TwiliteZoner

Sounds good. Downloading now.

First of all, Atari and junk do not belong in the same sentence.

Can you gives us a run down Chicky? Like any chat, there's a lot of random conversation involved, so it's pretty hard to give a "rundown". You just have to be there. Well, the "really missing out" part of her post led me to believe that there was one topic in particular that was compelling. Just thought I'd ask.

Can you gives us a rundown Chicky?

Congratulations DarkLord.

Here is a link to various TOS fixes from textfiles.com. http://cd.textfiles.com/geminiatari/FILES/UTILITY/TOSFIXES/

Not a problem. I'll send it out on Monday.

Private message. Click my user name and select send message.

PM your address and I'll send it out to you. Does your computer have a floppy drive? Do you have DC Utilities for your ST? There are several ST programs that will write an MS-DOS boot sector on your disk that will enable your PC to read it. Let me know.

I may have that disk. EDIT: Here it is. SPEED.ZIP

Remember to turn off the SIO-patch option. That will cause the files not to load.

Very nice. 1985 was a good year. Just remember to let it breathe a little before you use it.

Thank you.

Could someone help me out with the dip switch settings for the Rana 1000? I have no documentation and I would like to set it as drive 2 so I can use it with APE.

Too many hypotheticals there. The main problem Atari had in the console space post crash was always third party support. With Sega and Nintendo receiving the vast majority of third party support - you know, the titles people actually buy consoles for - not to mention untouchable first party stuff - there's no reasonable scenario where Atari could have succeeded, period, let alone somehow getting a reduced cost, consolized ST computer to market. The consolized ST would have arguably needed a better sound chip, among other things like better controller support and resythesized software to take advantage of TV resolutions (a la Commodore's failed CD32), to be truly competitive with the Genesis/Mega Drive and SNES. Well by the time of the SNES it would have been Falcon based as opposed to ST. The Falcon had more than enough horsepower to compete with the Sega and Nintendo consoles. But as Bill points out, it is the 3rd party support, or lack there of, that would have killed the unit.

Certainly the ST was a better initial value, but once Commodore got the 2000 and 500 out there to replace the 1000, the picture changed dramatically. It was actually smart on Commodore's part to have a slot card friendly expandable high end system and a more closed low end system. The ST line never really got the former. Ultimately, I think the two monitor thing kind of hurt the ST as well. You factor that in and the Amiga's better game capabilities (graphics/sound) and it's pretty clear why once the 500/2000 hit the momentum was all Commodore's. Ironically the downfall of both companies is basically the same story. Too bad Atari didn't have enough cash of their own to buy Commodore.

Very nice and addictive. Thanks. That music is perfect Cybernoid.

Jack was not some manufacturing genius. You need to separate the capabilities of Jack Tramiel from the capabilities of Commodore. Commodore was able to achieve the economies of scale they did in such an aggressive and sweeping manner because they controlled multiple stages of the manufacturing process/bill of goods. That was Commodore's advantage over other companies and the reason why the C-64 was able to get so cheap so fast and box out the competition. It seems to me that the failure of Tramiel with Atari was trying to apply the same techniques he used at Commodore at Atari, without the same type of manufacturing advantage. It just didn't work. Of course, eventually with the shift beyond 8-bit computing, Commodore lost that advantage themselves. Bill, I understand (C= owning MOS was a huge benefit) what you are saying, but remember, if Warner had come out with the 520ST I can guarantee you that it would not have sold for $499. That is the "Jack" factor that I was referring to.

There is a huge difference in the people that would buy a computer vs people that would buy a video game system. Even more so in the 80s as compared to today. When you factor that in with a lack of 3rd party support it's a recipe for disaster. Personally, I think they should have housed the XEGS in a mini ST style case with a built in floppy drive like the Apple IIc. I am sure Jack would have been able to keep the price point low enough to be a viable option for people. That way it would have been able to play the thousands of games available right out of the box.

I still don't think I know how to hook up the 32X. I just plug all the available cables into the holes until it works. I've never seen such a kludge device in my life... The Pico was indeed an educational system put out by Sega. In the US I think it only had 6 or 8 games, but there was a ton of stuff released in Japan. Here it was all Disney and other kiddie licenses, but in Japan they had cool robot sets that remind me of ROB in some ways. Tempest My friend bought one for his daughter back when they came out and if I remember correctly it was a lot like what Leapfrog did a couple of years ago.

Congrats Reefer.

If you want to be playing these games in the future odds are you are going to be doing it through some sort of emulation strictly because the hardware is not going to last forever. My beloved Atari 800 that I bought from B&C in the early 80s is finally showing signs of failure. I think they may be getting a call from me very soon. Do you still get a pen with every order? Do you guys remember the B&C pens that you would get when you ordered something? I must have like 30 of those things...

True story.. Once upon a time I worked for Stapels in the "Business machines" department, where we sold printers, fax machines, and of course, computers. To combat the rash of calls we got of people calling the store asking for tech support, we were given a list of phone numbers to give out to the customers. One day a guy called and wanted support for his PAckard Bell PC. I looked down the list and gave him the 800 number. Something didnt look right about the number though -- it had nothing in common with all thier other support numbers. I called it. It was a phone sex line. It's funny you mention that because one of the IBM numbers was exactly the same as a sex line except for the 800 vs 888 area code.

There have been examples in other collecting circles where repros have gotten past the so called grading experts and passed off as original. I am not saying it has happened with these guys, but it may only be a matter of time.

Greetings, can you talk a little about how it works with various software? games? music? et al? Do you get full sound with the Mac and DOS environments and is it fast enough to run games? I had very little trouble running the old Mac games on the GCR. I even had Prodigy up and running on my Mega.