vizfizz

Actually this is what I'd prefer seeing on the Atari ST/Falcon line anyway. I've always been impressed with the various 2D scene demos out there...not to mention the amazing music we get to hear. However, a lot of Atari art I see is so flat. The ST and Falcon never quite made it into the 3D market despite CAD3D being the grand daddy of Autodesk's 3D studio. An improved renderer for CAD 3D / Scupt files (as a minimum) could go a long way. Just look at the reaction people have to your Quake Videos. Granted, this is an entirely different process....but the end result is a level of Wow factor that most Atari people rarely enjoy. As faster hardware products emerge the slow rendering times would improve...especially if one could leverage multiple ST/Falcons into the mix. If you want to get back into 3D...think about it.

Pretty interesting renderings. I'd love to see more. I know rendering on STs and Falcons would be terribly slow.. but rather than raytracing, why not a more optimized phong renderer with shadow maps?

I'd love to see what you could do with something like the NeoN Graphix or InShape's source code. It would be really cool too see a ST/Falcon application that could animate and render 3D imagery using more modern techniques. (Within reason of course) There were plans to integrate Spectrum 512 type display modes into CAD 3D but that never happened. With all the advances in the ST/Falcon lines by third party vendors, surely there could be a way to network data, create ST/Falcon render farms, or use emulators to accelerate rendering. Think of the possibilities it could provide to the demo scene.. particularly for adding 3D visuals to their already amazing work.

Less companies and more individuals...I would suppose. That begs the question... how many ST/Falcon hardware developers would be willing to do repair services? You guys are busy enough I'm sure... but would you be willing?

I just watched the "World Premiere" video of the Vampire 500 on youtube. Its interesting that the designer's primary goal for the Vampire is to ultimately use it as the foundation for a "new" Amiga computer all together. Whether or not it actually sports the name "Amiga" is besides the point....but he wants to create an Amiga that can compete with modern day machines. The first step is providing these accelerators as "proof of concept" of what can be done with old hardware and the Amiga OS while being augmented by the Vampire. From there it will evolve into its own dedicated machine capable of running various cores as the user desires. I think its ambitious...but no matter how active the Amiga (or Atari) community is... do you think it could be competitive enough to truly have a chance in the marketplace?

Well I talked to the owner of ATY computers. He states that 99.9% of his business now is repairing PCs. He has the capacity to do some repair work on ST family machines, but he stated he hasn't done any Falcon repair work in years. Essentially he no longer has the diagnostic tools for the Falcon...or the parts. He said quite frankly that he would be rather apprehensive to even touch a Falcon now-a-days. He pointed me over to Best....and I talked to them a few weeks ago. Their solution was talking to developers of Falcon accelerator products and sending my motherboard over to the UK. Personally I won't consider that unless my machine goes into total failure. I'm thinking some of my crashing issues might be power supply related. The owner of ATY seems really nice. Willing to help where he can... but that help is clearly limited.

Here's the foundation to this whole thread... People want the Amiga and the ST to somehow be modern machines with a thriving, hardware and software community again. Essentially they want to return to the 1980's but with today's technology. Who wouldn't want this? The 1980's was a golden era of computer development. It was a fun time and everyone asks the question "What if Atari had succeeded instead of IBM or Apple?" Its great fantasy material...and I'm guilty of wanting it too. However.. lets be practical. We have a good retro computer platform with an existing software library. Some new software development happens, but not much. Anything that is made is typically in the area of games. Productivity software is better left to modern platforms for a myriad of reasons. But that being said, some ST productivity software could benefit from hardware improvements for very specific situations. Thus anything that accelerates the ST is welcome provided it doesn't "break" the platform's ability to drive its existing software library. As such... I think "legit" accelerators that we see in the ST community today are the better way to go because they're centered around true compatibility rather than ultimate performance. I'd love to see a Vampire ST if that somehow led to a resurgence of new ST productivity software development. But I just don't see that happening. Concentrate the Vampire for the Falcon and perhaps that could really happen. A Vampire Falcon actually has the foundation to be a modern desktop replacement...but the ST does not. The ST should stick with traditional accelerators.

I did dial the number for ATY computers and a voice mail picked up. They did identify themselves as ATY so they may still exist. After looking up the address in Oakland, it appears to be a one man operation in the middle of China town. No real visible store front from what I can see on Google Maps street view...so I'll try calling again later today and see if anyone picks up.

Bad sign... their email address bounces back. I'll try calling in the morning.

Thanks. I'll give them a call.

I'd be curious if you find a place to fix it. I called Best Electronics and they stated they no longer do repairs on Falcons. They mentioned sending it over to Europe to be fixed. Not exactly what I wanted to hear.

I'm all for faster hardware on STE's or Megas or Falcons... sign me up. But here's a question to everyone. We know we can "go faster" with emulators, coldfire firebees, and various accelerators....but when does it become practical when new software to take advantage of these improvements seems limited? Basically I think folks want to see their favorite games run faster. Some might want more power to do something with sound/midi processing and then their are those who like to tinker with old productivity software like DTP and graphics. The faster our machines get, the more likely these pieces of software will struggle to stay current. Heck... I'd love to have a 3D animation and rendering application on the Atari to create animations that is more capable and modern... but no one is going to write it. Are they? What is the state of "new" Atari software outside of games or maybe music... anything? And does that require a 68080 card?

I have a 1970NX and yes.. I have the same problem. Low rez looks great. Medium is ok but not something I'd want to stare at all day. High is awful. You're right in that you can improve the high rez image with a little fiddling of the controls.. but compared to the SM124... it sucks. Using a Best VGA cable too.

I think people have been bugging them for that for years... They just seem to want to do things the old fashioned way. Plus there is something to be said for direct client to vendor interaction. But I agree with you. It would be nice to go onto their site and actually see what's in the inventory. Maybe because Atari no longer exists, they don't want people to know their inventory levels. It keeps people like us to keep checking back.

I talked to them the other day. No Falcons in stock. They are "long gone" according to the owner.. He also commented on the prices on ebay as crazy and "worth their weight in gold...it seems". He did however mention still having new STs and STEs available.

She's a beauty....but hard to justify $700 for a non-functioning machine... especially one that has been poorly modded. Mine has the clock patch too.. and I think it was poorly done as well. Seems like its quite common for those to be done haphazardly. Don't know why... but every one I've seen looks like they've been butchered. Sigh.

It works. I own and NX. The only difference between it and the VX, as far as I know, is the NX has a better contrast ratio. CORRECTION: I read over this too quickly. I thought you were talking about the 1970NX.

Very good points on both counts. I don't mind keeping the A drive a floppy in the MegaSTE if I can install a B drive floppy emulator somehow. How would that be possible? Or is my DD disk drive problems as drive A going to be a problem? Since the Falcon and the MSTE are going to be my primary two workstations on this project I'm planning....I need an effective way to share files and information between the two. Plus I'm going to use an emulator to render and ray trace files with. If I can't network the machines together easily then transferring files via sd or usb seems the best choice.

Well that's good news. Thank you. ParanoidLittleMan is quite helpful in his advice. He's been very helpful with my floppy drive situation. If you have any questions regarding the HD floppy drive I'll be happy to help the best I can. I learned a lot.

Definitely the plan for this particular 1040STf. I have a number of machines that I am refurbishing and retrofitting. SD cards and USB drives seem the way to go.

Now that I've resolved the HD floppy disk issue in my MSTE, I intend on upgrading it with some new capabilities. Whether its an HxC floppy emulator, Gotek, UltraSatan or ComosEX, I have a question regarding SCSI/DMA issues in the Mega STE. The machine I have was previously used at an old factory..processing some manufacturing process I believe. Anyway... when the machine was sold to me, it looks like they pulled out the hard drive and the scsi controller card. The machine has seen better days, but I'm trying to make it like new again. According to Lotharek's website...here's what he has to say regarding upgrading a MSTE with an ultrasatan: Note: When you remove the internal SCSI host adapter from Mega STE, the data bits (D0 - D7) on left of the internal ACSI connector will not be connected to the data bits on the right and thus the external DMA connector on MegaSTE will be unusable. A simple help might be just connecting those data bits with wires (and it might work), but the SCSI host adapter uses a 74HCT245 bus driver to connect those data lines together. This bus driver could be added to the PCB convertor but it requires some additional logic to merge CS and ACK signals to the 'G' signal of 74HCT245... So my question is: If I no longer have a scsi host adapter that acts as a bridge to the external DMA, how will this limit the devices I can choose from to upgrade my MSTE? Will any of the hard drive replacements even work? Will I be limited to floppy drive emulators only on this machine?

Well ultimately I want to go with some sort of solid state type drive like an HxC or Gotek or Cosmos device and I needed to know if the computer could sense something. I feel more hopeful now.

Progress! I was able to get my hands on an SMD-300 1.44mb floppy drive. I flipped dip switch 7 back "on" and plugged in the drive. Success! High Density recognized. It seems that my MSTE doesn't like any sort of DD 720k drive flavors. I guess once you have the Ajax and Pal that permit High Density sensing, going backwards to DD doesn't work. Thank you!

It's a big button model but not single sided. Definitely DD 720k.

I have a NEC 1970NX that also works quite well. Slightly different specs than the VX, but works just the same. Its more "capable" high end brother, the NEC 2070NX, however does not work. Refresh rate is too low for it.