Rachel-Emma

Hello people I am looking to buy a replacement 1050 Disk Drive. I have a Happy Mod Board ready to fit. Please message me if you have one to sell. Many thanks to you all

I can't see this working but I would love to see the results. It could also end up being a longer process than peroxide if it works that is. Most of the XE/XL computers that I have done have normally only taken a day under a nice ray of sunlight beaming through my windows. I still say peroxide is your best option really but it won't hurt to experiment.

Nice one, any software that you know of for this interface ?

Hello Mathy Can you let me know when you find more information out about this three port MIDI-interface? I'm hoping this device can be shipped overseas and that it's reasonably priced. I'm well excited with this news I wonder also if you can record audio through this interface I would love to be able to record my Moog sounds through the 8-Bit Atari

I owned an unit of those: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 370479852140 IMHO 'Hybrid Arts' was the most active company for more or less 'professional' production software on the small Ataris. Wow that is well out of my price range in all honesty but it looks mint. That's exactly the sort of thing I am after. I wonder if "flashcatjazz" would be able to make such an interface He seems to be good at everything else he lays his hands on

Thanks for that - i'll have a look

I was wondering if there was any Music Production Software for the 8-Bit. I had a look on Best Electronics yesterday and really wanted to purchase the MIDIMax Interface. I was informed they were completely sold out and extremely hard to get hold of. Are there any alternatives to the MidiMax interface - maybe a midi interface that has "THRU" as well as Midi In and Out ??? I was also looking for some VST plugins for windows that emulate the sound chip of the 8 Bit but couldn't find much there either. Rachel x

I so can't wait for flashjazzcat to finish this GUI project and I hope many people offer generous donations to him when he releases the programme for us Atari Users. He's worked so hard on this project and deserves a lot of credit. Good luck with working on it over this weekend Jon - I hope you get a decent amount done with no disruptions

I understand he also had a sideline in counterfeit cakes... ahem. heehee something like that

I believe the guy that fitted and made this was a guy known as "Jaffa" aka Ian Halliwell. He nearly got caught in the 80's because he made excellent duplicate copies of the US Doubler.

A sensible assumption. Yes you are both correct

These pictures were taken by me today of my Dads 130XE that he bought when the computer was released in 1985. It has been stored away for some time and has not had any power through it for at least 12 years as he had a few problems with it. I am hoping to get it fixed though. If anyone can tell me what upgrades have been done to this board, please come forward

Here is a restoration of a stock 65XE that I recently did for you all the see This 65XE was the blackest and dirtiest machine that I ever purchased from anyone through eBay but it has to be said that it is also now one of the nicest machines that I have seen too. Inside the case were crumbs and bits of mini cheddars that managed to creep inside, there was hard toffee literally stuck onto the case that was a pain to get off and many of the keys were dicoloured. Pen marks and general dirt had been covering the beautiful grey colour of the case for what appeared to be a very long time. Also, a large amount of dog hair managed to creep inside and sit ontop of the motherboard along with dust etc. The packaging that the seller sent the Atari to me in was disgraceful. They packaged my Atari up in 2 used takaway pizza boxes with bits of cheese and pepperoni and a large amount of grease stuck to the bottom. The package had been in transit for almost a week so the pizza boxes must have been at least 8 days old. Shocking stuff. Anyway, hope you all like the pictures Rachel

Hello everyone, I'm looking for either a stock 1050 Disk Drive in great condition or a modified 1050 with US Doubler or Happy. I am in UK, England and hope someone will get back to me.

Not bad experiences with the 1050 - simply very good experiences with the XF551. Since I had an XF first, all my media is tailored to that unit. The 1050 can't be blamed for being single-sided and a bit noisy. I don't dislike it, but I regard the XF as a much more capable device. Oh ok fair enough. My 1050 was rather noisy at first but I took the lid off and oiled the rails and several other bits to try and attempt to quiet it down and it has worked. Good old castrol oil LOL. It's very risky though and you can't put too much oil on, just enough to make it run that bit smoother. It makes all the difference. The bottom line is I would like an XF551 for sure. I know some people say that some disks written on the 1050 will read no problem on a XF551 but some say the opposite or at least not without a couple of issues.

Duely noted Jon. You have obviously had bad experiences with the 1050. If I can pick up a decent XF551 then for sure I'll have one

Thanks for your insight everyone I think I will stick with my Happy 1050 then. It is a solid and extremely reliable disk drive and I've never had any issues. I could do with another one though but don't see many about. There always seems to be a few from the US on eBay but the ridiculous postage costs put me off from buying or bidding.

Hello everyone, I've been looking at buying an XF551 but don't really know too much about it. I've really ever known and stuck with the 1050 that was fitted with Super Archiver and the Happy Mod Boards. Does the XF551 read US Doubler disks??? I have stacks of US Doubler Disks that my Dad made up back in the mid 80's that I would still like to use. Also, would I be able to write US Doubler disks with the use of an XF551 that is connected to an SIO2PC interface? Rachel

Most of the boot .atr files that I've downloaded from the Atari websites were created by the excellent utility called AtrUtil95. Use "Create>Auto Boot". Thank you for the link. I will most certainly be giving this a try. I'll let you know how I get on

Get a menu disk and put your xex/exe/com/obj/bin files on it using makeatr. Then you can write the disk to your real floppy. There's a mypico boot disk or something also. You have 5.25" single density floppies to write to? They're sorta rare now. You have a SIO2USB if I recall, but was having problems with it. How's that going? (single/double density OK, but not high density 5.25", Disks you can use have the hub ring, high density no hub ring.) I've got a nice pile of 5.25" disks to write to now all brand new, sealed and unused infact. Most of them are DSDD and mostly Verbatim Datalife The SIO2USB is much better now, thank you for asking. It had to be returned to Atarimax a couple of times until Steve worked out what the problem was. He had to add a couple of extra things on my interface so that it didn't keep burning out/dying. With regards to makeatr....yes I will try what you say. I tried to create multiload menus with it last time which worked for me the once but then it failed to work for me a second time. I got frustrated with it and kind of left it for a few weeks. Maybe this weekend I will go back to it with refreshed patience

Hello all I was wondering if there was a programme that I have not seen where you can convert for example XEX files to ATR so that I can write to floppies with SIO2PC

I was wondering if anyone could create a Blank Menu Disk atr so that i can use it to transfer xex, com files to with MyDos 4.53. I think i will have to create menu disks the old fashioned way on my Happy 1050. I quite enjoy it so it's not going to be a problem

I have just written MYDos 4.53 to a real floppy. I have to change tactic now because this whole thing has been so frustrating. Hopefully one day I will have tonnes of knowledge and I can do some advising

Ok, I've just tried to create another disk and still it hasn't worked. Something is wrong somewhere. Maybe I've caught something in the settings? When I come to load the file on Altirra, it loads DOS 2.5 and shows DOS Dup and Auto Run Systems with 602 free sectors I am totally baffled and confused.

Unless as previously stated the disk image is still open in another program, it should be writable. Perhaps the blank image is corrupt somehow. I have just recreated the disk you show and had no problem doing so. It along with a blank DD disk image are attached. That would also happen if the the disk image in Altirra was not set to R/W. The disk is definitely not full as there is still around 90 sectors open after adding the COM files. Attached to this post is a zip file containing a menu disk made from the files you show in the picture with the menu you show in the picture. There is also a blank.atr in the zip. This is DD disk image formatted with MyDos and is the blank used to create the menu disk. Try using the blank to make another menu disk. Hi, You deserve big thank you for trying to help me out. You're a Star and I've loaded the disk that you created which works perfectly. I'll try it again with this blank atr that you sent