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bbking67

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Posts posted by bbking67

  1. Posted

    Hey Atari got me into music in the first place!

     

    Back in 1989 after I sold all my ST gear (I bought a Fender guitar amp with the money raised from the sale), I reverted to my Atari 130XE as my main computer. At that point I had a two monitor setup: a Commodore monitor and an amber composite monitor I used with the XEP80. I used this setup for BBSing and other stuff. I still had an MIO but no hard drive.

     

    So in my city, someone decided to set up a BBS for musicians. It was great... lots of folks interested in music chatting on a BBS. It was quite Atari-centric just because many musicians owned ST's due to the built-in MIDI.

     

    Anyway, eventually I saw an ad for a vocalist in a blues band... I had been playing guitar on and off in bands up to then (nothing serious, and played a total of two paying gigs ever up to then). So I tried out for the band and got the spot. A couple of the guys were heavily into Ataris, and they were using Notator on the ST to provide charts for the horn players. Eventually we got rid of the horn players, recruited a different bass player (who was an Atari 8-bitter)

     

    So eventually we went on to record a little bit and were a popular local band. We won a talent competition and got to open for Three Dog Night and that opened a lot of doors for other stuff we did after that.

     

    I gave the drummer (who is in the video) an Atari 1200XL with a Percom drive... don't know whatever happened to that setup.

     

    Anyhow, the current band is kind of derived from that old band... just lots of changes over the years (guys moving away, other projects, etc.)

     

    Here's the thing: the retro guitar, effects and tube amp hobby is just as addictive as retro-computing. Maybe moreso.

    • Like 1

  2. Posted

    Well my initial giddiness of receiving my SIO2SD has diminished a bit.

     

    I plugged it in to my unmodified (and perfectly working) 130XE in place of my stack of 1050's. Initially the unit booted up and I was able to navigate the drive numbers. I was able to load a game using the SIO2SD as well (again using the buttons).

     

    However, when trying to access the onscreen menu, I could not get anything to work. I cycled power 2-3 times, but pressing Start or Select did not work (yes I help down Option at boot).

     

    Now things have gone from bad to worse... The bootup only makes the telltale crunching sound when no I/O device is found and the device shows solid squares (see photo). The buttons are unresponsive.

     

    Any ideas?

     

    I sure hope the device is not bricked.

     

     

    post-31489-0-72018700-1389238022_thumb.jpg

  3. Posted

    I bought the SIO2SD today (chose that over the SIDE ultimately). Just got it and it looks great! Here are my first impressions:

     

    - It's bigger than I expected. I thought it would be half the size.

    - The quality of the construction is really good. Pictures do it no justice

    - Shipping was very fast (10 days from Poland to Canada and no duty fees!)

    - Packaging was fine

    - The unit was supposed to come with a 2GB SD card, but I got an 8GB Sandisk Ultra Class 10! Very nice!

     

    I'm pumped and I can't wait to try it.

     

    Here's my phone cam unboxing. Okay it's a recreation of the real unboxing I did 5 minutes earlier.

     

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVhF27sB-Os&feature=youtu.be

     

    Can't wait to try it!

    • Like 3

  4. Posted

    Woz never had much to do with other products beyond the Apple II series (I think he developed the first Mac mouse). It's not the same with him... in the Jobs bio, apparently Jobs wanted to limit the expansion capability down to 1 or two slots (probably to suit his aesthetic tastes) and Woz wouldn't stand down, because it was HIS computer. Woz would have made things from a functional and engineering perspective--Jobs (and Apple today) is generally concerned with the look first.

  11. Posted · Edited by bbking67

    Well I reported the auction yesterday and it is now gone... we'll see if he re-lists again. My guess is that he sells it on a different site.

     

    Then there is this scammer:

     

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Spartados-X/380589658348?_trksid=p2045573.m2042&_trkparms=aid%3D111000%26algo%3DREC.CURRENT%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D27%26meid%3D3333209607421485923%26pid%3D100033%26prg%3D1011%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D181266294053%26

  17. Posted

    No question its basically fraud. But very common on ebay... lots of cartridges that are fake "protos" or repros... I'm just not sure it's any worse.

     

    B&C does this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Last-Starfighter-Cart-800-XL-XE-Atari-New-/140951863831?pt=US_Vintage_Computers_Mainframes&hash=item20d162c217

     

    I think it's the same thing. Nice cover story about finding these and making labels, but it's very easy to burn proms and populate the same bare boards B&C sells...

  20. Posted

    Manhunter was indeed released for the Apple II, I own it. In fact I own all the games I mentioned. The only odd thing about Manhunter for the Apple II was that it wouldn't let you save in the sewers due to memory constraints so it gave you the option to skip them entirely (it just gave you all the keycards you needed).

     

     

    The C128 never had a big enough market for Sierra to bother with. I don't think they could have stripped the interpreter down to 64K either.

     

    I had no idea that Manuhunter was out for Apple II! Wikipedia is wrong on that count... I had it on ST. Not as fun as the other AGI games in my opinion.

     

    Funny thing about the Apple 128K being supported... the stock IIe only had 64K, so could there really have been enough Apple IIc's (which I thought didn't sell well)???

  21. Posted

    If you can get the Apple version of AGI going you'd be able to play:

     

    Kings Quest I-IV

    Space Quest I-II

    Police Quest

    Manhunter NY

    Black Cauldron

    Gold Rush

    LSL

    A couple of those games never had Apple II version even though they are AGI (they had Apple IIgs versions). Manhunter is one example... I suspect that there is a point where more than 128K is required and/or the capabilities of the Apple IIe/IIc just wouldn't cut it. Still, the older ones definitely were supported on Apple II. They didn't look that great and performance was quite poor...

     

    What is surprising is that they never attempted a C128 or enhanced C64 version... you'd think that would be where the money was. King's Quest was designed from the ground up to be a 16-bit title for the 128K PCjr, obviously a failed computer, so the Apple version was chopped down from there.

  22. Posted

    My suggestion is to attempt a port of the Apple II AGI interpreter.

     

    The Apple II interpreter requires 128K... The Atari should be a better platform that the Apple II 128K. This would make at least a handful of games compatible (kings quest, space quest and maybe even police quest and some sequels)

  23. Posted

    My suggestion is to attempt a port of the Apple II AGI interpreter.

     

    The Apple II interpreter requires 128K... The Atari should be a better platform that the Apple II 128K. This would make at least a handful of games compatible (kings quest, space quest and maybe even police quest and some sequels)

  24. Posted

    Atari had pretty good support until 1986 when most of the major publishers moved on to 16-bit (and C64). A 130XE enhanced version of Ultima V would have been sweet, but it wasn't in the cards. I personally think that the storage limitations of SS-SD were a factor. Porting the games themselves probably wasn't the only factor. Some publishers did publish games using Double Density--but that was incredibly risky given that no stock atari drive was capable of SS-DD until the XF551 came along.

     

    To write for Atari, you'd have to write to a lowest common denominator of 48K SS-SD to have a chance of reasonable sales. Even then you are cutting out all stock 400's.

     

    The Atari was no harder to program than other 8-bits and I don't think piracy was any worse on the Atari than C64 or Apple 2. The Atari did have a large number of 400's sold with cartridge only or tape, so many of those machines were likely retired by the early- to mid-eighties.

     

    I think the "real" marketshare of floppy-equipped Atari's was very very low compared to the Apple and C64 numbers.

    • Like 1

  25. Posted

    It would be nice to have 1050 drives that operated with a nice modern power supply. I haven't been able to find a reasonable source for 3.4A 9Vac poower supplies.

     

    I've read that the 1050 used 12V and 5V internally, so it may be worthwhile having a single power supply that can supply both. Has anyone done this? Ideally the drive should look as close to stock as possible and use commonly available switching power supplies. Are there detailed instructions for this type of modification?

     

    ideally, I'd like to use something like this:

     

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Power-Supply-Model-36-5-12-12V-5V-with-4-Female-Pins-and-Cord-/310785380233?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item485c408f89

     

    Obviously using a standard PC poower supply would work but I'm trying to avoid that.

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