Side2/Sparta Problem

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

The fact modern equipment appears completely disposable doesn't help. Technology progresses so quickly that hardware becomes obsolete within a couple of years, and therefore there's no need to build stuff to last. This is one reason I find criticism of the reliability of thirty-odd year old computers (which still work) so puzzling. How many Macbook Airs will still switch on after lying in a damp garden shed for two decades?

 

Yeah, it's like that with everything it seems. Cars, homes, electronics, etc. I will say some of the "newer" stuff has held up pretty well and people did some good hacking! The original Xbox, for example, has been modified several ways to expand on its original design! I was excited when the PS3 allowed you to installed alternate operating systems until they took it away. sigh

 

I don't like the way software licenses are going that give the company more rights than the license purchaser.

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

That is pretty damn sweet!!!! I watched a couple of the demos off there and I'd love to have his 800XE!! I'm sure you can emulate it on the PC, but there is just something special about changing things up in the Atari itself! Make it more than it the creators intended!

 

I think this is a major problem today. People stop looking at ways to make existing things better and just keep creating new things. Game systems are a prime example! Do they really get everything out of these systems that they can? In 30 years will people be hacking them and making them do more? I certainly hope so, but sometimes I'm afraid that the youth today doesn't have that mentality. They're falling more into the throw it away and buy something new mindset.

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

Not to change the topic, but has anyone tried making a 16-bit Atari to kind of follow what would have been the natural evolution of the 8-bit? I'm not talking ST either. I mean backward compatible with the 8-bit type stuff.

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

a good portion of this was done on the ST and Amiga with scanners long before it was all derived from the PC, all of it seems pretty lost now, Precisely because it wasn't stored on or with the eight bit.

There were schematics, diagrams, and drawings you could display on the eight bit... I don't see them anymore... I received graphics pictures of how to do certain memory upgrades and mods that way. Fired up the 8 bit Atari, upgraded a sixteen bit 520 to be a 1040 off of that. Did the same for two chip tos conversions. The reverse was also true, working from the ST graphics picture to do upgrades on the 8 bit. Lastly all of the XEP 80 stuff is gone. You could put the diagram up on the xep, and shut off the Atari and do the work from that. You don't need an X86 at all unless you want to use the modern and invaluable programming tools of today. I'd still want all the files on on the 8 bit... The amount of times every one has struggled to find all the pieces to this or that and having to recreate it all or search and wait for year to have it turn up or recreate it or be lost forever is astounding. Sorry about the soap box... It's just the number of time a hard drive or other thing has wiped out stuff around the world is repeatedly lamented here on AA, and also the number of time you get the, I sold that pc or I don't remember where it went, the project is now dead as the sources blah blah blah were on it.... etc etc... most 'lost work' at least in part is always found on some old floppy or Atari device... almost never did I hear.... I just found all my Atari stuff on a PC drive I had here, I'm so excited look at this!

 

I don't want to rely on the PC to make useable drives for the Atari.... but more and more this is becoming the case...

 

I certainly see what you're getting at, but relying on Atari for backing up data isn't exactly what I would call reliable. Today it should really all go to the cloud if you want it to live on forever! Historically, backing up on floppies or a hard drive, if you were lucky enough to have one, wasn't really a solid plan either. Not that I have a great archive, but if I were an Atari genius and backed up all my stuff on the Atari and died today, it would most certain be lost forever simply because so few people know how to access data on the Atari. At least on a PC it would have a little more chance of being discovered, though not likely anyone that found it would know what it was or care.

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

The CF adapter I got my wife can take two micro SD cards and combine them into one big one. I thought that was pretty cool! The WiFi one is also very intriguing! What is the SDX/APT size limits?

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

As CF becomes harder to source, I've had good results with these:

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 263366427536

 

Throw 2GB Sandisk SD cards (costing small change) at the thing and you'll quickly find something stable.

Funny you mention these! I bought one off Amazon and put a 64GB msdx in it to replace the 2 x 2Gb I stole from my wife! I'm now thinking that's exactly what I'm going to do!

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

It does appear to be a CF card issue. I used a 512MB card and it's retaining the data through the power cycle. Very strange as my wife has been using it for her DSLR camera for years without issue! I ran a full format on it without issue, so I'm guessing just an incompatibility with this card.

 

Finding smaller CF cards these days is getting harder!

 

Thanks guys!

[Side2/Sparta Problem]

Hey gang,

 

First time poster in the forums!

 

I did a search for this before posting this and nothing obvious jumped out!

 

I recently got a Side2 cart and put in a 2GB CF card. I set up a 256.1 MB APT Partition and left the rest to FAT32. I set up 8 x 32MB drives and "formatted" them. Everything seemed to be going peachy until I powered my system down at night and turned it on the next day and it showed "Invalid partition table" and appeared all my work was gone! So I did it all again and had the same results thinking I messed up a step. Nope. Still got the error. Then I noticed that if I went into FDISK and created the drives all over and saved, the previous data was still there and readable. I'm posting pics showing after a hard boot, creating the drives, cold booting (and the drives are fine) and then back to a cold boot with the error.

 

Thoughts?