nyder

I have an Atari Lynx- will it work for that? I remember those cables. Do you have more of them? I'd like to paypal you or something. Also, how do you know which end is pin 1 (GND) and which is 34 (SWVCC)? The Red line going down the cable is Pin 1. This cable is for making a cartridge reader for reading Atari 2600 Game Carts on the Flashback devices. So I don't think it will work for the lynx.

um, are those the schematics to the Flashback 2? I don't know if CX2600 was the protoname or something. Well, if the switch doesn't do what I would of had it do (after all, isn't how I said the easist way of switching between black & white and color? probably not...), then I guess that theory won't work. I won't know more until I open it up and take the time to poke around and look. I'm not really sure S-video would help the graphics anyways. I mean, after all, how many different colors can it display on screen at once? The picture looked great on my commodore 1902 monitor as it was. But hey, getting better vid signals out of it would be something to do. I'm trying to get my place cleaned up and my electronics workstation setup. got a lot of stuff to do and no where to do it. =(

um, wow. I was figuring since it's not the actual atari 2600 chips, and most chips deal with color in the rgb realm, that you could tap it before it got converted to composite. If it doesn't deal with it like that, or there isn't any practical place to tap it, then I would think getting S-Vid would be no problem because it already has a Black & White/Color switch on it. And since the easist way to do black & white & color on the same display is to split them into Chroma & Luma, or, S-Vid. So it would seem to me, that the Black & White/Color switch just toggles it to either combine the signals, or just send Luma down the composite cable. So all you would need to do is tap the chroma to a seperate plug on the unit, and then use the Black & White/Color switch to Black& White, then have the cables going from there to your montior/tv. Of course you probably are going to need to make a special cable for it.

Okay, then it's okay to swap the joysticks out. It's bad on other systems of that era, I think. Though it could be it's just bad plugging the wrong joystick in while the systems on. At least Y adaptors aren't hard to make for those. I got a few Y adaptors for PC style (DB15) joysticks, plus some of the ones for the soundcards with midi and the y splitter, but I never seen them for the db9's. But there's db9 switch boxes... wow, another idea!. since I was going to make a joystick/gamepad adaptor box/cable thingy for my various systems anyways, I might as well just put it all together, so I don't have to make a few different ones (that you forget which is which anyways), I'll just put it all into a box with the various connectors and crap. Then I could use any bloody gamepad/joystick i want on whatever system I want. *sigh* Oh, well, another idea to put the back on my brain to work on. So any ideas on why the pong can't keep veritical sync? Does this happen to anyone else? Also, does all the atari carts have the stupid front part the slides back to show the connector slots? Or just the Atari made carts? I'd like to get a cartridge plug slot to put them in, but I never come across broken atari systems anywhere. While I don't really care that much to have the floppy cable & plug coming out of the unit, I don't want to make the floppy cable that long, since shorter is better. Plus it would be nice to have something take care of the front of the carts, instead of having to use something to push them back. I don't mind modding stuff, like putting holes in them for switches or anything, but part of me likes keeping stuff the original way the looked, with the mod being removeable or out of the way or something. I guess part is I dont' have any decent tools to making holes and crap and would have to pack it all up and take it on a ferry ride to my dad's place. Which is a hassle. I just need a sonic screwdriver with a laser cutting tool option. Maybe a molcule seperator also. umm, do they make any of that stuff yet? =)

Ah the TweetyBoard - that brings back memories. Though it annoyed me to have to rig a bypass to recombine the sound for games that used digisound. The DB9 on the 1084 should be for both analog RGB and TTL RGBI input. The DB9 on the 1902 is TTL RGBI only IIRC. Yep, it's basicly a C128 monitor, since the C128 mode is digital rgb and the i is for intensity. And the chrom/luma/sound is for the C64 part of the machine. =) I got it and a C128 system for free off of craigslist. =) My 1902 won't be used for Atari stuff, it's going to be my C128 monitor only, if I decide to keep them setup. I had came across a hack someone made for using a PS2 keyboard & mouse with the ST computers. I ordered samples of the chips it needs, which I guess just got shipped. My atari mouse sucks and my friends Mega ST(e?) doesn't have a keyboard, so I figured I'd make 2 of them to solve both our problems. I don't have a problem with the keyboard on my ST, and not sure I want to mod the case to have 2 ps2 female jacks on the back of the computer. Anyways, I got my din 13's in the mail, so I can make myself a good cable. Also got an Oscilloscope today, actually, I just got 3. (someone just brought me 2 more). A BK Precision 1472c, and a Tektronics 585a and a newer Tektronics that isn't working. The 585a is a vacuum tube scope. Guess I'm almost set up now. Of course, I don't know how to use them, and I don't know what else I need for my journey into the world of DIY electronics, but it's a start. Well, i'm off for now. Need to clean up my place so I can actually get some work done. Need to run some errands, that sort of stuff. later

yep, I know all about that. I have piles of stuff I have brought home and not gotten around to. =) Well, if you figure it out, let us know, or if you can figure out how to make a copy of it, or a disk image of it, that would be cool to check out.

I have a pair of Atari's paddles, 2 connected to 1 plug. I can't seem to get pong to play using the paddles, even though it says it will. if i plug the paddles into the 2nd controller slot, they don't move anything. If I plug them into the 1st controller plug, then I can't pick games. Is it okay to switch controllers during the games? I haven't tried the hidden games yet. Also, pong keeps scrolling, not able to vertical sync. Does this happen to anyone else? I haven't tried all the games yet, but it was the only one to do that so far. Once I figure out how to use my scopes, i'll probably connect it's output to the scope to see what freq the vertical sync is the pong game is producing. Providing I can use it for that. Of course, it could be my Commodore 1902 monitor that just doesn't like that one game or something. When I was growing up, I wanted an atari or some sort of vid game system, which of course, I never got. Some years later we got a C64 for christmas, which was really cool, but it meant that I missed out on the Atari, Intellivisions, Coleco's, and Odessy's of that age. I did play arcade games, and games on the TRS-80 Model III's (computers my middle school had), but I missed out on those systems. The point is, I don't find them that all fun to play. At least the built in games mostly suck. I'm not knocking the system, it's just that they don't have the same place in my heart as some of the later 8 bit system games that came out after the crash in 84. It's also possible that once I get the cart mod done, and play the few 2600 carts I do have, like Donkey Kong, and whatever else there is, that I will find more games I consider enjoyable to play. If I had grown up with an Atari VCS, or 2600 before I finally had gotten a C64 then it would of been different. Funny how you are usually most found of what you started with, then some of the stuff that you had wished that you had growing up. =) The Mattel Electronics Football game I got back in 79 or 80 totally kicked butt. Very simple electronics, but I played it to death. Ended up disconnecting it's speaker so I could play it at night when I was suppose to be sleeping. The rereleased them some years ago, this time with a sound on/off switch and AA batteries instead of 9volt. But it's logic, or programming wasn't the same. I knew the original game well, I played it so many times. I think it got where I would just try to make touchdowns every play, since I knew how they reacted to you by that time.

I will be doing the cart mod on mine soon, so while I'm doing that, I will see about getting S-vid &| RGB. mainly since I'd be using it on a Commodore/Amiga monitor with seperate chroma & lum rca plugs. Well, it also has a db9 for rgb, so if I can get rgb out of it also. =) I also got a BK Precisions 15MHz Triggered Sweep Dual-Trace Oscilloscope this morning, and am waiting on someone who's dropping on an old Tektronics Vacuum Tube Oscilloscope, plus a couple other things. Of course, I don't know how to use those yet, but thats what getting them was for. Craigslist is so nice. Ask and you shall receive. =) So, wht I'm saying in my usual round about way is that there's very little left to stop me from working on this stuff. I guess i'm just excited. =)

Correct, thats what you consider it's worth. He doesn't feel that way, so he charges more. He's not wrong, and your not wrong. You don't like how much he charges, which is fine. Thats why there's usually someone else who will sell something cheaper. All I'm saying is there's nothing wrong with how much he charges. If you don't like it the price, then you don't have to buy it at the price. If all you want to pay is a certain amount, say $40, then ask, Can anyone sell me or make me a FB2 with a cartridge slot for $40? but you shouldn't say someone is stealing because they offer an amount thats more then you feel something is worth. Thats how the Barter system works. The seller starts out at a high price, the buyer counters with a low price, and somewhere between they settle on the price. personally I hate the barter system, and am glad it's not used much here in teh USA. Anyways, I don't normally go off on subjects about economy and crap, but I went a few days without some weed, and when that happens I turn back into my nitpicking self. What happens is normally I'm stoned all the time, and I just ignore that stuff because it doesn't really matter. So the moral of the story is if I start nitpicking, send me some weed because I'm out. =)

So have you ran the game yet?

i recently bought my fb2 because I heard the joysticks that were included were quality sticks. I was having problems finding some decent joysticks/gamepads for my various 8 bit machines, because my genesis pads that I used my my amiga's don't work. I was always a quik stick & slick stick fan. I just haven't found the one with the correct knob on the end. But now I got these joysticks, so that will do. I really prefer gamepads though, almost like the original NES pads, because they had the best control. You didn't press up when you mean up/left with NES pads, like you can do with Sega Master System pads at the time. What sucks is I found a great 9 pin DB gamepad, but it's analog! It's a gravis stinger (I think) and I guess it was made for one of those multiplayer boards they had for the PC's with the 9pin db connecters on it also. I also came across some 9 pin db playstation looking gamepads. I know this isn't about what's the best joystick/gamepad out there, but I will tell you, if I can make an adaptor for every system, so I could use my wireless Logitch PS2 gamepads, that have built in rumble, I would be in heaven. So far it's one of the best controllers I have every played any games with. They did make a Xbox version, but I've never seen any other versions for other systems. It's elegantly designed and fits into your hands really smoothly. well, anyways, I'm off.

Those are old floppy cables. I can usually get my hands on them if anyone is having trouble.

maybe 40 bucks Wow you a friendly chap I wouldn't sell one for less than $80 off the shelf it was 29 dollars and 5 dollar for the cart and soldering comes to 40 maybe 50 charging 80 is just trying to rip the guy off any moron who charges that much need to get a job instead of stealing Um, actually, you got it quite wrong. Stealing is when you take something that doesn't belong to you. Charging more an hour for work you did is typical economy. How much a person pays is up to them. If it's worth $80 for someone to buy a flashback 2 with the cart already hacked on, then it's worth $80. Can the person buy the stuff cheaper and do it himself? Sure, expect he can't, so he has to pay someone else for it. There's also quality factor here. Maybe he charges more because he's more experinced, and well, better at building things then others. Maybe he uses quality componets. Then again, maybe he does shoddy work with cheap componets. The thing is, he can still charge what he wants, if he gets a buyer at that price, then it's the price the market will bear. If others start selling them for $60, then either he'll have to change his price to $60, or hope he finds people that want to pay more for his work. It's all apart of ecomny. Oh, and if anyone is stealing, figuretivly it would be you since you are selling your services cheaper so you can get (steal) business away from others. After all, no business gets mad when then a smiliar business is selling the same products for more, only when they are under cutting them.

Well, what it means is that there is some sort of boot virus on it that will infect any other boot media. The person who wrote or typed the label probably put that on there so he wouldn't forget about it, and so that he could still play the game. If it's like the Stoner virus (personally one of my favorites, I'll tell you why at the end of this post), then it would only transfer onto boot media's, actually floppy, because I don't think it infected my harddrive. So the person had a ST without a harddrive and didn't want his strider game to infect anything else, so he labled it. I personally find it pretty interesting. Have you booted the disk? If you do and have a harddrive, turn it off, unattach it or something. You could also make a bootable virus scanner and see if that will find anything on the strider disk. If your not into it that much, then I'd be glad to take a look at it and see what's up. okay, the reason why I like the Stoner virus was because it was not only my first virus, but at the time I was stoned (like always) and when I booted up my computer it said:"Your PC is Stoned!" I laughed and said (outloud of course), "Damn Straight you are. Second Hand smoke gets you stoned also." And of course, it took me about 3 infected disks before I figured it out. But that's not why I like it, I like it because it's maker was a stoner, and only someone that was stoned would think of doing that. =)

I could play Dynablasters mutliplayer much better using the keyboard on ST than using a joystick, so I dunno what you mean I was referring to a lot of older systems had their arrow keys in weird places, but looking at my ST, I see this isn't the case. I wasn't thinking about what forum I was in, so I guess my comment doesn't really make much sense. It would if you were me, but that isn't the case ever. So picture a C64 keyboard and then you'll understand. =)

Well, I got my shipment of 13 pin dins today. I got some extra so I can make cables to order for anyone that needs them. While I'm sure you all probably are cool, maybe someone new will need 1 or something. You know, I was planning on making a converter box for various vid sources that would output RGB, or SVid. I was considering an upscan for vga monitors, with a pass thru built in for systems that have multi sync's (like ST). But as I got looking at Intersil's site, and conversation for other forums, I realised that I should make it componet output instead. How does that sound to people? Would you want something like a cable/box/adaptor that could output the vid from various sources onto a componet cable HDTV. While a normal tv with componet would work, I don't see why you would want to do that when a rgb monitor will give a better picture. But an HDTV, well, that should give you a great picture. So, so you think there would be a demand for something like that? I'd be shooting for a price of around $50. It would have to be cheaper then what stores sell them for, but as good, if not better quality. I need to get some samples of the chip though. The samples I got right now will take seperate the signals from a composite stream. I just need to see how good of the quality of the vid is after being split and how I can somehow make it as good quality signal that gets displayed. Oh, I did get my samples from Amtel, 1 AT94K40AL-25DQU and 2 AT94K10AL-25DQU. Why did I order them? Not totaly sure, except the bigger one was going to be a learning system, and I wanted to program the other 2 for converting the signals between 2 systems. For example, it could act as a floppy drive interface, a computer interface, what ever is needed. Now I just need to figure out how to use them. Their in some sealed container that says you need to use them within so long of opening them. weird. Can anyone recommend any good sources for a beginner into the world of PIC programming? Well, and electronics in general. I know some stuff, but i'm very much a beginner. Just so you know, I know my way around computers, hardware & software. Not as I figured out how to install windows so I'm an expert now, but as I've been working on computers for 20+ years type of experience. I know my way around computers very well, and can fix most any problems (hardware and software). But as the truely experienced know, there is still a lot to learn. Well, cool, thanks for listening. =)

The only reason using the arrow keys on a keyboard is "So PC" is because only the PC keyboards actually had the arrow keys in a useful position. =)

hmm, actually I understand what is being said. Basicly he/she said that they wrote an image to a floppy using floimg9 and the floppy was blank afterwards. Happened to me also. Make sure the format option is checked. thats what worked for me. Also try some other images and other floppies.

You mean 1080 (you said 1084S, which I wish I had!). Since then, I have received a 1084 with the db9, and a 1902 (C128 monitor) which also has a DB 9 plug, But I think it just might be digital input, since the C64 mode uses the Croma/lums connectors. I need to get my hands on some other 1080 monitors and hopefully find one that syncs fine with the Hsync going to the Vsync, so I can test my cable on it.

Are you saying any of the Epson smd 3x0 wll work? Because I come across 340's also. Guess i will start picking those up also. Well, back to repc then today. =)

anyone know a place that is selling the Din 13 plugs, cheap? I also need to find some plugs for like DB 23, and possible DB 19, though maybe not. Anyone know of places that still sells weird sized/type plugs? I just wished there still was a decent parts store by me. I mean, I live in Seattle, dang it, aren't we a big city or something? We have rush hour traffic that lasts for 4 or so hours, doens't that makes us a big city? Yet Radar closed and I haven't seen the like. sorry, just had to rant for a minute. Anyways, does anyone have any recommendations for parts online, that is, well, a decent place, fast service, cheap? thanks

Well, guess one way to tell is to open it up and see if it has the sockets for more ram. As for dip ram, I go to used pc stores/warehouses and search for old vid cards that have socketed ram on it. You sometimes get lucky and find old memory boards for computers that are full of dips. Of course, if your not familiar with memory, you might not know what to look for, but it's pretty easy to figure out. If you do have an older 520ST, then your best bet would be to buy a later version ST.

Well, I figure $5 for shipping and $5 for me, so if it's going to cost you more the $10. Of course, I don't know if the drive works or not. But i'm sure you have used PC stores/warehouses around your place? What I do is go to those and go through all their floppy drives. Sure, you get dirty and find a lot of useless drives, but you will probably end up with one. My last trip netted me the epson, 3 chinon's that can be used as 880k drives for amiga and 1 chinon that will do HD. plus a few others that may or may not work. Since I know the epson smd 300 works on Ataris', i'll be grabbing all of those also. I'm just glad to hear you aren't going to butch your amiga's up. =)

Since I don't have any sort of harddrive/mass storage connected to my st, I'd defiently like to get one if it's not too expensive. I'd just as soon buy a kit if it's a lot cheaper. I honestly couldn't get pass paying $50 for something, it's just not worth it to me. Thats why I'd rather do the soldering and stuff for cheaper, because I imagine it's going to probably cost around $100 built or more. And this isn't because I am cheap, it's because I am poor.

I do have an epson smd300 drive. I was going thru finding possible compable amiga drives and grabbed it because I could change jumpers on it. Managed to score a Chinon FX357 that was made in Malayshia, which means I can hack it to a HD drive for the Amiga. =) (Yes, I know, we are in Atari land). I was wondering about atari drives, just haven't gotten that far yet. Since you have some Amigas that you don't mind hacking up (*shudder*) I guess you don't need the epson smd300 drive I have.