[SIO2SD quandary]

I struggled with this too before buying. What's your time worth to make up an enclosure and fit it all together? I wound up buying the cased version and am very happy with it. The fit and finish is spot on and it does indeed look professionally manufactured as a consumer product. If the case color matched the console, even Atari would have been proud to call this their own. Well worth the extra $$ IMHO..

[atari 400 power supply question]

I would say that it doesn't matter. The wires simply go to the transformer's primary winding. The secondary winding is isolated and there is no common earth ground connection so a ground fault isn't really possible.

[Help a noob with a Lotharek?]

The turbo loader and onscreen loader doesn't work with an 800 (Colleen). Some OS incompatibility I suspect. You'll have to use the SIO2SD's display and buttons for selecting files.

[atari 800 lid conundrum]

I'll take a picture of the lid assembly and upload as soon as I can for you...

[atari 800 lid conundrum]

Well, that sucks. I'm in the US and you can have the lid from my parts donor 800 if you can't find one more local.

[atari 800 lid conundrum]

Mine takes some finesse to line the two metal tabs lined up to slide in. It takes a little down pressure on the lid to make it happen but I suspect all may be a little different.. When properly in place, I don;t see any big gaps and it looks as expected aesthetically.

[HELP!]

Personally, I use an old Sharp Aquos 19" LCD connected S-Video to my 800. CRT's are the only option if you use a light gun. Larger screens will look blocky and pixellated at close distances. If you have a 50" on your wall, and you sit 15' away, it might be ok, but if you sit close to it, it will look terrible.

 

 

Same TV I'm using with my 800.. Works great with S-Video (after a small mod to 800). Also works great with an 800XL.

[ABBUC Software-Contest 2014]

Just my .02 but whenever judging is done by a large mass of people, the outcome is always the result of a popularity contest. What makes a game or author "popular" is subjective and not necessarily related to just technicality, appearance or playability. I don't think this is a bad thing as this is also true of the market where people vote with their wallets.

[Calling All 400s!]

My 400...

[Who here still has their original 8bit stuff from when they were new?]

I think one of my Atari 800s is the original I bought used from an MSU professor back in 80 or 81.. Not sure though. I have a 400 also from around the same time. I think I sold Claus my "Happy" 810 disk drive way back when but still have a 1050 disk drive. Lastly, I still have my Sinclair ZX80 from when they first came out.

[Wanted: Assembler Editor Examples]

I dunno... I thought it was Randy Marsh of Southpark fame...

[What's a good Atari 8-bit monitor to get?...]

FYI to anyone considering an LCD TV for use as an S-video monitor... After searching local second hand stores for an S-video compatible monitor I could use with my trusty old Atari 800, I settled on and purchased a Sharp Aquos 19" 16:9 TV. I made a cable from an old S-video cable and MIDI cable I had laying around. I was really disappointed in the quality initially. The colors were okay but the image was really washed out and too bright regardless of the brightnest/contrast settings on the TV. After discussing this issue with my old friend, ClausB, we seemed to recall that the luma signal was always a bit "hot" on the Atari 800 and he suggested a simple experiment using a resistor in series with the luma signal. I tried several values and saw a marked improvement. I ultimately settled on a 100 ohm resistor and now, the video display is simply outstanding. I'm very satisfied with the quality.

 

Initially, I did some research here and noted that a lot of the LCD TVs with S-video inputs were considered incompatible with the Ataris. Perhaps this simple resistor fix would make them useable.

[SIO2SD with Atari 800]

I suspect the Turbo Loader is incompatible with the 800's OS. It's some sort of patch that enables the SIO2SD to load boot drives at high speed.

 

You can turn this off in the SIO2SD settings menu; it's the "top drive" feature. Turn it off.

Thanks. I suspected the same thing. I assume the same for the on-screen loader (sio2sd.xex). It's unfortunate but I can live with it as everything else seems to work properly. Thanks again!

[SIO2SD with Atari 800]

I finally dug my old Atari 800 out of mothballs where it's been hiding for the last 30 years or so. Took it all apart, cleaned everything and re-seated all the ICs. It lives! The floppies were in bad shape with the oxide coming off so I decided to invest in a more modern file storage medium. I ordered and received a SIO2SD from Lotharek which works fine for the most part. However, I am having some issues. The "Turbo Loader" (topdrive?) displays at the top of screen when booting but is completely unresponsive to any keys. I can continue to boot whatever drive I have selected in the SIO2SD by pressing the reset button. I also tried installing the latest SIO2SD.xex in the SD Card root. After disabling topdrive, when powering up, the file catalog appears on the screen properly but it's also completely unresponsive to any keys (except reset).

 

I turned the SIO2SD's high speed mode off in the configuration. The SD card I'm using is an older Transcend 1GB card which I reformatted to "FAT" in Win7. Other than the issues mentioned above, it seems to work fine booting images and loading files as expected. While the SIO2SD is perfectly useable as is, it's still a little bothersome that something may not be right.

 

Is there something I'm missing or some incompatibilty with an 800?

 

Any help or advice would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[WTB: SIO2SD]

Still looking...

[WTB: SIO2SD]

Thanks Ryan.. Watching them on Ebay but hoping to save a few bucks and find a used one.

[WTB: SIO2SD]

Pulling my original Atari 800 out of mothballs after almost 30 years. Floppies are all shot. Looking for a deal on an SIO2SD. Anyone have one they want to unload? Thanks!