Dal_1978

Probably the best thing to do it remove the resistor, re-attached C73 to it's rightful place and repair the trace by scratching away either side of the drill hole and soldering a small wire (use part of the salvaged resistor's leg). Then it would be wise to take some macro photos of the board and post them up here so we can confirm that there isn't any other 'mod' on the board that needs undoing. I will try and grab a schematic and help you check it through. Once it is back to 'stock', then we can see if the problem was an unsuccessful mod, or whether the previous owner naffed the sound chip in the process!

I think we're on the same page mate. Thanks for the offer - if current rumblings don't come to fruition, we'll chat.

http://www.free-webhosts.com/free-unlimited-webspace.php Cheers - it's an option however we may have someone in the community who can host it. I'm also a little sceptical of those hosts who offer "too good to be true" unlimited hosting packages - it either becomes a limited offer (as they haemorrhage money and need to start charging) or they simply go bankrupt and disappear... Have you had sites hosted by them?

Cheers - we're working on it. Been looking at avenues for the hosting issues with a friend of MUG's today. So the plan is to see if we can arrange for AF to be restored onto a new host and solve both problems at once.... That's the idea anyhow! Time will tell but I'm hopeful we can pull it off.

Agreed. I was just putting it out there conceptually to illustrate that its not a simple thing to do properly. I am trying to find out some tangible numbers.

Let's be clear, there appears to be two issues here. Most fundamentally, the site itself has gone 'pop', somehow the files that comprise the Atari-Forum have vanished from the webserver hosting it. I cannot explain how this has possibly happened but then I'm not familiar with how "250 host" (or whoever they are) manages slices. Secondly (assuming the first is resolved), there appears to be a filter in place at BT that affects all sites hosted by the same hosting company used by Atari Forum. Some users have reported success with the approach of using OpenDNS in order to circumvent this, however this is clearly far from ideal. There are other factors to consider here, the most important of which is cost. I'm not sure how much space the AF consumes (database and attachments must consume a lot) but I'd imagine hosting such a site on shall we say. A more 'reputible' host provider will cost serious money to maintain. This puts us in the realms of a subscription model - a scenario that immediately alienates all but the true Atari enthusiasts. We aren't a large community to start with so this is a bad idea. If anyone here can come forward and categorically state that they can provide hosting for a potentially huge site (must be gigabytes to support all the attachments over the years) and this can be provided for as close to £0 as possible, then please come forward with your offer and I will present it with a strong argument to those who can make it happen.

I have PM'd Silver Surfer with the offer - I'm sure he can handle it, just a question of time. But I've let him know there are plenty of helping hands he can call upon. Cheers

Yes there was at least the first Starglider issue on a single disk, booting on Amiga and Atari ST. And Starglider II. Also all the cover discs on ST/Amiga Format magazine although one side was Amiga and other ST but obviously both could boot the floppy to get to their own files on the respective side of the disk. Then you have SCUUM-based games where the data files can be used cross platform (Amiga/ST/PC/Mac etc), but the engine was platform dependent. ScummVM is a great project for playing games that were never released on a particular platform.... Monkey Island on a Falcon anyone? No, the data wouldn't be compatible either... unless maybe with an STe, otherwise all the palette data is different, colors will tend to be optimized differently etc. (I suppose you could have everything ST optimized and have separate palette data for the ST and Amiga modes so you only use the 9-bit RGB values within the Amiga's 12-bit RGB) However, I highly doubt any game bothered with that... it's far more likely that such disks simply partitioned the Amiga and ST data/code into different parts of the disk, or even used separate sides. (especialyl to cater to early single sided ST floppy drives so you'd have one 360 kB side for the ST and another 360 kB side -or 440 if Amiga formatted- for the Amiga game) With a 512 kB Amiga and 16 color framebuffer double buffered you'd only have 448 kB free anyway (without the OS loaded), so for single load games 1/2 a disk was fine. (for the ST you'd be a bit further back with 360 kB as there's still 448 kB free after the 64 kB for the framebuffers, so that's 88 kB left over for uncompressed single disk games using one side -again, no OS loaded) Not strictly true, I remember having a problem with the game Fascination and ended up copying a data file from the PC version to a floppy and using that instead. It worked perfectly fine (although still crashed in the same place indicating a problem with the ST compiled version of the engine). But this did prove that the data was exactly the same across platforms for this game. Same is true for LucasArts adventure games (using their own engine called SCUUM) I have run PC released Scumm based games on Falcon no problem using ScuumVM (the engine has been compiled for a myriad of systems). The data files could have easily (well not quite so easily) have come from the Amiga version of the game though... (not so easy wrenching stuff from Amiga disks without an Amiga). However we are talking about a small number of games in relation to the number of releases... Check it out The list of compatible games is quite staggering.

Now that is impressive - there can be no denying!

I have done exactly that... Cased so that I can make cables for other systems (I have only made the ST cable so far!). Both my STe's have been modded with a switch to toggle Drive A between internal and external drives.

Yes there was at least the first Starglider issue on a single disk, booting on Amiga and Atari ST. And Starglider II. Also all the cover discs on ST/Amiga Format magazine although one side was Amiga and other ST but obviously both could boot the floppy to get to their own files on the respective side of the disk. Then you have SCUUM-based games where the data files can be used cross platform (Amiga/ST/PC/Mac etc), but the engine was platform dependent. ScummVM is a great project for playing games that were never released on a particular platform.... Monkey Island on a Falcon anyone?

I would gladly sort it all out for you, however I'm in the UK, so the cost of shipping would make it uneconomical I expect. Maybe there is someone else on the forum based nearer to you with the necessary skills to help you out?

Damn wanted to double check the schematic on the STF but the links at http://atari4ever.free.fr/ seem to have been orphaned I have done this mod on two STE's with a switch so that I can toggle normal and inverted drive select for use with a HxC emulator. It's really quite a simple mod if you have basic soldering skils. Also, it would be nice to keep as many machines running in some way or another as possible. Where are you based?

Depends on the TOS version I found. TOS 2.06 will bomb (2 bombs) if Drive 0 isn't detected while earlier TOS versions may boot to the desktop after 40 seconds but you have no drive icons. To use your external drive, you can swap the Drive Select lines over inside the ST (I have documented this mod on Atari-Forum's Wiki - currently down though). Essentially for a hard wired 'permanent' mod, snip pins 19 and 20 of the sound chip, solder pin 19 to pin 1 of W301 and pin 20 to pin 1 of W300. This will ensure the external drive always behaves as Drive 0. If you want to fix the machine though, then I suggest using a soldering iron and solder pump to remove all the pins left on the board and fit a header socket to the board. This will allow you to use a standard floppy ribbon cable inside the ST to the internal drive.

I had a message from Silver Surfer (as my account got accidentally deleted). He says: "Hi Darren Sorry I haven't had time. And now the site is down I hope I'll have the site back up again and get your account back soonish" It's all in the right hands and we must be patient while it gets sorted. Let's not forget that the admins do this on a volutary basis so it's not fair to push too hard...

The site admins have been given a prod - we are at their mercy. I'm sure it will be up and running as soon as possible. Don't forget these guys volunteer their services so we must be patient and wait for things to happen. I know MUG UK is on the case....

Falcon with: 14MB ST RAM 68882 FPU CT60 (060 @ 60Mhz) with 128MB RAM NetUSBee CF card Desktopper Case + FreeKeys Although being repaired at the moment...

Perhaps they might even sort my account out at the same time they get it going again??