Wrathchild

Mostly CA65&LD65 (the assembler/linker that comes with the CC65 suite). The control you can get when using your own loader configuration files is very useful - e.g. for building cartridge images.

Great progress, well worth the wait! I'd recommend looking at continuing with a bank-switched cartridge model for development, required data (music, graphics and even game code etc) need only be switched in when required, leaving quite a lot of RAM left for the game (e.g. display). The overheads are minimal and benefits are that we all won't need a 130XE or modified XL. Plus development can still be done on the common emulators. Regards, Mark Question: Will the backdrop get all those little animations?

I always loved Captive

Yes thanks, I'm using an internal drive but booting the soft-rom from floppy/SIO2PC. I really need to get around to burning (or buying) a replacement MyIDE ROM as that should solve the problems with the I/O redirection, e.g. Multi-boot Menu disks with 2-part games on the menus can't load the second part. Other than that it does make a great setup and you new menu software is a great tool! Does anyone have experience of the ROM? does it fix those problems? Also, what are peoples experiences of using the HD only, i.e. no 1050 or SIO2PC mounted D1:? Does the HD boot up directly? What would you put on the bootable partition? Just all your myIDE tools I'd guess, or perhaps a menu system. Can someone look at my other questions on the 'best DOS thread'? http://www.atariage.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=64417 Regards, Mark

Hi Shawn, With regards to using the myIDE method of selecting a disk image (Ctrl-Shift-n), presumably this refer only to the first 9 images on the drive. Does your image menu allow you to 'swap' already uploaded disk images into those positions? Regards, Mark

I don't think this too possible without some clever remapping algorithm, most of my 2.5" HD IDE drives have different numbers of sectors, cylinders and heads and so how the data is layed out/extracted would differ between them.

Just recently I've had up and running a MyIDE interface. The tools disks for this comes with MyDOS and the APE stuff seems to favour MyDOS. What I've come across though is that there is a file to folder limit of 64 entries, so just being able to dump across a folder or set of folders from an APE connected drive to an internal HD isn't possible unless you organise you folders properly in advance. Even them, I haven't found a recursive copier for MyDOS yet. Does anyone have one? Maybe I'll have a go at setting up an HD with SpartaDOS instead. So a simplistic summary would be that MyDOS and SpartDOS have an advantage over AtariDOSes due to the folder support. Another consideration maybe to think in terms of helpful loader menus. The newer (slimmer?) DOSes appear to support these well but I don't have much experience of them. Regards, Mark

This latest test disk is great! Now detects my USB devices that the older disk didn't. These are an IRDA device, Flash HD/MP3 player and an Ethernet adaptor. The IRDA and Ethernet adaptors can use small buffers for data transfer and so I might play with the Ethernet adaptor on occasion. Are there any hint docs at how to program the non-HID devices? Or just follow the USB spec docs? One thing I have downloaded is the HHD USB monitor (http://www.hhdsoftware.com/usbmon.html). Is that about the best (free) tool for helping to work out what's going on between a PC and a device? Thanks, Mark

We used a glue gun to put some blobs of glue on the chips in order to hold things down. But after my first attempt didn't work I had to separate them - hence the glue still on the RAM chips. In the end, all I had done wrong was to put the IDE cable on the HD the wrong way around and that was why it didn't work

Finally I've got around to getting a digital-camera and so first things first... take a few shots of the MyIDE internal setup One thing troubling me at the moment, perhaps someone can shed some light on it, I get some trouble with Player/Missile graphic corruption. It looks like a timing problem as they jitter about. If the cables are unpluged from the MyIDE board after a game has loaded from the drive, the corruption goes away. Just unplugging the HD is not enough. This makes me thinks its not because of where I am tapping the power for the HD from. Maybe something got buggered during the soldering? Any ideas what maybe causing this, interference? The MyIDE interface itself sits to the right of the cartridge slot with cables coming from it which are then nicely folded and glued down. The Hard-drive itself sits on top of the RAM chips. Note that the (smoothing?) capacitor previously bridging power and ground is de-soldered and put on wires to make space for the HD. This works quite well as the metal shielding case can still be installed before putting the keyboard and top cover back on. I'm have also been pooling some <1GB drives found on Ebay so that, once a batch of MyIDE boards can be made, I can install them into other machines for re-selling, or maybe even offer an install service. The alternative 2.5" adapter looks like it would work well in a 65XE as the HD can be mounted under the vents a the top-rear of the case. Hope that helps. Regards, Mark

Just in from work... yes it is 10.30pm UK time Here's some screenshots (the 4 title menu are 512K)

Now's probably a good time to announce a project that has sat on a back burner for a (long) while whilst work (relentlessly) keeps me so busy I'm getting no time for anything After earlier reverse-engineering the Infocom engine and then relocating it to the cart-mem area (search AA for Hitchiker's), I then set about getting together all of the A8 released games and then produced two sets of images for carts (Thanks to JetBootJack and Jindroush for their help with that). These were 256K (1Mbit) versions with 3 games each and 1024K (8Mbit) versions with a cart per genre, e.g. Fantasy, Mystery etc. Therefore these are playable and allow you to save states to disk. However, [email protected] supplied me with the routines to write to the flash cart and so my aim is to incorporate this into the original interpreter to replace the disk write routines. I also wanted to add title graphics (cover scans) for all of the games. So with the space required for the saving, assuming more than one slot will be used, means that the number of titles per cart is reduced (4 or 6 - I'll clarify the titles->cart later). So I need to all of you to give me a proverbial kick up the backside to get this completed, however I do envisage the daytime being pretty full-on until April!. The finished product should end up being available through Atarimax, so that may affect the releasing of 'images' for emulators Screenshots to follow Happy New Year! Mark

I tend to pick up <1Gig laptop drives Ebay and these work OK in an 800XL due to the larger power supply. I'm not sure of the power requirements for a flash card (but I'd imagine they'd be less) so they could be a more sensible option for an XE machine with a 1A power supply. I guess if you're 'working' from the drive then the TOC entries will be updated regularly, but if you are simply loading loads of EXEs and BINs for running games then this part of the disk isn't going to be updated that often.

Talking of Sky DLIs, does anyone know of an A8 demo with an effect similar to that seen in Paradroid 90 when the game's over (I used to play the ST version) where night falls on the city-scape? Even static skies like that in Hardball still look cool on the A8. Regards, Mark

Isn't playing Agent USA just as educational :wink:

I always thought the Power Per Post "SAM" stuff was nice. Available cheaply through Dean Garraghty in the UK http://www.dgs.clara.net/

Thanks for the offers guys, I've accepted deathtrappomegranate's donation Cheers, Mark

Does anyone have a spare version of this for the Atari 8-bit? I'll review my carts and see if I have any duplicates to give up, (if none - you could have Ace of Aces in return as I hate it) Failing that, there's even some 2600 carts in the loft. I can get these out and see what they are.

Just spotted these today.... Who can't read the disk label? ATARI GAME - ZONK II - 400/800/XL/XE DISK http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...8154013258&rd=1 Also, though the description is correct, the title isn't ATARI 400/800 BASIC CARTRIDGE - ESSENTIAL! (XE,XL) http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...8154012825&rd=1

Joy of joys, my XL's internal myIDE interface does work and the 2.5" hard disk works from the XLs power supply. FYI: we used a meter to look at the current drain and this is what we saw. Normal XL - about 0.8A. Bootup with HD, jumps to 1.5A, drops to 1.2A during initialization and then drops again to 0.8A once settled (maybe 0.9A, can't quite remember). I have some 65XEs too, so I guess putting the I/F into these would require a separate power supply for the HD as the XE's 1.0A power supply would load up on initializing the HD? My earlier problems were my fault - I'd put the IDE cable in the wrong way around, the power goes to the pins towards the outside of the drive, not those by the master/slave pins The HD check programs appear to work OK so on Friday I intend to partition and format the drive and start to transfer so software to it. Regards, Mark Aside question: I saw the insides of a 65XE for the first time yesterday. There appear to be spaces for extra RAM chips, so can a 65XE be made compatible with 130XE fairly easily by installing the chips?

Just thought that someone should pop up and say: "Wow, a post from JetBootJack!!... Welcome back, its been too long!"

Alien Swarm deserves a mention too! It has the right level of getting progressive frantic

Primarily: Alley Cat Rainbow Walker International Karate Hardball Then I'm split between Ghostbusters & Leaderboard

I recently picked up an Ethernet thing cheaply from Ebay, do you think it might be possible for this to work through the USB cart? http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...item=5143333543 If so then I may work on that if it doesn't conflict with any other developments, but I probably wouldn't get to start on it until February as the day job has gone mental as of late (Oh yeah, I'd need to order a cart from Steve first too!) Regards, Mark PS. I theory, could a Flash and USB cart work in tandem or does the IO addess area conflict (i.e. $D5xx). What I'm thinking of is something like Contiki built using a bank-switching cart, but using the USB cart to provide the TCP/IP using a device such as above. For that you'd need to have a Flash-thru-cart

I recall David Lloyd developing a SID (or maybe multi-SID) board during the early days of us trying to get the revised CC65 suite working for the Ataris at the beginning of 2000. Maybe someone could contact him for details.