oracle_jedi

August 11, 2018

I read somewhere on the internet (so it must be true), that Jack Trameil had negotiated a deal with a niave Bill Gates back in 1977, for 8K Microsoft BASIC for the Commodore PET at $1 license per unit shipped.

That is what we knew as Commodore BASIC V2.

The deal had no end date, and did not limit the agreement to any Commodore product line, so as long as they made no changes to the code, Commodore could keep shipping V2 BASIC for $1 a unit as long as they wanted.

Hence the weak V2 BASIC is what we got on the PET, VIC20, Commodore 64 and Commodore MAX. I don't know if the V3.5 BASIC on the 16 and Plus/4 or the V4 BASIC on the later PETs were covered under the agreement or not, but Commodore was more focused on driving down cost than delivering a more adequate BASIC.

As others have stated above, alternatives such as the ZX Spectrum came along later, and even though Sinclair BASIC might be a better option for the new programmer, the god-awful rubber keyboard and single key entry system negated much of that benefit.

In 1981, the alternatives in the U.S. would have been the more expensive TRS80 Color Computer with its chiclet keyboard, the Atari 400 with the touch sensitive keyboard (and extra cost Atari BASIC cartridge) or the TI99/4A. TI BASIC was probably better, but I think in 81 there was a very large price delta between the TI and the VIC, and the double-interpreted TI BASIC is extremely slow, something that was highlighted by reviewers of the time. The Apple II was just too expensive to be considered.

In the UK, the alternatives would have been the ZX81, expensive options like the Sharp MZ80 or the Acorn Atom.

I don't know much about Atom BASIC, but the machine was monochrome only, and Commodore highlighted the VIC's color "graphics" and sound.

For the beginner on a limited budget in 80/81, the VIC20 was really a good option, especially if you added a Super Expander, which added another 3K of RAM and also provided rudimentary commands for color graphics and sound. Commodore planned a Super Expander for the 64, but ultimately released Simon's BASIC instead.

As later alternatives appeared, the magazines of the era often pointed out the poor Commodore BASIC V2. But the VIC continue to sell through 84 as it was cheap and had a good library of games, and the 64 relied on its superior graphics and sound capabilities.

August 9, 2018

So yeah...

That irrational "want" is now an irrational have....

Not sure what I am going to do with this. It came with a few cassette games which might still work...

Job 1 will be a gentle clean to get that gunk off the case and keyboard.

Job 2 will be to organize a US power supply for it. A Mean Well RT50A should do the job.

Job 3 will be to make a Lynx RGB to Commodore 1084 monitor cable. I've seen two different pin outs for the Lynx RGB port so this will require some testing. Also the Lynx 5-pin RGB port has a pin arrangement I've not seen before, like a 6-pin DIN layout but with pin 6 deleted. Might have to grab some 6-pin male connectors from Vetco and practice removing the center pin.

Job 4 will be to see if I can get TAP files to convert to WAV files and see if I can get the Lynx to load them from something pretending to be a cassette deck. I guess I could try recording the WAV files to actual cassettes and then loading them from my TI cassette deck. More investigation required on this one.

Job 5 will be to see if I can recreate a joystick interface using the schematics shown on Russel Davis' site.

If I get really ahead of myself I might even see about recreating the disk interface. There is a schematic for that too, although I was surprised to see that the "disk interface" pack that attached to the back of the Lynx does not include the disk controller chip, only the Lynx DOS ROM, the WDC1770 chip being located inside the actual Lynx disk drive.

It would be amazing to get this thing talking to the HxC2001, but that's a longer term goal.

Still, I've wanted one of these since I was 12. Now I have one, what next?

Maybe a Mattel Aquarius.....

August 7, 2018

Hey thanks guys.

I followed the link that PeteE gave and ordered one of the 9929A to RGB boards from OshPark (well actually the minimum order is 3)

I think its just the PCB, so this will be entertaining, but I will try this and see how it goes.

August 7, 2018

I recently acquired a CGL M5.

Its a machine I've wanted since they first came out. I loved the design of the Sord M5, and even though the CGL version doesn't share the Sord's elegant "M5" logo, it wasn't very expensive and allowed me to explore the great "M5 Multi II" multi-game ROM made and sold by Charlie Robson.

Now this post may be in the wrong forum. But you guys know TI hardware better than anyone, and the CGL M5 uses the TMS9929A VDP also found in European spec TI99/4As among many other machines. The M5 then converts the R-Y, Y, B-Y output to composite PAL.

But my monitor is a North American Commodore 1084, and expects composite NTSC or RGB.

I've looked around for a 9929A to RGB conversion schematic, and there are a few, including the one linked in this document from a Sega SC3000 forum:

http://www.smspower.org/forums/2325-RYBYYOutputFromSC3000VDPTMS9929

But I also see that some people have tried this approach and met with mixed results, including one ColecoVision owner who it seemed may have fried his machine in the effort (see post 26)

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/110598-colecovision-av-out/page-2

This guy has a neat looking board that it seems would make pulling RGB from the TMS9929A straight forward, and has generously shared all the schematics and build files, but since I have never had a board made before I am way out of my depth on this one:

https://hackaday.io/project/13056-tms9929a-rgb-and-component-adapter

So another approach might be to convert the CGL M5 to use a TMS9918A instead? Can that be done?

From an evening spent looking at websites, it seems I might be able to remove the 9929A and insert the 9918A. Leave pins 35 and 38 NC, and then drive pin 36 directly to the RCA jack.

I'd need to replace the oscillator too to get the right color signal for NTSC, and probably burn a Sord NTSC BIOS so that the unit reports itself as NTSC to those games that depend on timing.

So how insane is the replacement plan? Would it work in theory? Assuming there isn't something else in the Sord's design that prevents it? Can you tap composite NTSC right off pin 36 of the VDP? What else would I need? Diodes? Resistors?

And if these questions are worthy of a face palm, should I just go hunt for a native NTSC Sord model? I can also lug my Sony PVM out of the closet which has PAL and NTSC Composite and S-Video, but doesn't have RGB, so the Amiga and ST displays look awful.

Thanks for any pointers.

August 6, 2018

She lives!

After removing all of the RAM chips and replacing them with new socketed RAM, I was greeted with a black screen.

I then found a broken trace that leads to pin 4 of the first memory chip. You can see the trace in the picture below.

So I repaired that, and next I got a different screen of garbage to the one I got before removing the original RAM.

I tested the RAM chips in my 256K modded 1200XL and found it was all good, so it wasn't the memory chips. Then I watched the Youtube video by the 8bitguy where he shows using a logic probe to diagnose a faulty VIC20. I got a probe from Amazon, they are not expensive, and clipped it onto the cartridge port pins 1 and 39 for +5V and GND, and them probed each RAM chip.

Everything north of U38 was faulty on the A8 and A4 address lines.

So more careful examination and I found more broken traces. You can see the line to Pin 1 of U38 under the magnification is broken, the break occurring right next to the blue wire wrap that is another repair I had to do.

Here is a shot of all of the patches that were needed:

To be fair, some of the patches were necessitated by me. Pulling the original RAM chips out damaged some traces, as the RAM chips had melded themselves together and glued themselves to the PCB. I've learned that I need a hot air station before I try this again. A Hakko vacuum solder gun, flux and a roll of braid isn't enough with these fragile ST era boards, and applying heat to a pad for any length of time may cause it to lift and break.

But beyond the learning experience, I also now have a second working 520ST motherboard, which is cool.

August 3, 2018

I remember using CPM on an Osborne running WordStar and a database program I think around 1985. Pretty much all text based applications if I recall. So what makes this so attractive on the A8 vs. running equivalent Atari native applications such as The Last Word and SynFile, SybCalc, ect.? Seems like any native Atari application would run circles around a similar CPM application.

Probably the same reason that we would consider using The Last Word and SynFile, SybCalc, ect over Office 2016. Because we can! And we're a little odd.

I already have an Indus GT Super Charger, from the run Tregare did a few years back. It's fun to boot the Indus into CP/M mode and play around with those old apps. I've especially enjoyed playing Zork in native 80 column mode, but be warned - it is pretty slow!

Glad to see this great expansion option being produced again.

August 3, 2018

And he works still in M$, I think - why else it is "releases of our Atari and Macintosh emulators for Windows 10 " ? Now everyone will install W10 just for it ...

That's right!

Sales of Windows 10 have been sluggish, and many users have preferred to stick with their Windows 7, Windows 8 and even Windows XP....

But Satya Nadella has a cunning plan! Get Darek to release an updated version of his coveted Atari ST "Gemulator" on Windows 10! Sales are going to be huge....

It's the new killer app.

August 2, 2018

I voted "piece of cake" - at least I think I can!

I have a Corcomp 9900 micro-expansion and I also have Chinon 360K DSDD drives with the 36 pin ribbon connectors on the back. I assume if I connected one to the other, the result would let me read a 90K TI disk. I havn't tested it though.

I usually use a 3.5in drive with the TI. I have a handful of 5.25 TI disks in the diskbox but I moved most stuff to 3.5 inch a long time back.

July 28, 2018

Did anyone here ever take that "100 Free Programs with any Atari 400 or Atari 800" promotion that Silica Shop used to promote every month back in 82/83?

Often wondered what those 100 free programs were. Probably type-in listings on a cassette tape.

Here is what I am talking about:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/andysretrocomputers/3311860691

July 23, 2018

No need to remove anything. Look at ST schematic. Extra signal (not used with only 512KB RAM, so single bank) is RAS1, pin 18 . Accessible only from bottom side - so actually will need to remove something - board from case bottom

You sure about that?

I found this site:

http://www.gossuin.be/index.php/520-et-1040-stx

With schematics for an original 520ST, and it shows Pin 4 of the RAM (RAS) going to Pin 8 of the MMU.

It also has the original Atari technical bulletin that explains the piggyback RAM expansion, but it is in French.

July 22, 2018

@rcgldr

Can you tell me to which pin of the MMU the Pin 4 of the extra memory is wired?

I have a cut trace on this motherboard that routes to pin 4 of U16. The line then disappears under the MMU and I can't see where it goes. I am not enthusiastic about desoldering the entire MMU to figure it out.

Having removed all the memory, installed sockets and new RAM, I am now powering up to a blank black screen. So that's progress...

July 20, 2018

So I have a 520ST with the infamous "piggy-back" RAM expansion,

And sure enough, I power up to a colorful screen of garbage.

Reading a post wood_jl made over at atari-forum, I noted he reported something Best Electronics apparently said:

"A. Our Atari 25+ year Super Tech does not recommend this 520ST Ram Upgrade. When they do go bad (and they do) they are about impossible to repair. Our Super tech will not even touch one that comes in for repair."

Impossible?

I can image heat management may have caused one or more of the RAM chips to go bad. There may be some bad soldering in there too.

But if I desolder all the RAM chips and install new ones shouldn't that correct the issue? Or does the piggy-back mod typically impact other components too?

To be clear, I am hoping to restore this machine to a stock 520ST with just 512K of RAM. I am happy to sacrifice the extra memory. I have other STs for software that needs extra RAM.

July 19, 2018

I wanted to create a cable to connect my Amigas to my Atari SC1224 color monitor.

I found a few forum posts on the issue:

http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=80003

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=30991

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/189852-how-to-find-a-good-amiga-500/

But nothing with the actual schematic.

It should be straightforward, but the poster in the English Amiga Board post stated he was having problems, and someone suggested taping the CSYNC line instead.

Anyway, I made a cable with a simple RGBHV and GND connection from the Amiga to the SC1224 and it works beautifully. I added audio too by tying left and right audio together and feeding them to pin 1 of the Atari monitor.

Here is the schematic:

And here are some results:

I figured I would add this here for anyone else wondering if there is some weird magic to connecting an SC1224 to an Amiga. There isn't. The only surprise was that the original Amiga RGB video cable I tried to use as a donor does not carry HSYNC and VSYNC at all. I has to sacrifice an Amigakit RGB to SCART cable in the end too.

So far at least though it works great and looks beautiful.

Graham

July 7, 2018

As the above post stated, his age might explain the "8-bit guy"''s lack of knowledge about things that should be obvious to someone who actually used these machines in the 80's.

I did actually use a Commodore 64 in the 80's.

My best friend had one. I had an Atari 800XL. We'd play over at his place some days, and at mine on others. We'd play Thing on a Spring, International Soccer, Impossible Mission, The Dambusters, Beach Head, Entombed and many others. And I don't know about one third of the titles on the C64 Mini.

As for "The 8bit guy", I have found his videos both entertaining, nostalgic and at times very useful. His video on diagnosing a faulty VIC20 using logic probes was very informative. And yes it was obvious from the moment of power on that RAM was the issue. That's not the point. He used it to demonstrate how to check a number of components in a clear and simple fashion.

I see a lot of videos on YT, from cooking, to home repairs, car maintenance, to retro stuff, that start with a shaking camera that's out of focus and a narration that's barely audible. There not even worth the 5 second ad you just had to sit through.

Doesn't matter how much of an expert you think you are. If you hide it so well you're no use to anyone.

New Atari 400 User · July 5, 2018

Do you know the memory of your 400? The stock machine had 16K which limits your options. What constitutes a good game is subjective, but some of my favorite 16K cartridge games:

Battlezone
Boulderdash
Centipede
Defender
Deluxe Invaders
Donkey Kong
Donkey Kong Jr.
Frogger
Gyruss
Joust
Miner 2049'er
Missile Command
Orc Attack
Pac-Man
Pitfall
Pole Position
Rally Speedway
River Raid
Robotron 2084
Spy Hunter
Star Raiders
Submarine Commander
Super Cobra
Up n' Down
Zaxxon
Zone Ranger

If you have 48K then you can explore some of the XE era cartridge games:

Airball

Ballblazer

Blue Max

Choplifter

David's Midnight Magic

Into the Eagle's Nest

Rescue on Fractalus

From memory all of the above will run with 48K.

I would suggest you consider getting an SIO2SD or similar device, or a programmable cartridge that you can download images to.

Have fun.

Graham

July 5, 2018

I removed the BASIC chip from an 800XL and it did exactly what yours is doing - booted up to Self Test and only tested 40K.

The 8K for BASIC is still masked out, even though the chip isn't present.

Hold down OPTION on start up and try the test again, you should get 48 blocks.

June 19, 2018

The logo shown is Television South, the ITV franchise for South East England until the early 90s when it was replaced by Meridian.

TVS made TV shows, not TVs.

Mitsubishi perhaps? Their logo is roughly triangular like the Fuji.

As a kid I used my 800XL with a Mitsubishi "Blue Diamond" TV that I "borrowed" from my Dad. Great picture on that thing.

June 18, 2018

I was always surprised, based on Jack Tramiel's ability to cut costs, that Atari wasn't more of a force in the PC clone world. Did they not put enough of an effort into it because of the ST? Why did they not put more effort behind it, I wonder?

Why would anyone buy an Atari branded PC clone in 1987?

In the U.S. Tandy had a full store presence in almost every town, and the Tandy 1000 series were widely available, extremely successful, and expandable.

In the U.K. and Europe, Amstrad/Schneider had their PC1512s and PC1640s which were widely available, extremely successful, and expandable.

Tramiel had burned bridges left and right with both suppliers and retailers. He had a very limited distribution network, and fading brand recognition which, such that is was, potential customers associated it with games, not computers. And with the PC standard essentially being open, aiming to be the low-cost leader is a race to the bottom, as Gateway found out.

I love the Atari PC1. I wish I had one. Its so damn cute. And it uses the same floppy disk and mouse interface as the ST. But I also remember looking at the PC1 back in 1988, and being told by an Atari representative that it was not expandable at all. I was surprised to find out later it does in fact have an internal expansion bus and a single 8bit ISA card could have been installed. Atari's marketing and customer support under Trameil was incompetent.

Apple, Amstrad, Dell, Compaq, HP, Tandy and even IBM made money in the consumer market offering machines that were capable, but also available, and most importantly marketed and supported.

Trameil never seemed to figure that last part out.

June 7, 2018

Well BC is a big place, but if you're anywhere close to the border, note that we are having the SRGE show in Seattle on June 16/17.

Its really more console oriented than personal/home computer, but I will be there, and would be happy to give you a couple of 720K disks with ST diagnostics software and the Rainbow Islands game that wasn't cracked by ParanoidLittleMan. If you wanted to schlep the ST down with you, I could bring my UltraSATAN and you could try a bunch of programs and games to see what does and does not work.

Seems like your on the right track but I figured I'd throw that out if you're heading this way.

June 6, 2018

amiman99 gave you some good pointers.

Google around and see if you can download some Atari ST diagnostic software to run some tests. See if there is anything wrong with any of the major subsystems.

Check out GEMBENCH or there is a RAM test program here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/101549-st-disgnostic-or-test-software/

The videos don't give us much to go on. CPU and ROM appear to be working at boot, floppy sounds normal. Video is displaying. I assume the mouse and keyboard are not exhibiting any problems.

Re-seating chips and checking for any that might be extremely hot is one approach. Also visually check for any swelling or burst capacitors. Check for any custom mods a previous owner might have installed. Many were installed badly and just need to be removed.

The PSU is a basic +5V/+12V/GND and is clearly marked so you could rig up an alternative using any PC power supply if you have the knowledge and skills. It wouldn't be pretty but it would allow you to rule the PSU in/out of the list of possible culprits.

It might also be the case that nothing is wrong.

You've shown us two games, How many have you tried? Floppy disks are quite fragile . The floppy disks may well have failed after all these years.

Have you tried formatting a spare disks to see if the floppy drive will access all tracks on both sides?

The ST is also an awkward machine. Do you know which TOS you have? TOS 2.06 caused all manner of problems with games. TOS 1.62 was better. The video looks like North America, so is this machine NTSC/60Hz? I have Rainbow Islands (I think cracked by ParanoidLittleMan) which just hangs on a black screen in 60Hz mode, but runs fine in 50Hz. You can get a 60Hz/50Hz switcher to put in the AUTO folder, but I don't know if you could then boot a commercial disk after. I'm assuming you don't have a hard drive?

How much RAM do you have? The case says 1040STe but case lids got swapped all the time. Maybe you only have 512K and the games are crashing because they need more? The diagnostic tool will tell you, or take the lid off and look. Reseat the RAM chips while you're in there.

Where are you located? There are several shows where you might be able to connect with other Atari enthusiasts who might be able to offer more hands on help.

Good luck,

Graham

April 22, 2018

Philipe and the team came through with the A1200 cases, so I am backing this project and hoping others do too.

I have two broken A500 cases. On one, the plastic around the Del/Help buttons cracked, and on another, I tried to remove the ugly "European Computer of the Year" gold badge only to find the glue they used had actually melted the plastic under the badge.

Thank you Phillipe for putting this together, and I hope they reach their stretch goals so we can get matching mouse plastics and a choice of more colors.

March 19, 2018

As for who was the better machine, clearly the PC, its still going and evolving while our old machines apart from some add on's have suffered at the hands of time

Right, and don't forget according to Foebane:

"4. The Amiga cost more because it had so much more, that's how pricing works."

So by that argument, the PC was much better, and the Apple Lisa was freakin incredible

March 18, 2018

Having owned and loved my 800XL, I bought a 520STm in early 1987.

Now my memory tells me that at this point, the STFM machines and the Amiga 500 were not available to buy, but perhaps had been announced or were expected.

Nonetheless I expected my new 16-bit Atari to be every bit as amazing as my 8-bit.

Oh was I disappointed. From the lurid kelly-green GEM desktop, to the utterly underwhelming music and sound, and even the graphics never seemed to flow as they did on 8-bit games like Ballblazer, Elektraglide, Dropzone or Boulderdash.

I bought a second floppy drive. An SM125 mono monitor. An Epson printer. I wrote my whole senior project using First Word Plus, suffering through multiple system crashes as my little ST would entertain me by throwing a random number of bombs across the screen. Some guy at the Stafford show suggested my old TOS was the problem. I contacted Atari for an upgrade and was told the new TOS was only available as a two-chip package, and my "old" STm used a six-chip configuration, so I was out of luck.

In the end, in 1989 or 1990, I migrated back to the 800XL. I bought some package from Page6 that allowed you move files between the two platforms. I saved all my First Word Plus documents in raw ASCII and then loaded them into the Xlent First Word Processor. An APE interface for the Epson and I sold the ST, eventually buying a 286 with VGA and a hard disk about 12 months later.

Since then I have made peace with the ST. I now have two STe machines plus two Falcons. I can see that the ST did eventually mature into a stable, usable, and even modestly impressive platform, but it never delivered the sense of awe and wonder that the 8-bit Atari did.

March 18, 2018

The A1200 is the obvious choice here, but it is far from ideal.

The A1200 in North America is rare and fairly expensive. It is also quite fragile compared to the A500. The caps fail, the keyboard mylar fails, the case discolors at the merest hint of sunlight, and without a 2MB memory expansion WHDload is pretty much useless.

I would suggest you look for an A500 Rev 6. Easily converted to 1MB chip RAM. It can switch between NTSC and PAL. The ACA500+ and other side-car expansions seem to work fine, and the Vampire V2 makes it insanely fast and promises to one day add AGA support too. Even without AGA, most games seem to have been written to the OCS/ECS configuration. The capacitors don't leak, there is no battery to destroy your motherboard, and they are still relatively affordable.

If Individual Computers ever get around to releasing the A1200 Reloaded then that would be my first choice. But until then....

March 14, 2018

The "DIG DUG" is Optima font, the "ATARI RX8026" is a modified form of Harry font. If you use the letter O in place of zero it will look almost identical.

I am attaching a "The Last Starfighter" label I made up with Photoshop. My colors are a bit off but there was some variation in the labels anyway.

Sign In

Profiles

Member Map

Forums

Blogs

Gallery

Calendar

Store

Posts posted by oracle_jedi