bbking67

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.

same bidder pushing the bids up... looks fraudulent to me.

Thanks for posting this... I remembered Aquatron vaguely, but I don't recall ever having played it much. I played it yesterday and had a blast! I find this game much most accessible than Defender. To me it looks like a porting job... most Atari programmers would have taken advantage of the bigger palette. Great little game though!

The XM301 had a ring detector, but was notorious for dying... thus many Atari owners (mostly BBS operators) resorted to building a ring detector.

I am kind of drooling over the Mist project available at Lotharek... very interesting stuff. http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=96 If the Mist can recreate the ST/Amiga, could it be used to create an "uber-XL" machine? Does anyone know if this is feasible? Is anyone working on it? I would buy one in a heartbeat if it had decent compatibility. /bbking67

I thought Monkey Wrench was a BASIC extension/toolkit?

Zork??? Really? The other thread is C64 vs Atari... this is Atari 8 vs all others. I guess it's not an original thread, but what the heck? I think it's a fun topic.

I just thought it would be interesting to start a discussion about games that were technically superior on the Atari 8-Bit. Generally in the later years the few titles the Atari got were shoddy ports (Pitstop II comes to mind), and by then the C64 dominated the 8-bit gaming scene. Most of the games ported over from the Apple II were superior on the Atari, but then again it's not much of a fair fight. Some notable titles that I think are best on the Atari: M.U.L.E. Easily the best version, and obviously originally crafted on the Atari 800. The Atari version looks and plays the best and is the only version that supports 4-player mode (using joysticks at least). Lords of Conquest The Atari version plays better than any of the ports, including the Atari ST version. The AI is better and the game balance is superior. I think the original version was on the Apple II, but the Atari version is better in every way. This game was probably coded in compiled BASIC or Action!, almost certainly not assembler. Attack of the Mutant Camels Graphically the difference between the Atari version and the others is astounding. This game looks and plays great on Atari, but on other systems is a steaming pile. The Lucas Games: The Eidolon, Ballblazer, Rescue on Fractalus, Koronis Rift The Atari versions of these games easily outshine the others that came later... obviously the games were crafted to take advantage of the Atari systems' strengths, much like how Activision and Imagic did with th 2600. Any others?

Yes the all-white 1050 looks really nice... as nostalgic as I am about the brown beige two-tone I would go with the white as a replacement case if somebody ever built it.

I can't read german, but this looks like a 3D model of 1050 enclosure. I'd love to be able to buy these or print them myself someday when 3D printers go mainstream. http://des-or-mad.net/blog/artikel/3d-atari-1050-gehaeuse-modelliert.html Translation: "The Blender 3D model of my Atari 1050 Disk Drives already taking shape in the truest sense of the word. The case is modeled largely, but contains no textures. In the next step, I'll add the front panel of the disk drive, power switch and the rear connectors. Then the model gets a little color and is ready for the first application cases." /bbking67

The funny thing is that I was working for an ST publication, but for at least the first year only had my 800XL. I wrote articles using a text editor and sent them over to work via BBS. To answer the other question, I still have some magazines and posters kicking around. The other stuff is stored at my parents, so I should be able to scan in an issue or two. I definitely do not have a complete set (and I never saw the last 3 issues or so in complete form). I had a business card folded up in the label of my filing cabinet drawer for the last 25 years or so.

I was an Atari 8-bit user in Ottawa, Canada. Back then, Ottawa had a great user group that met monthly in the National Research Council auditorium. NCAUG had a great newsletter due to the experience and expertise of several NCAUG members. I was a young guy at the time, and had only a couple of high school friends who had Atari computers. One friend in particular, Hytham Khalil, got the Atari ST near launch. Well it was an amazing machine (though I was still a die hard 8-bitter). Hytham was extremely ambitious, and some time in 1986 after a rousing user group meeting we got talking about making a computer publication of some sort. Hytham's family had a printing and graphic design business, and with the emerging desktop publishing industry it seemed like a computer magazine would be easy to produce (boy were we wrong). Building momentum for the idea, Hytham spoke to many of the NCAUG leaders, including Bob Thompson, a professional editor by trade (and avid 8-bitter I might add). I was an editor and production assistant in addition to contributing articles. The original issue (I would call it the beta version), a number of technical hurdles were worked out. Sales of the magazine were brisk and distributors were willing and able to take on the publication. Many computer stores were provided magazines directly. I should say that at that time, Atari looked unstoppable! The Canadian market was growing and the Atari machines were far cheaper than the Amiga alternative. The production of the magazine used Atari computers extensively. The first issue was using manual paste up and a photo-typesetting machine, the next 2-3 issues used a postcript interface to a Linotronic L300 typesetter, and then the final issues were done with a 300DPI QMS PS800 postscript laser printer and Atari desktop publishing software. The Atari was to blame for some of the nasty kerning (which we manually corrected). The last issues done of the laser were really a cost-cutting measure, but we thought it added to the magazine as it was made by an Atari. Photos and half-tones (b&w images) were conventionally done not using the Atari directly. There were some amazing people involved in the magazine, and some I remember (aside from Mr Khalil) include Bob Thompson, Jim Turner, Mike Riley, Glenn Brown, Dan Panke, Ross Judson and Randy Tchorznickis. There were plenty of other contributors, sorry if I have forgotten anyone. We did attend many shows and I have fond memories of them. I got to meet Atari luminairies and a few celebrities. One thing I have to say, Hytham had the ability to work some magic. We went all over the place selling the magazines and drumming up advertising business. CES, Comdex, Atarifests and user groups were frequent stops. Some highlights: - Comdex 1987 and 1988 - Saw David Small demonstrate Magic Sac with Bill Gates looking on in horror - Met Fleetwood Mac (Mick Fleetwood and Billy Burnette were particularly nice) in an Atari hospitality suite after they played a blues set (no girls from the band, so they rocked out and Mick Fleetwood did an extended drum solo including a bit with a weird drum suit) - Met Tom Harker, Mike Gustafson and the rest of the ICD team at their prime (at the time included Keith Ledbetter) - Met Sam Tramiel (who told us his wife was actually from Kemptville a town near Ottawa and that he went there all the time) - A team (I was not involved) interviewed Tangerine Dream about their use of Ataris (this was set up by Atari Canada) - Met many Microsoft employees who were Atari fans at the Seattle Atarifest - Met the folks behind the Atari version of WordPerfect (WordPerfect invested considerable resources into the Atari version) By 1988, Atari started losing ground to the PC clones, a revitalized Amiga lineup and things seemed less optimistic. The magazine badly needed an infusion of cash and several venture capitalists were brought in to invest in the company (who had started to deliver other publications). The severe cashflow crunch left two issues at the printer--printed but not delivered. Personally I left before the last issue (going on to work at a daily newspaper) In late 2012, Hytham Khalil passed away suddenly at age 45.

Seconds for Ultima III & IV and for Phantasie I & 2. Sadly no Ultima V or Phantasie III, but these are great on the ST and should have been Atari 8 titles.

I think phone chargers aren't as good as, for example, using a 5V adapter from a router (easy to find at value village, 2.5A and should not drop voltage like some cheap chargers).

Some of the cheaper chargers seem to have voltage dips under load which renders them useless... there are some youtube videos showing this in the context of powering Raspberry Pi devices. I think that some motherboards have a "special" charging port that will provide more current... I have a motherboard like that and I use it to revive my HP Touchpad. My Touchpad (running Android 4) has this quirk that when the power level drops too low you can't charge it with a charger. Somehow a regular 2A charger isn't enough to wake the unit up, but the Asus motherboard can. Strange. Anyway, this feature supplies 1.2A, so it might not be enough for Atari's anyway. I'm not too sure why anyone would want to charge with a PC anyway.

This would work well... http://www.belkin.com/au/p/P-F5L134 As indicated by others, many 3rd party chargers are not very good. I think a laptop power supply might be more robust (I have one of these that I bought for $20 at factorydirect).

The unmodified 130XE has better video output and more memory... if you plan on getting into hardware enhancements, you'd probably be better off with an 800XL, but as for a stock machine the 130XE is better. The 800 is nice too, but 48K is rather limiting. My vote is definitely 130XE... I'd staty clear of the 400, 1200XL, 600XL and XEGS as they are more constrained. All of them have their merits though. /bbking67

I noticed that the cassette games seem to be trumcated at the F's (all the games start with letters A-F). Is there a proper version of TOSEC out there? I think I have an old version of it from 2008...

Good interview with James Capparell. Excellent editing and very candid. Just the right length (I also like the fact that the 90 full version is available for download in the show notes).

DVDO iScan products work well... iScan HD or HD Plus is pretty good.

Monitor out (which is composite video) or RF? Have you tried both outputs?

My first Atari computer was an 800XL and I noticed early on that the video wasn't as good as my friends' 800's. I always blam3ed it on cost reductions... I used the 800XL mostly on RF, obviously composite is not very good and Croma/Luma doesn't work (unless you mod the unit). In fact I had a Rambo'ed XL (256K) but switched to a 130XE to get better output (at this time I had a Commodore 1802 monitor). Of course the 800XL ran my BBS... anyhow I found the 130XE output to be acceptable. At that time, I was completely oblivious to the video mods (they seemed pretty easy to do, so I'm sure I would have tried it had I known--ohh the pre-Internet days). Does anybody know the story about how or why Atari screwed it up? It seems like a colossal failure. In fact, Atari could have easily cashed in and OEM'ed a compatible monitor just like Tandy and Commodore did...

Personally I ditched the old tv-computer box. I use a radio shack rca-to-coax adapter and a piece of quad shield coax goesdirectly into the tv set. This is as good as its going to get for rf... Its funny because prior to getting the radio shack adapter I was using a tv computer box and a 75 to 300 ohm adapter. Makes no sense to convert away from the impedance needed then back again, but that's what I did.

I have a 12" model of this sony. In addition to composite, it has RGB support (probably intended for CGA) using a custom interface cable. There is a smoked glass front on the unit. There are no built in speakers but it has speaker outputs. Mine had great image quality (though now the color blend is off and the image has faded somewhat). /bbking67

One thing I have always found is that the Pokey goes slightly out of pitch... I wonder if it's always that way? If not for this flaw, the Pokey is pretty competitive with SID.