RodCastler

You probably shorted something during the socketting process so you may want to check continuity on both address and and data lines. Also, make sure you make it work with the original components before trying any replacements.

Hi, for those of you who enjoy virtual trips a the Atari facilities, I've built this quick guide [link to google maps] Unfortunately, Google myMaps does not support StreetView, so if any of you can think of a way of enabling streetview that would be great. I hope you enjoy it.

I hope I am not alone in feeling thankful for your efforts... Every time an icon passes away, I realize once again how relevant the labor of the Atari 8-bit podcast is...

I recently found out that Adam Gilmore ported the music of one of my favorite PC games "simon the sorcerer" back in the nineties. Which lead me to scroll through some nice written interviews out there, but ....none from Kevin or Randy. A8bits were a big thing for Adam I believe... I hope he is somewhere on your interviewing list!

have you set your 1050 as Drive 2 and make sure your emulator has that drive set up as free?

I'd assume bad RAM considering the fact that the system jumps straight to selftest but leaving that aside,I'd be concerned about the graphics on the selftest program itself: they seem so odd. I'm curious about what the selftest looks like after you replaced the ROM chip....

I also sent a request via PM. I hope it's not too late either. cheers

Hi you architecture wizards, I received a few 800XLs that had their PIAs cannibalized. I've taken a quick look at the sequence diagrams in "de Re Atari" but I don't see a lot going on with the PIA. While I read harder: - Will an XL boot without the PIA chip installed? why/why not? - How does the OS check the presence of supporting chips such as POKEY AND PIA at boot time? - Can an atari be tricked to believe there's a PIA installed at boot sequence? (if I ever want to have it boot and then operate without SIO, Joystick or PIA related activities). This is all out of curiosity as I will somehow procure the missing PIAs. I still want to learn. Thanks

Here as well. And yes, Atari was by far the number one in Chile back in the eighties, especially the 800XL. So many people re-living those days now, that I get to fix / restore quite a few machines a year.

Totally agree. Almost as if it was made with a CNC router. Too weird: I'd like to think an UFO landed there... but I don't believe in landings. Edit: Wait a minute...The diameter seems to match the one of the notch at the the bottom edge. That would mean that this was a factory glitch and they fixed it on the assembly line: Get a caliper... you may own a jewel !

Hmm.. looks like the wires are bringing 5v and GND rails closer to Antic, which seems to be more like a trace repair than a mod to me, especially considering that large hole breaking the thick traces at the top right. I could be wrong though.

How's your power supply? I've had issues formatting when there's not enough power. Make sure you check with a good power supply before you get in your motherboard...

You may want to re-seat your gtia chip as well, which reads the trigger button. About your question on the multimeter, yes it's a continuity test what you could do, but I doubt that's the issue if all of your joysticks fail equally. 10 ? strig(0): goto 10 That's your basic trigger tester. if the value changes when pushing the trigger, you're good. use strig(1) for the other port.

being a proud owner of one back in the day, made me wish IBM PCs had their own place on the list, separate from the clones. Would have brought some data I am curious about...

I believe it is not. I bumped into lbaeza a couple of months ago and asked him about it. He mentioned the lead developer had abandoned the project so to my understanding RallyX is not going anywhere at this point.

I agree. Besides, one of my objectives is to have the tapes available online for whoever wants them.

Fantastic, that's what I needed to know. Thank you. And Stephen thank you for your suggestion but the ones I have are not Dorsette, but a set in Spanish made exclusively for the Chilean market in the eighties, so they are not easy to find. What would be a good repository for this kind of wav files? Is it archive.org? Best, Rod

Hi all, I have these educational cassette tapes from back in the day I want to preserve. They are atari basic programs that show text on screen but also control the tape, allowing for audio to come out after the program is properly loaded. After the audio piece is played, it stops the tape allowing you to interact with the program until a point where the next program would be loaded sequentially, then more audio, and so forth. In other words, a sequence of software+user interaction, audio, software+user interaction, audio. It seems to me that both data and audio are in the same channel, but I'm not 100% sure, it may be a left-right channel combination. For this very reason, I am not sure about the correct preservation method. 1) Can you provide any pointers to some post or website with the right setup to record the wav files? 2) What would be the right way for an emulator to deal with such a format? I don't think .cas would work correctly on a hybrid tape. Which format should I aim for when I am finished with the wav file recording? Thank you

Nice! Thank you. From your excel we can tell: - 194 registered computers, of which 110 are from USA, 84 Taiwanese. - 122 unique owners High Rollers: Guitarman 11 bob1200xl 8 yorgle 7 oracle_jedi 6 charliecron 5 Karl 5 Larry 4

15+ years after giving absolutely everything away, my dream setup became to recover exactly what I had back in those days, which was an 800XL (AWG keyboard), a 1010, a 1050 and a QuickShot II Turbo. Job done (although I then added a set of pristine 600XL, 130XE, 65XE, 1200XL, XF-551, XC-12, a spare QSII Turbo and a full 2600 6'er but that's what we call inertia, right?)

I wondered the exact same thing, It doesn't seem to be AtariWriter. I like to think it is an early version of The Last Word, which of course would mean that you were at some point, in possession of the DeLorean.

One small correction: The XE line came right before the movie was shot, so there is an actual chance that the photo was taken while editing the Back to the Future script. And if that's the case, previous versions of the script were most likely written on an 800 or even an 800XL...

Hi all, this may be a well known fact but I couldn't find anything on it... While watching a "Back to the Future" documentary, one of the images shows Bob Gale (co-author) typing the movie screenplay on what I consider to be a clearly recognizable XE. Now, considering that the drafts were written in 1981, and the XE line came right after the movie was released in 1985, the photo may correlate to a later time, and different movie. Still, a good photo! You can see for yourself below, 3:57 into Part 1 of the documentary.

Sounds like a good next step. Hey I just came to say don't give up on it. You're its only hope...

If you hadn't told me that memory test was OK I would have insisted that this was a RAM issue. Which makes me wonder: Is there any chance that a faulty RAM giving you a false positive (green square)? If your RAM is socketed, I'd still replace them all just to be 100% sure.