rdemming

Then you probably also enjoyed watching the live broadcast on National Geographics a few years ago where they put a small camera in the door they found in the great pyramid shaft only to find there was another door behind it

And also the original Turbo Freezer XE from 1986/87. And of course the Turbo Freezer 2005. Here the same. Last thing they told was that they were still busy at 11 May. Robert

It is indeed painful to swap. Thats why I added an extra 9 pin connector at the side of my 1040ST were I can plug in a joystick. Using a toggle switch I can switch between the mouse and the joystick. Robert

Hi GadgetUK, It seems an interesting device but the 9-pin mouse connector seems far too big to fit in the mouse port of a 1040ST because of the screws at the side of the connector. Did you use a mouse extension cable or does it fit? Robert

In the Netherlands I received many packages from abroad. My experiences: If they are from the EU, they arrive generally very quickly (within a week) except when sent from the UK. The British Royal Mail does not pass the package to the regular Dutch mail service but uses small and cheap local delivery companies which s*ck big time. It takes much longer (sometimes more than two weeks) than from other EU countries. When you are not home, you have to e-mail for a new delivery appointment or pick it up from a far away location. Once they put a package in front of the door at the streets while it was a busy road were dozens of people walk by. It was a wonder it was still there. When it is from outside the EU it can take 2-3 weeks when no import fees/taxes have to be paid. But if taxes need to be paid it can easily take 5-6 weeks to arrive. Once a package was laying for more than a month at customs. Robert

The Way of the Exploding Fist (C64 music by Neil Brennan): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFLHQjyxKAM

Correct. I know all the classic C64 tunes because Mad Max covered them on the Atari ST (e.g. Big Demo, Union Demo). Below the answers: 1. Warhawk (Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, C64) (Original title: The Unknown Planet from the album Space Experiences by John Keating): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae_jD8yF0J4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KG8fTUZQWM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8zMHDAUGQY 2. Zoids (C64) ()riginal title: Ancestors from the album Audion by Synergy (Larry Fast)): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sr12hs1kzA 3. The Master of Magic (C64) (Original title: Shibolet and An End To History from the album Audion by Synergy (Larry Fast)): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm5Hjsm5NZ4 4. Up, Up and Away (C64) (watch from 7:15) (Original title: Up, Up and Away from The 5th Fifth Dimension): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU3oNLwcDh8&t=7m15s 5. Monty on the Run (C64) (Original title; Devils Gallop, radio tune of Dick Barton): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EcgruWlXnQ 6. Chain Reaction (C64) (Original title: Zoolook from the album Zoolook by Jean-Michel Jarre): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsj0HmbM-1o

Rob Hubbard had many more tunes that were inspired by others. Quiz: 1. From 1:22 (which Atari/C64 game?): 2. Which C64 game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ja7Zqu53kcA 3. Which C64 game?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZaT2z9QX1E 4. Which C64 game? (The Atari version had no music): 5. Which C64 game?: 6. Which C64 game?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rO-i91sr2Qw&list=PL3E30572C030F7230

I see that there is space for both a PAL and NTSC crystal. Does that mean you found a source of PAL crystals? In the old version you had to get the right PAL crystal from a certain revision of the XE motherboard because the proper crystal for PAL was very hard to find in the electronic shops. Robert

Yes, Space Ace and Dragon's Lair only run on 60Hz. You can add a 50/60Hz switch to your PAL Jaguar and in combination with a monitor or TV that supports 60Hz you can then play these games on PAL Jaguars as well in 60Hz mode. There are no "multi-region" carts as such. All carts run on both PAL and NTSC. However of some games (Raiden, Crecent Galaxy, Dino Dudes) there are early releases (without the E extension in the product code) that take no advantage of the bigger vertical resolution of PAL. On PAL these releases will display the screen with a big black border at the bottom. These games were later released (with the E extension in the product code) that display extra lines of graphics on PAL thus without the big black border at the bottom. Robert

Not about DropZone but on the wikipedia IK+ page is stated: "Another International Karate Deluxe game (AKA IK++) was ready but unreleased for the Atari ST and Amiga in 1987/8" Maybe he can tell more about it if he was involved in its development. How was the game play related to IK+, was it really finished and does he still have it? Robert

Those Wifi cards are indeed interesting if it is difficult to exchange SD-cards. The PQI wireless adaptor for micro SD cards seems a more sensible choice than the SD card with build-in Wifi adaptor. But in the PQI manual I don't see if it is possible to transfer non-picture/video/audio files. According to the manual the browser/mobile software only supports picture/video/audio files thus this will exclude our beloved .xex and .atr files Robert

What about combining the SD extension cable with an "IDE to SD" adaptor. Then the Incognito board only needs an IDE connector instead of CF-connector but no other changes. Or you could stick the FC1306T chip on the Incognito board directly eliminating the need for a separate IDE2SD adaptor board. Robert

No problem, I was just wondering if there was still some activity. Robert

Are the invoices still being sent out? I'm on the list but still didn't get an invoice. Robert

That man is incredible. He must be the recordholder for creating games for the bigest number of different systems/platforms. He programmed for VIC-20, C64, ZX-spectrum, Atari 8-bit, Atari ST, Konix, Jaguar, Nuon, X-box, PocketPC, iOS, Windows and many more. And now Sony Vita Robert

I did not see it mentioned here before but if it is old new I'm sorry. Jeff Minter (of Tempest 2000 fame) has released a revamped version of his oldy Gridrunner for Android and iOS. The Android version is Donationware and the iOS version is $0.99. Maybe this is the time to upgrade my Symbian phone to Android Robert http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t4WOnuqeetI

Yes, of Raiden there are the J9005 and a later J9005E version. The 'E' version has extra scanlines on PAL while the non 'E' version has a big black border at the bottom on PAL.The 'E' version works on the Skunkboard while the non 'E' version does not work on the Skunk. B.T.W. there are also 'E' and non 'E' versions of Crescent Galaxy and Evolution Dino Dudes. All these versions work on the Skunk. As with Raiden the non 'E' versions have black borders at the bottom on PAL. Also there are a few graphics differences to make better use of the extra scanlines AFAIR. Robert

As the ST demo scene was virtually non-existant in NTSC land the majority of demos came from PAL land. I personally don't know of any demo that was made for NTSC. Demos that use special graphics tricks like sync scrolling, overscan or mid-line color chances will only work correctly on PAL. Demos usually sync to the VBI to present smooth animation. That means there is 20 ms in PAL for processing a frame while on NTSC there is only 16.67 ms for processing a frame. Thus if the processing of a frame takes longer than 16.67 ms it will only work on PAL. In that case on NTSC the processing of the frame will not be finished before the next VBI which will cause problems. If processing a frame takes less than 16.67 ms, then there might be a chance that it works on NTSC. However often demos set the refresh frequency explicitly on 50Hz causing the symptons you mention. And usually demos try to use every clock-cycle availble thus the changes a demo needs less than 16.67 ms per frame are small. Thus to run a PAL demo successfully on NTSC the processing of a frame must take less than 16.67 ms, it must not use sync-scroll, overscan or mid-line graphics tricks and the demo must leave the 50/60 Hz frequency register alone (not put it back to 50 Hz). I recommend that you connect your ST to an RGB monitor (like the Atari SC1224 or the Commodore 1084). These monitors support both 60 and 50 Hz and you should be able to run the demos correctly on an NTSC machine. However you might need to put your computer first in 50Hz for demos that don't do it themselfves. There are many programs out there that can do that but that only works if you don't have to reboot to load the demo disk. Robert

There is a good reason that you can't modify IPF files. IPF is intended as archive format of original disks. Thus you don't want to have IPF files that have modifications because then it is not an image of an original disk anymore. But you can have write support by writing changes in an additional "diff" file. Then the IPF remains unchanged while changes are possible. I believe WinUAE (Amiga emulator) does use this method. I agree that having to wait for the SPS team to return you the IPF from the stream files is a big drawback. But it is their way to ensure there are no bad IPF file out there (AFAIK there are quite a few bad PASTI files out there?). If you want to run your copy right away (in an emulator) you could use PASTI. However as far as I know it is still not possible to write PASTI files back to disk. Steem SSE already has IPF support and for Hatari IPF support will be added in version 1.7. More info here. And the HxC floppy emulator (USB version, the SD-card version does not have the power to emulate allprotections) is now able to use the raw Kryoflux stream files. So you don't have to wait for an IPF anymore if you use that for loading the copy on real hardware. Robert

For starters here you can find an archive with 305 Atari ST .ipf files. Robert

Seems you didn't follow the KryoFlux website for more than a year The KryoFlux software even comes with an IPF file of Lethal Access (they got permission of the authors) that can be written back to disk with KryoFlux and be run on both an ST and Amiga. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTloSBG_A2A Yes, unprotected disks can indeed imaged to a standard disk image format (.img file which just hold the sector data. I think it is the same as an .st file) which can later be written back to disk by any program (including KryoFlux) that support .img files. Unfortunately KryoFlux cannot create .pasti files for protected disks or write .pasti files. So for writing back protected images, IPF files are still the only option at the moment for protected Atari ST disks. Also the HcX floppy emulator (USB version) supports IPF so you don't actually need to write a new disk if you have a PC next to your Atari. Robert

If you have two drives that are the same timing wise you have a higher chance of a usable copy. So it indeed is very hardware dependent and you might need to retry a couple of times. A Dutch computer magazine also used the Blitz cable to copy their PD disks. With one of my orders of about 10 PD disk about 8 of the disks was not readable on my three ST drives. And I was not the only one that have bad experiences with the Blitz cable. That is correct except you send it to SPS but AFAIK some of them are also the guys behind the KryoFlux. I know there are already quite a few ST games converted to IPF but I don't know were they are available. SPS does not publish IPF files. The owner of the original decides if he wants to share the IPF file he got back from SPS. According to these descriptions from SPS and Ijor (from PASTI) the Blitz cable directly passes the drive head output signal of the source drive to the input of the destination drive head without any digital processing. The Blitz cable bypasses the floppy controller and the drive itself does no digital processing on the signal it receives (it does not boost a weak '1' signal to a full '1' level). Both SPS and Ijor say that a copy from a copy gets degraded. Robert

The Blitz cable is very very very unreliable to make copies. I would advise NOT to use it. The Blitz cable makes an "analog" copy like you would do in the old days with cassette tapes. It works by sending the data out of the first drive to data in of the second drive. That means that the copy is of lesser quality than the original just like tape copies. Thus a copy of a copy of a copy will get worse and worse. And that is not the only thing. For the Blitz cable to work you need two drives that have exactly the same rotation speed. If they differ then the data rate on the copy is different than on the original which can cause problems as well. I had two drives that worked perfectly with regular copy programs. But when they were used with the Blitz cable, even non protected 9 sector disk were written badly most of the time. The best way is indeed Kryoflux. But a disadvantage is that for protected disks you need to send the stream files that are generated when reading the source disk must be converted to an IPF file before they can be written back to disk. Only the SPS can create IPS files because the conversion requires a good knowledge of how floppies work to set the right settings. And they want to be sure the IPS files are really a good and working copy of the disk. You send them the KryoFlux stream files and you will get a IPF file back when they have done the conversion and verified it. However unprotected disks can be written back to a new disk directly as for unprotected disks. Robert

If you are using Windows 7 Professional or better you can try "Windows 7 - XP Mode" which is essentially Windows XP running under Windows 7 in a virtual machine. Robert