Explodey

Yep, that was going to be my next question -- printing. I just tried printing one of my scores, but the result is just a bunch of garbage text (see attached). I tried all three of the printer options that Atari800MacX has, but I wasn't able to get actual graphical images with any of them. I've never tried to print to pdf from Atari800MacX before. I'm guessing it's just a matter of getting the right settings, but so far I haven't figured it out. flingblb.pdf

Thank you so much for your help! It turns out I was just overcomplicating things. The problem was just that I wasn't entering the right commands into the file prompt. I've been spoiled by too many years of graphic user interfaces! Once I followed your instructions, everything worked fine. This disk contains the very first compositions I ever wrote, many years before I went to music school to study theory, so they have a lot of sentimental value to me. So great to hear them again. I know this is a long shot, but I don't suppose there's any way to convert these files to midi? Well anyway, thanks again for your help!

Thanks for your replies. Attached is an atr image of one of my MCS save disks. I'll be very interested to see of anyone has any more luck with it than I did. One more thing I forgot to mention is that back on my old system when I was able to open my MCS files, I'm pretty sure I was running the MCS program from an executable or a cart image or something -- not from a floppy disk image like I am now. I was thinking that might have something to do with it, but I've searched and searched and I can only find atr disk images of MCS. Probably doesn't help that I don't really know where to look. Perhaps someone can suggest a good online archive. MCSA.ATR

Hi, is anyone here familiar with the software Music construction set? I have some .atr disk images filled with music I wrote when I was a kid using MCS, and I’m trying to listen to it with my Atari800 emulator, but for some reason I can’t open the files. When I try, MCS just goes “beep” and there’s just an empty staff. Normally, I’d just assume that unopenable files means that I have a corrupted disk image, but in this case I happen to know that’s not the case. I’ve actually already opened all these MCS docs before, from the same disk image files, with no problem. That was a few years ago, and since then I’ve migrated to a new Mac. I assume that a new computer wouldn’t be the problem, but the only other differences are that I’m using a newer version of Atari800MacX, and I’m using a different disk image for the MCS software. I never imaged my MCS software disk, and I don’t even know where it is anymore, so I found a disk image online. So all I can think is that maybe I have the wrong version of MCS or something. Any ideas? Thanks!

Well, I covered those holes on the disks and sure enough, that solved the problem. Thanks again ParaniodLittleMan! But there still is one disk that didn't generate a usable image, which I guess is to be expected, out of like 40 disks. When I open the disk in my Atari emulator, the file names are all just garbage text, and the files aren't openable. So I'm just wondering if anyone could recommend a good disk utility program for the ST so I can try to recover some of the files on that disk. I remember there were several helpful disk utilities for the Atari 8-bit line, but I'm having trouble finding anything for the ST.

Ohh, haha.. now I get what ParanoidLittleMan was talking about! Of course, how did I miss that? And I'm delighted to hear that I helped you, Run415! It's kinda funny that you actually figured it out before I did, hah.. Anyway, I'd be interested in checking out those threads you were mentioning.

I'm not sure which issue you mean... are you talking about covering one of the holes at the end of the ribbon cable? I went back and looked over all the posts in this thread, but sadly I couldn't find any solutions. If there is one, please remind me!

Wow.. it's been almost two years since I started this topic, and here I am, still posting to it! Time certainly does fly. I wonder if the people who were helping me before are still around. I guess I'll find out. Here's what's up: I finally just gave up on archiving my old Atari floppies, until two days ago, when I decided to just take my PC into a repair shop, and hallelujah, they got the internal floppy drive to work! Apparently they had quite a bit of trouble figuring it out, and I'm still not really sure what was wrong, but no matter. I went back to archiving all my floppies with this Windows program called "ST Recover," and I was able to create images from most of my disks, but for about a third of my disks, the program would time out trying to read the disk and it wouldn't create a usable image. Then I realized that it was doing this with all the disks with the "HD" high density logo on them. All the disks without that logo worked fine. So I'm assuming that internal drive just can't read high density disks, and I figured that since it's a (relatively) more recent floppy format, maybe I could read those HD disks with my USB drive. But no dice... at least not with that "ST Recover" program. Whenever I try one of those disks with my USB drive, the program instantly bails out and indicates that all the sectors are bad. So what can I do? Hopefully something that doesn't involve buying another floppy drive! Thanks!

The attached image is the result of my attempt at entering the Mad computer program. Not one of those lines looks right. I actually did have a fair amount of experience typing in programs back in 85; I wonder how I got this one so wrong. I remember that when I saw that all my work was just producing an abstract blob of diagonal lines, I decided to give up, hah..

Thanks guys. At long last, I have closure on this issue... of Mad. I've been extracting disk images from all my old Atari five inch floppies, so I can run them on Atari800MacX, and I just came across the disk that contained my attempt to enter this program, which is what prompted me to hunt for it online. Back in '85, I spent several days typing in about a quarter of the code, and when I realized how much more I still had left to enter, I started to suspect that this was some sort of practical joke on the part of Mad. When I tried to run my unfinished version of the program, the resulting image didn't look even remotely like an unfinished image of Alfred. Now that I see what it's supposed to look like, I'm fairly certain that my attempt was rife with typos. Anyway, thanks again.

Note of these links work anymore! Aargh! After almost 30 years, I thought that I would finally get this program to work, but alas, no, just broken links. There must be somewhere online where I can download this. I did find one website that claimed to have it available for download, but what I got wasn't an actual disk image, so it didn't do me much good. Can someone help? I got so excited when I saw this thread, only to have my hopes dashed once again

Yes, the twisted end is connected to the drive, and the power cable is connected. I heard that it's possible to connect the power cable backwards, but it would only go in one way, so I'm pretty sure it's connected properly.

Okay, I think there must be something wrong with the floppy drive I got on eBay. I'm sure it's connected properly now, and I went into that Bios menu, and it turned out that "Enable on board FDD controller" option was already on. But my PC is still not recognizing the drive, and the light on the drive doesn't even come on. Does anyone have a floppy drive they'd like to sell me? If not, I think I'll see if someone can help me at a computer shop.

Great, thanks guys. One more question: How do I find pin 1 on the motherboard? I don't see a numeral "1" on it, but there is one notch, so I assume I just go with the "notch top, red to right side" rule, right? Here's a picture. Thanks again.

Thanks for all your help RodLightning. I'm looking at the floppy drive and I can't figure out which side is the notch side of the connector. It looks to me like both sides have a notch, but I guess I'm not sure what I'm looking for. I'm attaching a picture of the drive. Can you tell from the picture which is the notch side?

Well I got a new cable, thanks to Rod Lightning. Unfortunately I still can't seem to get it working. I went into the bios utility at startup, and I changed an option that had something to do with floppy drives, but I really didn't know what I was doing, so I don't know if I changed the right thing. Also, someone mentioned a red stripe on the cable, but I wasn't sure which way the stripe was supposed to go. Also, ParanoidLittleMan, I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by swapping lines. Ugh... I'm starting to think this all may be over my head. Maybe I'll just take it in to a computer repair shop.

I'm not sure what you mean. I can't seem to use *any* disks in this drive, Atari or Windows or anything. It doesn't even seem to be coming on when I turn on my computer. Plus I don't see any jumpers on this drive.

I'm located in Northern California. If you could give me a cable, that would be great, thank you. Should I PM my snail mail address to you? Let me know how you'd like to work this. There was no way to pop out the plug in the cable. I actually tried making a hole by heating up a pushpin and pushing it into the filled-in hole so it melted the plastic and created a small hole. This did allow me to attach the cable, but the drive still didn't work. It didn't light up or make a sound or anything. I hope I didn't fry it. I think I put the 4-pin power cable in the right way, but I really don't know for sure. Maybe I just needed to get into the BIOS setup utility, like RodLightning said. I think I'll wait until I have the right cable before I try again, though. Thanks everyone.

Dang. That cable won't fit into the connector in my PC because one of those 34 holes at the end of the cable is filled in. It fits the floppy drive perfectly because the drive is missing that pin anyway, but the connector inside my PC has all 34 pins, so that one filled-in hole is in the way. Is there any way to make it fit? Should I try to break off that extra pin, or file down the filled-in hole? Thanks.

The cable I ordered arrived today and I was about to hook it up, but I have one more question first: I noticed that in addition to the big 34-pin port on the floppy drive, there's also a small 4-pin port. I did find a connector inside my computer that fits it. Do I need to hook them both up? Thanks.

Okay that's a relief. I was worried that the pin had broken off. I just ordered a "10 inch 34-pin 2 connector Flat Floppy Drive Ribbon Cable" from Amazon. I assume it's the right cable. Thanks everyone for your help!

Is it just me, or did that last post not make sense?

Thanks, I checked the motherboard, and it looks like it does have a 34 pin connector, but no cable. So I guess I need to buy a cable. I'll see if I can find the cable on eBay if someone will tell me what the cable is called. Also, I counted and there are definitely only 33 pins on the floppy drive that I bought on eBay. It looks like one is missing. I thought maybe that was by design, but now I'm wondering if I got ripped off.

I went ahead and bought that floppy drive on eBay, but it doesn't seem to have the right kind of interface for my computer. It has a wide interface with 33 pins, and none of the connectors inside my computer will fit it. It also has a smaller interface with 4 pins, and I did find a cable that will fit that one, but I'm guessing that one is just the power source, right? I mean, I'm assuming I need to connect both of those interfaces for it to work, right? Does anyone have any idea what kind of floppy drive I need? I included a picture. Is there maybe some kind of adaptor, or should I just toss this floppy drive? Thanks for your help.

I tried changing the TOS to 1.4, and now I don't get that "MROS not found!" message anymore, but now I keep getting this "Bad memory structure" message. It doesn't stop Cubase from running, though, so it looks like I'm in business. Now my only problem is that it doesn't seem to be able to access my midi interface. Does anyone know how NoSTalgia handles midi? I checked the NoSTalgia website, and it looks like it should be able to send/receive midi, so maybe I'm doing something wrong?