idavis

Gotta love the optimism

I only knew about these three listed here. https://www.ataricompendium.com/game_library/easter_eggs/a48/a48pharaohscurse.html I knew about them way before the web was a thing. Maybe I read about it on a bbs back in the day.

Al, Can I get some stickers? I am sure I live close and will pick them up, lol.

synistops

Kay, That's a real bummer to hear, but I guess you did what you could.

Are you aware you are replying to and asking on a 15 year old post? Any particular reason you are replying to posts from over a decade ago?

This made me laugh as most of my equipment was bought back in the day, and it was not cheap. LOL. I think the problem now is too many of those picker shows, or storage war shows on tv. Everyone thinks they are going to get rich reselling things online.

Am I the only one who thought we were talking about the 400?

So I am going to go out in left field here, but how about a recording of the closing of the cart door on an 800? Or the sounds of an 810 or 1050 mech both when you first put a disk in, and maybe as it's reading data. All these game sound suggestions are good, but some physical sounds are part of the experience for me.

Not sure about all of them but I have an MPP-1000E (300 baud) that connects via joystick ports. Funny story, but when we first picked it up and started using it for my BBS we discovered that it had no way to hang up the line, so the caller to the BBS could effectively hold it hostage if they didn't hang up from their end. So we contacted MPP and they got back with us. They designed a hangup circuit for the modem, sent us the parts and the schematic to install it. They also sent the instructions that we needed to modify the BBS code to initiate the hangup if I remember right. My father was a radar technician so that afternoon we were in business with a modem that could now hang up the line. That's the kind of story you would never hear about these days.

Oh no... Rest in peace Curt. You will be missed.

Thanks for the link. Mylar has been ordered. I will give that a try first. It will be a few weeks before I can even attempt it though, but at least I have one on the way.

I have had one for years and years and today was actually the first time I ever fired it up. Having a problem with the keyboard. When it boots to Basic, the break key, Shift B, and Ctrl K are the only key combos that seem to be recognized and they only move the cursor down one line. When I go into the diagnostics, ram and sound pass, but the keyboard doesn't recognize anything, including the above key combos. Not sure how it would recognize at least some kind of keypress in Basic, but absolutely nothing in the keyboard test. Anyone have any initial thoughts? I took the back off the keyboard being careful with the ribbon connector and don't see anything visually bad on the keyboard controller board.

If you can find a Wico joystick, you will have a family heirloom.

Don't know about Carmel, but I am still here. Pop in every now and then to check on things. My 1050 has a US Doubler in it. Always wanted a Happy Drive, but was pleased with the Doubler.

Just want to throw this out for the MAC users, years ago I switched my main pc to a linux machine and in order to keep using the Atarimax software I installed XP on a virtual machine running under linux. I believe at some point I also posted here or on Steve's board about it working under a VM with USB passthrough. So maybe try installing VirtualBox or VMware and get your hands on an XP install disc. Here it is. Guess I could have been a little more descriptive with my title. http://www.atarimax.com/flashcart/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=657

Congratulations on this. I knew it was a matter of time, and yes that video sure had the memories flowing back. I too would like to get my 1027 working again. I know my Dad would love to hear it and see it running. I bet he would rather use it to do his writing than his pc, especially with all of the frustrations he has had lately.

I remember calling long distance and downloading a disc with the Van Halen sample on it. Took all night at 300 baud for 8 seconds of really low quality sampling. Ahh the memories.

Not sure when you priced scanning in the heads, but it seems that there are new options like this scanner you can make and use your cell phone and some software to compile the 3d model. http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1762299 My point was not to print the heads using a 3d printer, rather print out a repro that you could then use to make your mold where you wouldn't have to worry about the piece falling apart as you have experienced. I don't have a 3d model of this, nor do I have the time at the moment to take on that project, but maybe some people have worked on it in the past. Maybe Stefan's files could be converted into something a 3d printer can use.

Funny story about my 1027 and letter quality. It was purchased because I turned in an assignment that I had printed on our dot matrix printer. My teacher not only failed me for the assignment but basically accused me of cheating since I had dared to use a computer. My Dad who had encouraged me to use the computer was livid. So mad in fact that he researched it and purchased a 1027. Every assignment after that was done on the Atari and printed on the 1027 and that teacher was none the wiser. One question guys, why are you spending all this time trying to mold an original? Why not get it scanned in, or a 3D model made. Then you can 3D print some masters to make your molds from. That has to be better than trying to mold a piece that's falling apart. And scanning one in should be less destructive to the original. Just a thought. Worse case scenario is just starting from scratch and creating the model from there.

Bryan, I just wanted to add in my condolences to your family.

I turned in a paper in high school printed on a dot matrix printer and it was rejected because I was "cheating" by using a computer. That's when my Dad picked up a 1027 and made it our mission to ensure I was able to keep using the computer to turn in my reports. The teacher just thought the 1027 output was from a typewriter which was of course acceptable at the time. I tell that to my kids who are now almost forced to use a computer to do schoolwork. My how times change.

Yo dawg. They heard you like zip files.

Not to sidetrack Kevin's thread, but maybe Ian could put it up on one of those print as you buy sites. Then the proceeds could go to the right party. Kevin, I would be interested in the Best of ... book for sure. Any chance you could maybe find some of the original authors and see if they would like to maybe add to the article, or provide some extra comments now that they have some hindsight (if that's even relevant to the articles you have in mind)?

Jeremy, I just loaded up your code and put in a few puzzles from a magazine I had laying here, and bingo, one solved in 7 passes and the other in 11. Pretty awesome. One more comment on mine, you mentioned seeing if mine would be solvable. Since I generate a valid grid from the start they should always have a solution. Where I ran into my mistake was not knowing that to be a true sudoku puzzle there could only be the one solution. I was so worked up about getting the Atari to come up with a valid grid in as small a space as I could that I completely missed out on one of the major rules of the game. Dumb move on my part, and unfortunately is a show stopper at this point. You will see that I tried to add a little gaming aspect to it where points would be awarded and a countdown timer was put in. The quicker you finish the more bonus points you get. Nothing happens if the timer runs out other than you lose any bonus it might have awarded you. You can also take a hint and it will go through and remove any entries you have that are incorrect, but again as a game you lose some points. I also would have to look at my code and make sure, but I think it's joystick only, other than the keys to get it started. I am not sure I coded in the arrow keys. Keep in mind the majority of this was coded on my 800 with a joystick attached so I really hadn't done much emulating. I am sure all these features can be added in, but since I ran into the issue of possibly having multiple solutions I have come to a standstill as that has to be corrected before I can put in any bells or whistles. A pretty car with no engine isn't very useful. Good job on yours, it was able to solve these two puzzles I entered in, in a relatively short amount of time. So maybe there is still some hope here.