GreyHobbit

I noticed that Pimoroni in the UK are selling these ESP32 development boards: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/tinypico Should FujiNet run on one of these? Geoff

Arrived in the UK today!

This is my 400 psu. You can see the label shows the two outputs, 9v AC & 6v DC. The jack for the 6v output is on the corner. The label says "Made in England" so maybe it was a UK-specific modification. My old 1050 had the exact same psu but without the 6v DC output, IIRC. It's a bit dusty, I must show it some TLC soon. The 9v cable is showing signs of the insulation cracking right where it emerges from the case, I don't know if that can be repaired or if I just need to handle with care. Geoff

Tadmod, yes that's the one, you definitely aren't going mad ? The main output for the computer was 9v AC, but on one of the corners there was a 2.5mm jack socket that provided 6v DC for the 410.

My 400 psu had an extra port to plug in a cable to power the 410. I'll try to get a photo of it later. I still have the 400 and it works like a charm but my 410 is long gone, unfortunately! :(

My wife's late father worked as a joiner in a shipyard where asbestos dust "fell like snow". He passed away over 20 years ago from mesothelioma, an aggressive form of asbestosis. My mother-in-law was diagnosed with the same disease last year, probably caught from asbestos dust in her husband's clothes when she was doing the laundry. She passed away in June this year, it was scary how quickly it took her at the end. Horrific stuff.

Thanks Rybags and DavidMil for the advice. I have some equivalent caps on order and am reassured that it's not going to cause damage to the computer if I continue to use it in the meantime.

I just recently purchased my first 800XL and was looking inside to see if any of the ICs were socketed. Most of the big ICs are, apart from the 6520 PIA, but the OS and Basic ROMs are soldered along with all of the smaller chips on the board. Anyway, while I was checking the other components, I noticed that C48 down at the front left side of the motherboard, next to the trim pot, is cracked and appears to have broken in two. There was a slight brown stain round one of the solder joints, like corrosion but it doesn't seem too bad. The 800XL appears to be working fine, the composite output is better than my 130XE, but my question is what C48 does and could running the computer with C48 damaged cause problems down the line? The Service Manual says it's an axial ceramic .1 uF capacitor. As it's next to the trim pot, is it related to the video circuitry? I will probably replace it as soon as possible it but I want to know if it's an urgent fix as I don't have any caps of that description handy! Thanks Geoff

The label on the picture of the floppy disk in post #18 seems to indicate a V4.20D as well, it looks like a D has been written on over the original label. The version I uploaded was definitely 4.20C by the title screen when I loaded it into the emulator. Geoff Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Ideally that's what I'd like to do to try to preserve the data, is there anyone (possibly in the UK, purely for postage reasons) who has the hardware and skills to rescue them and would be willing to take on the task? Maybe someone else will chime in with a working set of disks? There must be other copies out there somewhere. I no longer have the board so the disks are just sitting here, gradually rotting away. If I can get them to someone who can preserve the contents or whatever, I'm happy to pass them on. (Unless they're worth an absolute fortune like an Apple I or something, lol) Maybe one day Altirra will be able to emulate the hardware, that would be fun. [emoji16] Geoff Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

Someone asked on Facebook about one of these today. I used to have one back in the day but it's long gone. I hunted out the disks and managed to extract images from three of the six I have. The Master Utility Disk, 80 Column Emulator and Ultramon disk images are in the attached zip file. Unfortunately, the Ultraload Collector's disk, Superdump Toolkit and Cupid Printer Handler disks look damaged on the magnetic surface and I don't want to risk damaging them. GeoffComputerHouseControllerCard_Master_80Col_Ultramon.zip Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

I have one of Lotharek's SIO2SDs that I was trying out with an 800 I bought recently. With 48K the menu hangs after loading, no keys work and after a few seconds there is some corruption to the screen. It works perfectly with my 130XE so I assumed the SIO2SD menu needs an XL/XE. The 800 had 16K when I got it and I bought two 16K cards from B&C to bring it to the full 48K. I will try it on my 48K 400 and see if it locks up that machine the same as the 800. Geoff Sent from my ONEPLUS A3003 using Tapatalk

That latest version seems to be working, and detecting all densities. I'll do some more testing tomorrow, it's getting a bit late in the evening... Thanks for all your help, now I can get stuck into seeing how many of my 20-30 year old floppy disks are still readable!! Geoff

I've just successfully read a DD disk with this test version. Dual density not being detected yet. Geoff

I added a u to the third arg in the getopt call in atarixfer and recompiled. I'm getting a bit further now. I'll run some tests with this but I don't think it's properly detecting dual density yet. Thanks again Geoff

I did a clean compile and get the same as above. The error reading sector 4 in the above output occurred until I tried a dual density disk (which was still identified as single density) but then when I tried again with the DD disk, sector 4 was read ok. It still identifies the disk as single density, though. Geoff

Thanks for the quick response, I appreciate your help. I had tried the -x option earlier but it did not make any obvious difference. I tried the test version but it doesn't seem to recognise the -u option. I will try to uninstall first then recompile the tools. Geoff $ atarixfer atarixfer 0.30-190308 (c) 2002-2019 Matthias Reichl <hias@horus.com> usage: [-f device ] [options] -r|-w imagefile options: -f device use alternative AtariSIO device (default: /dev/atarisio0) -r imagefile create ATR/XFD/DCM image of disk -w imagefile write given ATR/XFD/DCM image to disk -d enable debugging -e continue on errors -p use APE prosystem cable (default: 1050-2-PC cable) -l use Lotharek 1050-2-PC USB cable -R num retry failed sector I/O 'num' times (0..100) -s mode high speed: 0 = off, 1 = XF551/Warp, 2 = Ultra/Turbo, 3 = all -T timing SIO timing: s = strict, r = relaxed -u enable workaround for US Doubler format detection bug -x enable workaround for XF551 format detection bugs -q send 'quit' command to flush buffer and stop motor -1 ... -8 use drive number 1...8 $ atarixfer -u -x -d -l -s 2 -T s -1 -r DD_Disk.atr atarixfer 0.30-190308 (c) 2002-2019 Matthias Reichl <hias@horus.com> atarixfer: invalid option -- 'u' forgot to catch option 63 using userspace driver activated realtime scheduling mlockall(2) succeeded checking highspeed capability detected ultra speed drive: pokey divisor 10 (52160 baud) possibly Happy 1050: enabling fast writes Happy command $48 (AUX=$20) failed reading sector 4 ... failed [atari error 146] get percom block ... OK D1: get percom block : 90k (SD) [128 BytesPerSec, 720 Sectors] single density disk starting to read disk 1 error reading sector 1 from disk [atari error 146]

My trusty 48K 400 from December 82 (or 83, my memory isn't what it used to be! ) Model No Atari 400 U BY 109193 BY112717 8/9 on the handwritten label ATARI / 332 stamped in the case Geoff

A PAL 800 I got on eBay a few weeks ago: Model No Atari 800 U BK 007295 342 Handwritten label BK/24567-8-19 It came with 16K, the seller said it had never had more RAM than that. Just got an extra 32K from B&C ComputerVisions delivered today RAM and OS modules are cased, and the top is secured with flip tabs, not screws. Geoff

I have been trying to use atarixfer with one of Lotharek's 1050-2-PC/SIO2PC USB adaptors and a 1050 with US Doubler. So far, atarixfer seems to identify every disk as 90K SD formatted, even disks I believe to be 1050 Dual Density and Double Density disks. With double density disks this means that sectors above 3 fail to read, and dual density disks only transfer the first 720 sectors. An example of the output with debugging enabled is: $ lotharek-switch 1050 successfully switched interface to 1050-2-PC mode $ atarixfer -d -l -s 2 -T s -1 -r DD_Disk.atr atarixfer 0.30-190111 (c) 2002-2019 Matthias Reichl <hias@horus.com> using userspace driver activated realtime scheduling mlockall(2) succeeded checking highspeed capability detected ultra speed drive: pokey divisor 10 (52160 baud) possibly Happy 1050: enabling fast writes Happy command $48 (AUX=$20) failed get percom block ... OK D1: get percom block : 90k (SD) [128 BytesPerSec, 720 Sectors] single density disk starting to read disk 4 error reading sector 4 from disk [atari error 142] Am I missing a configuration option or doing something obviously wrong? It works great for SD disks but I'm having no luck with disks of any other density. I have already modified the 1050-2-pc/sio2pc with the hardware mod on Lotharek's website. Thanks Geoff

It was me that uploaded the scan of the AID Rverter source code. At the time I said I had a disk somewhere hand-labelled "Rverter" but I had no way to read it. I can't remember where I got it, probably from a contact on an old 8-bit BBS I used to be a regular on in the UK way back in the day. I recently got a 1050 and retrieved this disk from a box in the attic. I tried doing a file copy over an SIO2PC to an atr but there was a bit of bad data somewhere that caused it to fail every time. So I downloaded a sector copier and managed to get the attached atr file out of it. There was one bad sector somewhere in the middle of the copy (sector $1D0 or $1DC I think, but can't be sure), so one of the files will probably be damaged somewhere. If there's such a thing as luck it'll be the source code file that there is already a printout of, I hope the binary files are mostly intact. I can give no explanation of what is on the disk, the only file I remember ever looking at was RHAND1C.SRC that contains the printout that I scanned earlier. There are four different (I assume) Rverter drivers on the disk, RHAND1.OBJ, RHAND1C.OBJ, RHAND2.OBJ and RHAND2C.OBJ, but there is only source code for RHAND1C. This may (or may not) be useful to you... Geoff rverter.atr

Unfortunately it looks like I spoke too soon. I was able to load the editor a couple of times, but when I tried to copy the disk I started getting errors and now it won't even spin up. I'm afraid to try again in case I make it worse, maybe it can still be recovered with a Kryoflux or something low level like that? If it's worth trying then I can send the disk to someone with the proper kit and skills. Geoff

I don't have a dump of it, but I do have a fairly pristine looking copy of the disk version and manual. It's been in various attics for the past 20 or 25 years but I recently got hold of a 1050 and it seems to load up ok.

This was listed at £1199 a few days ago, the price has been dropping steadily... £599 at the minute, bargain!

Not me, I'm afraid, I just played about with the baud rates. I'm not sure who tackled the hardware flow control.