barnieg

I believe a lot of the reasoning behind going with a Z80 or 6502 was related to the engineers and designers of these systems and what they were experienced with. The UK computer scene only really took off with the ZX80 then ZX81 which were a few years later than the Apple II and Commodore PET in the States. I remember reading some of the history behind the Amstrad CPC and aparently it was originally destined to have a 6502 however there was more Z80 expertise around (at least with the team hired to design the system) so they went with the Z80 Either way it really is a shame (and I feel its held back progress) that it was the IBM-PC design that ended up the defacto standard. How would the industry have looked if the Commodore 64 had evolved like the PC or Apple had put more effort into the IIGS for example? Barnie

I've just left my comment ... Microsoft SDK mumble mumble

As I have a drastically reduced retro collection I got out the PSP the other day and found that the Catch/Slide that opens the UMD drive has been broken off. I can open the UMD drive by using a flat blade screwdriver and moving the slide in the correct direction but this isn't ideal. Any ideas on the best way to repair it? I hardly use the UMD so its not overly important, however it would be nice to get fixed if possible Barnie

I can't remember doing anything with Amiga Basic I do remember been completely under whelmed by it. I played around with the Amiga not doing any serious programming on it as most its use was for my college course. I had the Devpac Assembler, Lattice C and finally Blitz Basic for which I still have the manual. Rather unfortunately I stored a lot of my Amiga Stuff at my Brothers between house moves and most of it was stolen after a break-in Barnie

Added Spectrum +2, Atari 7800 Joypad, Zipstick and Atari STM1 Mouse Note: Will post the controllers and Mouse to United States and Canada Barnie

Added 130XE with SIO2SD, Touch tablet and a few other items. Hopefully will have time to add more tomorrow. Barnie

From Memory a 130XE, Atari Touch tablet, SIO2SD will hopefully get a chance to test them later as been in storage for a bit

Our cramped little house has no room to organise everything and as we are planning to buy some where bigger (fingers crossed) next year I need to start clearing out stuff so that I can start my collections again, hopefully more organised next time around. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251046922923 Retro Gamer Magazines eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251047500748 Maxtor External Hard drives eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251047512132 1. Speed touch ST780 WL ADSL Modem/ Router 2. Apple Desktop BusMouse II 3. A4Tech Hub Master - USB Hub and audio + PS2 extenders 4. Geforce MX4000 (AGP?) with label 64M TV-OUT - has svideo and VGA connectors eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251048073442 Atari 130XE with SIO2SD interface and 128MB Micro SD card with Adapter 251048077654 Atari Touch tablet for 8-bit Atari Computers eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251048804582 ZX Spectrum +2 with SCART cable & MP3 Tape adapter eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251048858760 Atari 7800 Joypad eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251048861850 Zipstick Joystick eBay Auction -- Item Number: 251048864403 Atari STM1 Mouse Will be getting rid of other odds and ends over the next few days. Barnie

At some point I'm probably going to have to get hold of an Aquarius and mini expander but I don't think my abilites have progressed beyond needing just the emulator for the time being (and it will mean making space by getting rid of some existing stuff) Theres loads of stuff out there documentation wise for the sound chip in the mini expander for other systems so adapting that should not be too difficult and its something I will try to get my head around once graphics are moving around reasonably. I'd like to see more on "chasing the beam" to obtain new graphic effects even acheiving a tenth of what's been done on systems such as the ZX Spectrum recently would be a good leap forward! Barnie

Finally getting back to some hobby time with my Aquarius programming and looking for some advice/ideas on storing the information for game "blocks" that will contain character and code information I've thought about something along these lines(C code example for z88dk) : ... int block1[6]={x,y,a,c,d,e,f,g,acol,bcol,ccol,dcol,ecol,fcol,gcol}; .. Where x and y would represent block size by number of characters, a to g would be the character code values from the Aquarius character set and acol to gcol would be the corresponding colour values. The block draw routine would contain a variation of the following: .. bpoke(addr,value); .. To place the relevant character and colour values in memory. Is this along the right lines? I'm trying not to overcomplicate the structure so that any thing written is easily portable to other platforms, I would also like to document/share any useful routines written so that we are not all having to reinvent the wheel Barnie

I agree Mint items fetch more, regardless of that I think there are less sellers trying to get Silly prices. As for my particular STE I bought it in apparently working condition, the floppy drive never worked properly, so after a few months of it sitting on top of a cupboard I thought it better to get rid of it for now until I can afford to repair stuff. I listed my item as not working which again would have had an effect on prices. There are also the differences between buyers who want to play and program retro computers and those that want to collect and or restore systems that are close to original condition Barnie

At the moment space & cash at home is at a premium, I'd bought the STE on ebay a while back and shortly after I got it the floppy died. At the moment I've got enough other retro stuff to play with. A Mega STE would be nice because it would be an easier fit (in theory) when I've cleared some decent space to set-up all my "toys". Might be a nice present to myself when I've got rid of enough clutter - only about 15 boxes of comics & various computer cr*p to go! Barnie

Considering how well the (unreleased) ZX Spectrum version works for speed I'm sure a decent version could be done, available RAM being maybe the only problem Note: You might need to turn down the volume, the soundtrack is not from the spectrum! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFGNKA-03Ig Barnie

Hi all, I've just sold an STE on ebay for £5.00 which needs some work on it, a bit less than I hoped but I actually don't mind as hopefully what is happening is Atari stuff is becoming more reasonable and hopefully the STE is going to someone who will get some good use out of it. Doe's anyone else think prices are lower at the moment? I'm hoping to replace the STE maybe with a Mega STE when I have a bit more cash (and space) what chances are there of getting one at a reasonable value? Barnie

Added Sony PlayStation 2 Original style model with Scart lead + Composite adapter. 8Mb memory card & third party controller. The Following 4 discs are included: 1.midway arcade treasures - Over 20 classic arcade games 2. Taito Legends 2 - Includes Puzzle Bobble 2 and others. Note: missing manual 3. Star Wars Battlefront II - When tested stuttered at Character creation screen until disc was cleaned then seemed ok 4. Lego Star Wars II - The Original Trilogy Tested and all seems ok. Atari STE now sold, Other items re-listed. Playstation 2 now relisted Barnie

Just noticed this when placing my own add, very tempting if I can get rid off enough of my stuff! Would be a nice way to replace the 2600jr which doesn't work to well on the flat screen. My only problem may be the PSU. Barnie

I'm in the process of closing down my former business and as we had to clear out the office our already crowded house is full of business and personal stuff that needs to go to make some space and maybe help clear off some of that pesky personal guarantee that the bank insisted on for the business . Will be posting more items over the next few weeks on this thread. Items so far Atari STE that needs a floppy drive eBay Auction -- Item Number: 250889237015 Lenovo G550 15.6 inch notebook needing replacement keyboard eBay Auction -- Item Number: 270816688114 Cloud Engines PogoPlug (pink) and other items eBay Auction -- Item Number: 270816738950 If you contact me and mention AtariAge I'm happy to arrange for you to have a look at items before Auctions end if you can get to Rugby, Warwickshire Sony Playstation 2 with 4 games eBay Auction -- Item Number: 250891346621 thanks Barnie

It's been a few months since I've done this but I had dasm working from the batari basic binary download which includes the executable, I've not had a chance to play with it since then: http://bataribasic.com/download.html try the statically linked binary's Barnie

The information around this seems to be vague, however if as it appears Atari are going after Emulators that could set a dangerous precedent. If Atari where able to get emulators withdrawn despite their legal or moral right to do so what happens to emulators of other systems? Is all this a the trend towards media owners wanting us to keep on paying indefinitely for the same software? Regarding copyrighted code such as os roms - didn't Hasbro makes some sort of public announcement about being free to use or was that limited to just the Jaguar? Its reasonably clear-cut on some other platforms - you can buy cloanto's software for the c64 & Amiga (and I've used the amigaroms from Amiga Forever on versions of uae for Linux with no problems) As for games - A retro game player shouldn’t have to pay again if they run a game in emulation but already own the original game. For games that players don't own media owners need to have a cheap and easy way to purchase the rights to game bundles that can be used on any system i.e not restricted to a particular platform Barnie

I Remember buying this on the Amiga when it first came out, and it definitely had the joystick port dongle. They probably dropped this for re-releases of the game Barnie