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Doug_M

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Posts posted by Doug_M

  1. Posted

    It's coming! :) While DHL still shows it as sitting in customs in Germany, I plugged the tracking number into Canada Post's site this morning and was surprised to see it entered Canada 4 days ago and is now in Halifax (the last mail stop before delivery to me). Although for some reason it says I won't get it for another 3-7 business days (already passed customs in Montreal). Anyway, the DHL nightmare is over!

     

    So, Lotharek mailed it on the 25th of March. Assuming I get it in 3 days that is roughly two months and a week. Ah well. It is going in a 25 year old computer that I waited a couple of years to find a keyboard for and just got a megafile for last year. What's two months for an Ultrasatan!

  2. Posted

    I ordered another product from Lotharek at the same time as the Ultrasatan. When he shipped it it took about 2 weeks IIRC.

     

    Emailed him a couple weeks ago and he said it looks like it is just stuck in customs. He said it is not unheard of it taking as long as 2 months to get to North America (I'm in Canada) because of customs.

     

    Hopefully it won't be too much longer.

  4. Posted

    Sounds like you're describing the Atari 8-bit line to me! Lots of software available on disk or cart, can hook up to a tv or monitor and has what is probably the largest homebrew community of all the 8- bits out there. Not to mention they're still cheap on eBay and you can find them being sold by Canadians which will help with postage cost.

    • Like 2

  9. Posted

    Hi, SDX noob here. I want to use config selectors. I've got a directory called SPARTA.DOS in the MAIN directory of my boot drive (a partition on a MyIDE+Flash) and two .CFG files in there. When I boot the machine (a 130XE) it seems to be ignoring them, I don't get a menu, but my autoexec.bat file executes. This is SDX 4.45 by the way. Any suggestions?

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  10. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I just received a brand new XDM121 I bought off B&C. Unfortunately the ribbon advance mechanism doesn't work. I'm not sure if it is a mechanical problem or electrical (I suspect electrical). There is a cylinder that moves up and down, thereby pulling an arm that in turn spins the ribbon advance do-hickey. When the printer is turned off this group of parts moves freely down and up (with the spring returning it to the up position on its own). There was some old grease on top of the cylinder housing that was sticking a bit which I wiped off but that doesn't seem to be the problem.

     

    Watching it when it is printing (both from Atariwriter and via the built-in test) I see that the cylinder moves down but never moves up. I've checked for broken parts or bits that kind of thing and found nothing. I removed and replaced the ribbon, which is also new and can be manually advanced easily. The manual is of course not helpful at all and I haven't found a service manual online. Does anyone have experience with this printer and have any suggestions?

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  13. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I just got ahold of my first 130XE. It seems in good shape and my preliminary testing (Atari Writer Plus, a few carts, SpartaDOS 3.2g etc.) shows no problems. Until, that is, I tried to run the disk version of Mac/65. Now I've tried this with multiple ATR copies (mostly from Pigwa) and when I run mac65.com it loads for a while then the screen gets garbled (large multi-coloured jumbled text). The machine is still responsive in that I can type commands and I can tell it is doing them (i.e. CP to DOS and then DIR) because the disk drive runs and the garbled text changes. I didn't do any electrical testing but I opened up the 130 and looked for bad components and broken solder joins etc, everything appeared to be fine. I've got the 130 hooked up to a Commodore 1702 via the RCA jacks in the front as my cable is composite only. I've used this cable and monitor with my 1200 without issues. Any ideas? Do I have a bad chip or is there some config I need to do before I run Mac/65?

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  16. Posted

    When BASIC is on, MEMTOP is normally 8k lower than without, because BASIC ROM occupies the area between $A000 and $BFFF. But since MAE also needs some portion of this memory (namely $B7xx etc.), you obsviously have to disable BASIC before trying to use MAE. Without BASIC the MEMTOP value is as I wrote above.

    Ah, of course!

     

    I know that it may be difficult to lower the MEMTOP from DOS prompt, because SpartaDOS 3.2 doesn't have a command to do that. However, a small program could be written which would do the task. Another solution would be to modify the XEP80 driver so that it relocates towards MEMLO (down the RAM) and not towards MEMTOP. This I think would solve the issue once for good.

    Somehow I think I've just been given homework. :) Great, now I have a weekend project! Between Google, the big stack of Analog magazines I have, and a book on 6502 assembly, I should be able to figure this out!

     

    Thanks again,

    Doug

  17. Posted

    The MAE manual also states this:

     

    This assembler is designed to run in up to 3 banks of the extended memory available on the 130XE orother memory expanded Atari. The bank numbers are configurable. A portion of the assembler must resideoutside of bank select RAM, and in this version, it will occupy $B700-$BBFC.

     

    The MEMTOP s normally $BC40. Therefore, when you load the XEP80 driver, it lowers the MEMTOP by 1.5k, which means it occupies memory around $B640-$BC3F. When you load MAE, it then overwrites the XEP80 driver with code, hence the crash.

     

    You may try to:

     

    1) boot SpartaDOS to 40 columns

     

    2) lower the MEMTOP to $B700 (you have to somehow POKE this value to $02E5/6, i.e. 741-742 dec)

     

    3) load the XEP80 driver

     

    4) load MAE

     

    I ran PRINT PEEK(106)*256 and I get a value of 40960 ($A000) which of course is much lower than $B700. I got that value with SpartaDOS and the BASIC cart as well as with just the BASIC cart.

     

    By the way, thanks for all your help. I grew up as a Commodore kid and am just getting into Atari 8-bit now (and am really enjoying it).

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  18. Posted

    Well, no luck there. The MAE manual states:

    The bulk of the MAE executable resides in the $4000-$7FFF address range, designed to be in bank select memory. If you do not have banked memory, you must reconfigure MAE's buffer addresses to not overwrite the program. Free memory will be in two segments, from LOMEM-$3FFF, and from $8000-$B6FF. You should probably set the source buffer to the latter, since it is the larger segment. Use CONFIG.COM to set the first four addresses to $8000, $B6FF, $0000 (MAE will use the current LOMEM), and $3FFF. You should also change the three bank select bytes to $FF, and then save your changes.

    and the XEP80 doc file states that the handler is about 1.5kb. So I reduced each segment by 3kb on either "end". Still no luck. The MAE manual also states:

    64 and 80 column modes are not available on 64K machines.

    but it is under the heading "64 & 80 Column Drivers" for MAE's own ANTIC drivers. I assumed this did not apply to the XEP80 as it seemed like it was referring just to the MAE drivers. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe it refers to both.

  19. Posted

    Noob question: what do you mean by "simply load the 'E:' driver"? To run the XEP80 with anything other than AtariWriter 80 and the disk that came with the XEP80, I've simply been copying the AUTORUN.SYS file from that disk to others. Is that loading the E: driver?

     

    I think so. And I think it succeeds, because, as you say, SpartaDOS works in 80 columns. Now there can be another question (which I am not able to answer at the moment): where the XEP80 driver loads? If it loads to the low memory (right above the DOS), this should cause no problems. But if it loads to the top of RAM (right before the display list), MAE may dislike this. The driver location in the memory is probably explained in the XEP80 docs or support files. Then you may want to change MAE's configuration.

     

    Bingo! The manual doesn't have this info but a DOC file on the XEP80 disk does and that is where it relocates the driver (before the display list). I'll have to do some experimenting but I'll get back to this thread with whatever solution I find. Probably take a couple days for me to find the time to "play". :)

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  20. Posted

    On a sidenote: I find it odd that the XEP80 only works when Antic DMA is off. Its a peripheral hooked up to a joystick port. What can Antic DMA do there to mess stuff up? Is the device so timing critical that this needs to be done?

     

    The manual mentions that you can have the debugger on one monitor in 80 columns via the XEP80 while the output of the program you are debugging is displayed in a second monitor. While I have two monitors hooked up I have never seen the "40 column" monitor display anything once the XEP80 driver has loaded.

     

    This is so because doing output via 80-column "E:" device (like XEP80 or anything else like that) does not need any setup. You simply load the "E:" driver and MAE works.

    nging.

     

    Noob question: what do you mean by "simply load the 'E:' driver"? To run the XEP80 with anything other than AtariWriter 80 and the disk that came with the XEP80, I've simply been copying the AUTORUN.SYS file from that disk to others. Is that loading the E: driver?

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

  21. Posted

    Hi,

     

    I'm trying to get MAE 1.2 working with my XEP80 (this is on real hardware, a 1200XL hooked up to a laptop running APE). The 1200 is booting SpartaDOS 3.2g to which I've copied the AUTORUN.SYS from the XEP80 disk. That works. That is to say SpartaDOS comes up fine in 80 columns. But when I run MAE the L2 LED comes on and the computer freezes. If I run MAE without the XEP80 (AUTORUN.SYS file removed) then MAE runs fine.

     

    I've been reading the manual here http://www.mixinc.net/atari/mae.htm but other than stating that MAE works the XEP80 there isn't much to go on. I should mention I've tried running MAE with and without running DEBUG80 first (which is supposed to toggle DMA).

     

    Has anyone gotten this to work (either on hardware or an emulator)?

     

    Thanks,

    Doug

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