skeezix

Can't edit the above post.. must be a what, 1 hour timer? I think I've gotten it sorted out -- CaTTamaran goes into the big wtrip, far left (pin 1) on the bottom two rows (skipping the first.) The funny thing is the Cattamaran install guide is.. software; irony Its hard to tell if its working, but th machine is stable; not much software on there to work over pure-cpu .. an old unregistered shareware GemBench, which reports CPU i 104% a normal TT without the Cattamaran active, and 107% a normal TT with. Not a big jump, but its doing ram access tests and such, which don't improve much with clock speed games .. but since the machine turns on again, thats a good thing. Theres a little double-AA battery sized box flopping around int he back of the case; is that actually a RTC battery by chance? Hopefully I'll get a few hours without my little one around next week and I'll get some good pics and quality time with this beast, instead of an hour rush late at night like I have the last few days jeff

Added some quickly taken pictures here: http://www.rjmitchell.ca/~jeff/blog2009/2011/01/07/atari-tt030-quick-pics-inside/ Notice the CaTTamaran! http://walled.net/~jmitchell/skeleton.org/blogmedia/technology/atari/tt/atari_tt_cattamaran_closeup.jpg Read the story, but unfortuantely it seems I bumped it loose -- it was barely in place. So now I'm trying to sort out exactly how it goes in, machine is all screwy right now... *sigh* If anyone needs, when I get a solid moment, I can try to take some good solid pics, take cabling out or the like. jeff German installation guide? LEts hope it has pics.. http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/files/CaTTamaran.pdf

jkonstan -- where abouts are you located anyway? Sounds like you may need it the most jeff

Dal .. why oh crap? You need it? I'm sure the other lad would be very accomodating if you needed it; I think he wanted it just as a whim off the cuff, but if you happen to want it, I'm game. (Perhaps 'first to respond' is not the best, since it favous people up at that right time, and who F5 a lot jeff

Well, that was fast Taken. Mod, delete thread jeff

Is the Wiki also backed up? *hopes* jeff

Mega ST keyboard is hardware compatible with TT, then, I gather? jeff (Someone just decided to give me a Mega ST, like I need another piece of retro gear .. so now I will have when I get it, an ST, Mega ST, TT, Stacy, ST Book. Bloody hell.)

A buddy of mine just discovered the hardware-side of a Spectre GCR; I've not tested it, but it looks in good condition so has a good shot at working. The software side can be found pretty easily I imagine. Anyone want it? Just send me a postcard or shipping cost or something, and I'm good to ship it off; just need a good home, to save me from tossing it in the landfill. Anyone? jeff It looks like this (random Google image): http://www.oocities.com/clu-da-bard/gcr.jpg -- plugs into cart slot on ST, and also has a floppy cable to jack into a floppy drive so you can read Mac GCR format floppies.

I put 3, since I happen to need some info (selfish of me , and think its a good exercise even if oyu wipe it (ie: make sure backups are working But _certainly_ 1 is just as valid, and only d o(3) if you have time to burn. If theres any stress or busyness, just do 1 .. don't fret on our account So to me, its really (1)+(3) vs (2) anyway; 2 seems a bad idea imho .. just leads to more work jeff

Any idea which version of hddriver is needed for ultrasatan? jeff

Pulled the TT out of storage since it rather solves the 'ST -> VGA' problem for me possibly (we'll see how many games can actually run on this thing -- I tried a couple patched games on the dbug site, but to no avail.. but still not sure if its the floppy or general TT incompatibility with the patched bins yet DarkLord -- any idea how many patched games actually work on TT? (Really, ARanyM could take care of my needs, but it does bring joy to my heart to see the TT up on my big monitor .. setting it to ST Low on 17" CRT is pretty sweet; if I get Dungeon Master going, I'll drag it down to my family room and jack it into the 50" LCD and take a pic; that would rule (Jacking laptop with Hatari into the TV isn't the same.) The most annoying thing is the location of the power switch .. wish they'd added a power button to the main keyboard (but yeah, they are workarounds with powerbars with remote start etc.) It does seem like the OS thinks its a 1.44MB floppy, but it can only read/write (semi reliably) 720k floppies; curious. So many memories are forgotten .. I'd have known how to manage the fdlopy drive years ago, now I just forget how to tell reliably if its broken or not, etc BigDOS -- it looks like this badboy has 8 partitions each 250-300MB in size; should I be enabling BigDOS to avoid corrupting them? They're mostly empty, but it has some goods on C/D/E. (Calamus 1.0.9N .. I think thats the version I bought back in like 1989 or something, not even SL ) I'll have to look into getting a NetUSBee, but even then, getting it set up and useful will take some files, and its hard to get files over; it looks like it has STalker on it, which IIRC was a late ST era terminal app so maybe I can do some null-model action. Worst case is I can yank the drive and fill it up with goods and put it back in (thats how I've done it with ST Book, since it has no floppy drive at all.) I've got an UltraSatan on order from zaxon, which I think he shipped around Xmas, so we'll see how long it takes to arrive; this box uses hddriver 7.x .. I wonder if it will magicly recognize ultrasatan, or do I need to upgrade to hddriver 8.x to get that? (or the latest one?) I purchased hddriver 8 a couple years back for ST Book, so could upgrade to that possibly. Christos -- sorry for disarray; writing quick due to time crunch, and editing in place to add observations over the night in my excitement/rush .. too many things on the go, and kid waking up and interupting every half hour, story of my life lately I've not been on top of TOS networking; given a netusbee or ethernec, how can you use it for file transfer? I'm more leaning towards setting up a full SpareMint or something since I'm a unix guy and that gets me ftp/telnet/ssh/etc, but getting all that onto the machine is impossible without first getting a sensible file transfer setup going. Is it easy to get a basic TCP stack going, without mint/magic/etc/etc? I recall STiK and such from years ago, but never looked into them. Null modem might be the way to go, if I can dig or mod up some cables, just to get mint on there. *Shrug* Its a tough one .. in the end, Hatari can run the games, ARanyM can run Mint/etc, and really is the better place to do coding on so I can use native editor and then do builds and tests in ARanyM; but I'm a sucker for real hardware, despite it being such a pain jeff And btw, thanks everyone; I'm enjoying crashing back into the modern TOS scene, but I've forgotten too much over the years I've been doing ST retro for so long that all this has gone

I'd say .. if you've got lots of time and want to verify the workflow (that restore actually works and all the software is the right versions and configured and licensed, etc) then go for option 3; otherwise option 1 and try calling 250host and see what they say is up We can all wait, but if I was in your shoes I'd be all itchy to try option 3 and just see what happens Thanks for running with it all! jeff

I see the original EtherNEC is discontinued, and theres a new product (an odd name, I forget what it was.) Ah right, Netus-Bee. Looks like someone else is making EtherNECs though .. is this page good, or out of date and bad? http://www.freemint.org/ethernec/ethernec.htm OR shoudl I look at Netus-Bee .. there seems out of date info there, so not swure if it shipped, was compatible with Ethernec drivers, etc, so Ethernec sounds safer to me. hmm.. jeff

Busted TT030 out of storage; I actually got it from a lad a number of years back, tested that it was all working, used it for some 68k asm coding for another platform, then shelved it when I had a kid; a few years have gone by, and she's back on my desk .. but I never really dig in and diagnose it much. - is there any way to reset or power on/off via keyboard or front-accessible buttons? the power button on the back is really a pita for my desk (ie: under monitor) Looks like reset is back left only. - need to see if battery is replacable; it doesn't remember date, but TT's have RTC. - it has a VGA port on the back; I assume this is normal, or is this a mod? - how can I tell what generation of TT? Apparently there is 'early' and 'later' models - any idea how to tell what video card it has? - any idea to know what floppy it has (1.44 or 720), short of trying it out? maybe the format dialog will help.. --- Format Floppy shows Single Double and High Density options; is that what TOS 3.06 does, or perhaps it knows its a high density floppy? --- I don't have many floppies around; dug through ancient boxes, found some .. can't seem to format them; they're "2HD" for PC, presumabnly just 1.44MB floppies (not write protected .. I wonder if floppy drive is gone bad, or floppies. Hmm, need to locate USB floppy drive I picked up for PC, for doing boot-from-floppy-requiring-firmware-reflashes --- found USB floppy drive and dusted it off; could mount floppy into linux and copy files to it, but can't read it on TT030 .. *blast* -- drive bad. With floppy bad, its going to be tough to get software onto this beast ... maybe I'll be lucky and find a arc file of Flash or some terminal with zmodem, so I can get a file over null modem cable to it, and then use parcp or something. .... maybe I need to get an ethernec so I can get scp/ssh going to move files around does that work under mint? should, RAM permitting.. ** found some old ST floppies; tried about 10 all no go, just assumed bad drive; one _did_ get a dir listing, but error on read; maybe they're all bad now, floppies do that. ... hmm, Super Sprint floppy did read, and even booted to title screen before crashing. Wow .. so, okay, floppy drive might work, and be 720k, despite what TOS suggests. OR maybe its still bad, hard to say .. need to find a known good floppy, and try it on my STacy (which is near sleeping kid, not going near it today ... loading GFA Basic now; dir listing on floppy is good, but trying to run it is bad data error .. but just keep hitting Retry and its getting through; maybe drive head is just dirty? hmm.. oh, GFA editor hates TT; so easy to cause a reboot ... found a highspeed pascal floppy full of lzh's .. copied it to hdd no problem; maybe all floppies are just gone bad .. have to compare to STacy in a couple days when I get time; damn, msa's inside .. just what I need ... managed to get an msa prg onto the damned thing using a semi working floppy and many retries; wrote out highspeed pascal disk a to floppy, it 'succeeded'; trying to invoke proggies on the floppy, works, but lots of errors; not sure if write worked and read is bad on flopyp drive, or if write failed silently; trying a full format of this floppy now, have to see if I can read it on pc usb drive .. 720k on pc never worked well for me in the past on a PC hmm.. ... tried writing out Buggy Boy (patched) to floppy from linux; started to run into problems writing.. not sure if bad floppy or bad linux for 720k disks .. game runs on TT, but has glitched graphics, and runs too fast. so is unplayable; not sure if thats due to floppy or TT-patching being incomplete. Hmrf, I give up for now - any idea to know if theres any mods, such as overclocking various bits, etc? I recall that was common - on boot, it shows 2MB ST-RAM and 16MB of TTRAM; thats seems pretty good. (I know you can get more TTRAM, but its pricey.) --> coder question .. how does one access TT-RAM? ie: If you just use malloc() from PureC or gcc say, does it just take from ST-RAM? To get TT-RAM do you use another malloc function? Or does it depend on the lib.. ie: does MiNT provide a flat memory model or something? or is there a whole separate API for using that RAM? - looks like some version of NVDI is present (damn, wish we had 'dmesg' like in unix, so I could review the boot text); not sure what version. As this is purchased, is it possible to copy it to one of my other STs (or emulation), without installer media? I think I can see NVDI 4.something whiz by. Ah, activated CPXs and they report nvdi 4.11, cool. Hopefully I can use that on Hatari or ARanyM - on either side of the keyboard is a normal ST looking joy/mouse port; I've got a very early PeST I think? Its just a ribbon cable jacked into the port, with a little black-rubber-covered pcboard at the end, with another 9pin presumably serial mouse plugged into it. IS this a PeST or something else? The little pcb does have 4 dips (labeled 1,2,3,4) so I figure its a PeST with speed settings. - hddriver v7.something; 8.x was popular, I think its up to 9 now; checking archive.org back to 2001, I can see Uwe's site showing hddriver 8.0, so I know at least this machine was in active use sometime before 2001 - Theres some version of Mint, SuperBoot v8, piles of binaries here. - TOS doesn't identify what version it is; TT's came with 2.0.6 or later if memory serves; this one has type shortcuts for menu items, such as for Show Info. Boy its weird to not have a roller on my mouse Has the big Fuji on boot, so pretty much 2.0.6 in my book. ** bzzzt, wrong; found a CPX, identified TOS 3.06 1991, - theres CAB and StiK and telnet folders here so presumably he's done networking; I wonder if that was dialup or .. maybe I have to open this case up and see if theres some hidden ethernet; hmm.. - XaAES looks present; loks like copyright 1996 - looks like about a 2.4GB drive, nice. - no idea what DC Clk 3.3 is - do you need foldr200 for TOS 3? I'd imagine that was only for TOS 1.02 or earlier (maybe 1.04?, I forget) - no idea what MFP and MFP_TT are - bigdos? - cachev3? - ledpanel? I really need to get geminfo or whatever so I can get a system readout, and try to guess if theres any hardware mods; being the guy put a PEST(?) on it, he was into the scene. .. more as I poke around. My little girl keeps waking up, no time for me jeff edits.. - hmm, something activated which makes the desktop lok a little Maccy; at least, a Mac-like font. I wonder what that was - lots of edits randomly above

DNS isn't updated at my usual haunts, so I'll check later. -- which host? -- are costs covered, or do you need a monthly donation or donation pool going on? -- how old is the backup? I found that A-F was reasonably covered back around 2008 in the wayback-machine (archive.org), which has been handy .. just archive.org is super slow jeff

A crazy option is to use a laptop as te display; why bother adding another monitor to your desk at all, just re-use your laptops display and get a TV tuner or capture card .. hmm. An ol ATI All in Wonder or TV Wonder could do it, and looks like there was a USB model back around 2005.. not sure if still around. Still -- Consider: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815116031 -- $55 isn't half bad, and you get a TV tuner for your laptop Some crazy options exist such as a $300 VGA input over USB .. http://www.epiphan.com/products/frame-grabbers/vga2usb/ Oooh, this bad boy looks great -- Svideo, Composite and Coax inputs and $55 -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815306019 We all probably have old CRTs around anyway, however jeff

For a couple of the devices I maintain various ST emus and ports for, theres some effort to build up legally distributable 'ready to go' start packs -- homebrew and applications for the device in question, some emulators/interpreters and ready to use games. Consider stuff like interactive fiction (text adventures) where theres fresh new adventures created every month (with winners in the IF Competition); or stuff like ScummVM with some very well defined legally distributable 'ROMS'; or stuff like Vectrex (where the library has been made frely distributable), or homebrew like Battle for Wesnoth, etc and so on. So many good legal avenues, and all good to make peoplesw life easier when they acquire a device, or to just familiarize with systems they've not used before. This is the angle I'm hoping to hit .. seems like in the communities I'm working with here, most people are much more familiar with Amiga than ST; I'd love if I could bundle a bunch of .ST/.MSA or unpacked-on-virtual-hard-drive files with the emu in one of these start kits, so people could fire up and see some great ST glory. Anyone have a good list of what good games might be legal to distribute? If any? ITs such a grey area, but maybe someone has already talked to old developers to obtain their blessings. Dungeon Master is one thats in pretty good shape .. I think over at DMWeb (http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/625 for example) they got permission from Wayne of FTL; I know I've emailed them a few times and not gotten a 'no you can't' response, so hard to say; Anyone know for sure? Any others? Any recommendations? Whats your thoughts here? Any demos that are the best all around looking, and play well in (say) Hatari? (I always liked Cuddly, but as an ST fanboy I'm trying to look from the eyes of someone whose never seen the green desktop jeff

Shredder11 -- looks like a pretty awesome little box. Are you using an original ST that has composite out to feed it, or some ST monitor plug to VGA type wire-harness you've made yourself? I'll have to check what ports a STacy has on it.. thats my main normal-ST these days; my full size STs are all in various stages of disrepair jeff

remo -- you are of course very welcome .. I'm glad you enjoyed all those hacks of mine And with Hatari, there'll never really be a shortage of ST emulation goodness, but I like to think I did my part in the days before wristwatches being 400mhz remo -- you mean ST -> SCART adapter -> SCART to component adapter -> whatever? Thats pretty neat; we all love having 10 part adapter chains IS there a ST to SCART adapter commonly around? Sounds like a not too expensive option, as well. DarkLord -- that ambery adapter .. you say thats _always worked_ for ST to low res on any TV/LCD target? If so, might be an option. Pricey little bastard, but I'm too lazy/busy to make one myself these days Might be handy for other projects as well (I do a lot of arcade cabinet hacking, so thats an option .. though I usually do the reverse.. keep ancient arcade monitors in the machines, and then the trick is to find a video card that can talk such low hz edit: Also DL .. did you just buy a ST DIN monitor plug and drop wires over to a VGA connector, or did you have some trick to adapt ST to Ambery? Really, Dungeon Master on a 50" LCD or on a 100" projection TV.. now thats the stuff But just avoiding having multiple monitors for multiple devices makes things so much easier to work with .. monitors take up space jeff

Interesting idea there I've got a couple colour and mono monitors locked away in the basement; every move I cut down on a few more toys .. but as I collect arcade machines, usually those take the hits Most ST related gaming is within emulation, and ST's running on mono for other stuff. But it woudl be cool to just put up a VGA/DVI monitor, and switch between various sources nice and easily. Keeping a half dozen monitors for various machines around is just too goofy for the wife to handle (She handles the arcade machines well enough, but can only be pushed so far I did find something interesting on good ol' Best Electronics site: http://www.best-electronics-ca.com/monitors.htm "For Color or Monochrome displays on the same Multi Sync Monitor using this Multi function Custom cable." .. but thats no good for modern LCD displays etc. Hmmm.. jeff

Its fairly easy to make a cable to run your ST/STacy/STE/Mega/etc to a regular PC VGA monitor and get _mono_ support (assuming you can find the right DIN connector for the ST side.) and hence there are numerous options on ebay etc over the years, or roll your own. Is there any easy to get widget to get ST low/medium on a VGA monitor? (something direct; I'm betting ST -> composite -> VGA exists, but would suck A TT030 or Falcon can go direct to VGA if memory serves, but for the earlier models, thats the trick jeff

Fair enough; you're probably right, since just as anyone with a word processor calls themselves a 'graphics artist', anyone with a static IP can call themselves a domain host. An established organization would be best, in light of the troubls with 250host. Keeping it local is a good idea though, really; how often would you like to just go over and say 'heres my disk, back it up _here_' Offer from the ISP in question remains, if things get into a pinch jeff

Same country hosting can be handy for sure; I'll let them know. jeff To be clear, I'm hoping that 'kids' remark just came across incorrectly; I should think most of us in the Atari community are longer in the tooth than 'kids'; when an offer of kindness comes at a time of need, I think it is nicer to be gratious than snarky. (The ISP in question is actually a top tier operation in Canada, and for my part, I've been around in many open source communities for nearly a couple decades, thanks very much

Some friends of mine operate a solid hosting ISP; I mentioned the predicament and the requirements such as I know them, and got an offer to host the site gratis (as long as A-F is non-profit, which afaik it is.) Let me know if you would like me to hook you/representative up so you cna figure out requirements, how to set up the php board and licenses, and all that. Offer is on the table I'll try to keep checking in over the day/weekend, but I'm also at skeezix a t skeleton dawt org. jeff

A-F has had 'a fair number' of outages over the years (though obviously a few more recently.) Given the option, I'd look into moving (again?) to a more solid host :/ Not sure if there is an option I mean, 250host.com is known to be pretty iffy at best (search google for '250host.com sucks' and count the reviews How much bandwidth and space does it take up? (I ask, as I know a couple folks who host sites, though charity is tougher in this economy. Still, could be worth a shot.) At least there are backups (cheer!) Have to wonder what went on at the ISP though; would assume serious, since no self respecting IT company is without support even during holidays.. so either they don't care (ugh) or they're in real trouble (ugh) jeff