Zogging Hell

Lords of Chaos has a blank title screen on more than 512kb (minor bug as you can still click through and play the game as normal), and I believe there is a strange bug in Laser Squad by the same programmer, where if you press the fire button too many times/ too quickly during the inter round stats screens (i.e. try and rush through them) between game turns, you can trigger some sort of series of explosions thing during the subsequent turn which randomly blows up the whole map killing everyone off (this may be some copy protection thing though, although it has happened on two original disks that I own).

Wow, nice upgrade that! Wouldn't mind one myself I do remember these being advertised (I think System Solutions sold them in the UK), didn't know they had FPU support and cache as well.

As TGB1718 said you probably just need to clean your drive heads, so the fact you can't format probably confirms this. When you get the cleaning disk I found soaking the whole surface of the material inside it (use the supplied liquid liberally and rotate the 'disk'/ material part) helped. When you do this you may need to leave the computer a few minutes for the cleaning solution to evaporate, as if you stick a disk straight in the solution may cause the disk not to be read. Do this several times and then try formatting again. Once you can complete the format you know you are good to go. BTW the good disk you use for the format needs to be sacrificial as may rub crud off the drive head onto the disk. You can actually clean the disk itself if you are careful, some people use tap water (depending on how much deposits you have in it) or distilled water might be a better option, you can then use a q-tip to very carefully clean the disk by pulling back the door mechanism and using the damp q-tip to clean the surface (rotating the disk to make sure it is all clean). Often if you look in the right light you can see the dirt on the surface, which may allow you to target the cleaning. Don't get the disk too wet as it will foul the cleaning cloth inside which will jam the disk. If you have an aversion to opening the computer you may want to get someone to help with either recapping or replacing the power supply, as although the disk cleaning may help in the short term to get your computer working again those ancient capacitors are probably going to cause you trouble down the line, if they aren't already.

It can, though you might need to use it multiple times. I would try and format a blank double sided disk first and see if it is successful. It not try to format a single sided disk (known good disk). If not cleaning is required. Load up the cleaner disk with isopropyl and try and access it from the desktop multiple times. Then try formatting a disk again. The amount of progress you get through the format can give you a very rough idea how much more cleaning is required. This can be quite a lengthy process though so often it can be quicker to open the machine dismantle the floppy drive and clean the heads (checking the head can also move back and forth at the same time). The disk drive issues can also be caused by faulty caps in the disk drive as well, as it seems to be the first thing affected. Have you recapped the PSU?

Sequencer One or Breakthru (the latter being a bells and whistles version of the former) might also be worth checking out. Both allow some samples to be played at the same time as MIDI. Not chip tunes though. I know the former was given away on an ST Format coverdisk (think about issue 30) so should be easy to get hold of. The latter had a dongle iirc which might limit it's availability. Both were pretty easy to use from memory, although I went on to Cubase Audio pretty sharpish.

IIRC there was a STOS text adventure creator as well (can't remember whether it was free or not), so perhaps that is why there was a mix up

Yep you are right scanners (my favourite one connected to two light sensitive wires you attached to your dot matrix printer head and then scanned with the printer!) and the Mac emulators did use the port, there were also expansion sound chips (MV-16). I may be wrong but didn't that technics lego kit also use the cartridge port to control the motors, and also possibly that strange radio controlled helicopter game which used a real radio control (what was that called anyone?). There was also an alternative operating system for the ST called SMS2 (or something like that). Although none of these are much use to the OP. Pretty grateful there were no memory upgrades for the cartridge port, the cartridges I had loved coming loose if you moved the machine while in use, and it would definitely be a ZX81 ram pack wobble moment if they did (although with an added risk of frying the ST)...

If you want to save some money and have access to wood, I used to build monitor stands for the ST out of three pieces/ planks of thick wood wide enough to support the monitor, with a cut out for disk drive. Cut one length to span the ST and two shorter lengths for legs, just slightly taller than the ST so you can get your hands in to pull it out. You could even give it a custom paint job if you are an artist

Fair enough (I probably need way more practise with hot air and have never had to work on an XE - thankfully by the sound of it). For a beginner or someone used to a soldering iron/ pump combo though, hot air is a quite a big transition with a larger potential for a disaster if you are not experienced and don't have much to practise on; whereas the solder gun is a lot easier to migrate to imo, and a lot safer/better/quicker than a soldering iron/solder sucker combo. My initial fumblings years ago with hot air were not great on the practise boards I used it on (admittedly I was clueless at the time other than watching some instructional videos on Youtube, which generally make it look a lot easier than it is) and it does tend to spread the heat about a lot, which may or may not be beneficial depending on what you are desoldering and what it is next to. Absolutely agree that both are cheap(ish) now so good to get both, although the OP's missus may miss the gin!

The difficult pin was probably the ground pin, which when its heating up has a lot more thermal mass capacity (it is almost a heatsink). I would invest in a desoldering gun (the electric kind), they really make a world of difference, and are not to expensive. You literally stick it over the pin to heat the solder, leave it a few seconds and press the suck button while gently 'wiggling' the pin. Really is so much easier and much less risk of damage in my experience. Hot air is really useful for surface mount components but not much cop for thru hole imo. You could try compressed air to blow that gunk out or a pin with some sort of thin clothe on it. But if that doesn't work the dishwasher may be the way to go as TheNameOfTheGame suggested. I can't tell from the photo, is that track still attached on one side? Could you resolder it directly to the leg of the chip when you put it back in and then use some solder mask or nail polish to fix the length of wire back where it belongs. Is the via still intact or has that come out?

You could try some white vinegar in the ram slots if there is corrosion (or other mild acid). Just make sure you neutralise it and clean up after. I've used this on PC motherboards to remove corrosion and gunk from ram slots. You will probably need to do some manual scraping with something small and sharp to clean up all those nicely though.

I had the sequel Shadow worlds (iirc), but have never got round to playing it much. It is set in space, and is as hard as nails from what I remember. I always wanted the first one as well, although I imagine that is also a bit tricky. Kind of like a sexy Heroquest

That's not a bad run really, a lot better games in there than Pygnosis ST library anyway. Typhoon, Prince of Persia and those two Star Wars games are pretty damn good. The rest a pretty competant at least (Hard Drivin' perhaps not so). F1 is actually just Vroom (from Lankor) with a two player mode and a license, so perhaps shouldn't be classed as a Domark game entirely. Almost certainly the best arcade style F1 racer on the ST, although it would be a toss up with this Stunt Car Racer and Microprose F1 for best overall racer on the platform IMO.

Well indeed, I'm sure I've done it on many an occassion as well and have may got the wrong end of the stick (and what I said originally wasn't perhaps the most well written bit of advice I've ever managed, he would have been quite right to haul me up on that without channelling the Jag forum) I'll unblock him, see how it rolls.

Have Best still got Falcon keyboards in stock then? I really must try and wade through those catalogues more.. I have a Falcon with an ST keyboard swap, and always wanted to put it back to spec as the lighter colour doesn't seem quite right (although it is UK TOS set up at the moment, so that might be more tricky).

Charming. What I perhaps should have pointed out is that if he changes the TOS language to English, he will either need to leave the German layout or swap the keyboard. Anyway, welcome to the block list!

The keyboard layout will also be different, although you should be able to swap a US ST keyboard in there, it will be the wrong colour.

There were mono 'emulators' for the ST, Sebra springs to mind (was Monulator another or am I imagining things?), which could get high res software working in low res/ medium, but the results having used them years ago, were not great on the eyes (flicker and blur tastic) and I'm not sure about compatibility with Cubase. That would kind of defeat the object of using a monitor, it would certainly be worse than the Stacy's screen, which isn't that bad bar the 'loosing' the mouse pointer issues..

This website has a good view of the development of GEMDOS versus CPM https://dadhacker-125488.ingress-alpha.easywp.com/the-atari-st-part-2/. Seems Digital Research's GEMDOS was a bit all over the place and Atari's programmers actually made it work (albeit limited by the time pressures they were under). CPM really isn't suitable for large storage devices like hard drives due to the flat file system, I'm grateful they made the swap.

Cannon Fodder's flip scrolling on the horizontal plane on the ST is a gameplay ruiner, not played it on the MD, but imagine joypad controls would not be great, which is also the problem with the Jag version. I imagine having a sample running in game in Starglider would have killed the framerate on the original ST, so perhaps I can understand that, should have been a sinch on the STe though, shame it came out the year before, it would have been a good launch title. MD Speedball might be marginally faster on the FPS front I've not played them side by side, but the sound is a tad muffled in comparison to the Miggy version.

True, on the Midnight Resistance front the ST version doesn't even have the two player - it is a pretty shoddy port on the ST. That one was a major disappointment for me. Populous 2 on the other hand, the Amiga AI (if you can call it that) is slower - try pitching the ST against the Amiga with CPU controlled players and see who wins. So not entirely black and white, but I never tried that with the first one admittedly or even if that is an option. Starglider 2, not sure a whalesong track makes up for the slightly slower framerate in game Speedball 2, I will also give you, the Amiga version probably is the best thanks to the sound, although the Megadrive version is a close second IMO - although to be fair the ST, Amiga and Megadrive are so close on this one, there is virtually nothing in it.

Oh for some disposable money...

Ha, of course, the difference is a pint half empty and one half full.. but I'm certainly not blind to the ST's 'shortcomings', so most definitely with you some of the way to your 'realist' position, just not to the extreme of saying the ST is not worth getting when you can have the old Spanish girlfriend cluttering up your desk with her 'hotbox' and illogically cumbersome modulator boxes! . I would just argue most of the best games on the 16bit computers are/ were not generally the ones the Amiga hardware has by design generally much, if any, advantage in (sound hardware aside), and the Miggy's hardware hands the ST a beating mainly only in genres that are actually better represented on Sega and Nintendo's console offerings (with a few notable exceptions). Perhaps that is being a realist after all (blast)!

The apologists are strong on this one! Really, it (the ST) is a great gaming system, a lot of the big name games are pretty much identical on both (bar the sound), it's just the horizontal scrolling games on the ST aren't anywhere near as good as they are on the Amiga generally, and vertical scrolling games have variably lower framerates some of the time, although not to the point it is usually an issue as the ST isn't quite so rubbish at that... and of course the sound chip is a bit... er... marmite. Personally I would say the sound chip is not great, it was originally meant to be the system buzzer chip like the PC has, but it is crisp and high frequency, and will not usually subject you to low res samples of pan pipes which the Amiga excels at, mainly because it can't, although it can make an awful racket in the wrong hands. So I would say if you want to play 16bit platformers and scrolling shoot 'em ups don't buy an ST... buy... a Genesis or SNES instead - as the games the Amiga excels over the ST in are generally better on them, and when it's not one of these, which I think generally a lot of the more interesting titles are not, then the ST is unlikely to disappoint! IMO the big games from that era, Dungeon Master, Populous, Stunt Car Racer (probably better on the ST I would say), the Bitmap Brothers games etc, they are usually just as good on the ST (bar the sound) so reallly don't let the naysayers on the ST put you off . I can think of a few 'big' games where you will have a far superior time with the Amiga... almost anything by Psygnosis, bar Lemmings, and some other early stuff (although I'm not sure much by Psygnosis can be classed as more than a tech demo with questionable gameplay), Turrican (bigger screen, music), Lotus series (smoother, more track detail), Cannon Fodder (the ST has horrible flip screen scrolling), X-Out (bigger screen), R-Type and Secret of Monkey Island (generally better effort) are better to the point I would fire up my Amiga to play them over the ST, I'm struggling to think of anything else though off hand, at least to the point where they were both getting conversions before the ST's death. Up to about 1989, the games were converted mainly from ST to Amiga, so there is really no difference at all in a lot of titles, bar some marginally smoother scrolling and use of the sound chip. Streetfighter is horrible on both, Final Fight is horrible on both. Anything else by Capcom is usually not great due to Tiertex converions. There are no platformers to rival Sonic or Mario or Castlevania on either. There are no horizontal shoot 'em ups that can really compare to the Genesis's finest on either system if I'm honest. And the ST hardware is (still) cheaper to buy than the Amiga due to demand, and collecting original games for it, is also generally cheaper, at least over this side of the pond - the prices of Amiga boxed games are insane nowadays. Agree with Tillek on the monitor front. VGA adaptor for mono with a cheap 4:3 LCD, no need to hunt down one of Atari's tiny screens unless you want to complete the set.

Well if I ever get my hands on one, I'll let you know. I was going to get in touch about AT speed as I have hardware (I never installed it...yet), unfortunately it is buried in boxes at the moment due to my move, and you have got it sorted anyway ?.