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spent a couple hours. Here's what I got: 10/3/2016 I spent a couple hours going thru my SpartaDOS disks, and some others. Here's what I got: DOS 3 disk DOS 2.0s DOS 2.5 MIO SpartaDOS disk with HDFMT and other utilities P:R: Connection disk with: Side 1: AMODEM72.BAS and DOC AUTGEN72.BAS RSCOPE.COM & .DOC PRC.SYS, RS232.SYS Side 2: EXPRS850.COM & .DOC (both large). 1.1 disk, just 1.1 I guess RTIME8 disk: Side 1: X32D.DOS, XC23E.DOS & XD23E.DOS Side 2: RTME8.COM & RTM8.SRC AMDM72R.BAS l& .DOC T1030.COM and R1030.COM (1030 drivers) DSKRX: X32F.DOS, DSKRX.COM, MARS8.TXT, PROKEY.COM another 1.1: serial 11HB10227 Lots utils, NOWRITE.DOS, SPEED.DOS, LOGOMENU.SYS RO.HS, RO, STD , STD.HS, RDAXLO, INIT and FORMAT.COM NOTE.BAS, POINT.BAS, KEY.COM, TD, TIME, TSET, XKEY XTP, CONFIG.DOC, SET.COM SpartaDOS DISK 1986: SpartaDOS 3.2D/ XC23E & XD23E .DOS many .COM utils RTIME8 disk: X32D.DOS, XC23E & XD23E .DOS side 1: AMODM72R.BAS & .DOC side 2: RTME8.COM & .DOS & .SRC AMODM72.R.BAS & .DOC 1030 T and R drivers again DSKRX: X32F.DOS, DISKRX.COM, MARS8.TXT, PROKEY.COM SpDOS disk 1986: Side 1: lots of .COM Side 2: Games DIR_1: myrapede, money, firebug, race, androton, popcorn, fillerup. DIR_2: CES DEMO, Ballsong demo, Holly-me.dir I know there's duplicates, just following my notes. Oh, just reviewing. My favorite DOS isn't in the list. SpartaDOS 3.2g, by Mike Hohman. It may be proprietary. If so, I paid for it, I think. No, all SpartaDOS stuff is proprietary, I think. Owned by Mike Hohman of FTe, Fine Tooned Engineering. I know there's a Polish SpX site. I believe FTe is recognized. I also have a SpartDOSX 4.2 cart. This is just my SpartaDOS stuff. Oh. I need mention the best FREE DOS, MyDOS. I don't remember the latest version. I could be wrong, Bob Puff owns MyDOS. There may be significant DOS I'm unaware of.

Mine is a HP Deskjet 690C inkjet centronics, run from 15 pin plug on PRC ICD interface.. I was thinking you could test your 850s here if you were near Cleveland. I'm not selling it, I don't know why, just something to test 850/PRC with. I'm sure the ink carts are gone by now. Modern PC printers use a USB port.

You don't mention where you're located. I have a parallel printer and, very hard to find, Atari parallel cable. Somehow, I think you won't actually be using the 850 for a modem or printer. Maybe for the modem. How did you test the R: port? It's a centronics port printer. Works with my 15 pin parallel Atari cable, I think.

3.2d was the last that ICD did. Then FTe (Fine Tuned Engineering, Mike Hohman) bought the rights to SpartaDOS and came out with, my opinion, the best and final disk based one, 3.2g. I'm not sure who did the cart versions, SpartaDOS X, (4.2 I think). I didn't take to SpX very well. Just guessing, I think SpX cart came out about the time FTe bought SpDOS. I don't think FTe sold SpX. After reading the A8 FAQ, versions 3.3x disk based came out. Never liked any of them. Somebody did the cart versions, I think FTe bought the rights to the cart versions. I'm pretty sure Mike Hohman still owns the rights to SpartaDOS. UH OH. I got into a major controversy. I just Googled Mike Hohman FTe and it brought up major discussion of such big A8 names as Lance Rinquist, Seems Mike may have failed to fulfill orders and other stuff.

All 88 Antics have been made into PDF files and available as an 8 gig torrent. 8 gigs takes hours to download. So, in GOOGLE, type 'antic magazine torrent'. Then pick the pirate bay choice. Then just download the torrent. Once you have the torrent, you can read any issue of Antic you want. There are warnings about exploits of your computer, 'get a VPN (whatever that is)' . Don't worry, Just click 'get this torrent' and off you go for hours of downloading. I guess you need a torrent client. It may be a little complicated, but getting the Antic torrents, I think DISK1 to DISK4, off you go.

You've already got the best books. Your Atari Computer has a list of all BASIC reserve words. I started with YAC.

sanny, I remember trying to make a PAL compatible NTSC by swapping PAL Antic and GTIA chips into NTSC machine. I don't remember the results, but I suspect the results were BAD. I can't find those PAL chips anywhere amoungst my volumous A8 stuff, which makes me believe the PAL chips are gone. I don't remember exactly, but it seems I believe I got a black and white display. But the chips must have failed, as I can't find them anywhere. I swapped NTSC chips for PAL ones with a guy in England, if I remember. So, bottom line. I was thinking put a PAL GTIA in your NTSC, but now I don't recommend that. You have a European 800XL NTSC, which maybe not, as Europe doesn't have any NTSC 120 volt without some special power converter. So, probably don't. A little more. The NTSC GTIA is a 14805. The PAL GTIA is a 14889. Look, see what your GTIA is in the bad NTSC.

Did you try switching out the GTIA with a known good one? Or, if you have another A8, try that GTIA in a different A8.

Do you have a write notch on the disk? I don't think you can write to a 5.25" floppy without the write notch. Look at an old, working floppy to see where the notch goes. There's a special notch maker that punches the notch in the correct place. There's also write notch tabs you can write protect a floppy with.

' I can download .ATR files, put the(m) on diskettes to run on my' You seem to think along the lines of getting an .ATR and using PC software to burn the .atr to an Atari disk, in the PC floppy drive. You don't use a PC floppy drive at all. You get a SIO2PC/APE interface to connect the PC USB to SIO port on the Atari. Then you use the interface to connect the PC to the Atari as an emulated disk drive. You can use the emulated disk drive as any other disk drive, including being able to copy files from the emulated drive to your real drive, say from D1: to D2: Hope I'm making it clear. APE/SIO2PC just creates an emulated drive.

You have a PC floppy drive, 360k DS/DD. You have a 1050 or other Atari drive, probably can only use SD/SS 90k disks. So, the previous suggestion to get or make a SIO2PC or buy Atarimax APE PC to Atari adapter is the way to go. Once you have a APE cable, you can perform any DOS command, such as format disk, sector copy disk. The APE/SIO2PC adapter allows you to use even 16 meg .atrs with just about every game ever written. There are DISK1 2 3 4 .atrs with hundreds of games. Sorry about APE suggestion. There are other adapters that do the same thing from other sources, I just don't remember them right now. I think there's a atariage post about making a PC to Atari device. Definitely read the 'newbie' post at the top of this forum.

thanks. I just set altirra correctly, rather than as A8 but as PC.

I try altirra 2.71 and a late edition of a8wp and the results are the same. My PC keyboard doesn't 'translate' correctly in the emulators. A shift 8 should be a *, but is instead a @. many keys are wrong. I test the keyboard with PC notepad and all keys are correct.

PACMAN is a classic, fun to play. You can buy carts from three sources I know. Pardon for leaving out others. Video61: http://www.atarisales.com B&C: http://www.myatari.com Best: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com and then there's ebay

It's a 600XL. So 16k memory. Built in BASIC. Type ? FRE(0) to see RAM, should be about 12,000 I guess. Type BYE to enter the self test, or hold OPTION and turn on should enter self test. You could test the function keys. Type 10 ? PEEK(53279) 20 GOTO 10 should give you a change in number with each function key (the silver keys).

Are you sure the XF551 can't read the flip side of a disk? I used to use 'flippys' on a RANA 1000 and I forget the manufacturer of another drive. I had no problem formatting and using the flip side. Are you saying there is use of the timing hole on the XF551?

Just about all A8 software is available cracked online. Collectors would be interested in the original boxed items. The 800XL, and 1050 you could sell on ebay. There are a couple of Atari dealers. Video 61: http://www.atarisales.com Best electronics: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com B&C computervisions: http://www.myatari.com You have a lot of neat stuff, but I don't know about collectors who would be interested in original, boxed software. The FAQ is a lot of info. http://www.faqs.org/faqs/atari-8-bit/faq/

the amount of lead-in is important. You should cue the tape so there is no more than four or five turns before the data starts loading. There has to be some lead-in.

Here's an Atari utility to read and write sectors. You can scan the whole disk by reading sectors 1 to 720. Then you could get an idea where the problems are and maybe even figure a way to salvage the disks. The program is slow, but steady. RW13.zip

Getting an APE/SIO2PC adapter gives one a 16 megabyte hard drive capability. I looked up 'boulderdash' on the DISK1 compilation and found about 20 versions of 'boulderdash'. Boulder Dash 4(1986) Boulder Dash 7 (Madgame) Boulder Dash 8 (Ironsoft) Boulder Dash Construction Kit Boulder Dash Hop III Boulder Dash Hop IV Boulder Dash Hop V Boulder Dash II(1985) Boulder Dash II(Cheat ver.) Boulder Dash III(1986) Boulder Dash XI(1986)(Mapsoft) Boulder Dash(1984)(First Star) Boulder Dash(1987)(Iron Soft) Boulder Dash(1990)(Persoft) Boulder Dash(Hacker) Boulderdash Mugen 1 (2011) Boulderdash Mugen 2 (2011) Boulderdash Mugen 3 (2011)

I think I may have already done this. Here's an .ATR with binary load Atari BASIC A,B,C. It should work on your 800. Of course 'BASICON.OBJ" and BASICOFF.OBJ' won't work on an 800/400. BASICS.zip

1050-field-service-manual.zip

Looked to me like the zero track sensor (?) maybe isn't working. It isn't moving the head back and forth to seek track 0. The head should move back and forth to seek a track. Probably someone better can say.

Here's a 850 R: handler. Make it an AUTORUN.SYS at boot time, I think. RS850.zip

You have a 130XE. Do the .ATRs work the same on the 130XE? There's a test device to check XL/XE with. SYS-CHECK V2.1 by TFHH sold by Juergen van Radecke. I have one. Swapping chips is another test.