Mark2008

What I ended up doing is not using the SysCheck as the device, because I would've had to have changed the connector on it, and instead just using a 1090 repro as the device to test with. The first cable I'm using is just an 18" rainbow cable, which is plenty enough to put the device to the side. So far no issues noticed. But I do plan to setup a more grueling 24 hour test, perhaps this weekend. The four foot cable has a slight complication in that they didn't cut one end in the right spot, it is a shielded, twisted pair cable, but it has it has flat areas for the connector, one one end they didn't cut it in the flat area, so I have to shorten it. anyway....will post when I have news.

Perfect. I forgot that I used to have d1: hooked up just so my setup would read a config.sys from d1: instead of the car device. I don't have a u1mb. anyway working now.

@reifsnyderb on the 320k ram card, creating a Ramdisk under SpartaDos X. Does this take anything special? Driver or patch? Google took me to a thread about Ramdisk spartados x and an os patch, but I wasn't sure if that was the latest or related to this.

I used to have the lotharek AKI USB installed, but it is impossible to program in PL65 without < and > and so I had to remove it. I had it replaced with the lotharek's dark Aki PS2. Yeah, I know, rewarded him with a second sale, but the reality is, I appreciate our Atari dealers, none are the perfect experience, but having Atari dealers is a cool part of the Atari hobby. That doesn't mean I wouldn't say the AKI USB is worth purchasing or he is right to sell it when it doesn't work - because it doesn't work and he shouldn't sell lit. After getting a PS2 Atari Keyboard Interface installed - I got a USB keyboard with CherryMX brown keys that supports the PS2 protocol. The Filco Majestouch. https://www.ebay.com/itm/313474069736 Something like that one. This isn't a keyboard review, but if someone is looking for a Cherry MX USB keyboard that also supports PS2 protocol so you can use it in ps2 mode with adapter, this keyboard is a solution. I love that keyboard, as a matter of fact, the typing is so superb, best of any keyboard I own, pc or Mac. Because of the Cherry Mx keys of course, and that also allowed me to order keycaps from Etsy and I have all the Atari function keys printed in Atari 800 orange, plus an Atari logo key.

I was just going to play once but I somehow had it restart so, anyway, second score was nearly twice as much

I did in the sense, that I have on order a twisted pair, double shielded round cable, as one of the first things I will try. However it is not spec'd the same as the impedance on that cable. I'm kind of digressing here a bit, but I was reading the Atari 800XL service manual trying to gather information "The parallel bus interface (PBI) provides an un-buffered, direct connection to the address, date and control signals shown below. It could be used to interface peripherals, parallel bus devices and external applications." Doesn't really talk about building cable. But anyway, so, I've been reading various discussions about avoiding reflection in long cables, however they don't really define what is 'long' and they talk of matching impedance, but the discussion haven't yet led me to pinpoint a purchasing decision hence my 'practical observation' approach at the moment.

My thought on testing reliability, and again I'm sharing because there may be better ways, known ways to do this, I'm just coming up with, as they used to say on MASH "Meatball surgery" here. But, my plan was to setup a Ramdisk on the PBI device. then for 24 hours have a program make a copy of a file, say of a file, make a copy of that copy, make a copy of the most recent copy and so forth. This would use the RAM on the PBI device for a full 24 Horus, and in the end, I would expect 2 results: the program ran without error, the final copy is an exact byte match of the original file. If that works on the device connected with the shortest of cables to the computer, I could run the same 24 hour test on the device connected with a the longer cable distances looking for a distance with complete reliability of course.

Agreed, it may be quite unlikely to go that distance, but nevertheless, there is a benefit to starting long. Which is, when you buy cabling you have to buy it from the vendor in certain distances, as near as I can tell. so one vendor I had to buy 5' or 1'. The other one, I chose 4' and had choices of 1' increments. I would then naturally test it at that length, if it doesn't work, cut it down, test again. Once it works reliably, I would no longer seek to make it shorter. Bit of a trial and error experiment here. In the end it will work at some distance, if I end up going all the way to 6" for each cable, then I've just created a bunch of extra replacement cables. I'm only working on a cable for the Atari PBI and mentioning the TI-99/4A as one example of where the processor communicated with memory at full speed, at a distance. Of course they had real engineers working on it, and I am not a hardware engineer. The TI cable, from my understanding is a flat ribbon cable with shielding and rubber. Heavy duty flat cables with EMF/RFshielding and even with the addition of twisted pair exist. Here, the shielding protects against EMF/RF interference, and the twisted pair is intended to reduce crosstalk. The schematics of the TI's PEB suggest it had buffers on most lines. However, user testimony is they did successfully construct cables that extended that PBI system with a plain cab le to get it (the elephant foot connector) from the side of the TI to the back, which was useful to free up that side of the computer's desk space. So I do hope to have the level of success here - have a longer cable enough at least, as you said to keep the keyboard in front of the screen. we'll see anyway, if I go down in flames, I'll let you all know!

I have not had any weekend time to work on two birds for a few weeks, but I'm going to try to pick it up anyway, in February. Even if I have to schedule a vacation week. Oh goodness. This is six levels of the first 10, that I will say is mostly experimental code right now. I plan to turn off the visuals when loading up character sets. I think I've oversized both the birds and the stone, making the game too easy. And I need to use some optimizations to the characters sets to change later how the 'spark' animation works. But, really I feel like once the engine is optimized for the first 10 levels, the second 10 levels will go faster. anyhow....attached the code that is now unchanged for two weeks....just for fun at least it shows the basic idea. I will say also it is possible to find bugs here, with the text display. that's not buggy code I wrote, so much as buggy code I"m using for convenience, I will eventually directly write to the screen for updating score....which will solve that problem. For now, it worksish good enough while I test other things. twobirds.ATR

Although mentioned in another thread, I won't derail that thread, and just start a PBI cable thread here. My goal is to see if one can set a PBI device away from the Atari on the other end of a cable, say 1m or 1.5m away. I ordered an Atari 800XL off e-bay for the computer side of the test, and I will use my SysCheck as the device. No particular news today, just researching options. These are the one's I like, at this moment. 1. Belden 9V28350; Shielded Jacketed Vari-Twist Cable with mass termination runways Designed for external interconnection applications. url: https://www.elliottelectronicsupply.com/9v28350.html (note: picture does not appear to be accurate) Drawback: Flat cable 2. 3M157847-5-ND; 50 (25 Pair Twisted) Conductor Multi-Pair Cable Gray 28 AWG Foil, Braid url: https://www.digikey.com/en/products/detail/3m/3600G-50-100/9478469 Drawback: Not mass terminated 3. 3M 3659/50; Ribbon Screened Cable, Round Jacketed Flat, Per M, 50 Core, 28 AWG, 0.072 mm , 1.27 mm url: https://www.newark.com/3m/3659-50/ribbon-screened-cable-round-jacketed/dp/08WX9924 Drawback: Not twisted pair I was reading a lot of discussion on the TI-99/4A forum about their flat cable that allowed the Peripheral Expansion Box, which typically housed 32k of memory for the system, to be placed several feet away from the TI and yet it still operated at full CPU speed. Wondering what options there may be for Atari PBI cabling. I ordered cables 1 and 2 listed above. Mail is slow recently, but hopefully I'll have the first parts arriving before this weekend.

The HDMI adapter is a scan doubler. https://www.ebay.com/itm/394655413253 Like that one. output is HDMI output format: 720P@50/60Hz, 1080P@50/60Hz Which actually doesn't mean it works with every monitor, but it works with most common monitors. I have a relatively unusual 4:3 monitor with HDMI input and it works better with something that doesn't just scan double but also merely doubles up the resolution from 240p to 480p, like a retrotink2x. So for that monitor, 720p or 1080p, is not desired. But that is not usually the case, most of the time 720p or 1080p is desired.

My VBXE output, I use with a SCART cable, and then they have SCART to HDMI adapters on eBay for $30. It worked well, I don't use that solution any more. Nowadays I use SCART to OSSC and then output to VGA. This is just because I like the look of my 21" Samsung monitor ( 4:3 aspect ratio). It looks cool, but only has VGA/DVI input. Coincidentally I do have an LCD panel that takes 15khz natively, but it jailbars the picture, unfortunately.

I also like the idea of an Atari CPU acceleration card. My Atari today is a 130XE with Rapidus/VBXE/Side2/modern keyboard. It works, but despite the fact that I have that stack already, if someone could just buy the parts and plug them into an unmodified Atari, that would be astonishing, and way easier than what it took to get this system together. And the 1090 already has the 80 column card and memory expansion. add accelerator, hard drive, keyboard controller, that just makes compiling old school on the Atari so pleasant. I know it's a lot to do, of course. Anyway, despite having the rapidus/vbxe/side 2 stack, there are issues that the 1090 could solve. Side 2 takes the cartridge port, I'd prefer my hard drive wasn't cartridge based. VBXE outputs to 15khz analog RGB, my preference is HDMI (1090 80 col. already does this). The fujinet is cool, my understanding it is based on the esp32, which itself is a modern 32-bit processor, depending on the variant running at 160mhz or 240mhz, having a modern processor inside the Atari is cool enough, heck you could put an amd ryzen 9 inside, I'd be happy. you know what, come to think of it, I vote for whatever happens is awesome,

Even though I don't own a 1091 or 1090, I've become somewhat fascinated with building cables, after I saw a YouTube video on building a cable for a Magnavox RGB 80, and I followed the tutorial and it mostly worked except the picture was noisy - which is mostly a failure I guess, since I will never use it, I hate noise in a picture. But, it was kind of neat to see the display come up. I digress. I did some googling on the TI cable, I think TI just had a flat ribbon cable that was shielded and placed in rubber, although they had some buffering on one end of the cable. So I'm not sure only a cable is the answer. But I'm wondering at what length a cable stops working, if someone went with high quality twisted pair, would it make it a longer distance. Here is what I find from googling others have done 1) https://www.cablesforless.com/custom-dual-50-pin-shielded-ribbon-cable-5/ 2) The TI-99/4A twisted pair replacement cable flex cable done originally by Shift838, he doesn't make them anymore, but he used this : https://iec.net/product/28-gauge-25-pair-double-shield-scsi-cable/ So I've ordered all the parts for a 5 ft cable from digikey, which is 25-pair shielded 28AWG cabling, and also female edge connectors and I already have the rest of the parts such as heat shrink and whatnot. So, anyway, since I neither own an Atari 800XL or a 1090 expansion box, this is a bit ambitious, There is a lot of discussion in the TI forums about what is required to replace their cable...not clear from that discussion, but at least it gives me hope.

I use a syscheck bought from tf_hh as well. Works perfectly, I've had it for years now. I appreciate he has a cased version, matches my 130xe perfectly and saves stress on the cartridge port, where tabs can break off if you use cartridges regularly. As others have said, so inexpensive! I also bought his 64k SRAM charger, and that worked like a charm

That's good discussion, and I admit I took the sales estimate from Wikipedia. I notice Facebook Atari 8-bit Computers (private) has 12.2K members, and the Facebook group "Texas Instruments TI-99/4A" (private) has 1.1K members. And although I have never visited it, just to throw in another metric, Commodore 64 (C64) (private) 44.4K members. Well of course this is not a perfect metric, the size of a Facebook group depends in part on the history of the group itself, when it started, how many schisms the group may have endured, whether there are multiple such groups or competing non-facebook platforms, whether membership is public or private, etc. But, that group size, along with other metrics, say new software released each year, hints to me, there are differences in continuing popularity not explained by original marketshare alone. I wasn't curious about this as a some kind of contest, of course, and the TI community is quite interesting.

not Atari related, but key cap related. I actually bought a TI-99/4a for cheap - working w/power supply, parsec, joysticks and speech synthesizer for $60. but, missing two keycaps. So, in my position as a non-TI collector generally, I don't have parts in my collection, getting a new keyboard is out of the question, cheapest for sale is $80. I could get another TI, just for parts, and spend $40, but I don't want a lot of parts, it becomes a task later to get rid of them. or buy 3d printed keycaps, or buy Atari 800 keycaps which the original 800 appears to match the keycap stems of this machine. But - they of course wouldn't have the correct printing on them. I'll probably go with 3d printed blanks, and put a sticker on them. it'll cost me $20 or so, still, seemingly the least expensive option. all this just to sell the machine for a loss. I find buying other platforms is not usually a great idea for me, because I don't even finish my Atari projects, why would it make sense to start a new project on an entirely new platform, but in my mind, in the moment I make the purchase, it's a fantastic idea.

Curious, how did TI get away with the longer flex cable on the PEB? I mean I assume it works differently, but curious about it. The guy over at Shift838 came up with replacement flex cable system, that uses twisted pair and goes 5 feet.

Realistically how many are they going to sell, this is a "higher end" project than the A400 Mini, in my view. I'm interested in it. But if they sell 200 I'd be surprised. I don't know - wild guess. I'm glad it exists, erm, potentially exists soon. Personally, I don't see much reason to think it is a problem for anyone, both from a competitive standpoint or legal one. Here is how I view things, the TI-99/4A sold about 2.8 million units BITD, and the Atari 8-bit line, maybe 4 million. But the continued interest in Atari 8-bit as compared to the TI s far greater than those original sales numbers would suggest. And that's because of the decision all those years ago for Atari to open up on you program the thing, De Re Atari, the encouragement of home development of software and hardware add-ons, compared to TI's 'razors and blades' mentality and suing of 3rd party software developers. Anyway, my 2 cents, modern day Atari should recognize that these homages are good for their continuing brand, developing a reputation for lawsuits is the opposite of what I'd expect from a home computer pioneer. The revolution is for the masses, power without the price. boo ya.

I am going to follow Andy West tutorial on Element 14, listed here: https://community.element14.com/challenges-projects/element14-presents/project-videos/w/documents/23183/making-a-3d-graphics-card-for-the-atari-800-xl----episode-514 And the reason I'm doing it, is because it is a breadboard design, and I hear you can use programming skills to turn a breadboard design into a KiCad design. I'm starting with zero knowledge. I will appreciate advice. Now, I do recognize I will have to do most of the learning on my own, but if you have advice for where someone should start, let me know. I've downloaded KiCad off GitHub. I've done some searches on YouTube for KiCad tutorials on PCB layout. I ordered all the parts, but they are backordered so there will be a month delay, just as well, need plenty of time to do some reading.

This will seem out of left field, but it's just to understand your throughts more precisely. Say someone is a professional programmer and has no hands. They use cognitive skills to develop programs, as far as handiwork, physical skills, they have none. Can they use only programming skills, having someone else make the boards form KiCad designs - and have a finished product. Or is there still an assumption of eventually picking up soldering iron placing parts on the boards and doing some physical work. Not that I have any time, work is taking all my free time again, and I may not even visit AtariAge for another 6 months, it happens every year without fail, but I would find it absolutely thrilling if I could participate in board design someday...I find this thought to be quite appealing, b ut I keep thinking, no there is more to it, you have to pick up a soldering iron -b ut let me know if I'm wrong. p.s. that was a theoretical, I have hands.

I admire your badgering skills. On that 80-column card, is it a two monitor solution? Meaning like the original XEP80 required two monitors? Also, it looks like it is widescreen, I'm assuming that was just your preference? Thanks for the review.

well I may regret this, because it hasn't arrived yet, but on its way to me. Magnavox Professional RGB/80 Composite w/Green button + Analog RGB. Which theoretically means it could accept both XEP80 and VBXE output and switch between them with a button push. But I'm not assuming it will work that way, due to the XEP80 overscan issue. For the most part I have avoided CRT monitors, but I did once order an SC1224, because I got an awesome deal on a lot of stuff, and my plan was to sell off the rest - get 100% of my money back and keep the SC1224. Which is what happened. But what also happened is the SC1224 burned out one day later, even though it worked when it arrived. That made me even more hesitant to try an old school CRT, but heck I want one.

Bought

Doesn't Alitrra run under wine? I do have Altirra on my MacBook, however I am just using windows emulation and the ARM version, but anyway, I was wondering if the Altirra via Wine solution still works, or has some limitations? What would be the advantage to a native port?