Nebulon

I didn't get to really try out an STe until recently and have since added a couple of them to my collection. Can it perform like an Amiga 500? Yes it can! Once I saw Stardust running on the STe, I realized that it was one hot little machine. As for the ST running AmigaDOS/Workbench, it should be noted that the Blitter is implemented in running the desktop environment. Why did Atari release the STe? To compete with the Amiga of course. Back in the day an Atari user told me that the intention was to include the blitter in the Atari ST from the start. Judging from the motherboard layouts, I tend to believe what he said. Why did Atari keep the other machines on the market? Part of it has already been mentioned (excess stock). However, a lot of companies adhere to the strategy of filling in 'gaps' in the market. They make many iterations and 'levels' of product to fill in just about every price point (think about HP and their inkjet printers). The problem is, when you're dealing with a machine that runs software, having too many variations of hardware can kill your platform. For example, the single-sided drive on the early Atari ST machines. That should never have happened. Someone on the decision-making team should have warned them that it would lead to development and production hell for software titles and inter-user compatibility. Why weren't there more titles that used the STe's enhanced features? The same reason why there aren't more AGA titles on the Amiga platform (or more titles specifically for the Tandy Color Computer 3). As mentioned, software development is a numbers game. You put resources into the platforms that will sell enough units to justify the expense and effort. Why did business people run out and buy a PC? This is why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuIbfx62X5A Regardless, the ST had a really good thing going with the monochrome high-resolution mode. It really should have been marketed better. There's no reason why it couldn't have taken a larger chunk of the market from the Mac and PC in the early years. As for regrets, a good friend of mine purchased a TT030 when it first came out. He's a programmer and has no regrets whatsoever.

I suppose you could run out and get the 512K upgrade and play the near-arcade-perfect versions of Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNzgMeFsj5Y There are some cool games that work fine on the 128K configuration too (Xenion, Gantelet II, Rougue,...).

The bats and acid drops in Downland on the Tandy Color Computer. Those little plus signs in Space Duel. The sniper in Tac/Scan Lobbers - Gauntlet Missiles - Thexder Acid puddles - Marble Madness Warrior ships - Sinistar Asteroids - Gyruss Big hairy masked guy with the creepy laugh - Double Dragon II Space Harrier - any solid indestructible objects (like those damn posts) Frogger - Otters Cosmic Avenger - Tie fighters Qix.

I can't think of many enemies than the devils from G n G (as you mentioned). Maybe it's a bit too new to be a classic, but there's a boss in Bangai-O that makes an "Eeep!" "Eeep!" sound to no end. That and I really don't like the fireballs in Donkey Kong.

This might interest y'all: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/games/?c=45&p=1

I'd say the arcade version is the best (or course). But the Vectrex version of the game is darned close.

If you ever decide to make a YouTube video of how to refurb a Super Action Controller, please let me know. I have a few that with cracked plastic above the 8-way switches. It's the white plastic ring with the bumps on it for the contacts.

Good to hear! I was getting worried for a second there. Thought maybe it was a bad chip on the board.

I was just thinking about Marathon too. They'd better mention it (and not just in passing). That game rocked!

You know, one of the coolest things about what you posted is that you saw this happen just this year. There are still humanoids walking around today that have Robotron Mad-Skillz. And it was at an arcade!

Possibly some useful stuff here? http://retro-roms.blogspot.ca/2010/01/tandy-radio-shack-trs-80-model-100.html http://www.planetemu.net/machine/tandy-trs-80 http://www.tosecdev.org/downloads

Oh, and if you find any modern places that make DIN to 9-pin joystick adapters for the CoCo, let me know. The one I have is on its last leg.

This emulator allows you to use a 5.25" DS/DD diskette drive on a PC as a Color Computer drive. Under Windows 98, you can create actual Color Computer diskettes that can be read on your CoCo 3. http://www.classiccmp.org/cpmarchives/trs80/mirrors/www.discover-net.net/~dmkeil/coco/index.htm If you can find the cable to go from the CoCo 3 to a Magnavox CM-8 monitor (or the equivalent Commodore Magnavox 1084), you could use the digital out from your Color Computer 3. The only down side is that there's no color artifacting in that mode. So it is nice to still have a TV or composite display for all the games that use artifacting. You can actually send the display to both a CM-8 monitor and a TV at the same time. And in case you wanted a quick refresher on Color Computer commands: http://www.blitter.com/~nebulous/coco.html

Thanks for the A501 RAM module shielding and battery removal tips! I was so inspired that I ended up making a quick tutorial video for others who might want to give it a try:

Okay, verified that the last SCSI device is terminated. It goes from the A2091, to a Quantum hard drive on ID0, to a CD-ROM drive on ID5. I tried running RDBFlags but I seem to be too inept to get the command correct (I even read the entire manual and tried the ? command for the list of arguments). Do you recall what command you gave it to set the lastdisk device? Is it something like rdbflags scsi.device 0 lastdisk ?

What does the prompt look like? Is it an asterisk? *

Aww it's so Kewwwwt ! It would be awesome if it came with Lode Runner installed.

That friggin' game is insane. I still don't understand how anyone can play the higher levels. I try and try and I still suck at it. Someday perhaps...

Wow. That's tricky. I never would have guessed that key. Looking at those machines, you can certainly see Commodore's thinking when they picked out the case for the Amiga 4000. In response to rpiguy9907, Commodore PCs were sold in the USA, but kind of got overshadowed by the multitude of competing PC brands.

I'm definitely not well-versed in electronics. So I'll ask the potentially stupid question: Is there some kind of alternative to the typical types of capacitors that are in the retro machines we know and love? In other words, is there something better that we could be re-capping the caps with to ensure longer system life?

This kind of thing makes my want to cry. Ever had one of those moments when you put a mint condition piece of hardware up for sale and the dude who shows up looks like the kind of person who would smear peanut butter all over it and then lose parts of it in his food-encrusted sofa? That's when the little voice in your head says, "Noo!! This one can't have my precious!"

I got rid of a lot of things that I wish I hadn't. At the same time though, I think I kept some pretty good ones. When I think back, it seems like three main things drive people to sell stuff off: 1) Lack of money. 2) Lack of space. 3) The idea that things are constantly improving and that next year's model will be better. Over and over in history, point #3 has been proven wrong, whether it's stereos, cars, synthesizers, and certainly in some categories -- computers.

Well at least I've solved the SCSI CD-ROM diskchange and disc read issue. That involved running the amazing and free AMI-CDROM driver program. Still working on the delay issue on boot-up. Whoever set this machine up before me had the hard drive at the start of the chain and the CD-ROM at the end of the chain but they had the hard drive's SCSI ID after the CD-ROM. So now I've got the hard drive as SCSI ID 0 and the CD-ROM as SCSI ID 1. The first boot after that dropped from 45 seconds to 17 seconds (definitely an improvement). Then for some reason it popped back up to 37 seconds. So back at it I go...

I was recently given an Atari 2600 Jr. which I was really excited to play. Sadly, it turn out that it's dead as a doornail. When I plug in the power adapter and switch it on, there's no light and nothing shows up on the TV. I should also mention that a few pieces of plastic were loose inside the case. Looks almost like a plastic tab or peg broke off somewhere. My guess is the power adapter is good and something's messed up in the console itself. Does anyone have any pointers on how to fix these machines?

Anyone feel like writing a MegaDemo? Well now you can! Here are two versions of an assembler that was used extensively for demo coding back in the day: http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=47999 http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=62372 (apparently this one includes a manual) If anyone knows of other assemblers that are good for this sort of thing, feel free to post links in this thread.