shoestring

The Japanese mainly used z80 from the beginning in arcade hardware. So it was only natural for them to keep using it as a sound processor later on in conjunction with the 68000 , see Capcom CPS1 as an example. Non Japanese manufacturers tend to focus more on the 6502 because that was more popular outside of Japan. Not always true though, I'm pretty sure Data East used the 6502 for sound exclusively early on.

Nice score. You can find plenty of power supplies on eBay but I would try to contact a trusted member here. Bad/faulty supplies can damage a working machine. I use lotharek's sio2pc and couldn't be happier, it's compact and works in conjunction with software on your PC to mount and load tape, disk and executable images via the device. He also sells sio2sd, maybe someone else can recommend that as I have no experience with it, but it looks great. I'd recommend a CRT television with composite or Philips/Commodore monitor. These computers were designed for a CRT. Edit: Apologies, I just realised you were asking questions relating to the Apple.

There's a basic program you can key in and run that will allow you to test both joyports. I did just that after wiring up my supergun joystick to use on the Atari. Do a search on google for the basic program.

I do love the sound of the POKEY, it has fat and rich/creamy sounding tones which are more suited to those types of games. Sometimes I load up MULE just to listen to the title tune while I'm coding away The C64 definitely holds its own though but I think the A8 is more polished in terms of quality & how complete it is ( good basic, built in diagnostics, well built internally and externally ). Having them side by side these days is a privilege. .

Another vote for Dropzone. I bought my first a8 just to play it. I had it on the c=64 but it's better on the Atari.

It was definitely interlaced, the 1081 was flickering like mad. I had to wait a few years before we got our first Amiga and I felt guilty for packing the c64 away.

Someone already pointed out ( i think in this thread ) that computer systems were starting to move away from tile based character displays even though it was still very much in use in 16bit game consoles. The blitter was essential for an efficient window system, SX-Windows ( on the x68000 ) pales in comparison, it was very slow due to the lack of blitter & hardware acceleration support. It still would have been nice if the Amiga had a tilemap mode as well but with a specific budget in mind during design, they probably made the right decision to leave that out. I saw the Amiga 1000 for the first time in 1985, it was being demoed in a store with the monitor facing the shop front. It was displaying a digitized image of a red sports car. I was so memorized by that image that I stared at it for a good 5 minutes before my parents pulled me away.

Maybe in some parallel Universe. Commodore fanboys would also point out that the Atari ST was the result of a molested Commodore 900. The Amiga became what it was because of the direction Commodore pushed it in. Atari or any other company with the Amiga chipset would have steered the machine in a totally different direction.

He means full 3D graphics as pioneered by ID Software, not the pre pseudo 3D found in the earlier games.

They had many opportunities to make that happen, they screwed up a licensing deal with Sun Microsystems who were interested in rebranding the A3000UX which had a pre-installed UNIX operating system, not a bad implementation for that time . In the end Commodore were asking for too much money and Sun would go away and develop their own.

I did the svideo mod to my PAL 600xl too, maybe my post can help retrace your steps. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/249515-supervideo-atari-600xl-pal/

While Atari & Commodore owners debated which platform was superior, the Japanese were enjoying perfect ports of arcade games on their x68000s. It cost a hell of a lot more but the hardware was miles ahead of anything the Amiga or ST had to offer.

Dropzone ( Atari 600xl ) Uridium ( C64 ) Super Street Fighter II ( CPS2 )

The Amiga only had high resolution graphics modes. It was it's lack of graphics driven text modes found on PCs that held it back. Also, the lack of tilemaps / programmable characters made it difficult to port console & arcade style games to. While most Amiga games run at 25fps, arcades were doing 50. So this lack of performance made shmups on the Amiga boring to play. Even the c64 could do 50fps, easily.. just look at games like Uridium. If the Amiga had character based screen modes like the c64 and decent sprite hardware the arcade games for it would have been awesome.

C= 1084s and JVC CRT 13". I also have a spare Panasonic 23" CRT which I use in the living room. These systems were designed for a CRT so that's all I use, I get mixed results on LCDs, the more expensive LCDs seem to give you better results but it's still no match for a good CRT.

Haynie isn't the only one who believes that, a lot of ex Commodore engineers do. I think Shivjis involvement isn't the sole reason for this belief, it's more to do with the lawsuits that followed Jack's exit. There was a court injunction barring Tramiel's engineers from working on the new machine until Shivji and co returned the back up tapes allegedly stolen from Commodore engineering's in house server, the backup tapes were full of schematics and technical documentation relating to the c900 project. It's pretty funny if true and we know Jack was a pretty ruthless guy in his business approach, after all he almost sent MOS bankrupt before buying them out.

Commodore product ? Are you referring to the C900 project which was apparently very similar to the ST? "At one point while at Commodore, Jack had a few of the then C900 engineers (I guess they were the second team on the project) meeting “off-site” on some super secret project. This was probably late 1983 or early 1984. Shortly after Jack left, those guys all followed, and of course surfaced at Atari. With a new 68K computer that looked an awful lot like the second spin of the C900." http://www.mos6502.com/commodore-legends/commodore-legends-dave-haynie-–-part-i/

The numbers he posted seem to indicate the basic rom. But i'm also a little confused now.

Unfortunately I don't have an exact answer as I'm still using a very old EPROM programmer ( Micromaster LV48 ) which connects via the parallel port. It depends on your budget but I would definitely avoid some of the cheaper brands, you want something that can test ram chips and ttl series logic chips. The MCM68766 is pin compatible with the 2364 but you would be hard pressed to find something affordable that can program them directly. This is why you will need an adapter that will allow you to program them as a 2464 device, this is your best and most affordable route. The TopMax II would be one of my top choices if I were looking to replace my old one with, it's not cheap though!

You can use a standard 2464 eprom, but you will need a 2364 to 2464 adapter as the pinout is different. Save yourself the hassle and get the 2364 flash eprom replacement. There's a small fee included in the price if you want them to program an image of your choice. http://www.sellmyretro.com/offer/details/ROM-EL-2364-FLASH-EPROM-Chips-(replacement-for-2364-ROM)-2339

You can use a standard EPROM instead of the original mask rom, you just need to get it programmed.

Especially the PAL model, they already have a monitor port built in. All they need is the luma and chroma lines restored plus some tweaks for a nice display on a good 15khz CRT monitor ( Philips , 1084 or Sony ).

Reset needs to go Lo to Hi though. This is where a logic probe comes in handy to see if the 6502 is getting the right signal. Address and data lines should toggle. That's one of the first things I check when troubleshooting a dead machine.

I think the video game crash of 83 had more to do with Atari's downfall that than anything else. Former Atari programmers hoped to cash in on the market's growth by flooding the it with poor quality games. This damaged Atari financially and its reputation, consumers lost trust in the brand and the industry never recovered until the NES was released.

I installed a 68010 in my A500 years ago and had compatibility issues with some games & software, gurus were common so I installed the standard processor back in. Perhaps that's what you're experiencing. I'd install the standard 68000 and see if you can reproduce the issues. Having said that, TTL/74ls series logic chips don't like voltages under 4.8v, they start to play up. With my Picasso card installed I'd get random crashes, horizontal lines and glitching on the screen whenever the screen was refreshed or if I dragged a window. I thought the ram on the card was toast but I realised that everything went back to normal only after removing all the zorro cards. I recapped the power supply and all was good.