Xebec

Yes - you are correct that you need to 'replace' more or augment more, and the MIST is one way to do it, although with somewhat CPU limited performance. The Vampire Amiga core though DOES replace/extend these types of chips in the Amiga -- if you plug a Vampire accelerator into an Amiga 500 or 600, you get the additional graphics functions of the AGA chipset (introduced with the Amiga 4000), the enhanced 32-bit blitter, and HDMI audio output with capabilities beyond Paula. Vampire also goes one step further and adds 'SuperAGA' capability - adding a bitplane to the chipset design and extending graphics resolutions to 1920x1080. There's no reason the Vampire couldn't do the same thing for an STf -- add the blitter and PCM Audio. In theory it could also add TT graphics as well. You could re-use some of the FPGA code from the MIST for the STE and implement on the Vampire; then you have a much faster CPU, the capability of the MIST, all on your ST.. Also, it's quite possible to have a FPGA cpu run at slower speeds or adjust timings to deal with those nasty TOS issues; there's already some discussion on the official Apollo CPU forums about this. The Vampire already handles the same issues on the Amiga as the Kickstart ROM is on the Vampire itself.

The TT isn't real! (sell me your TT cheap )

The hardware is already developed for the Amiga; it sounds like it's pretty trivial to re-use the core on the ST. The FPGA code is already there for STe style hardware (FPGA-Arcade, MIST), so we're not talking a lot of work. As to the point - do you use any of your old computers at all? Certainly emulation lets you run the same software and get some of the experience, but for some of us, there's nothing like using the real hardware itself, and imagining what could have been.. Maybe this isn't for you, but I eventually look forward to buying one of these.

These are fair points. Though i'll say the $650-840 is the scalping I mentioned in my post. They had very limited supply and some people were buying to resell. They've recently raised the base price but switched to automated manufacturing so the supply side will ease and settle at 250-289EU depending on the model (www.kipper2k.com). So for the Amiga, ~$300 (250EU) gives you: - A much faster computer - Allows an Amiga 500/600 to run 1200/4000 AGA chipset software (maybe an ST version allows STf to become a STe?) - SD card storage as a hard drive (replacing Ultrasatan possibly in an ST application, worth ~ $110) - HDMI output (normally a $80 upgrade on the Amiga, not sure about ST) There are people out there with coldfire FireBees - this might be a way to give them the ability to run TOS apps faster without spending the $600 on those. Depending on how the FPGA development goes, if this Vampire can allow an OCS/ECS amiga to run AGA software, it's not too far fetched to see a STf running STE software.. completely. The Amiga version also goes beyond AGA resolutions using a retargetable graphics driver, so the same might be possible on ST. TOS Web applications that previously really wanted the horsepower of a TT/Falcon/Medusa/etc would also run really well on this (assuming they work on TOS 2.xx). Oh, and it's fun to watch an Amiga 600 now play MP3.. P.S. www.apollo-accelerators.com has some more details on the Amiga versions.

That's a great piece of Trivia

Sorry - I should probably have labeled it SPOILERS ..

Wow, very good catch on that scene there! It's ashame it was not powered on with at least a Green GEM in the background. Couldn't you in theory buy a TT without a monitor? The SC1224 was still certainly sold in 1990, although i guess they would be showing a bigger monitor at a show like comdex. I'd guess the one in that scene was the color monitor as the mono monitor is way less reflective.

Unfortunately the Atari bit was more of a teaser for people like us -- it was Episode 9 (second to last) that the TT030 appeared. The Atari booth was used for software . that's all i'll say I did spot an ST in Season 1 in Gordon's garage; although it was once in the background and another time on a shelf not really getting much use. I haven't seen any Atari 8bits (although we've obviously seen large quantities of C64s..)..

TL;DR An accelerator with the performance of a 68060 @ 150 mhz running in an Atari STf. .... I'm not sure how familiar folks are with the "Apollo" CPU core and the "Vampire" line of accelerators for the Amiga. The Apollo CPU is a ground up brand new 68K compatible core running in FPGA, current performance in a relatively low price FPGA (large but not super fast) makes the CPU core at least as fast as a 68060 @ 150 mhz (fastest speed that shipped was 75 mhz). The Vampire accelerator uses the "Apollo 68080" core and via the FPGA also adds AGA chipset (and more features) to older Amigas such as the 500, 600, etc. The apollo core also has instruction compatibility across all 68K cpus so should be more compatible with the original 68000 than the 68040 or 68060.. Here's a post that shows the Apollo team has a Vampire accelerator running in a 1040STf: http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=1962&order=&x=1 Scroll down to about the bottom and you'll see the pic. It looks a little funny because they stacked a bunch of 68000 CPU sockets in there to raise the board above the shielded part of the ST chipset (the video shifter was in the middle underneath the shielding?). This is pretty exciting as this would literally take a stock STf and give it more CPU performance than a 68060 accelerator would. (The Vampire accelerator also comes with 128MB of RAM onboard , "fast ram" for the FPGA CPU). In the future they're going to do an even higher end version that raises the performance about 3x, but of course cost 3x. The current Vampire 600 accelerator goes for 250 Euros, and a faster binned version is 289 EU. They are ramping up production of the 600 version and the Vampire Amiga 500 version (shown attached to an Atari 1040STf in the pic). P.S. To be clear i'm not associated with this group in any way, just super excited at their work .

All nice! Was the Mega STE case a slightly different shade of color than the TT case? Perhaps a little more grey or something?

Just saw the first of last night's Halt and Catch Fire Episode... There was a scene of Cameron signing video game boxes at an Atari booth (Fall 1990 Comdex). They had an Atari there -- at that time it *should* have been a TT030 but it's possible they screwed up and had a Mega STE there. The computer was a little too far away to see the plate - is there any other way to tell which it was? it did have the 'later' style keyboard with the short rectangles rather than the angular keys. (I have a MSTE but bought the older keyboard as I like the ST style slanted function keys..) Anyone else catch the TT/MSTE ?

Anyone seen or used this "SolidStateDisks" FLOPPYFlash emulator yet? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/09/01/floppy_disk_flash_aint_bendable_and_shouldnt_flop/ I know a lot of us use items like the HxC or the GoTek.. this seems neat in that it has a NIC sticking out the front: TCP/IP networking via standard RJ45 Ethernet connection is also supported, allowing FLOPPYFlash to be connected to any existing local area network for remote configuration, control, diagnostics, backup and restore. I cannot seem to find any place to buy one yet ..

The math makes perfect sense to me.. Was POKEY using DMA on the A8 to allow for the higher reliable speeds, despite the much slower bus (8bit * 1.77-1.79 mhz vs 16-bit and 7-8 mhz) and slower CPU?. I guess 1985 was too early for buffered serial ports ?

Did not know you could actually retrofit the STfms.. I switched from ST to PC originally back in 1989-1990 (USA), so no such upgrades were available at that time.. I was just curious why the engineers never pushed for much more serial speed with a 'much faster' 16-bit generation.

Hey folks, Just curious - The Atari 8bit SIO serial port operated at 19200 bps by default; and looks like it's reliable to much higher speeds (52000+ bps for Happy disk upgrade?, even more for other modifications). For serial modems, of course the highest we really saw was 9600 bps (via Atari 850 interface, which launched with the 800). I was always curious why the ST (and Amiga's Paula now that i've researched) seem to have trouble pushing more than 19200 bps reliably (without CPU acceleration)? I know for the ST there are some patch routines that enable 38400 bps operation; although i'm not sure how reliable that is (I assume if the ST can keep up with MIDI at 31250 bps, 38400 isn't too far out of reach). On the OCS amigas (1000, 500), and even the stock CPU Amiga 1200 faster than 19200 bps is somewhat tenuous.. you *might* get 38400 bps on the Amiga 1200 with the lowest screen resolution/colors.. Why was a faster serial port not a priority for the ST or Amiga? I know modem speeds were quite slow but this 'step back' always seemed rough to me on the ST. (Before I switched to PC I had a USR modem that could do 21.6 kbps.. hampered by the ST's 19.2 kbps serial port). If I'm off on any assumptions, feel free to correct - I'm asking for education . Thanks! John H

Dumb request - any chance you could take a couple of pics of the drive and post it? I had a Supra 65MB (and perhaps a Supra 20MB before, but I'm forgetting) for my ST. I threw out the case many years ago (stupidly) and just wanted to see it again .

Hi folks! I am finally reading Atari Inc - Business is Fun -- what an amazing Gem! One thing I noticed in here is there is a story about Cyan Engineering making a floppy drive for Atari around the time of the 800/810 that 'used tape drive heads' and other tricks to make the drive something Atari could produce in house as an alternative to the Tandem drives. The article says the drive never made it due to Atari's commitment to the 810 and other reasons.. I was just curious if anyone knows any more about this Cyan drive -- what was it's capacity? was it faster or slower than the 810 ? Bonus question - were there ever any 8bit software that let you 'add sectors per track' like you could on the ST drives, or some other computers at the time? Thanks! John

Just tried now - same result. (Thanks)

Hi folks! I have an old (NTSC) 800XL that has been 'bricked' for a couple of years - I *believe* (looking at old posts) that the last time I used this system I tried to upgrade the flash on the Ultimate 1MB and that flash crashed half way through and it hasn't been right since.. The system powers on with an orange or yellow screen and nothing else. The U1MB (and Stereo Pokey upgrade) were installed by Lotharek himself back in 2013. I tried to flash because I could never get U1MB+SIDE2 to load an .ATR file (.XEXs only). I'd love to have this machine working again and would pay for help to flash/fix this. If it helps I'm located near Philadelphia PA .. Thanks much.. John H (With this system working I may finally be motivated to work on the 2 x 1200XLs I picked up over the years..)

Chromecast ?

Awesome Demo, graphics, and music! Really great seeing a form of "Fractalus" respected/revisited here . The "first person" 3D portion looked full screen too which is very impressive!. Great job! (btw I also loved the music/gfx for the Revision 2015 Arsantica 3 intro)

Great, Thanks much! Do you have a pic of either install by any chance? what bracket(s) did you use?

Here's another thread - http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=28044 A lot of people recommending disconnecting the fan, but that kind of thing makes me nervous. It does appear to be a 12V fan though so you might try running it at 5V to get some air movement at a lot less noise.. If you do go the non fan route, this site talks about which chips run hot so you can heatsink those. Finally, go measure the fan - it looks to be 40mm squared, not sure about the 'depth'. You might be able to buy some really good replacements out there. For my Mega STE I replaced with a Noctua and now it's virtually silent but still has decent airflow..

Very interesting info on that thread.. and a good reminder that "Business is War" may fill in a lot of these questions.. So reading all of this, it sounds like: 1985 - Jack Tramiel unveiled the ST based on his requirements (reading between the lines) After this Jack stepped away from products to focus on retirement/handing the business down to his sons/daily operations/etc. 1986-1992 - ST development focused on advancing the line into higher territories/the workstation market (Mega ST,, TT, Transputer), competing against the Amiga 500 on specs only (STE) and innovative form factors (STacy, Portfolio, STBook, STylus), but never really pursuing a pure cost reduction / market share strategy (like Jack and C64). 1992-1993 - Falcon was a final hurrah to give the ST line a refresh, and keep musicians into the product, but was cancelled a year later after the market share size shrunk enough to not be worth it to Atari with dwindling cash reserve. I would like to play with a stock Atari Falcon some day...

Thanks for testing this out!