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Marius

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Marius last won the day on August 12 2017

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    Netherlands
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    Atari 8bit

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  1. I was thinking about Thrust as well, and I might be the only one in the universe, but I even love the game with keyboard controls. It can be quite a frustrating (as in challenging) game. I haven't played it for a while. Thanks for the reminder. I really liked it back then, so let me dig it up.
  2. Oh and Solar Fox... that is a really nice 2600 title as well that could use a port. But did I already mention KLAX?
  3. Yes! KLAX is for me one of the reasons that I still have a 2600 that I connect on a regular base. KLAX is really an awesome game, and still in 2024 it is absolutely thrilling to play. In the list of non-ported games that deserve a port, I would most definitely want to add Private Eye. For the people who do not know how to play, it would probably feel like a boring game. But if you know how the game is played, it is really fun. Klax, Private Eye.... but Road Runner is pretty cool as well. I actually love the game. There are also games that actually are ported, but the original 2600 games plays better. I love both Pac-Man Jr. on 2600 en A8 (the 5200 version) but the game play on the 2600 is so much better. It looks not so beautiful, but the game is so fast and that brings so much joy. But yes... KLAX it is. A port of KLAX.... who might be able to create that?
  4. This is -of course- 100% true. I have lots of respect for the people who create this stuff for PC/Mac or whatever other platform. Everything that is convenient for people to write a8 software is more than welcome. But to answer your question: I never use these tools, because when it comes to the atari 8bit hobby, I love using the atari 8bit. The only thing I use every now and then is an emulator. I prefer doing all a8 related things on the real thing. For me it is all about the experience, and having a great time. Reaching goals is less important here for me. So I code in Mac/65, Synassembler or Turbo Basic, I write my txt's in the Last Word, I design my fonts and gfx with different tools, I pack my objects with SuperPacker, I compose and arrange music with the Chaos Music Composer. I debug using Turbo Freezer or Black Box. Sure it is not as convenient as on a modern PC, and my coding skills are also rather limited... but it is so much more fun: due to this, when I am active with my a8 hobby, at least I won't have to sit behind the pc or mac AGAIN. I would most certainly appreciate newer and better tools for a8. But I completely understand that the audience filled with people like me is smaller than the game audience. I love the Midi interface that I bought from Pancio. I would love to see more tools/programs for that hardware for instance. And of course I would LOVE to see a RMT-compatible editor on a8, so that I could start using RMT on the "real thing"... Please do understand me right. I have NOTHING against those cross-platform tools. In fact, I am grateful for their existance. Thanks to these tools, I can use native a8 tools that other people created on a cross-assembler or whatever. I know that quality software on a8 wouldn't have been developed without these powerful tools. So yes, I am very happy that they exist. But that these tools simply made the development of native a8 tools, unneeded; no.... definitely not.
  5. Hi David, What a tragedy/edventure! It is so good to read that you are back, and I hope the time will help you to get stronger and feeling better. Let the atari hobby help you with that. I recently (after quite some time of absence) I fired on the 800xl and everything involved, and I must say: just as always it gives me a lot of happiness. It is like coming home. I mainly use my atari 8bit for distraction free writing (I get distracted pretty easily on modern computers). And now I found my 800xl again, and I am SO happy to use it again. Hopefully you have the same fun again, and I am sure that it will help with your recovery. Long story short: nice to see you again, and I wish you all the best. Greetings from The Netherlands. p.s. someone already wrote it, but ask Albert to merge your accounts. He did that with my accounts too some time ago.
  6. @mytek The problems I did run into years ago went in some cases indeed away thanks to the shield. But not because of the shielding-function but simply because the shield added a huge load of mass which (indirectly) helped just enough for having no problems. That is my theory, perhaps it is BS. Those were the times where things were extremely critical. I also remember that having a non working CF card in my Myide 1 interface, that suddenly perfectly worked when I used a CF card to IDE adapter with 2 slots where the second CF slot was used by another CF card. So with the problematic CF card in slot 1 and no CF card in slot 2, the problematic CF card failed. But with another CF card in slot 2 suddenly the problematic CF card worked fine. Another of those "magical" solutions was putting the shield back. People with knowledge stated that these solutions are simply coincidental (or just luck). I am not an expert based on knowledge, but I have a lot of experience with virtually countless Atari setups and weird solutions. I have seen enough of these magical and funny solutions working, but I indeed can not explain them. My best hypothesis is that some PSU's are not always very clean or stable and that somehow this might disturb in some situations the operation because of the PSU and its "signal" currently being slightly out of spec. Adding mass might help a slightly out of spec PSU just enough to let the disturbed process work again without issue. It is nothing more than just my hypothesis.
  7. It is all dependable of what you would like to achieve and how skilled you are in all kind of fields, and of course all as a matter of taste as well. When I look at myself, for instance, I really love a stock Atari 800XL with all kind of bells and whistles connected on external ports. I love my Turbo Freezer 2011 with XE compatible Memory and I love my IDE+ 2.0 harddisk interface, but also my MyIDE ][ and my very nice external Midi Interface. All connected to my (nearly) stock 800XL. The only modification I made is that the Parallel Bus Interface has a +5V on one of the pins, so that external expansions/add-ons do not need a PSU (through a wire to the joystick or cart port). I also love to code on the 800XL, but I never use any cross-platform-tools. I use Synassembler or Mac/65 on a cart and I have all kind of tools that make coding on the real thing more convenient. It is so much more fun to do everything on the 800XL... although I completely agree that for convenience (and even for more possibilities) coding on a PC/Mac on a cross-assembler would be a much better idea. Anyway, I can only say: enjoy this journey. It is awesome. If you would like to write a new OS, you definitely should talk to @mr-atari ... he wrote the fabulous MyIDE OS, and has lots of experience in that field. There are some more interesting/cool OS variants. Some you really will like is the QMEG OS. If you do not want to upgrade your Atari with an extra OS or with Ultimate 1MB ... you might want to check SysCheck II. It is an external add on that also can carry a different OS rom for the Atari. Very nice. Greetings and good luck Marius
  8. Hi! Yes I know. It is so sad. But when i wrote this, I believe this tragic event did not happen yet. I am wondering whether he published his sources and other related tools somewhere. The guy leaves us a very valuable heritage. I really liked him. Years ago we pioneered the technique with Lantronix device servers. It was a pleasure to work with him on this hobby.
  9. This happens. My favorite devices are MyIDE2 and IDE+ 2.0 on Atari 8bit. And I also focus some more on Sio based solutions. Not fast, not versatile, but less sensitive to stability issues. Atari 8bit is lots of fun, and sometimes a device is not turning into our most favorite device. Some people can't stand the MyIDE 2, and I still love it. It is sometimes a very personal choice. If SIDE3 is not good for your blood pressure, leave it alone. I can live very well without it as well, although I must say that the features on paper are really amazing, mainly thanks to the superb firmware written by @flashjazzcat. But hey... focus on your atari 8bit, it is a wonderful machine... and perhaps in the future you might enjoy SIDE3.
  10. Speaking of this... I was always slightly jealous of my Apple //c computer. It has a built-in 5.25" diskdrive, and if I am informed correctly this Drive is using PARALLEL I/O instead of SERIAL. That makes it lightning fast. Copying a 5.25" floppy with LockSmith fastcopy is a matter of a few seconds (seriously, the only thing that takes some time is formatting). Even the fastest upgrade on a 1050 is still a slow snail compared to that Apple //c floppy drive. Oh and do you mean floppy disks with software, or empty ones... that seem not to be available? Here in the Netherlands it is indeed also quite a challenge to find these disks. But still... every now and then on a local market site I see them offered (sometimes even new and sealed) and then I always do a bid. It is nice to have some spares here. Nothing beats the real thing.
  11. Years and years ago... when I was still a very young person, around 13 years old, I got my very first 1050 diskdrive. A stock one. A world opened. But back in that time it was also rather common to have DOS 2.0s on floppy disks. So, without knowing anything yet, I started using DOS 2.0s and 2.5 mixed. And of course I found out (Without knowing anything about formats or sectors) that DOS 2.5 gave me these 999+ free sectors, and DOS 2.0s only 707 free sectors. So the choice was made pretty easily: I would format my disks with DOS 2.5. I already emphasized that I did not know a thing about this, so pretty soon the frustrations started to occur. What is wrong with this diskdrive? What is wrong with these floppy disks? I couldn't access sometimes these files and sometimes they were even invisible. It drove me rather crazy. Until I found out about this difference and the feature. You are actually running in the same thing, although not as 'severe' as I did. You were still able to read the files, and they appeared to you. But the problem lies in the same reason. To be honest, once I found out, I did not like the ED format that much anymore. Rather incompatible in the entire eco-system of formats. Later I started using it again, with the GAME DOS, which name I forgot... there was a special 'medium' formatter available to have 1000 sectors available for games. If I remember correctly it was called SpeedStart INIT+ by Reuss. But I can be mistaken, of course. Then it was pretty cool to have 1000 sectors available on a stock 1050. Today I try to stick with SD or DD. It makes way more sense. Both the same amount of sectors, but simply 128 or 256 bytes / sector. But still... even then I run into problems when I have only a stock 1050 available. I am probably one of the minority of people who still likes a stock 1050. (Although my main 1050 is upgraded with the Mini Speedy).
  12. Me too. I am very happy with these devices. And I do not see myself change to anything else soon. But... I have some very fond nostalgia memories of the blackbox (not all positive, but some of the memories are the best) so I was wondering whether I should go back to blackbox or not...
  13. Hi! Although the fat32 loader is rather powerful, the ATR loader is very limited. If I was you, I would study they image handler in the manual. I am not sure whether Ultima is compatible with the Soft OS, but the image handler in MyBios works rather well. Do you have another device that will let you read ATR files? You might need it to transfer images to your MyIDE card (although there was software in the past to manage the images on flash card)
  14. Does the 800XL have a ROM installed with MyBIOS 4.9 or are you using the MyIDE Cartridge with the so called 'soft'-OS version of MyBIOS? So if you start the image loader and you see the list of all the images you have 1. Ultima IV Disk 1, 2. Ultima IV Disk 2. etc? As far as I can remember, the swapping of images was like this: 1. You boot Disk 1 if you want Disk 2 you type on your computer SHIFT + CONTROL + 2 to enable Disk 2, Shift + CONTROL + 3 to enable Disk 3 etc. (And if you need Disk 1 again SHIFT + CONTROL + 1) But I am doing this now without checking the Atari so I can not test whether I am right. I also was using an older version of MyBIOS. Important is whether you are using the ROM version of MyBIOS or not. I am not sure whether Ultima is compatible with the SOFT OS. And last but not least: Are you running the ATR from Fat32 with the Fat32 loader? Then it is a whole different story, and I am not even sure whether that is possible at all. I was talking about having the Ultima disks in the MyIDE Image system. I might not use the right words. It has been quite a while ago since I was active with MyIDE, and with Atari 8bit in general. So could and would you please provide some more information. (Best with screenshots or pictures) What you are trying to do.
  15. Well, I must say, that I do not want to go back to the tragedies of losing a Ramdisk content (and the system keeps running, and the system thinks the ramdisk is reliable, so overlay files from the BBS system were saved and loaded from that Ramdisk, which eventually made the whole BBS crash... including partitions). Or the moments where a partition was completely killed due to some odd behavior. No... I must honestly say... I do not want bring that back. So I think I will keep the good memories, and for now I will stick with slightly less problematic hardware.
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