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nadir

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Posts posted by nadir

  1. Posted

    4 hours ago, gnusto said:

     

    Really surprised this list doesn't include the Tandy 1000, but does have several laptops that are fairly similar to each other. The 1000 was often looked down on by the business types who were buying IBM, but it was a DOS machine that came with the same processor/memory configurations as many of those IBM (XTs), but had much better graphics and sound, built in. For several years it was the best DOS gaming machine you could use, and had serviceable built-in productivity apps for home use, all while costing pretty much the same as an IBM.

     

    I had an XT clone and a 1000 for awhile.  Honestly, the performance of the 1000 was dismal in comparison at the same clock speed.  The XT clone had Plantronics video, so was theoretically capable of the same graphics modes, but besides Lotus 1-2-3's graphing module I never found anything that supported it.  So, it was CGA until upgraded later on (ultimately ended up with 1 MB VGA card!).  The 1000's stock audio was obviously way better, but I dropped an Adlib in the XT and then it was better.

     

    So, yeah, the 1000 was technically better graphics/audiowise out of the box.  And it could have been upgraded to match the upgraded XT audio/video, but the performance was just sluggish it was hard to use.  It always made me think of the PCjr.  Lots of promise with better video and audio than the standard PC or XT, but hobbled by poor performance out of the system.

    • Like 2

  2. Posted

    2 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

    The Commodore scene is far from dying out, it's still very active with new hardware/software being released all the time.

     

    Good to hear.  When I search for Commodore stuff it seems like there's nothing out there whereas Atari lots of stuff comes up.  Would like to do more with my new to me Commodore!

  3. Posted

    22 hours ago, carlsson said:

    I wonder if Tandy ever considered the CoCo inferior not only to the Atari 8-bit, but also to the new C64 in the summer of 1982 and if that would have prompted them to throw away the "Green Thumb" Motorola custom chips in favor for something hotter for the CoCo 2 to be released in 1983, even if it meant no backwards compatibility. By the time of the war in the summer of 1983, in any case it was too late for any form of consolidation/co-operation between Texas Instruments and Tandy with their association to Radio Shack stores.

    I had a CoCo2 for awhile (got it for free).  Lots of carts and disks with it.  All totally unimpressive.  Really, given the specs and everything I knew about it, it was one big disappointment overall when I used it.  Well, OS-9 and the C compiler were *fine*, but not reason enough to keep it so I gave it away eventually.  It actually discouraged me for years from trying other retro platforms.  Now I've got an Atari 600XL and a Commodore 128 and they're both leaps and bounds better.  If I have to pick the one I like best, it's the Atari, but it's because of the community.  The old Ataris have a great community around them whereas the Commodore scene seems to be dying out.

    • Like 4

  4. Posted

    On 3/9/2021 at 11:30 PM, KG7PFS said:

    I'm just courious, does anyone else here use the C128 in 128 mode? Or am I the only one?

    I just picked up my first Commodore 128 (shout out to PwnD Games*Consoles*Accessories on ebay for the great transaction) and so far I've only used C128 mode (for programming).

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    I'm attempting to use the VICE Filesystem Device in C128 mode (Settings - Peripheral Devices - Filesystem Device) and am failing.  I have the directory selected on my host machine that I want to use and "Drive 8" is selected.  Everything else I've left at defaults.  However, if I do something like Hello World in BASIC and attempt to save the program just vanishes and can't be loaded again.  File Manager never sees the file even though it looks like it saved at first.  Here's an example of my results on the VICE side:

     

    image.png.1bf73f9d942e52e2ed26ef4742873ca2.png

     

    Am I missing something in the settings?  Or, perhaps am I not properly using the SAVE/LOAD command with that filesystem device?

  11. Posted

    Planning on doing some stuff in BASIC that I'd like to push to Github.  I have a 600XL as well as Altirra that I could be using.  I know I could make disk images and push those from Altirra, but I'd prefer to do just the source code itself.  So far it looks like I can cut/paste from Altirra to the host machine one screen at a time and then use git from there.  Awkward, but doable.  The other way around it looks like I can paste everything at once from the host into Altirra, but that gets tricky if I have any errors...

     

    Are there better ways?  Can the host directly access Altirra disk images and then I could use the text load/save options of BASIC?  Any easy ways to get the 600XL hooked up (maybe over serial?) and transfer data?

  14. Posted

    I've got a bunch of old stuff I did back in GWBASIC on my XT clone many years ago that I'm thinking about redoing.  The source code is almost entirely lost, so I'll be recreating from the original concepts.  Rather than spin up FreeDOS (which I don't even know if it has a BASIC included) I was thinking about redoing as Atari 8-bit when 40 columns text or graphics is appropriate and C128 when I need 80 columns text.

     

    What's the best goto (pun intended :) ) resource for C128 BASIC?  Also, any known issues to look out for if I develop on VICE instead of real hardware?

  15. Posted

    Had a cap blow up in my PC XT clone power supply a few years ago.  It was quite spectacular...  BANG.  Video started dancing around.  Smell of smoke (but none visible)

     

    I've had to recap a number of video cards from the 2000's that exploded the caps.  Cars from the '90's to 2000's are notorious for cap failures in the ECUs as well.  I really haven't seen it be a problem in other electronics though.

  16. Posted

    On 3/5/2021 at 10:31 PM, schnuth said:

    I noticed these came back in stock on Amazon and I bought one just now. Figured I’d post in case anyone else has been wanting one.

    Wow!  How did I not hear about these until now!  Argh, been saving to try and score a Commodore 128, but they're so hard to find.  This is so tempting.  No "must have" games in the list though...

  17. Posted · Edited by nadir

    First, my Atari 7800 (inherited from a cousin decades ago) with the Atari 2600 remote control joystick setup and my Starpath Supercharger!  Have had these for a long time now, but the 7800 was my second system.  Started with a 2600 heavy sixer that unfortunately was blown up by a bad power supply.  Couldn't get it fixed back then so trashed it.  Should have kept it as today it probably could be fixed...  Not quite an 8-bit "computer" setup, but thought I'd share as that's where I came from...

     

    401210578_20210306_1056401.thumb.jpg.0892421507440b5e6bf5f640056102cb.jpg

     

    Second, the brand new to me (NOS, so is absolutely perfect, not a scratch or mark on it) 600XL that I just got the other day.  No idea why my software won't let me rotate that particular image, so tilt your head.  🙂  Unfortunately it suffered a keyboard failure later on that same night and will have to go out for repair already.  😞  Still though, was able to play a number of games on it that are joystick only and am amazed/surprised at how the level of detail in those games is quite obviously better and how the gameplay is smoother than the comparable 7800 games of the era.

     

    485533595_20210304_1706161.thumb.jpg.8c92dc1c6baa93a16753eaab768500ca.jpg

    • Like 2

  18. Posted · Edited by nadir

    29 minutes ago, Paul Westphal said:

    It’s most likely the keyboard mylar. You can get a new one for it from Best Electronics, or get the one for sale on eBay that is from Poland. If that doesn’t work you can replace the keyboard multiplexers marked 4051 which are right by the keyboard ribbon cable. Could also be a bad pokey. 

    OK, upon further testing, holding down +, *, tab, space, return, /, or caps on boot will prevent the keyboard from running away.  As soon as I let go of any of those, the / key starts repeating.  Duplicated inside self-test.  Example, go into self-test with spacebar held down from power up.  All good.  Let go of space bar and the / key lights up and "booooooo".  I've also noticed a few games on the AtariMax have no sound, but most do (and some of them sound really good).  Does that help narrow down the possibilities any?

  19. Posted

    I just received my first Atari 8-bit ever a couple hours ago.  It's a 600XL with the 64K upgrade.  It looked to be in beautiful shape, even had a good condition original box (albeit no manuals) and fired up into BASIC and ran great there at first.  Got my first "Hello, World!" program in and all was good.  Admired the screen and the fact that it worked and shut it down.

     

    Then I powered it up again with the included AtariMax cart.  Keyboard wouldn't work at all and the system just keeps making a "binkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbink" sound.  With the joystick I can get into Adventure by double clicking real fast, but nothing else.  I held down option and rebooted.  The keyboard test screen just makes a continuous "booooooooooooooo" sound and the tab, control, left shift, space bar, right shift, caps, and return keys are lit up.  Help to exit doesn't work.  Reset back into BASIC and it's just spewing //////////// now.  However, I found if I very slightly hold the + and * keys down that it stops repeating.  Nothing else on the keyboard works, but if I hold those 2 keys just barely pressed, I can reboot into AtariMax and select games with the joystick.

     

    How bad is it?  Do I just have a fancy joystick only game machine?

  22. Posted

    I sooooo badly want a Commodore 128 w/1571 and 1581 to run CP/M on even though I have absolutely no use for it and honestly would probably just stick it in a corner after the first couple hours of playing with it.  The good news is that prices are so insane on them (if you can find one) that it's well above my impulse buy threshold. 

     

    I felt the same way about a CoCo2 running OS-9 and once I had it, well, barely touched it.

    • Like 3

  23. Posted

    We only had a couple Apple II (maybe +?) in grade school.  I never got to use them, they were reserved for the kids with good grades.  It wasn't until Junior high that I got to use some Apple IIe computers in a small computer lab due to taking my first computer class.  In high school we had Apple IIc, IIgs, and Macs (SE?).  Never got to use the IIgs, once again reserved for the good grade kids (I was a straight C student).  IIe were for the general computer class and Macs for the programming class.

     

    At home we got a PC/XT clone just about the time I started high school.  So, I ended up overall MUCH more a DOS person than anything else.  🙂

    • Like 2

  24. Posted

    Oh wow, totally missed that post somehow.  Love the Super Circus Atari Pokey game from AtariAge that I received last year!  Works great on my system.  7800s sure seem to have a lot of weird random compatibility issues (even though mine has been great with just the Robot Tank mod done).

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