Level42

All in all, Pole Positions arcade artwork was never the best arcade artwork.... The best piece is the side art of the Namco cockpit cabinet. Atari used the about the same art but naturally removed all Namco names....which were quite a few.... I never understood the back art of both the Namco and especially Ataris cockpit with only the triangles and blocks and stuff.....really weird. I prefer the white screen background....the cab is white too. Maybe you could move the Namco name to the top and make it look like this sideart ? Would require moving the entire thing down a bit then... IMHO Pole Position II had much cooler artwork.... Id love it if we could add the voice samples.....

Totally agree.....AntiX is simple and I could never develop stuff like Mega Speedy or anything on that level. We need these guys back into the game....

Mmm.....I have to be honest to myself that I probably wont have time to build this for the next year or so... Seeing the rather simplicity of it all.....it should be able to be put in a FPGA......but I cant seem to find VHDL for the 8040 or WD1772..... ...seeing the compactness of your design (I really like the TTL chips under the larger chips idea) iit could also be turned into an add-on PCB for Michaels 1088XLD in a 1050 case project

Just noticed that the last revision of the schematics omits the choke so yeah....don’t think that is really needed. The crystal was hard to find I understood ?

When was Guus president of SAG ? “In my time” it was Casper Jansen..... I received this set of schematics from Atari Benelux because I was secretary of SAG Regio Rijnmond for a while....and did the technical support stuff... still have them, mostly ST though....if not only ST.....they are printed on red paper to prevent copying them on photocopier machines....LOL. Don’t think the XF551 is in that set as I received the set before the XF was released....

Thanks for the support ! Let me state here that I totally agree with the ranking of Pokeymax, it is both extremely useful and technically a LOT more complicated than AntiX so I have absolutely no problems with not also being ranked on the Nr.1 position....I never expected a Nr. 1 ranking.......but ranking 2...yeah....I think that would have fitted more for AntiX than ranking Nr.4.

So... I have a bare XF551 case, no mechanism, no PCB....so no original parts. So far I have found 8040 and WD1772 for reasonable prices. The EPROM I should have in my stack of EPROMS and I can burn myself. Apart from th choke, I dont see any very special parts, so wouldnt this board also allow a fresh build up ? In fact....for once, I think I would ignore the power supply section and simply use a dedicated HD drive PSU like this: http://s.aliexpress.com/RnMRVjAB So....do I miss any very special parts outside of the choke (is that choke really so much needed by the way ? I guess its there to filter out bad stuff from the AC input ? Could be done on the mains side of the transformer too. I could look into that Polish one but I like the extras this board offers, display and 2in 1 Oh...and what mechanism should I look for ? Would any PC mechanism work ? I read about the index hole needed for formatting ?

With the amount the club has on its bank account, I wouldn’t worry too much about these little numbers .....

Yeah......let's not incorporate that. Poorly drawn, dimensions not correct..... let's stick to arcade graphics art like bezels and side-art etc.

This all makes so much sense now. When the XF551 was released I was totally amazed. I hadnt expected Atari Corp to still make such a big effort for the 8 bit series....it was SO late...the XEGS was already there.... Basically, from what I googled, it seems safe enough to sum it up like this: - Corp. never had interest to release a new FDD for the A8, they happily advertised the 130XE with a 1050 next to it.... - Corp. was sued by Nintendo because commercials claimed the XEGS to be possible to turn in a real computer yet there was no FDD for it. - Corp. panicked, jumped into the technical archives, dug out an old design, adapted it to use the WD1772 they used for the ST series and bam...there was the XF551, with a possible idea for going 3.5 FDD considered briefly... - Corp. launched the XF551 with DOS 2.5, hiding the true power of the drive, but they needed to hurry because of Nintendo... - Corp. found an old DOS 2.5 document, replaced 1050 with XF551 and published as the XF551 DOS 2.5 manual.....the specs page even lists a 6507 and all the other 1050 specs for the XF551, bunch of liars

I added a 10 second pause in my OSX flashing script which seems just about right with a second or two tolerance,

This is not entirely how it goes. The only vote happening is if the present members AGREE with the suggested ranking of the jury. Only if there would be a majority of against voters another category might be achieved, but from what I've seen the majority of people simply vote whatever the jury suggests. There is no discussion started about the rankings, which would be already an improvement. Oh and because things are the same 20 years, they shouldn't change/improve ? By the way.....I seem to remember you voted against the ranking of AntiX. I take it you had the opinion that it was ranked too low and thus voted against ?

Nice. I never realized the simplicity of the XF551 PCB design compared to the 1050.....really makes building a drive "from scratch" possible. Since the drive uses a "standard industry (shugar?) FDD connection, would it be possible to hook up a Gotek ? not that it would be the most logical option for our A8 (f.i. Sdrive Max is a more logical and economical solution) but it would be fun if it would be possible.

This is a very common mistake, there are no arcade games with hydraulics, Any cabs that moves like Space Harrier and Outrun simply use electrical motors. Hydraulics would be waaaayyyy too complicated and expensive. Adding software control for these motors would be easy enough....getting the proper signals out would also be possible for sure.....

LOL....funny how memory clouds,,... The roof colours change per level....red, green and blue are used. Roofs differ too. Too long since I played the arcade game....LOL

OK. I dont want to sound unthankful, but I thought long and hard about this, and I think I should share my honest opinion about the results, because else it will keep tumbling inside of me, and one day it would emerge anyway, and probably in a lot less nice way. IMHO I think that, with all respect to the creator of the power meter cart, it is weird that AntiX was categorised at the same level as this project. First of all, it doesnt even look like a finished project. Its not a cartridge that fits the entire thing. There is an entire Arduino set-up dangling next to the cartridge, not very practical. Even the text already suggests that MAYBE a smaller Arduino can be used....so....is this a finished project, or one still in development ? Second.....the use of the product. IMHO AntiX is a much more useful product than the Power Meter cartridge for the general A8 user. Even in the ABBUC magazine it is indicated that there are simply some LEDs lighting up, but no real use can be determined..... This may be just my opinion, but the Power Meter cartridge seems to serve a vey niche market of the A8 community. Even though I created it myself, I think that in all objectivity, no-one can deny that AntiX is a much more general useful product for the average A8 user on both sides of the Atlantic. It opens up using PAL software for the US guys, and gives us Euro guys the possibility to have a steady 60Hz screen, in the correct aspect ratio, and games running on their intended speed. For this reason, I honestly expected a higher judgement of the jury for AnriX, and Im going to be honest, Im disappointed about that. I also dont understand that while the software contest has,an online voting option, this is not the case for the hardware contest. Only the people attending the JHV meeting are able to vote on the product. I dont understand that. Sure, the software can be downloaded and judged by every ABBUC member, but for the hardware the descriptions as published in the magazine and published on the forums, and also demonstration videos should give enough info to allow people to vote online. In general, it seems that the people at the JHV in majority simply follow whatever the ABBUC judges suggest when voting for the hardware. Anyway, I am grateful and happy with the price I won, but I cant understand that it didnt achieve a bit higher ranking by the hardware jury. The fact that, electronically, it is a rather simple device shouldnt matter. It is the usefulness and functionality that counts. Some people at the JHV thought that AntiX simply switched the 5V supply to the ANTIC chips!!! Well it is not THAT simple, but I have the feeling some people actually judged AntiX on that basis. The files should be out in the open now so everybody can see how AntiX works, and I never hid the fact that the idea and concept is simple enough, but it took plenty of research to find exactly the right chip and also to solve some issues to make it work reliable. Anyway, I wanted to vent this out in the open because I noticed I felt frustrated about this on the way back home and it grew more on me the last few days. No personal feelings....just my honest opinion.

Maybe a stupid question but hey is the roof green and not red like the arcade version ? Otherwise: looks great !

That was definitly not my intention Gunstar and no worries I have my moods too due to things happening in Real Life. Again...not my intention at all...it was in fact a try to be funny but ....plain text on a screen never carries emotions across

By the way....there is something I don't understand...... Imreceived a form to vote for the software but.....what about the hardware ? Isnt there any member voting for the hardware ??

Yeah, but what if I die ??

Yeah this was a fun thread about Moon Patrol..... Anyway....I remember A8 Spy Hunter to be like that on the video....maybe not the colours but the lack of enemies in the first 5 minutes or so.... So I fired up the version that happens to be on my The!Cart and same thing......you are just driving around, enjoying the scenery and picking up some add ons from the trucks,,,,,which I shoot or crash from boredom. I always disliked the inertia of the car too......never a big fan of this game, not even on the arcade machine.....give me Burnin Rubber anytime....

Well.....I think I spent the most time on thinking of ways to make AntiX be as low as possible, because I insisted on it it to fit in my 600XL with metal backed keyboard.....which is probably the setup with the least space available, although surprisingly the 800XL isn’t that much better due to PCB position of ANTIC. Be sure that the minimum height is my top priority, Remember what’s you are seeing are prototypes. I already reduced height thanks to a tip from Simius, which meant using larger holes than normally so I can “sink” a socket from the top pretty deep. Next the pins are soldered and then the top of the socket is cut off. This costs a lot of time and is clumsy, so I’m open to better suggestions for the pins on the underside of the PCB. Remember that there’s still ANTIC that needs to be over those pins. For the topside: There are also ultra low sockets in existence, they are expensive but they exist and are nice. However you can only use them for the front ANTIC not the backside one, because under that ANTIC lies the switch IC. I will have to figure this out with the manufacturer in China.....because it also requires cutting away top of socket and mounting stuff in a certain order or you will be screwed,....but the Chinese are clever.... I’m not in favour of soldering ANTICs into the AntiX PCB, but if people,don’t mind.....it is possible of course.....

Looks like the 400/800 ribbon cable and adapter will be a better option for cases like this

Replying like I have ??? What did I do wrong this time ? No clue......nor do I care. I just explained and the videos may not have been seen by everybody interested here since we only linked to the website before... Good to hear your positive results and Ill be setting up manufacturing soon because we already have interest in about 25 AntiXes, which is amazing !!!

Sophia sits pretty low....at least on my 600XL. Might fit.....will try Sunday.