? Looks like several DPST latching switches might be suitable replacements, but want to make sure I am not creating a fire hazard.

I have had mine on test all day running Zork I. So far no issues with the keyboard click coming and going. I think the keyboard click is done with the Bell line from GTIA pin 15. I would start with checking that connection.

A Sony PVM 14N5U. Beautiful broadcast quality small monitor that handles PAL and NTSC for Composite and SVideo. For serious gaming I also have a Sony KV-AR25 multi-standard TV. The Jaguar and 7800 are plugged into that most of the time. I have a Samsung TW215 LCD monitor that handles SVideo very well and works with the Atari and TI99/4A, but won't handle the single from the VIC20 at all, and the displays just doesn't look as good as on a CRT.