jedinovice

Many thanks. I've had to put the ST into storage now fo rthe monet as I am very busy. I'll look at this when I get realistic chance.

OK, here's the data: I have two disk drives - one a bona fide SF314 and the other a 3rd party disk drive, couldn;t tell yu the make but it's slimline. I have formatted the disks on PC disk drive - I just like the ST to have the option. It *can* do it but it's hit and miss. As I say, it seems to put the directory in the wrong place. I am definately using DD disk and not HD disks, indeed, I bought 100 DD disks and was given 50 more by an ex-ST user. I get the same problems on both disks - though I'll doubt check. I can read all ST disks including 'oddly' formatted ones.

I'll give that util a try. But fool that I am I AM using CDFORMATTER!!! It's with that program I have these troubles. Weird. It's as if TOS 1.0 has more disk woes than (say) 1.2 or 1.4.

Easiest of all,use Double Click Software's DC Formatter! Sound great. Er, were do I get it? Can't see anything online immediately.

Win32 only appplies to hard disk, not to floppies. Windows 98+ still formats floppies the same old FAT way. The Gemulator I will try but I'd rather have an ST side solution if possible.

I'm having great fun with transfering data from my ST to PC and vice versa. OK, I know it's because I'm running an ancient ST with TOS 1.0. :-) However, there must be a utility somewhere to sort this. I have half a dozen PC format programs. They kind of work but not quite. What I am finding is that if I format a PC disk on the ST, while the disk is recognisable to DOS/Windows when I save data to the disk, wait for it, files wring on the St are readable on the ST but the disk is regarded as blank on the PC and files written to the disk by the PC are not picked up by the ST! Wow!!! Two seperate directories!!! I *can* get data transferred but it's a bit hit and miss - format a disk, re-write the book block, click your heels and do the magic pixie dance and the disk become readable both ways - for a while. I'm slowly getting the ST tamed and it's time I got this useable. Is there a RELIABLE utility to allow the formatting, writing and reading of PC disks? I'm putting the ST to serious use and need this. I'm also getting sick of downloading PC format program after PC format program only to get the same problems. I need a pointer to a REAL solution. Many thanks. You guys have been great so far!

Wow! That woke everyone up! I look forward to discussion and (possible resolution) What was the true story ofthe development of the ST then, BTW? Every source I have read indicates the ST was built in reaction the coming Amiga. There is another story?

I'm curious because it seems such a feeble choice. (I'm not knocking the ST overall, neither am I complaining, I'm just trying to understand the reasoning.) Atari know the Amiga was coming (that's how the ST was born, we all know.) The SID chip was famous. Atari had the POKEY chip already. The SID was out of their hands - it was owned by Commodore - but the POKEY chip was there, ready to be used, surely? If not, Yamaha must have had better chips available! After all, the DX7 was out in 1985! Why did they choose a sound chip used by 8 bitters, one inferior to the C64 and the 8 bit ataris? I mean, everything else made sense - it had a decent graphics chip, decent OS (for the time) and decent disk drive. We might complain about single sided disks now but 360K compared very well with other disks at the time and cut costs which was important for the ST to succeed. I can understand every decision Atari made EXCEPT the 2149. Surely for a few pennies they could have used something better - indeed, why not POKEY? Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking the ST. I find the idea of a 68000 driving the soundchip of the Oric-1 quite amusing (in a nice way!) I just to understand the reasoning. It's almost as if the execs saud, "What's the cheapest chip we can throw in?" and that was it. It might have been the reasoning but it defies the rest of the machine and why didn't they use POKEY? They owned it, surely?! I'm just trying to understand my 'new' machine better.

Sorry. I missed it. I've have to look later. Many thanks.

YES! I asked a guy on Atari-Home whom I suspected to use this or at least know this, and he actually uses it. My slightly modded ( ) translation follows: - - - - - Bible ST is not supported or sold anymore. It used to run (and for some people still runs) under emulation, TOS, MagiC, on Milan 040/ 060, on the FAlcon with or without CT60 or graphics card - very cleanly programmed. However the printing via Nvdi is a bit strange. Export to Papyrus seems to be the right way here. There were different bibles to use, which were all relatively expensive. A Luther version cost 180,- DM which are about 90,- Euros now. The prog came without bible, so you had to buy one. It is possible to make notes to anything, and there was a hypertext encyclopadia to get as add-on. Searching functions are mighty, well done and extremely fast. Four megs of ram should be there and a hard drive is a must! - - - - - Hope that helps. All very helpful input. Alas, I don't have Bible St, I don't have a bible disk and I only have an Atari ST(M) with 1MB and two floppies! :-)

Just as a comparison in my own mind, how did the Yamaha YM2149 compare with the famous Commodore SID chip? It was, I believe, universally regarded as inferior, but I don't know the details, I played around with the SID chip on the C128 I had but these days I have to do thing sother than program or read tech specs. Overall, how did the two compare? Thanks. Curious.

Potentially looks good. Thanks. Any further advance? :-)

http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv3n11/productsupdate.html from a quick search of atarimagazines.com great site. -rick Great. One did exist then. I'd like to try my hand at COBOL some time. But I'm a writer. I don't mind verbose languages! Or ones that's reak of punch tape! :-)

Thanks. Er, any advance on that?

Oh, one last crazy question - was there ever a COBOL compiler for the ST? Don't ask!!! :-)

I am slowly getting my ST up and running (in between many other things!) Comparative theology is a bit of a hobby of mine. I could do with a 'Bible search program for the ST but not just for the Bible but ALL religious texts - though I guess the range might be limited. Anyone know of any such S/W? Also, where can I get a decent spreadsheet which has ANY kind of compatibility with any PC spreadsheet? I like my old computer(s) to earn their keep! Many thanks.

Excellent! Many thanks!

One thing I am missing from my life!!! :-) I don't have any initial reviews of the ST. I would like to know what the magazine reviewers thought of the ST when it first came out. Does anyone have a magzine scan from 1985 or sommat? I'd really like to see. Thanks.

How far was the ST a PC? I mean, yes, the processor was the 68000, thoroughly un-PC in it's day. But the OS was a variant of CP/M (a la CP-86) and the GUI was GEM written explicitly for the PC and ported over to the ST. So the OS had a firm PC lineage. The stacker chip seemed to be an uneasy mix of improved CGA (32K RAM, max res of 640x200, no sprites, no hardware acceleration) and the Apple Mac (requiring two monitors.) The sound chip was 'inherited from machines like the Amstrad CPC and Oric-1! It was the same chip used by entry level PC's - virtually one step up from a beeper! The machine was largely made up from of the shelf components, (I don’t know how many were PC 'inherited') and the disc drives were (virtually) PC compatible using FAT. It was, like the PC, rather rushed out for a market then designed for a 'higher purpose.' I hasten to add that I'm not complaining at all, I'm just making comparisons. The ST, apart from the 68000, seems a bit of a mix of a PC and an 8 bitter! The Arc and the Amiga were clearly designed to be distinguished from the PC in a way I don’t think the Atari was - though I accept that was not the intent. Thoughts?

Here are a few reasons why I live my ST. Most of them are not rational.... 1) It's a mark 1 atari ST(m) with TOS 1.0. I like having a near prototype, pioneering technology... :-) 2) I like pressing buttons. The modern PC has soulless 'keys.' The ST has buttons. OK, the keyboard on my STm appears to be slightly better than the later STFM's which really were super spongy. My ST has buttons. What is the point of having a computer without buttons? I means, computers are about pressing buttons! 3) The ST is silent! Trust me, this is a HUGE factor when writing, especially fiction (I write fiction and non-fiction.) I have managed to leave my ST on for a full 24 hours by accident. I couldn’t do that with any PC due to the sheer racket from the fans! When you need to transport yourself to another world as a writer not having ruddy great whirring fans helps get you there! 4) You can do useful things on the ST. I tried the Amiga. I really did. Sure, it was powerful in it's day but a cretin to use! You had to have two disk drives, you really did. The user interface was horrible and far more bugged than people admitted to! The PC was just dull in it's day and hideously expensive. The ST can play games AND run useful software without the operating system fighting me all the way. OK, modern PC's are better but, consider how you have to close down system apps to run a game... 5) The ST has limits. I don’t know about you but I can’t hold 512 colours in my head, leave alone 4096 or 16.7 million. The ST has limits so there is enough power to do useful _and_ fun things but I can also understand the machine. There is, for me, such a thing as too much hardware. 6) I can write a utility using (say) STOS without having to learn VB.NET or C#, plus Java, plus the Windows API's plus XML, plus having to produce an installation program which may or may not completely knacker my operating system. I could go on. Shall we just say, also, that as I head towards getting married I also have a machine I can use which I know my wife won’t touch that is completely silent in operation (bar the occasion floppy disk 'chug') and will let me write the odd paper, a major book and let me burn off stress with the odd game or two while leaving the 'real' computer in her hands so she feels I've given her the best! :-)

I found it thanks! Simply a case of when Protest imports a TXT file it CR's the text. Now I know the issue I'm sure I can sort this! It's not Protext just adding things randomonly. *Phew!*

It's a wordprocessor for the PC/Amiga and ST. It was very big. It is still a commercial product so I don't feel I can really upload it. Website is here: http://home.btconnect.com/tigerteam/protext/ My copies were given to me and are not the latest. If I contact tech support they'll just tel me to spend more money and upgrade so I'm asking here. It's best feature (in this day and age) is the covert program on V5 which supports version 1 of RTF (but NOT version 2 which is supported by PC wordprocesor post Word for windows 2.0) Note that the convert program for v4 does not suport RTF and also does not work!!! Anyway, meantime, help!! Many thanks.

OK, I am using Protext 5.5 on the ST. I also have a copy of 4.3. I am coming across an annoying 'feature' on both versions. Every so often, without warning, notification or anything, suddenly, as I type, Protest adds CR's to my text lines forcing them to a fixed line length. If I want to reformat the documetn (which I do - often) it becomes a nightmare tearing the damn things out. Then, as I type, after a while, it'll start adding them again. However, I don't think thi sis a bug per say as it appears in version 4 as well. So I guess I'm hitting a key or something. Anyway, anyone know anything about this? How can I stop it and how can I fix when it's happened? It's a real pain and I *need* this to work. Without Protest flying properly I might as well put the ST up on ebay - it's as vital as that. Many thanks.

This is more for amusement than anything else! I am running an Atari ST(m) with TOS 1.0. I know this rendering being very nearly a Beta has a few bugs in it. But, being an ST newbie, I am not sure of all of them. I am, therefore, curious as to the known bugs on TOS 1.0. I know the following but are there more? (It's not a problem, I just like to know what's there!) TOS 1.0 is geared towards floppy disk access and not hard disk so it's HD access times are incredibly slow. You can't have more than 40 folders on a floppy (you don't want to!) You select multiple files and folder by shift but you can't scroll to select more without losing focus on the ones you have selected. But is that it or is there more? At least you can boot to medium res unlike TOS 1.6!

Hmm. Thanks. As long as I know what the bugs are...