1024MAK

Yep, it’s open for normal business again ? Mark

I checked earlier and it looks like he is still installing updates and carrying out site maintenance (as at 15th June) so some progress is being made. Mark

Atari-Forum is alive! As many others have said, a very, very big thanks to Dal and all his hard work for restoring Atari-Forum If it was not for his efforts, we would still be lost in the dark and gloom. And of course another very big thanks to Silver Surfer for making a back-up on 4th December 2010, and with his continuing help in keeping Atari-Forum alive! They may well still need help in restoring lost files, the Wiki section is still non-functional. So have a look and see if you have any files that could help.

Given that the December 4th back-up is incomplete, I understand that waiting and seeing if a full, complete set of files can be obtained should 250host be bought is a tempting path. Christos does have a point, in that while AF is not online: (1) a lot of useful information is not available, or is very hard to find, (2) some existing users will migrate away, (3) new potential users will be put off. But not waiting means a lot of work recreating AF from the partial back-up. Putting it together only with what there is would not produce an acceptable result for anyone. I agree with Dal. At the moment, for a full restoration, our best hope is for a proud new owner to buy 250host. Having said that (and I know that Dal is having problems with his own equipment) I do think it would be good if the "placeholder" site could be updated. Also is there anyone who would be able and willing to create some new "information" web pages that will be published on the "placeholder" site so that it gives users a reason to visit? These could be added to the wiki part of AF once the main site is back up. The subject matter for these new "information" web pages could come from users, from the Way Back Machine archive, from the partial back-up files or indeed could be fresh ideas / information. What do people think?

I'm a bit surprised that the way back machine (http://web.archive.org) only has data up to 22nd August 2008. Some other archived web pages for other web sites have data stored for 2009 at least. What happened to the Atari-forum site after 22nd August 2008?

Here is a link (http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.atari-forum.com/wiki/*) to the files that the way back machine / http://web.archive.org has stored for the wiki section. Is this of any use? I have a small number of files that I have downloaded in the last half of last year, most are zip files, but I have three pages from the wiki plus one page of the forum (saved by Firefox as htm files with folders for the associated files). Would these be of any help? Maybe other users will also have stored some as well? I know that trying to glue lots of fragments back together is a hell of a lot of work, but you never know, actually having some example pages may help. Is Silver Surfer sure that he does not have any other back-ups?

Hi Zaxon. The Ultrasatan that I ordered from you on 21 / 22nd December arrived okay on 10th January Have been busy with work (the normal engineering work plus the whole department is being reorganized...) so have not had time to get it working yet Thanks for supporting the Atari community

The Mega 1 that I have does have a blitter chip.

Regardless of the state of Brian's business (250host), it is much appreciated that Dal is trying his best to get Atari Forum back online. If the December 4th backup is incomplete, or not usable, or indeed even if it is okay, lets hope that someone does indeed take on Brian's business (250host). Then at least a new backup of the data can be made.

Okay, the link to the eBay item you posted is for a COMPOSITE video signal. This is not the same as a RGB video signal. Does your Sony KDL32EX503U LCD TV have a SCART input, or just RCA / phono input connections? SCART inputs are very, very common in Europe and the UK, so that is why a lot of posts refer to SCART and RGB. SCART inputs are normally capable of accepting both RGB and COMPOSITE video signals. A RGB signal is the higher quality video signal. Back to your problem. Assuming that you are trying to use a COMPOSITE video cable, first ensure that the RCA / phono connector is making good contact. Also on the Atari unplug and then reconnect the 13 way DIN connector (monitor connector) four or five times. This is to ensure that the contact between the electrical pins of the plug and the contacts in the socket are making good contact. Just because one is gold plated does not mean that you do not have contact problems. Do you have any other equipment that you use with your Sony KDL32EX503U LCD TV? Does this equipment work okay, or do you get problems here as well? Note that some LCD TV's do not like the slightly non-standard video signal that the Atari ST computer range produces, while older CRT TV's and the older CRT monitors have no problems. Simbo talks about a possible problem with the Atari ST range power supply units because they are of the switch mode type and as such suffer over time from various aging effects. Some of the first symptoms of electronic components nearing the end of their lives is problems with the video signal, problems with the floppy drive and needing to reset the computer one or more times before it "appears" to work okay. The only way to prove this is repair the power supply (if you have electronic skills) or replace it with a good unit. Please answer our questions and report back on your problem, we can supply the best advice only you tell us what you have found. This also helps others. Good luck!

Not sure what the switch does. The 74HC74 is a flip-flop (also known as a latch) circuit - this is a one bit memory, and would be used for selection of / switching of a input to another chip. But I do not know any further details. No the Mega did not come with SIMM slots, you have a very common after market upgrade. Most of these had a green and yellow, or just a green colour wire that you are suppose to connect to a grounded piece of the metalwork (that acts as a screen). I do indeed believe that the SIMMs you talk about have should give you 4Mbyte of RAM memory. This is another very common upgrade. See http://www.atarimagazines.com/startv2n3/mega4.html Hope this helps

Hmm. Atari did miss a trick or two. Unlike the current "IBM" floppy standard interface, it would not have cost very much to enable up to four FDD on the ST series (two extra drive select lines was all that was needed). At, or soon after the launch of the ST range Atari should have launched a "business" system with main unit and separate keyboard (like the MegaST) but with a 16MHz 68000, two 3.5" DS DD FDD's and an optional single or twin external 5.25" FDD. If marketed correctly (another one of Atari's weak points) with the right application software it could have given the rather bland IBM (compatible) PC's a lot more competition. I think that the reason for Atari using 3.5" drives was more about what was "new", what was "cool" and the style of the machines. A lot of people like shiny new things. They would go for 3.5" over any existing FDD anyway. A new type of "modern" floppy disk to go with the "modern" 16/32 bit new Atari computer was seen as the future. In the UK IBM type machines were seen as boring, dull uninspiring, no good for games and they got a lot of sharp comments in magazine reviews (I can't think of any that any of the magazines of the time liked). Also I am sure that there was speculation not long after the STFM was launched that they got the single sided drives for a good price. That's why double sided drives were not used. The one of the biggest problems for users, was not that the 520STFM had a single sided drive, but that it was not possible to "boot" from an external drive. Coupled with the the case/panel design of the eject button and slot, and the need for an engineer to fit a replacement FDD, this made upgrading rather costly and messed up the look of the machine. In the UK many external FDD's were made by Cumana. They supplied both 3.5" and 5.25" drives. I don't know if a 5.25" drive with a suitable lead was a standard item supplied by Cumana, but I have heard of people using 5.25" drives with ST's. Of course in the UK apart from schools (which used 5.25" drives with Acorn BBC machines and Research Machines computers) and some businesses there were not many standard 5.25" drives around. So the 3.5" drive did not have any real competition. One last comment, is the 3.5" drive not a Sony design? I think that it is likely that it was being marketed in Japan a lot more than the comments so far would indicate.

But as a read only resource this is not a big problem But as a read only resource, again this is not a big problem But as a interim read only resource this is not a big problem and can be left for later if need be... Again, as a read only resource this is not a big problem How long is a piece of string... But if there is no joy with 250Host at some point the backup will need to be tried.. Is there not a way to prevent normal level users from logging in? That is to say that normal level users will be treated as guests, and therefore would be unable to post items etc. If something like that could be done it would be a lot less work than changing the status of each and every sub forum... Also if the status of each and every sub forum was changed, should the 4th December backup go on to provide the foundation for the future active forum, a lot of these would need marking back to normal from the read only setting... Until (if) 250Host make contact, there will always be this risk. The less work needed, the less importance is attached to this risk. At the end of the day, it is your time that you are very kindly giving. And you seem to know what you are doing (which is very good ). Of course we would like 250Host to just hit the reset switch and for the forum to burst back to life. But I fear that this is not going to happen. Atari-forum built up a vast array of knowledge. Even if we cannot get the "lost" information since the 4th December, this past history is worth a lot to the users. Then, if 250Host does not provide... (it's now the seventh day of January, part way through Monday 10th, it will have been two weeks since the failure)... So to sum up. If it is not too much work, while we give 250Host a chance to recover, it would be nice to have something to browse around. If it's a mega amount of work, maybe just restore the wiki. In any event, finding an easy way to prevent a mess caused by people posting and replying keeps things tidy just in case we get the last lot of data from 250Host. Best of luck!

See the video section here: http://info-coach.fr/atari/hardware/video.php For low and medium resolutions the highest quality video signals from an Atari ST/STF/STFM/STE etc are the RGB signals. The next best (that is the "middle") quality signal is the composite video signal (that includes colour information). Be aware that this signal is only present on machines that have a TV modulator (and therefore a UHF TV output). The lowest quality signal is the UHF TV signal from the modulator. Atari ST/STF/STFM/STE etc do not produce s-video signals. All the video signals listed above are at the TV standard frame and line rates (15 kHz Horizontal, 50/60 Hz Vertical) and are now "out of range" as far as "modern" SVGA monitors are concerned (as they are built only for SVGA and better signals). They are also not to the full TV video picture standard. So most converter boxes and monitors do not like the video signals from the Atari machines...

Of course this does assume that the keyboard that is giving problems has not been damaged (faults in the wiring on the circuit board between the keys and the microcontroller will produce strange effects).

If the mouse works fine like you say, then as the mouse uses the IKBD microcontroller chip, the cable and connectors just as much as the keyboard data does, these items must be okay... (he says ) Do the keyboards have the same character set marked on them? Without going looking for the information, IIRC all the keyboards send the same "keycode" for the same key that is located in the same position on the keyboard. The operating system then converts this code to the "correct" character for the language in the TOS ROM chips. So more information please...

Ah, progress, that's what I like to see! Well done Now how long / how many "members" is the poll open for? (See http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/174946-atari-forum-restore-options/)

Poll: How desperate are you to have Atari Forum back online? Please indicate which of the following strategies we should move forward with: 1. Sit tight and give 250host another week to appear online. (9 votes, Percentage of vote: 50.00%) 2. Restore the old backup and get it online asap. (4 votes, Percentage of vote: 22.22%) 3. Restore the old backup but set all users to read only so that the forum can be harvested for information. (5 votes, Percentage of vote: 27.78%) (After 18 members have cast votes) 2011-01-07 09:49 GMT. I don't think we should just be sitting around waiting for another week if there is a working back-up unless it is a lot of work to bring this back-up to life (but it sounds as if the back-up is nearly ready to go online). Having an alternative would also demonstrate to 250host that the site is considered to be important to it's users. However, at the same time no one really knows the value of any information that is currently unavailable (from the time after the backup was completed on the 4th December and the time when the site went down). So I think that the 4th December back-up should be put on line as a read only resource while we wait to see if 250host can / will / is able to recover the site and / or recover the data. The next question if we do wait, is how long do we wait? With a read only version of the site online I think we can wait for a couple of weeks (at least). For option 1, I would suggest that the waiting time be less. Hmm, how much work is it to bring the 4th December site online as a read only version? That's the real current question. As long as the work is manageable (given that it may have to be done anyway), I suggest that this is the way forward... What does everyone else think?

Rodolphe is producing a new batch of CT63 and if you want a CTPCI as well, this is at a discount as well. See http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=18988 I emailed Rodolphe (his email address is on his web site http://www.powerphenix.com/ - click on the animated envelope/letter...) He replied the following day. Earlier today he sent out this email: So get your orders in quick if you want one!