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machf

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Posts posted by machf

  2. Posted

    Hi, Hias.

    Thanks for the input. Unfortunately, it will take me a whole day to download the Knoppix CD... how old are the fdutils? I still have a Redhat Linux 5.2 partition on the HDD of the Celeron computer where I was going to test the drive, don't know if they were included in the distribution or if they would work under it either...

     

    I wonder if your WriteAtr tool could be used for some tests, too... hmmm...

  4. Posted

    ¡Machf muchas gracias por las revistas! My motivation to continue learning Spanish is somewhat higher now. :D

     

    Thanks for taking the time to scan these. Is it possible you could archive the raw scans on rapid also? I'd like to OCR and translate them to create an alternative PDF here in English.

    That would help, too! There is nothing better than a truly interesting piece of bilingual learning material. ;)

    Hmmm... as I already said, given the style in which the magazines were written, it's likely several things will get lost in translation, I'm afraid.

     

    I spoke with IAQ on the phone last night, he still has problems regarding his domain which are preventing the server from being online again, and he's looking for a new location for his store, I suggested him a couple of places I know. Speaking about the magazines, he told me back then he'd diagram it in Signum! 2 on his ST, then print it on Canson paper using a laser printer and take that to the print shop... so, no PostScript filew whatever. He still has the diskettes with the Signum! 2 files for the magazine on a metal shelf in his office, though, so if there's a way to use a "virtual printer" on an ST or TT, maybe something could be done with those files. Don't expect that to happen too soon, anyway.

  6. Posted · Edited by machf

    Added scans from a photocopy of the issue #0 of Atari Creativo. Not much difference, since that one was only Green&White instead of Black&White... B&W may even be better readable.

     

    ZIPped file with the JPEGs is here and PDF version is here, if anyone cares... filesizes are smaller for this one, as it has only 24 pages, it's 10MB for the PDF and 11.5MB for the ZIP.

     

    And here are the translated tables of contents for the four issues:

     

    Atari Creativo #0 Volume I, Issue 1 January 1988

    Contents:

    01 Editorial

    03 ¡Charge!

    04 Leaving the Cartesians behind

    07 Your magazine at home

    09 Royal Comments

    12 With a little help from my friends

    13 How to discard Descartes, part 2

    16 In order not to go to the racetrack

    20 Towers of Hanoi

    22 Bits, Bytes and Nibbles

    23 Even in the quietest of moments...

     

     

    Informática Creativa #0 Volume I, Issue 0 March/April 1989

    Contents:

    Editorial 01

    P.O. Box 02

    The best computer in the world 04

    Draw with your text-only printer 06

    Bits, bytes and Nibbles 08

    The recursion technique 10

    Print Shop for everyone 14

    Plague 1989: a different future 16

    Introduction tp PC-DOS and MS-DOS 18

    Stay online with TVS-BBS 20

    Protection count 24

    With a little help from my friends 26

    Intimacies of the LaserWriter+ 27

    1, DOS, Three 28

    Royal Comments 30

    Get rich with a mule 34

    Leaving the Cartesians behind 38

    Even in the quietest of moments... 40

     

     

    Informática Creativa #1 Volume I, Issue 1 October 1989

    Contents:

    Editorial 01

    P.O. Box 02

    ProPrint: from screen to paper 04

    For the love of the game 08

    Directory meeting 17

    GEOS corner 20

    Coldly calculated 22

    I'm in love with my car 25

    Not again! 31

    Murphylogies 35

    Happiness is a warm rifle 37

    Royal Comments 39

    Mirror, mirror 42

    With a little help from my friends 44

    Up that spirit! 45

    Even in the quietest of moments... 47

     

     

    Informática Creativa #2 Volume I, Issue 2 August 1990

    Contents:

    Editorial 01

    P.O. Box 02

    Bits, Bytes and Nybbles 08

    TurboPaint XL: from idea to screen 14

    About commands and hierarchy 17

    Virus: the dark side of the Moon 20

    No first without a second 33

    LaserWriter, second call 35

    The backside of a friendly card 36

    Royal Comments 40

    To the last bit 42

    With a little help from my friends 46

    Do you allow me to interrupt? 47

     

     

    Though several things get lost in translation, given the style in which the magazines were written...

  8. Posted · Edited by machf

    Yes, I know, that's why I said it would depend on the number of coefficients. Don't know what the emulator is actually using, but a sawtooth function definitely isn't easy to simulate...

     

    ??? I don't get it. What's so difficult about it then? I don't see the problem. So, please explain yourself.

     

    maybe this link here clears some things up:

     

    http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?s...p;#entry1431677

     

    please read somewhere in the middle of the post. Perry_m wrote that PWM is as easy as resampling.

     

    Sawtooth effect on real machine is nothing more than a PWM-alike effect, caused by the retardation of capacitors which are functioning like windowed integrators.

     

    In analog form (electronics circuitry with use of capacitors) it's easy to perform. But digitally, an integration will be using a discrete approach - essentially, it's the same thing with all A/D and D/A conversions: there's a "rounding error" that will give you a stairstep rather than a true sawtooth, in the first place. Ideally, the emulator should use steps that are the best that the sound hardware on the PC can offer. And you need to make sure that the sample frequency used is > twice the wave's maximum frequency. Fourier or not, it's going to have the same constraint. Can the software+hardware reach the needed frequencies for the whole spectrum the POKEY sound generation covers?

  9. Posted

    Why not save the listing to a file, then load it as a disk drive unit? That used to work with the old XFormer emulator, it would show the file as a disk with just that file if you did it that way, then you could copy it to another (blank) disk image. Or set the H: drive to the folder where you're saving the listing, it would work similarly.

     

    It may be just a case of 0s and Os... IIRC, ERROR- 8 means "bad input data" or "data type mismatch"

  10. Posted

    Well, if the sawtooth is being approximated in software using a Fourier series, it depends on how many coefficients are being used, I guess.

     

    Sawtooth has quite a lot of 'harmonics', which don't fall-off that rapidly as f.e. triangle waveform.

    Yes, I know, that's why I said it would depend on the number of coefficients. Don't know what the emulator is actually using, but a sawtooth function definitely isn't easy to simulate...

    Fourier series isn't needed though, and isn't used. PWM is just a windowed integrating effect, for computing averages (or weighted averages, by using a 'mollifyer' or 'weight-function). The integration is of course always approximated by a summation over certain 'samples'.

     

    If I'm correct, the recent pokey emulation uses this relatively simple PWM for the sawtooth, and alike effects. I wonder how much of these samples are needed for a PWM effect which sounds good enough.

    Possibly several. A sawtooth is still hard to emulate, even by other means than Fourier... you may end up with something only vaguely resembling it.

    It isn't good to generate a large spectrum of sounds by logic operators, and some other sounds by a totally different method, like using a Fourier series.

  11. Posted

    An ftp client would be a better start, and a more productive use of time, as would ssh.

    Yeah, possible FTP'ing would be an use better suited for the A8s...

    There is a LOT of complexity in a browser, look at the sources on mozilla.org to get an idea.

     

    A nice project would be an open source Epson esc control code to html near real time converter (hit print in the emulator & the output appears in a new tab in your browser as html using all of the Epson feature-set), or an Atariwriter to RTF or Word converter if you feel like doing a bit of casual coding.

     

    I've been thinking about the Epson idea a bit this week, and may do it.

    Now that you mention it, I also thought of something like that some years ago... in fact, I may have even made the A8 print to file, transfered the file to a PC via diskette, and then using a global replace to convert the Epson codes in the document to HTML tags. Or maybe I didn't print to file and instead what I converted to HTML were XLEnt codes... anyway, it should be possible to do it in near-real-time with an emulator.

    A TCLet app 1020 plotter has also been on my mind. It would be like having a new graphics mode for the Atari that did 80 columns & vector graphics. As a TCLet it would also appear in a tab on the browser.

    Good idea.

    Really, though, if you want to code something, ssh & scp are badly needed.

     

     

    L8R.

  16. Posted · Edited by machf

    I'm afraid I don't, otherwise I would have already recommended something. Nowadays I do that kind of stuff with a Catweasel, I didn't mess with the PC floppy controller for ages.

     

    I don't think there is any such tool for Windows. Possibly there is something for Linux, I don't know (Hias, are you reading this? Are you aware about any such tool for Linux?). But possibly you would need to boot plain DOS or Win 9X, and use something like PC-Tools or Norton Disk Editor.

    I believe a friend of mine still has some old edition of Norton Utilities lying around, I'll ask him... and I still have a really old PC Tools version on a diskette somewhere, wonder if that one has such a tool.

    If you are good at programming, you might do some basic tests by accessing the disk via BIOS under plain DOS. Or if you prefer, by hacking the Linux driver with some diagnostic stuff.

    Even though I know 80x86 assembly programming, I never got into PC BIOS stuff - I kept using my 800XL as my main computer until 1996 or so...

    163 is a CIO error code, not a SIO one. How are you trying to read those sectors?

    The usual commands issued to the drive to read a sector... and I get that error when I attempt ro read the disk directory from DOS.

    I understand, but without the right tools it might be very difficult. Unless you are lucky and the problem is obvious, you usually need a scope for detecting the drive problem, let alone to repair it. Even with a scope it might be not trivial.

     

    You can in certain circumstances use the PC sound card as a poor-man's oscilloscope (I did, in the thread about Antic 240 scanline behaviour

     

    Although you're limited somewhat by whatever sample rate the soundcard is capable of, usually 48 KHz for older cards, but 192 for newer ones.

     

    And of course, you'd probably not want to introduce any signal that uses large voltage levels.

     

    Well, last week I was searching for "software oscilloscopes" for that purpose. Haven't fully tried the ones I found yet, though. I'll take a look at that thread...

     

    Thank you both for the input.

  17. Posted · Edited by machf

    Couldn't upload issue #1 earlier because for some reason, the transfer kept getting interrupted around 45%, but now I've uploaded both the PDF version and the ZIPped file containing the JPEG images.

     

    I've also finished scanning issue #2 and am uploading the corresponding ZIPped file with the JPEG iamges right now, meanwhile I'm preparing the PDF version and will upload it too after the other file is done.

     

    UPDATE: ZIPped file with the JPEGs from issue #2 already uploaded, get it here. Uploading the PDF of #2 right now. Filesizes are similar to the issue #0 ones, in case you're wondering...

     

    UPDATE 2: PDF version of issue #2 is now available here, too. Now it's time for me to say good night...

  18. Posted

    It must be more than just one track, and probably more than two. This is something that you could (at least in theory) verify easily in the PC, by formatting and reading inner tracks. I say in theory because you would need the right software.

    Any which you can recommend?

    Conceivable this might be possible in the Atari as well. But I don't remember for sure how the XF-551 firmware behaves when it can't read the first sectors. These drives use the first sectors to check the density. Some drives, depending on the firmware, would assume single density if they can't read them. Then you can read sectors on the inner tracks, even when the first tracks are bad or unformatted.

    The error code it gives (163) is the same the working XF551 returns for an unformatted disk - so I think it possibly assumes that if it can't read the first sectors.

     

    Btw, did you check that the track zero sensor it working at all? (again, easier to check in the PC).

    Only thing I've checked on it was that the ribbon cable connected to it had no broken traces...

    What can I do to check it?

     

    But honestly, if you can't read any sectors at all, there are so many things that could be bad, that I'm not sure anymore is worth to spend too much time.

    Well, I don't have money but I have plenty of time, as I'm currently unemployed (technically, I'm self-employed, but business has been very bad these past months).

  19. Posted

    If I understand correctly, you are saying that first few tracks work ok. This would mean that if the problem is the track-zero sensor being out of place, it has to be displaced inwards by about 30 tracks! Assuming this is physically posible, you should be able to detect this easily by operating the drive without the case. Format a disk and watch and/or hear the stepper. If the sensor is so much displaced, then the stepper would stop stepping inwards very soon.

    No, at first I thought it could read the first sector(s), but it turned out that it was getting garbage, not the actual contents of the sector - and the read buffer would contain the same garbage for each sector I attempted to access.

    And why would it have to be displaced inwards? I'm thinking it might be displaced outwards by 1 or maybe 2 tracks... the stepper is going practically all the way, I may try listening and counting the steps to make sure. After it goes through all the tracks and attempts to write data to the boot sectors, it fails and retries the formatting... and fails again (and retries and fails again... what was the default retry count?).

  20. Posted

    INTEGERS ONLY?! Send that program to bit heaven.

    Uh-uh - it takes up very little space, loads really quick, and suits 99% (maybe more) of my needs, so I'm keeping it.

    For the things it doesn't cover, I've got some other programs installed, but none of them can fully replace it.

    What OS are you using?

    Windows 2000.

  21. Posted

    In that case, then save them as jpg, max quality level, high resolution.

     

    Check them in an imaging program to ensure that they are perpendicular to the screen borders.

    That particular bit is a PITA when the pages weren't printed properly. And when the program I'm using will only allow integer values for the angles and it's 0.5 degrees, well...

     

    Do a 200% (2x) magnification in the image viewer to ensure that all fine print, fine lines, etc. can be read & seen clearly.

     

    While in the imaging program, clean up gray areas that should be white, and any speckles.

    I've cleaned some of them, but doing so for all would take me even longer...

    You will get MUCH better image scans if you put two large dictionary-sized books on top of the scanner's cover (or as many as are necessary to completely cover the scanner's lid, while simultaneously providing weight), when scanning. This helps to eliminate light seepage in either direction (in or out).

    I usually use a large atlas for that. Also covers an area larger than the scanner's cover. Particularly useful to put it in place of the lid when it's something too thick for it, too.

    The best way to scan a magazine is to REMOVE the staples carefully with your fingernails, from the center of the magazine, then scan... this will yield excellent results. After scanning the whole thing, carefully put the staples back in by hand.

    I tend to do that, but here I had placed some tape on the back to prevent it from breaking... I can still take the pages out, but the staples are possibly going to show in the inner back/front covers.

    I had a stint at AT&T's optical imaging archive center... I learned a lot of tricks there. Now I cringe when I see a scanner.

     

    = )

  22. Posted

    As you probably know, the XF551 mechanism is a standard PC drive. So in first place I would remove it and test in a PC. Any PC with a built-in floppy controller should be good enough.

    Hmmm... I had thought of that, but I don't have any DD PC diskettes. I guess I could format a new one, but would that be useful?

     

    In second place, it is not clear to me from your posts, if you can read back disk written on the very same drive or not. If you can't, it's unlikely to be a RPM or alignment issue. The drive and the FDC can tolerate quite a big displacement in RPM, head align (in a lesser degree), track-zero sensor position, etc. You wouldn't be able to read disk written in other drives, of course. From all the possible aligments, the head is probably the most critical.

    No, I couldn't even format a disk with it when I tried... I'm thinking maybe it's looking for track 0 outside the writeable area of the disk.

  23. Posted · Edited by machf

    I'll keep that in mind, but I don't have a laser printer, to begin with. And as I said, I'll talk to IAQ to see if he has the originals in PostScript (he must have had them, in order to take them to the press for printing) and use those for a "definitive" release.

     

    In the meantime, I finished scanning issue#1, I'm uploading the ZIPped scans right now, with the PDF following immediately thereafter. I'm taking a break for lunch now, will deal with issue #2 in the afternoon.

     

    BTW... this issue (#1) had some issues when it was printed, so the scans are going to reflect those - that's another reason for trying to get a better digital release from the masters at a later point, it would be just too much work to attempt to correct that in the scans to be worth it...

  24. Posted

    also, how do you atarians used to say: "Why do those Commodore Atari guys insist in calling "tricks" the capabilities of the Atari Commodore graphics chips? (post #169 in the defender of the crown topic :_)

    And as I said later:

     

    It's really pretty simple: Atari computers were designed to work in a way different from Commodore ones - you can't just judge them by the same standards.

  25. Posted · Edited by machf

    Well, I don't use Photoshop, for various reasons, so you don't need to worry about that. ;)

     

    I have the JPEGs already zipped and was considering uploading them too, in case anybody wanted to display them as HTML (using thumbnails linking to each JPEG image), or something like that. I'll upload them in a while, then... right now, I'm 25% through issue #1.

     

    EDIT: uploaded the JPEGs from issue #0, get them here. Issue #1 is between 40-50% right now.

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