Gunstar

I already have, which is EXACTLY why I said My 1200Xl WILL NOT be getting the U1MB...maybe you should re-read what I just wrote above again? No one says they have any issues with VBXE/Rapidus alone, only when the U1MB is in the mix too. But thanks for looking out for me.😉

I had RDS original back in the day, purchased at a local Book World that sold Atari software in my area. I honestly don't recall if I had any other EA titles back then, but for me there was never any pirated software in my collection, it was all original. Not that I wouldn't have accepted some pirated software probably, I had little money for the Atari back then, so I had to pick and choose carefully what I purchased. But I never knew another Atari owner near me, so no one to have copy/swap parties with and there were no user groups close enough for me to walk or ride my bike too back then, and I never had the money for modems, etc. to find pirated software on-line. My first venture into pirated software for the Atari wasn't until the early nineties when I found an ad in the back of Antic magazine for "PD" software and ordered a bunch of titles from the "catalog" sent to me that I'd never heard of before, which turned out to be English and European titles that were never released in the states anyway, and of course only about 25% of what I ordered worked properly on my NTSC Atari, so I still didn't get to play much of the great software from across the pond until I converted my 1200XL to PAL about 5 years ago! By the way, that pirated software was purchased from a guy named Sid Meyers...the same guy of Civilization fame? I also got a few games this guy wrote himself, one was a strategy based space battle game, which I for get the name of...maybe Lords of Space or something like that? Anyone know?

@Mrarkus good luck on moving the side ports and switches, I had a lot of fun doing that with my 800 and love not having cables out the side of my 800 anymore (besides power switch and input). I'll be installing a Sophia 2 as well, I haven't decided yet where on the rear it will go exactly, probably above the PSU board on the right, since above the PBI would cause issues with the cable getting in the way of the Turbo Freezer cart, since it will be sticking up right there. I had thought about the SCCC card, but I'm not sure what use I have for it since the Sopia 2 will be used most of the time for video output; I won't even be using my S-video port I installed much anymore with the DVI out. I thought about installing the Sophia 2 in my 1200XL instead, since I modded the 800's video with a resister change to the luminance and S-video out is pretty amazing now, but I've plans for a VBXE and Rapidus for my 1200XL, so that idea had no legs. I upgraded the 1200XL's video with the Supervideo 2.1 mod years ago too, and it's got an incredible S-video out as well, but VBXE and Sophia 2 will obsolete the video upgrades I've done on both. I do like the idea of both machines being different beasts with the 800 having the new Sophia 2 GTIA graphic modes, and the 1200XL having the new VBXE graphic modes and Rapidus. I'm still keeping the 32-in-1 OS in the 1200XL since there are compatibility issues with U1MB and the Rapidus anyway, and I already have 576K too on the 1200XL thanks to the Syscheck XL I have plugged into the 1200XL PBI, and Incognito on my 800 is pretty much the same as U1MB+Side 2. I figure why have two Atari's upgraded to be essentially the same machine, it seems redundant to me and this way I get to experience two very different yet compatible machines that I can use for different projects and uses. My 1200XL was already converted to PAL with Dropcheck GTIA board, but once I've converted the 800 to PAL I'll revert the 1200XL back to NTSC so I still have the best of both PAL and NTSC machines. I'm restoring and upgrading a 1200XL for a pal who lives in the U.K. anyway, so this way I have the GTIA PAL board to put in his 1200XL so he has no issues using it in PAL land.

I've been waiting on a PAL crystal to arrive in the post. It was supposed to be here on Monday according to estimated delivery, but when I checked Monday it was somewhere in Texas, not too far from me here in Oklahoma, so since it didn't arrive today, I'm hoping for tomorrow. I haven't checked tracking again yet... As soon as it arrives I'll install it, along with a Turbo Freezer that arrived about a month ago, though I'm waiting on a cable for the Incognito PBI too. Actually I'm also installing a real PBI port out the back of the 800 too, since the Turbo Freezer board and cartridge is too large to install in the memory card expansion area (or even just the cartridge directly connected to the Incognito PBI), and I don't want to install it internally elsewhere since I won't be able to access the cartridge without opening the case every time, so I'm back to my original plan of a PBI port out the back on the left side opposite to the PSU board since there is room on that side. Once upon a time I had the idea of using the hidden edge connector behind the CPU board and making a PBI adapter to connect to it, but decided it's just too much work and a convoluted idea anyway (I just liked the thought of making use of it). Luckily the Turbo Freezer came with both XL and XE boards, so I don't have to make one from scratch, just modify the bottom half of the case and can mount the XE board in the 800 with it's pass-thru as my 800 port. I'll connect the ribbon cable coming from the Incognito to it. Then the Turbo Freezer XL board will plug into the PBI port and be on the exterior rear where I can easily access it. This will also allow me to use The Turbo Freezer still with my 1200XL too, on which I previously made a PBI port (hacked out of a poor condition 600XL board and case I use for salvage parts). There are plenty more pictures of my upgraded and modded 1200XL I posted here on Atari Age a while back, if you do a search, if you want to see better pictures of it, the picture below is all I could find, ATM, in my files, to post here quickly.

Perfect examples of this are the Lucasfilm games (and also the faster CPU along with the strengths you point too make the games much better on the Atari). The Atari still had a LOT going for it IF games were programmed for it's strengths, which I personally think far out-weigh C64 strengths over Atari, but use of these strengths were few, and with most later titles being ports from C64 and other 8-bits, it made the Atari look weaker than it is.

I did want an ATR-8000 for many years, until I got my CA-2001 with built-in CP/M. I'm happy with it now since I can just run CP/M with it without worrying about extra components that the ATR requires. I know there is a lot more to the ATR,-8000, but I'm satisfied enough with my CA-2001 these days, and I didn't even need to upgrade it like Indus GT's require (so also no plans to upgrade my 2 Indus drives now either).

Yep, I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the version for my 800.

I still love using vintage floppy drives, and use them 90% of the time, even though I have MyIDE II on the 1200XL and Incognito on the 800, and 2 SDrive Max's; one I assembled, but never use and another I still have yet to assemble. The SDrive Max's I've decided I'll gift with the 1200XL and 800XL I'm gifting. I also have The!Cart and of course SIO2PC&APE. I have two Indus GT's and and 810 for my 800 and two Happy 1050's and a CA-2001 (which has CP/M ability already and so have felt no need to upgrade my Indus GT's) for my 1200XL. I still love playing multi-disk games and apps that use more than one drive for less or no disk swapping. Probably because it was a dream to have multiple floppy drives back in the day for software that used more than one, and now that I have them, my dream is full-filled (and I love using vintage hardware). So I'm the opposite of most people these days who use multiple virtual floppy drives. I also still use my 1010 and 410 on occasion just for kicks, but my 1010 I upgraded with Rambit, so software loads just about as fast on it as my standard 810. It's all about using lots of different hardware to me though, not about the most convenient or fastest way to load stuff. I'm a patient man. I'm the same way with my audio/video equipment. I have a CED, Laserdisc, VHS/S-VHS, DVD, Video CD, and Blue-ray players. On the audio side, I have reel-to-reel, 8-track, cassette, CD, MP3 and LP turntable. And I use them all. But I like this because I can use just about every media format I find in the wild at thrift stores, flea markets, vintage shops, etc. I have extensive libraries for all. I just love using and working with electronic hardware, vintage and modern.

Thanks for straightening me out on that stuff.👍 Though personally, I never plan on using RF for any system again in my life. Everything I own that is vintage I've already upgraded to video or S-video, including my 2600 and Bally Arcade. But still, it's important info for those who do still use RF.

Nice job, though I also don't care for the colors personally, in either picture. The first picture looks green, purple and orange to me, the second picture looks a bit more yellow, but still too green and the case looks brownish-purple. But I also know how poor cameras (like my old phone) change colors. But there is nothing about it that says "70's" or "Atari 400" to me at all.

Yes, I mentioned that in my post too!! My post: In my area, and I assumed this was across the nation (US), but maybe not, on broadcast TV there is only ONE analog station left, all broadcast stations are now digital, and that one station that is analog is an unused (static) channel that is specifically there for old farts like us to hook up our old equipment to RF. That is channel 3. That, of course, is only when using modern TV's and letting it auto-program the channels. Of course if you have an old CRT that you can manually turn to what would be an empty analog station, then channel 2 would be there to use. Channel 2 is a digital broadcast in my area and cannot be used for analog RF in my area on modern TV's as far as I know. Admittedly, I don't know much about it all though; I just recently gave up cable/satellite TV and started using only broadcast TV. Since I now use streaming services for 90% of my viewing.

In my area, and I assumed this was across the nation (US), but maybe not, on broadcast TV there is only ONE analog station left, all broadcast stations are now digital, and that one station that is analog is an unused (static) channel that is specifically there for old farts like us to hook up our old equipment to RF. That is channel 3. That, of course, is only when using modern TV's and letting it auto-program the channels. Of course if you have an old CRT that you can manually turn to what would be an empty analog station, then channel 2 would be there to use. Channel 2 is a digital broadcast in my area and cannot be used for analog RF in my area on modern TV's as far as I know. Admittedly, I don't know much about it all though; I just recently gave up cable/satellite TV and started using only broadcast TV. Since I now use streaming services for 90% of my viewing.

Frontier Cabin. 65 colors. FrontierCabin.xex

Audio software that I know of comes with the original MIDImate by Hybrid arts: Miditrack 1, 2 and 3. And there were one or two other MIDI adapters back in the day and I'm sure they came with software too, since back then MIDI was only used for music, until MIDImaze came along, which was never officially released on the 8-bits, so I don't know when the proto game was originally released. MIDImate's were the best because they included sync I/O. Of course that isn't necessary for networking and I never actually used them when I had a MIDImate. But if you had seen a Hybrid Arts MIDImate and MIDItrack III software in action in a music store, you would have been convinced, as I was (I bought the last display model for dirt cheap in the late 90's from a music shop), @dash_rendar , MIDItrack III (never used 1 or 2, but 3 requires 128K) is an amazing piece of software and after seeing it demoed and then using it for myself, I never felt it was inferior to 16-bit software, it just didn't use a GUI interface. I too, was going to install a MIDImate or DIY MIDI internally in at least one of my machines as I'm the same and don't like (especially dead-end) a bunch of external devices and have enough already. But, I've so many upgrades installed internally already, and more to come, that I'm short on I/O port space now, so I've decided to go with externals instead. After all, they only need to be plugged in when using them... Plans and Gerber files, and the best 8-bit software can be found here: https://ataribits.weebly.com/midi.html

Yes, I have a nice iron with temperature control, but it's been over a decade since I removed any modulators and back then I had a cheap Radioshack iron too.

I suppose I didn't take into account that I don't have any large/wide tips for my solder iron, only the normal DIP size tips and fine for surface mount.

No good reason to keep it really*, but they are a pain to remove and the only reason is to make room for something else (VERY understandable when it comes to the 600XL and it's lack of space inside) or to get rid of interference from it through video output. I don't think that is a factor at all though with UAV's and similar video board upgrades that use their own isolated video paths.. I've removed RF's from 3 1200XL's and an 800XL, though I didn't remove the one in my 800, but I did disconnect it, but I did this to them all because I still use the original (DIY fixed and/or upgraded) video circuits for output. At least until my Sophia 2 for my 800 arrives, and I get around to buying a VBXE for my main 1200XL. *The only reason to have RF's any more is for those who want to keep everything stock and original for collector's purposes mostly.

I would be interested in 2, so I can link my upgraded 1200XL and 800. Though I sure would like to have an 800 style case for one...any chance you could make those too? There are quite a few Incognito 800's out there now that can play Midi Maze. I don't know if Dropcheck's or Video61's XEGS super carts will work on 48K machines, but if they do, then there might be quite a few people wanting SIO2MIDI in 800 style cases. I was going to build them myself, but I'd still need cases and I already have way to many projects in the works, so buying pre-built sounds good to me in this case. I built assembled 2 of my own SDrive Max's and bought a 3D printed XL style case for one, but still need another... I've heard this was possible too, but I've never even seen XE's or ST's in action among their own kind.

This is what I did over a decade ago. I'm happy with my 2 1200XL's and 800, and upgrading them. I'm still collecting peripherals for them though, I have a nearly complete XL system and I'm still working on the 800 system with all available Atari-brand peripherals besides printers, except for my 1020 plotter and I want one of the 800's 40-column printers too, preferably the 820, but I'll settle for the 822. I have a Panasonic 24-pin dot-matrix printer and other Atari brand printers would be a downgrade. The second 1200XL I still haven't decided to keep it for a back-up, or totally upgrade and mod it too. I actually have a third 1200XL and an 800XL in my possession too, but those I'm restoring and upgrading as gifts for others. I'll get a C64 set-up eventually, but nothing else. I'm happy with what I have.

So was it just a lack of interest on Kodak's part for it not working out, or had the TT030's been discarded and the rumor false?

Only the 800 is new for me in the last decade as far as Atari computers, but yes, I've accumulated lots of peripherals and upgrades since back then...but I don't feel like listing them here now or doing the poll. If anyone wants to know, they can find out what I have in my profiles here and on other Atari forums.

I don't knock emulation in general (or new boards that emulate Atari custom IC's within the real computer), I use it for other computers and consoles that I play once in a while (especially emulated systems on my Dreamcast) and I use Altirra with Rastaconverter. But being a hardware guy, I love using and working on the real Atari hardware as much as using the software, Without it half my hobby is erased, and I don't get enough joy out of just running Atari software via emulation to sustain it as a "hobby." Emulation is all right for my passing fancy with most other systems (I still want a real C64 system though). Emulation alone for Atari 8-bits sucks and blows for me, I must have my original gadgets! As far a development of software, I'm still learning to program and that is a way off for me yet, but even so, my enjoyment of programming comes from programming on my ATARI, so even when that time comes, I'll be doing it the old-school way on the actual machine, using the old hardware and working on it is what gives me the joy and ambition, without it, just programming, even for an Atari, on a different machine holds no interest for me at all. It's all about using the vintage hardware for me, whether hacking the hardware, gaming, using productivity applications or programming, without the real hardware to use, my interest fades to near zero. I certainly don't knock emulation for others, if it's good enough for them, it's just not my personal cup of tea. If emulation encourages other's to program software for Atari's then I'm all for it, for them. I like new software to use on my old Atari so kudos to those that do it! Personally I'd just find another hobby if I had to rely on emulation alone.

Well, now, I missed this one 9-1/2 years ago as that was during a time my Atari shite was in storage...so, here is my list...nah! J/K. All I will say is I wouldn't be here if I didn't have the real McCoy. The day I don't have a real Atari is the day I no longer come here or bother with any of it. Emulation, no matter how good, SUCKS and BLOWS at the same time!🤔

Not to discount this cute little Basic program that some of the features of these games below could be incorporated into it, but this reminds me of a couple favorites of mine; T-34 Tank Battle and Tank vs. Tank. T-34 is better, but requires 128K. T-34 is two player only (but I enjoy playing both players as a lone gamer) the other, IIRC, you can play against the computer. Both games were released by Mirage Software of Poland. I find them both borderline obsessive too, even playing two-player alone. T-34 has lots of game options and cool little extras that enhance the game with it's 128K memory. http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-t-34-the-battle_5225.html http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-tank-vs-tank_5263.html

Very Nice @Simius ! I just recently diverted all my I/O from the side of my 800 to underneath though, so I'll use all your tips except Shield slit and DVI connector locations when I get mine! I'll definitely have to be creative with where I mount it, but wherever I mount it, one of these DVI-to-HDMI adapters will be more or less permanently connected to the DVI port on the 800: