OldAtarian

That was my theory in one of the other threads. Midi transfers are extremely fast and Mac drives access data a lot faster than the ST drives so passing the data across the midi ports is probably the only way to read/write Mac disks fast enough to prevent data corruption. I wonder how the Spectre GCR does it, though. It would have to have some high speed device built in to match the speed of the Mac floppies if the Translator One is not needed or else buffer the data before writing so it can supply a steady stream of data without waiting on the ST to catch up.

Well, Atari was using a VAX mini someplace...as evidenced by their interoffice memos. Maybe Curt knows exactly what machines were afforded to the various divisions? Bob Whitehead (re: Activision)... So Atari's equipment used to program 2600 games may have been similar. It's certianly the case in the home computer division, so that same mini could have had workstations used for VCS development as well. Landon Dyer writes this about development at Atari's computer division... Smaller companies took advantage of the 6507 processor's nearly-identical operation to the 6502's, and just used home computers to develop on... Bill Heineman (re: Avalon Hill)... Dennis Caswell (re: Arcadia)... Instead of mainframes and minis, wouldn't it just have been a lot cheaper for Atari to make a machine that would have essentially been a 2600 but with a keyboard and enough RAM and ROM to run an assembler/debugger?

Hey, did anyone else notice he changed the original picture to one with a T handle. Someone just paid $128 for a repro cart.

I did report it and I wouldn't have been the $75 guy because I don't do deals like that. Why would I have bid $250 if I was looking to rip someone off? I only bid $250 originally because I didn't notice he had both Learning Funs CIB. I thought there was only one.

Very cool. You don't see this come up too often. Kind of funny that the end of the description reads, Money Order preferred, I don't like Paypal. Probably should have said I don't want to pay the fee on $6000. Or he's a scammer and wants to take your money order and run with it. Never pay for a big ticket item like that by any method that leaves you no means of recourse if the transaction goes bad.

Feast your eyes my friends. Feast your eyes. Not only 2 floppy ports but 2 midi ports. Not sure how the midi ports work but my guess why add them and label them midi if they were not meant to connect midi devices to. I need to find a user manual for this and someone that owns one so they can email me pictures of the ac adapter and what kind of connector is on it so I can try and buy a generic one that would work. tj It could be possible that you connect to the ST by the midi ports, too. Midi was pretty fast at transferring data. It may have been faster than the standard ST drives. The Mac floppy drives were also lightning fast compared to ST drives. Passing data across the midi cables may have been required to be able spin the drives at Mac speeds and still be able to read and write with any accuracy.

Once I have some time, I have a number of Spectres. I think 2 or 3 GCRs and 1 or 2 Spectre 128. Once I can test them one day, I will sell a couple at a much fairer price. $250 is crazy! I just need to confirm all of mine have the Apple ROMS in them and then see about getting a System 6.08 so I can test these out. Heck, I even have one of the Translator boxes that I think worked with the Spectre 128 (pre GCR model) that allowed the Atari floppy drives to be read and written to. Don't have a power ac adapter for it though but looks like a neat device. What is interesting on the Translator Box is it has Midi ports on it. Not sure what that meant but maybe you could use Mac Midi apps via Spectre 128 that way? tj I think the "translator box" you are referring to is a "Happy Discovery Cart". Like the Spectre GCR, the Discovery Cart required that a cable be run from the ST's floppy port (on the back of the ST) to the appropriate jack on the Discovery Cart itself. This cable allowed the Discovery Cart to vary the speed of the floppy drive's motor, thereby allowing it to process GCR-based floppy formats (such as the Mac's). The Discovery Cart was also able to duplicate copy-protected discs, as it could vary the speed of the drive and generate disc errors at the appropriate sectors, just as the game-manufacturer's machines would do (normally, an ST's drive cannot copy disk errors, and this was used to determine which disks were copies and which were originals - the originals had the errors). So, if you have a Discovery Cart there, I don't think those ports you are looking at are MIDI ports. They are ports to which floppy drive cables are to be connected. One cable goes from the computer to the cartridge, and another cable can optionally connect a second disk drive. No. The early Mac emulator carts couldn't read Mac floppies. You had to copy the Mac stuff to specially formatted floppies that the emulator could read. The Translator One let you read the Mac floppies directly before the Spectre GCR came out. I'm not sure those would be midi ports on it, though. I'm pretty sure those would be floppy ports for connecting your drives to for reading the Mac discs.

Everyone used to do that. That's why they instituted the new in shrinkwrap only returns policy everywhere.

It's still for sale and $250 is too much. It'll probably still be for sale a year from now unless the seller wises up and lowers the price. eBay Auction -- Item Number: 380231020393

Yeh you can can thank Geocities going down for the loss of the Spectre page I used to have up, which was there with the blessing of Dave Small and everything. Maybe one day I'll put it up again. I wish you would, I really enjoyed reading it. David Small was definitely one of my computing heroes back in the day. Found it! http://www.oocities.com/clu-da-bard/

So I'm guessing it probably won't work on a Mega STe, TT or Falcon then since a CPU faster than 8mhz messes everything up.

Doesn't look Minteresque at all. It looks very French, though.

Wii has more games, even though many of them are junk. I doubt anyone is going to turn their nose up at a Wii in favor of a Kinect. The idea is laughable.

There's a difference between a peripheral and an accessory. An accessory is typically something you need like a controller or memory card. A peripheral is something that adds functionality, but isn't necessary to play all the games, just the ones that require it. Kinect is a peripheral, not an accessory and the history of console peripherals is not good. How many PS2 network adapters do you think sold? How many games required it? How about the PS2 hard drive or the EyeToy? How many Gamecube or Dreamcast broadband adapters are out there? How about the Sega 32X? How many games were actually released for the Intellivision ECS or the Starpath Supercharger? Kinect will go down in history as another thing that seemed like a good idea at the time, but never achieved enough sales for long term sustainability.

Yeah.. seems like kind of a risk. $150 is a hefty price tag for something that has yet to prove itself. And considering the games shown so far all suck. They also haven't learned, apparently, that game console peripherals don't tend to do well and games that depend on them do even worse. Everyone writing XBox 360 games is going to do so for the bare console because that's the broadest possible user base. Microsoft will probably be the only one releasing games for Kinect. Others may develop games and sell them to Microsoft so that Microsoft is the one that takes the marketing risk, but I doubt very many will strike out on their own with Kinect games and risk losing money.

It's dishonest because there was a bidder (me). If the seller was going to end early, he should have consulted with the bidders first. Ebay allows sellers to end early, TO SELL TO THE HIGH BIDDER, which the person offering the side deal was not. I had a bid of $250 in and would have bid higher if necessary to win. The seller did the side deal for 75. If the side dealer had entered a $75 bid he would not have been the high bidder. It's also dishonest because the side dealer had to go through Ebays communication system to contact the seller to make the deal which cheated ebay out of the additional revenue they would have gotten if the listing had been allowed to run. You can't use ebays own messaging system to make side deals that cheat ebay out of fees.

The Mac Plus can run up to system 7.5.5, albeit extremely slowly. Can an ST with Spectre GCR run any version of System 7 or is it limited to System 6 or below?

And he set his feedback to private. That's probably the first, last, and only time that ebay id will ever be used. THose two Learning Fun games will be relisted under a different user id.

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 280600383330

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 280600386599

I saw a webpage once where someone managed to install a 68030 upgrade in one but it's a very delicate procedure and not recommended unless you really know what you're doing. STACY parts appear slightly more prone to being accidentally ruined than other ST's for some reason. There are hard drive upgrades available but you can't use the controller board that comes with the STACY because only a small number of drives are supported. In general, upgrading a STACY is something you don't want to undertake unless you really know what you're doing, as mentioned previously.

Huh? Where's the side deal? All I see is a listing that is still active with no bids.

I really don't think the FBI are going to send someone out over $127.50. The local police probably won't investigate it beyond writing out a report and sticking it in a filing cabinet. All you can really do is try to get a judgment in small claims court and you have to have proof that you sent the money and proof of everything that was said. Since this was an outside ebay deal, you probably don't have anything official to back you up.

The webhost uses the old shilling electric meters. Forget to put your coin in and your server goes down. O.o

Why would a proto have QC stamps on it? I would think that QC would only inspect production models before they went out the door and not pre-production prototypes. And what makes you think it's factory painted with the red? Anyone can open something up and apply paint at some point. I would also think they would be a little more careful about the overspray if it was done at the factory.