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Stephen

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Posts posted by Stephen

  2. Posted

    Thanks for the advice - I will give it a try. One thing I did discover last night, was that even when the duplicate disk option failed (or had lots of errors), most of the time a file by file copy would work just fine. I see this is going to take a lot more time thn I had first thought.

     

    Stephen Anderson

  4. Posted

    Well, the subject says it. I am just now beginnin to archive my floppy collection (some 200 odd disks, double sided). Unfortunately, I am having trouble reading from the Kodak brand disks. I remember they were terrible when new as well.

     

    I know I have some Vulcan software disks that I don't recall seeing in the TOSEC sets I have.

     

    I will post everything I have when it is all backed up and somewhat organized (bare minimum will be organized by DOS type). No promises since this is being done in my limited free time. I am not sure where I will post the archive, since I don't know the final size. I guess worst case is still under 5MB, so I may be able to host it via my ISP. It may just be best for me to upload it to a bewsgroup. I will keep you updated.

     

    Stephen Anderson

     

    I did have a thought. I am using a USDoubled 1050 drive. The mechanical assembly was replaced a few years back from a drive I got off EBay. Is it possible this drive is slightly out of alignment compared to the drive that wrote the disks? If so, how can I align it (I don't have a scope - is there a diag program)?

  5. Posted

    I have finally got an SIO2PC board coming!!! I have spent the last several hours searching this forum and google, trying to decide the age old 1200XL vs 800XL argument. I have decided to use my 1200XL (both of my 800XLs have the cheapo mushy keyboard), but I will modify it to use the APE Warp+ OS (I found old instructions for adding a PBI to the 1200XL - which I don't really need at the moment, but these instructions also cover how to use an 800XL OS in the 1200XL.)

     

    One question I cannot find an answer to though - will the Wizztronics 256K board for the 800XL work with the 1200XL (assuming it has been fitted with the 800XL OS)? This is the board that Best Electronics is selling (I have the 41256 chips from a very long time ago already). If this mod will not work, can someone please point me to one that will.

     

    I have the Super Video 2.1 instructions for the 130XE. I don't have the ones for the 600XL, 800XL, and 1200XL. The original geocities page is down, and while google has the pages cached, it does not have the images. If someone could provde me with these, I would be most grateful.

     

    Thanks for any help.

     

    P.S.

    If there are any other mods I should do, feel free to suggest them. At some time, I will most likely add a 2nd POKEY for stereo. I am not sure what new demos will work on the machine though - it's an NTSC.

     

    Stephen Anderson

  6. Posted

    I'd have to say Caves of Ice. This is the 1st game I remember typing in from a magazine, and the only game my dad ever typed in with me. I believe the game was from Compute! magazine. I only had a 16K Atari 400 at the time (thank god it had the real keyboard upgrade). We spent ages getting the game typed in, saved to cassette tape, debugged, only to find out it needed 48K to run.

     

    It was really cool seeing it run on an emulator almost 20 years after typing it in! Funny how much nostalgia some of us have with these older systems.

     

    Stephen Anderson

  8. Posted

    The game is not that bad. Find the pieces of the phone, call the ship, and get picked up. It had some pretty cool sounds too.

     

    I never did like the 8-bit version of the game though. Terrible graphics and what happened to the wells???

     

    Stephen Anderson

  11. Posted

    Of all the Atari demos I have seen, this one is probably my favorite. It's incredibly fast, has killer music, great polygon rotation, and the best plasma I have seen on Atari. And it is only 16KB.

     

    Does anybody have some information on it such as how the plasma was created? It looks to have well over 16 colors per raster line and in a high resolution.

     

    Stephen Anderson

  13. Posted

    I did not know that there are two versions. So I looked to color version today. And I must say the original monochrome one I like more. The second seems that Atari use only graphics 15 instead 8.

     

    BTW Are there another monochrome games here? This is the finest graphics and I like this resolution. I remember only Starquake, MoleculeMan and Amaurote. Do anybody know some else?

     

    Lode Runner was monochrome and used artifacting. Awesome game when it came out. I liked the way the levels would "draw in" circular fashion. The level editor was a great feature also.

     

    Stephen Anderson

  14. Posted

    I've seen most of the amazing demos for the Atari 8-bit from 1996 and up. Drunk Chessboard is one of the most impressive to me, mainly because it is so fast, the music is absolutely astounding, and the color plasma is great.

     

    Does anyone have any ideas how some of the effects were done? Mainly, the super fast zooming and scaling of the black and white chessboards?

     

    Stephen Anderson

  15. Posted

    Actually, the encoder from Happ only has 4 pins on it. +5VDC, GND, A,B. When wired, the GND goes to the ground leg of power, ground leg of LEFT, ground leg of RIGHT on the Jag controller. A then goes to the other pin of LEFT, B goes to the other pin of RIGHT. (Direction may be reversed, but I believe that's correct).

     

    Nuon is the media processor used in some new DVD players by Samsung and Toshiba. It was designed by VMLabs (founded by the same guys who designed the Jag custom chips and also a pretty popular computer in England, of which the name escapes me). Jeff Minter has lent his talent to the machine, providing an updated VLM and the most amazing to date version of Tempest.

  16. Posted

    OK - I apologize for such a lengthy delay in getting back to you.

     

    1). The way I added mass to my spinner knob was quite cheap&simple. I

    started with a 1.75" wheel - nothing special about it. Since the backside

    was largely hollow, I filled every lasst bit of space I could with small

    nuts. To keep them in place, I filled the entire back of the knob (minus

    the space for attaching to the spinner of course) with silicone sealant.

    A small tube can be purchased from any automotive store for less than

    $5.00. This made for a VERY nice & solid feeling spinner. Also, once the

    silicone has set up (better llow at least 24 hours), the stuff will NEVER

    come out or move around.

     

    2). With my encoder, one wheel rotation equals one web rotation (at least

    on the earlier circular levels). This is how the arcade behaved IIRC.

    Rotation with the 2600 driving wheels was WAY too slow. I believe it took

    4 turns for one web rotation. Simply not an option.

     

    3). All you need to find is a wheel with 24 slits! Make sure that the wheel and emittor/detector pair are a matched set. I don't think you would be able to precisely make your own wheel and detector anyhow. Just find a 24 slit wheel, and you will be good to go. This also takes care of your pulse sequence questions.

     

    4). If you can find a used standard Jaguar controller on

    e-bay, your easiest solution will be, gut the controller. Then, you have

    a PCB with all of the button contacts there, as well as a nicely molded

    cable. Some people will probably scream at me for advocating the

    destruction of precious Jag controllers, but hey - they can't be that darn

    rare!

     

    I hope this helps you complete your controller. Feel free to e-mail me

    with any more questions. I will be putting up a new web site soon, which

    will be devoted to my various custom car & hardware projects, as well as

    my programming (specifically, my new work on the Nuon system). I am going

    to post this message over at the Atariage message board also.

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