Xebec

Mein Deutsche ist nicht sehr gut, aber ich kann kaffee bestellen :). - Have you tried a different SIO cable to chain / attach devices? - Can you connect another device first to the Atari, *then* the Fujinet - does that work? Google Translate if it helps: - Haben Sie ein anderes SIO-Kabel zum Verketten / Anbringen von Geräten ausprobiert? - Können Sie zuerst ein anderes Gerät an den Atari und dann an das Fujinet anschließen - funktioniert das?

Awesome, thank you!!

Thanks sir! Now to figure out where to buy a VME to ISA adapter since Google isn't being helpful..

Is there any source for buying these today? And how does it work -- do you use one monitor for TOS, but if you run a program that runs at ST Low/Medium resolutions it outputs to a separate monitor? or does this re-route everything through the Nova card? (and are there any other VME to ISA adapters out there that I could then stick a Tseng 4000 card in , since Nova cards may be hard to get?) Thanks!

Hi folks! I'm looking to get back into the ST a bit again (after a lot of time on the 8-bit and some time on the Amiga 1200).. I have a 520STm (favorite for size) w/2.5MB RAM, 1040 STfm 1MB, and a Mega STE w/4MB. I also have an UltraSatan and a Gotek Pro internal to the Mega STE. I also have the Netusbee adapter. I'd like to mess around in TOS a but, play with BBS Software - hosting and dialing (Wifi232), write and compile a C program or two, and of course play games (HDD adapted and floppy based). I remember ST TOS and BBS stuff was *great* at ST high rez (though mono), and was decent at ST medium but not great at Low (more colors but 40 columns). I also believe you can easily switch between medium and low, but high always requires a reboot. Are there any ways to switch between high and medium/low without rebooting? What is the monitor solution in this case? Are there any aftermarket upgrades that are buyable for the MegaSTE that allow other resolution options? (i.e. on the Amiga there is an awesome Indivision adapter that clamps on top of Denise or Lisa and gives you higher resolution modes that make Workbench quite usable on a modern monitor). P.S. I have the SC1224 and a SM124 mono, and I also have some kind of scan doubler that will allow me to use a LCD, as well as a RetroTink pro if that helps.. Lastly, I think I have a Best Electronics Multisync cable for the ST, and I *know* I have a 19" multisync PC monitor I'd be happy to adapt for ST usage.

Just got my Fujinet -- LOOVEEE this device!! Dumb questions: - Can I plug the Fujinet into an unused SIO port on the Atari 850 (attached to an Atari 800) or does it need to be the first device in the chain? - I saw that Fujinet on the Atari 800 won't produce the sound for disk swaps unless you have a ROM swap. I'm using Incognito with XL/XE ROM (+various ram settings) and do not hear sound - is that still expected? - I am able to use Fujinet successfully on my 800 with the Colleen ROM without MicroUSB power, do I need to worry about anything? - For those using U1MB/ Incognito - is the quickest/right way to boot with Fujinet -- reset-atari (get to bios), press L for loader, then CTRL-R for reboot basically? - Am I allowed to use Fujinet on an Atari attached to a Commodore monitor?

Was it about not having a second source fab for 68000 or something else?

Agreed. It was also unfortunately really hard to get capital in the 70s (oil crisis), and in the early 80s only those companies with chip fabs were getting money (fabless wasn't taken seriously - Altera, the original FPGA maker, actually lied about buying/owning fabs so they'd get venture funding to get off the ground, in 1983 or so). Did Bushnell give the go-ahead for the Atari 400/800 project? or did Warner green light that? Atari did finally do VR - sorta - with the Jaguar, and Missile Command VR and a few others that never got fully fleshed out. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't do something in the 80s -- along with the STacy, portfolio, etc and other cool things they had available. It was kinda fun to live the C= vs. Atari battles of the mid/late 80s but yes.. that was unfortunately game over for both of them. Perhaps the last real chance was the Amiga could have potentially taken down the Mac with proper investments and marketing, but C= leadership (post-Tramiel) was even worse than Warner Atari..

I sometimes think that.. but a few things to consider: - The Atari 400/800 did start outselling the Apple II for a couple of years, with the main failure point (imo) of the Atari being that Warner-Atari didn't open up the hardware and was much less friendly with developers than Apple. - The Apple II essentially gave Apple the $$ to fund the Mac - If the Atari 400/800 had embraced developers, and continued selling well - and Atari hadn't fucked over Jay Miner and friends with the bonuses, we could have seen something like the Amiga much earlier - given extra funding Atari would have had (up to the end of 1983 at least), and it might have even launched before the Mac - vastly overshadowing it. Atari and Commodore were destined to destroy each other once Jack left Commodore, I don't think there was anything that could have saved either platform long term after that; other than maybe the Amiga (with extra funding, focus on 3D graphics later, etc) becoming a brand of console like Playstation or Xbox.. I think Atari legitimately had a chance in 1979 to at least be second to the PC (like the Mac) but it was over once they failed to pay the hardware developers and didn't embrace their vision for the next generation ..

Hey folks - are there any still running Atari BBSes left that can be connected to with an analog modem? I have a few old models I want to test, and I think I can use a VOIP-analog phone adapter to connect at least at some kind of slow speed.. just to see if it works.. (Grandstream HT701) Thanks

No 68000 systems got Ultima I for what it's worth: https://wiki.ultimacodex.com/wiki/Computer_ports_of_Ultima_I (Amiga also did not get Ultima 2!) Was really happy to play Phantasie I-III on the ST though back in the day

Agreed; not here to talk about the 8bit or CGA though wrong forum

I apologize if I wasn't clear - I was responding to the earlier comments in this thread about how good the ST graphics were at the time of it's release in 1985; EGA being a 'wide standard' (as it launched on the PC around the same time) seemed like a good comparison. ST graphics are definitely ahead of PC CGA (the Atari 8bit is basically CGA), but I'm not sure if the ST is actually any better than EGA.

Nice re: $399 - I was curious if the whole computer was the same price as "just a low end / average EGA card" :). On one hand, I definitely agree with the EGA card + PCs not being great for gaming.. but the 640x350 @ 4 colors definitely made it useful for productivity with *some* gaming. You certainly had point and click adventures well at hand for 'off hours', with slowly improving GUIs and nice large spreadsheets on the other hand. That said - doesn't the base 520STf without the blitter have the same equivalent graphics performance potential as EGA on the ISA bus? 16-bit @ 8 MHz / 2 (shared) vs 8-bit @ 8 MHz (not shared memory), because the ST bus is shared between the video circuitry and the CPU?

Interesting on the EGA/VGA graphics comparison At launch, EGA attached to the PC via an 8-bit bus @ 8MHz (maybe later 16-bit), but had it's own memory - 64KB. That 64KB allowed for 640x350 with 4 colors (ahead of 640x400 / 2 colors on the ST). 320x200x16 color (4bit) was also possible which is equal to the ST, though the ST had a way better color palette - 512 colors vs 64 colors. Another angle is cost -- a "low end" EGA card or "Standard" card - the ATI EGA wonder was $399 in March of 1987. The 512KB STs were probably under the $700 launch price by this time. A final angle would be around blitter or other capabilities; if the ST has the blitter on 100% of machines as intended, that would have negated any advantages a separate buffer EGA cards had (Vs main ram), IMO. EGA was pretty 'dumb' though as far as what it could do by itself.. EGA definitely gave the PC the capability to look respectable vs. the ST 1985-1988 or so, but many PCs were still running CGA at this time, and an EGA PC would likely have been 2x the price of the ST so I think the ST would have been perceived as 'good' graphics at the time. As for STe; completely agree. It should have gotten at least a faster CPU ([email protected] MHz or better), and more than just the 4096 color palette on the graphics side - even if it was just more colors at same resolutions. A [email protected] MHz TT + blitter would have been really nice..

There was a brief comment from Bill Mensch during a recent VCF video where he said he thinks he might still have the starting paperwork he (and someone else) did for the 32-bit 65816 variant. It sounded like they may have only gotten as far as the instruction set .. but it's something that can hopefully be preserved... Sometime towards the end of this video IIRC (3rd video in the playlist - ignore the Dave Haynie /Amiga face )

That's an interesting change I hadn't considered. If the PC had gone 68000 - yes, it's possible x86 would have died a slow death in the 1990s... software emulation of a PC on the ST or Amiga would have been much faster/easier too .. I do also remember reading IBM considered the 68000 (as well as re-purposing the Atari 400/800 supposedly), but I think it was both supply of the CPU and also 'companion chips' not being ready in time for the launch of the IBM PC. I also suspect there was a cost element there since the minimum 16-bit bus and related peripherals would impact that too.

I do recall reading that Motorola was afraid to introduce 'too high of clock speed' 68000 CPUs to avoid overshadowing perceived performance gains of 68020/68030, and this did effectively hurt designs based on that CPU from being competitive with the decreasing price of x86 CPUs over time. According to wikipedia, Motorola did have a 12.5 MHz 68000 by June 1982, though the 16 MHz (16.67 Mhz actually) "was not available until the late 80's". The 68010 was released at up to 25 MHz speeds and was highly compatible (though not 100%). .. EDIT: Thanks for the additional links - they provide good info on Shivji's next steps after Atari. It's unfortunate he disagreed with the Tramiels and ran into health problems - he seems like he was a great engineer and leader for Atari.. Interesting this source says Shivji stayed with Atari to 1990.. I don't know why I had 87 stuck in my head. .. It really seems like for the ST or Amiga to have succeeded we would have needed a lot of things. A more successful and better Motorola, less than 3 68000 based computers competing (i.e. Amiga or ST to get a clear victory early on or one of them to never launch to effectively compete against the Mac mindshare), and then a lot of luck/good leadership on top of that.

Was a 68000 - 16 MHz actually significantly more expensive than an 8 MHz 68000 by 88-89 ? The 68000 8 MHz debuted many many years earlier.. EDIT: And why did Shiraz leave Atari in 87?

LOL @ Exxos reference - excellent!

This is awesome! How are you connecting these towers to the STs exactly? can you attach it to a regular 'wedge' ST via ACSI port or similar?

If inappropriate, please delete post ... but I saw what happened with TerribleFire* over in the Amiga community over a few years, and I hope we don't see anything similar happen in the A8 community. I just wanted to say thank you again to all of the people here who make this community awesome and give us wonderful toys to play with and a strong dose of nostalgia at the same time. This group is especially awesome as I was a bit too young to really get super involved in local groups related to the Atari 8bit so, (outside of BBS experiences and 1 copy 8bit party back in the day) I enjoy getting a real taste of what that might have been like.. today. Thanks Atarians! *TF did a lot for his community (and for the ST) and seems like a great person. I wish him well.

Way too young. Only met him briefly but he was a really good person and great to talk to. Condolences.

Thank you all - learned a lot here actually from this thread. I didn't realize the Mega ST had an ability to mount a drive internally - I assumed with the pizza slice drives that meant external only. I do like the Mega ST keyboard a lot though as Darklord points out (when I bought my Mega STE 5-6 years ago I asked for the 'older' style keyboard as it had the function keys that look like the AIO ST's..) I'm sure the blitter alone helped TOS a lot.. it's ashame the original ST's never had that. Any recommendations on where I can go to read more about the video cards offered for the Mega ST (not-E)? Did those cards drive all TOS / graphics output or was it basically a two monitor deal if you wanted to run all software?

Hope you feel better soon!