anzac
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Posts posted by anzac
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my advice would be getting one or two 256k RAM sticks and test before commiting to more expensive (and rarer) 1MB modules...
besides, little software makes use of RAM above 1MB, so with 4x256k SIMMs you should be fine...
here´s one option:
usually i would recommend Exxos (Chris) store but his site is offline ATM or Jays Retro Computer, though i didn´t see any 256k SIMMs for sale (but i´m sure if you ask, he´ll have some, but from the other side of the pond), but this kit seems reasonably priced and apparently with return option.
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i think if you go to the format disk menu, there might be the option for "high density" grayed out until you insert a 1.44mb floppy
though, with TOS 2.05 it should be one of the early models of MSTe that came with a 720kb drive. could have been upgraded in the meantime, though...
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taking it to the office sounds like a great idea!
i´ve had my falcon at the office and people were stunned...
it IS an excellent conversation starter indeed.
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what a crime.
you can always open a dispute on ebay and at least get a partial refund. you can then use the parts to recover your dead STE and still keep parts for the future...
also, the other two machines are probably recoverable. probably just PSU issues with faulty capacitors...
Exxos (Chris) has PSU repair kits and whole PSUs that will give a whole new life to your machines...
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i´ve been following this topic with curiosity.
couldn´t help because i never had that hardware, but i´m glad things sorted out.
congratulations.
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Thanks for that Anzac. I am happy to spend money on getting the drive cleaned, but not sure how to go about it, e.g. what materials to use. As long as the price won't burn a hole in my pocket lol.
You're right - the Atari was cheap, £18.00 plus postage of just over £10, no problem there.
This looks like a good forum to me, and I appreciate all the support in advance :-)
Floppy drive cleaning is not hard and in terms of products usually isopropyl alcohol and cotton swabs are enough.
There was another suggestion by tjlazer that is very insightful... very early STs were shipped with 360k single side floppy drive that was later replaced by 720k dual side floppy drives. This major miscalculation caused no end of trouble back then (ST magazines had to think about the SS users out there and for a long time SS cover disks were used until more creative formatting modes allowed for A and B sides until they finally dropped all that and went with DS disks) and still manage to be an issue today where you might be unlucky to have a SSDD drive on your Atari. It would be unlikely, yes, but possible.
Without more information about your system, like full model description (is it an 520ST, 520STf, 520STm or 520STfm? I'm guessing from your wording about TV and no mention of external floppy that it is a 520STfm, year of manufacture and floppy drive make and model.
Also if you don't feel comfortable with the cleaning and upgrading, you could talk to exxos (Chris Swinson) and have the drive sent to him to be checked. In your place, I would send him the whole machine and do the works on it, like floppy upgrade if yours is unrecoverable, TOS and RAM upgrade, replacing capacitors on the PSU, etc... you won't believe what your machine can be capable of with a little work and money...
Also there are a couple of facebook groups that you might be interested to join... search for "Atari ST and STe users" for example...
Best regards
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I don't know how your ST cost you, but standard STs are usually cheap on eBay...
Expecting a 30 year old drive to be functional is a little optimistic, IMO. It could work, it might not... cleaning usually solves most problems, but if you're expecting not to spend more money replacing capacitors on the PSU and general maintenance and cleaning, it might not last long anyway...
If you want hassle free Atari mode, it's better to use an emulator. If you go the hardware way, be ready to spend some money restoring and keeping the machine functional...
You can always open a dispute on eBay and as per eBay policies, you will most likely win and be refunded upon sending the machine back.
The next one might have a working floppy or not again, or it might work for some time and then fail.
The hardware retro scene is not easy nor cheap, but Atari has a great community of people that will help you
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It is called humor.
I was trying, and failing it seems, to be funny
No harm done...
Sometimes I have what people call an acerbic sense of humor, not suitable for everyone.
The problem with written humor is that it makes it harder to know the actual mood or meaning sometimes
And thank you for your thank you... It is most appreciated
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Seems perfectly reasonable for someone who just wants to see if the game is "worth a buy" to try it for 5m on an emulator.
If you have so many gadgets to be able to run on original hardware (though a purist would never use such "modern storage options" and stick to floppies), can't you just write the game image and play the game on your hardware?
I did that, tried it on my Falcon and worked and since you're trying mono resolution, almost any VGA monitor will do, if that's the issue...
People tried to help with a reasonable option, you're free to take their advice or not, but a simple "thank you" would have been enough.
I don't know if the "ladies love emulators" post was a joke, but felt a little over the top. Like you said, "it's just not for" you. Doesn't mean others should be preached at...
I'm sorry, I really don't want to look rude, maybe written entries in a forum are not the ideal way to adequately assess the mood and what the other person means exactly when they write something.
Love of Atari is a great thing that we all share in this forum.
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If all you want is see how it is in monochrome, why not try the game in STEEM?
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Others might have a different opinion, but I don't think it's worth the asked price.
I understand the seller has gone to great lengths to make sure that whoever buys it, knows what he's getting, but still expensive for a non-working, with a high chance it might need an expensive repair, if at all possible...
I sympathise with the seller to the extent that he might have gotten the machine like this and might stand to lose money, but such are the risks of trading in almost 30 years old systems... My Falcon is working, but I'm fully aware that might change anytime and that it's living on borrowed time already...
On the other hand, if the asking price was a bit lower, I'm sure someone would take it...
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i hope i can help you regarding using your DMA port as i hope you might be able to help me one day upgrade my MegaSTe to an HD floppy...
according to this thread:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/181171-understanding-the-mega-ste/
and this post:
"That's not true (for change :-) ) . In case that no SCSI card, there should be bridge, what connects DMA with external ACSI port. If there is no such, you can place there 15 jumpers - and it will work - tested. If jumpers are problem, can solve in other way. Point is in connecting all neightbour pins on 2 connectors. "
-- credit to ParanoidLittleMan
it appears you have a simple solution...
best regards
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interesting, though it appears from the forum posts that they are turning to a 68060 board due to memory size limitations with the 68030.
however, i think that will limit the market since 68060s are extremely rare and expensive...
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*UPDATE*
Pressing ALTERNATE when booting bypassed the hard drive and it booted to desktop ok.
Changed some video settings, seemed to work, though I got 3 bombs during a screen rez change.
Language was English both on desktop and menus, though after one restart, it had reverted to ST HI REZ, with the icons in German and menus in English.
On the first successful start-up bypassing the hard drive, I had drive A, B and an icon for a disk C
The floppy that came in the drive (there are several more in the box) was read and displayed the contents, though with warnings that the floppy disk might be bad and having to retry and/or eject/insert several times.
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Starting a new topic as appropriate...
and as i have written before:
"i thought this would get some answers going.... never had an Atari 8-bit system, though maybe i´ll get one in the future. all my Atari experiences were ST based. from an 520STfm (later upgraded to 1MB), a MegaST that was my uncle´s machine, then finally an STe for me that i personally upgraded to 4MB when i was maybe 12-14 years old...
i don´t post much in forums though i follow the topics as best as i can. life managed to get all my Atari machines from me and for years i have dreamed of replacing my STe (better than go ask my ex-wife is she still keeps it in the shed or thrown it away)....
bigger dreams.... having one day a MegaSTe or a Falcon... the machines i wanted as a teen watching the Atari magic fade and go away.
20 years of work in IT followed and recently in craigslist style site we have in Portugal, i saw a listing for some music equipment including some Atari related. i contacted the person, who was a professional musical technician and he still had the Falcon and was willing to sell it!
better yet, he didn´t ask for the sky! it was actually something i could afford, since it was in the same country but relatively far from me, i had a friend that lives nearby pick it up and he will ship it to me this week....
i confess that i wait eagerly to actually seeing a Falcon, turn it on and see the magic working again..."
now...
The BeaST has arrived....
It´s a german 4MB/60MB version.
Getting two bombs when starting up. Falcon service guide says:
"BUS ERROR. COMBO IC asserted bus error."
anyone has encountered this before? maybe in the trip some chips got loose? would that old ST trick be of help?
thanks to the others who replied in the previous thread. yes, simple TOS will probably be enough, but i feel like i should try an advanced version of the software the machine is capable of running... just because...
now i CAN get a 14MB upgrade, maybe even a CT60, though i more inclined to keep the Falcon as stock as possible.
Confused if i should get an UltraSATAN or the new CosmosEX from Jookie. would the RTC from the UltraSATAN bypass the need to Exchange the NVRAM on the Falcon? also, don´t know if the CosmosEX has RTC function.
any chance to buy keys to replace the German setup?
Thank you all for any comments.
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As far as i recall, there is several software (games and apps) that *need* 1MB to work.
More than that, only a few programs will use the extra memory in a way that makes a difference. if it was me, i would check carefully the versions of the machines to see which one has the best TOS and use that one. Being ST[f(m?)] TOS 1.4 would be ideal.
Since you were specific enough to say ST(f) and not ST(fm), i would guess they are early models and probably have TOS 1.2, tops.
Considering the problems early ST versions had with memory upgrades, i would say there is a chance that the 4MB machine got a TOS upgrade along with the memory upgrade. something to check.
As for having the two units, specially if they are close models, i would seriously consider keeping both so you can source parts from the other if needed. buying a couple of parts online will quickly exceed the value you might get sellling the machine, but that´s just my opinion.
if your primary machine keeps stable and working, you can still sell the other one at any time. ST computers will only get more rare and more valuable with time now, so... consider an investment...
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Well congrats on the Falcon, we at least had some conversation on that... OH which was the topic..
Anywho.. thanks for those who put their 2c in.
James
Thank you. I did think about whether i was straying off topic, but since it was a topic about Atari computers and whether there was still any activity in the forums, i think the amount of answers pretty much showed there is still a vibrant community out here.
but yes, i don´t want to take over a thread and i´ll start a new thread so that i can ask and receive help from the community to have a nice stable Falcon.
Thank you all for your kind comments.
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i´ve been reading on what my next steps with a Falcon should be and most likely replacing the NVRAM will be needed... as far as i was told the machine boots but i have no idea if it still keeps time.
then, MultiTOS...? FreeMiNT? decisions, decisions....
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i thought this would get some answers going.... never had an Atari 8-bit system, though maybe i´ll get one in the future. all my Atari experiences were ST based. from an 520STfm (later upgraded to 1MB), a MegaST that was my uncle´s machine, then finally an STe for me that i personally upgraded to 4MB when i was maybe 12-14 years old...
i don´t post much in forums though i follow the topics as best as i can. life managed to get all my Atari machines from me and for years i have dreamed of replacing my STe (better than go ask my ex-wife is she still keeps it in the shed or thrown it away)....
bigger dreams.... having one day a MegaSTe or a Falcon... the machines i wanted as a teen watching the Atari magic fade and go away.
20 years of work in IT followed and recently in craigslist style site we have in Portugal, i saw a listing for some music equipment including some Atari related. i contacted the person, who was a professional musical technician and he still had the Falcon and was willing to sell it!
better yet, he didn´t ask for the sky! it was actually something i could afford, since it was in the same country but relatively far from me, i had a friend that lives nearby pick it up and he will ship it to me this week....
i confess that i wait eagerly to actually seeing a Falcon, turn it on and see the magic working again...
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This reminds me that i haven´t tried to login to the Darklord BBS in a while...
Hope it´s still running...
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Visited on iPad, iPhone and two Windows PCs.
Don´t use Twitter, pity it doesn´t have a hit count...
Or a visitor "sign book"...
Nice to see a Falcon on the web, 25 years since it was launched...
Congrats.
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I bought one several years ago, when I was in a fever to get a Falcon030...
It's probably in some box right now. I'm moving and have everything pretty much packed right now.
If I come across it when I start putting things back into place, I'll let you know.
BTW, it was an adapter to connect a Falcon030 to a VGA monitor, don't know if that's the particular thing you're looking for
Best regards
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Well, this is interesting...
But if it would involve shipping across the Atlantic, then it would most likely not be worth it....
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very cool video...
though i wouldn´t be surprised if LoTonah comment would elicit some answers saying this isn´t the proper thread to comment on whether Atari should have spent the resources that the developement the Transputer Workstation needed or not, his comment resonated a little with me.
Yes, it probably didn´t make much sense looking back and maybe even at the time didn´t either. if i would have preferred the STe sooner, yes i would. If i would have preferred that from '88 onwards all Ataris had separate keyboard cases (even without VME buses and hard drives as standard), yes, i would have liked that very much.
An affordable, game-capable, professional looking STe would probably have done much more for Atari than the TT, for example. However, i am glad that the TT came and is now an iconic machine that one might reasonably find second hand, though still priced wayyyy to high for my pocket.
The problem with the "looking back" approach is that we never know the specific circunstamces that led to the development of specific hardware and what that development and know-how acquired generated in other projects. It is legitimate to wonder if the Jaguar would have appeared, if Atari didn´t have the experience from the Lynx with custom chips and cooperating with an outside company to develop specific hardware, instead of using "off the shelf" components to make a computer and/or console platform. The Jaguar, hardware-wise, is a beautiful piece of engineering that blends Atari´s years long experience with 68000 processors and interfaces with new hardware and new custom chips to reach something the 68000 would never do. If i remember correctly, the console Atari was developing by itself (Panther) was a more "traditional" Atari design without "reaching for the stars" with a 64-bit console like the Jaguar.
Ironically, the Jaguar ended up giving the Atari Transputer Workstations a final use. again, if memory serves me right, they were used in the development of the Jaguar´s software interface and some were even loaned to games developers to begin writing code for the Jaguar even before the Jaguar hardware was finished. I also think that later TTs were also used to this effect.
So, yes, the ATWs were probably a colossal waste of money, time and resources. But who knows what came later because of what Atari learned while developing them?
again, this is not probably the best thread for such a discussion and i congratulate TXG/MNX on his video and eagerly wait for more.... that was the FIRST time i saw an ATW working. Thank you.
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Memory question
in Atari ST/TT/Falcon Computers
Posted
stupidly i didn´t check the link you posted before.
seems like an excellent price