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And how you copied those disks with the Duplicator? You couldn't copy them (only patch them) at all. Those disks copies that required a Happy; are disks whose protection can't be reproduced with the Happy/Duplicator hardware. It wasn't an ideal solution, but there was no other solution without extra hardware. The CSS Super Archiver (or the original Spartan CHIP) is far inferior than the Happy or the Duplicator. The only big plus of the Super Archiver is for copy protected disks in Medium Density. Only when you add the Fuzzy Sector Maker and the BIT writer, then the Super Archiver capabilities are better. The Archiver Editor software is nice though. But you can use it with the Happy as well (with some restrictions). This has no relation to the hardware. There were several products like these, but you don't need any 1050 enhancement to use them.

No, this is true for some high speed devices like the XF-551, the Indus, or the Happy 810. It is wrong for USD compatible devices, which are the ones that use the $3F command.

Whenever you detect that you are the "wrong" speed. Unmatched speeds usually leads to a fixed behavior. You shouldn't get exactly garbage. But instead, you should get a fixed value for, at least, the first byte. Plus checksum error, plus possible frame error. The exact procedure would depend on the exact behavior of your UART. A possible way would be to swap speeds whenever you detect a frame error. I can post/send you what the USD code does. But not sure it will be very useful for you because the 1050 doesn't have an UART. The computer might be reset (you can detect power off, but not reset). It might switch between high speed and low speed software, etc. Actually, there are some high speed software that switch to high speed without issuing the $3F command. Technically, the command is/was not needed (as long as you expect a fixed reply value of $0A). It is not needed because the software knows the drive will detect and switch speed automatically. I should have saud that you might not be able to use it. It depends on your UART. For example, in a standard PC serial port you can't select a bps rate close enough for a pokey $0A divisor.

One more thing. I'm not sure every DOS/software is ready to handle the $09 divisor. Is possible that some are hardwired for the standard $0A divisor used by USD and compatible devices (yeah, I know you can't use it). This shouldn't be a problem with later and euro software though.

You don't have to send any driver code. You don't have to wait to swith the speed, but : 1) You should be ready to receive garbage. The software might be trying to talk to a different device, and then it might use a different transmission speed. 2) You need to adapt your speed dynamically. There are several reasons why the computer might go back to the standard SIO speed.

I consider the Happy a much better product than the Duplicator. Hardware wise they are virtually the same, but Happy's firmware and software is much better. I think the latest sofware I have is 3.0. But the links you posted (thank you very much for that) seem to be the sources for version 3.10. I always thought that the firmware and software author was Bob Gardner, guess I was wrong.

I see. If you want you can convert the Pasti images to ST/MSA ones inside Steem. Currently the procedure is a bit akward, you have to "copy the disk" with a sector copier. No actual physical copy, just copying from one image to the other, but for the emulated software it is like a physical copy. Eventually a software will be released for automatically converting from/to Pasti images. But it might take a while, it is not a high priority task.

Players over GR.0 (actually, over any high rez mode) have a particular behavior. It is explained in the hardware manual.

The filesystem is usually not a problem, at least not for TOS partitions. The problem is the partitioning scheme, which might be not compatible. A "small" 20 MB hard disk will likely have PC compatible partition tables. Yet, you should certainly be careful. Using Linux is a good idea and you can mount the partitions read only. But is possible to use DOS or Windows. Sorry, don't know about MAC either.

Yes, that's a reasonable approach. I was just noting that, *if* you are avoiding a 65816 for compatiblity reasons, then a 65C02 might be not compatible enough either.

It will break them completely. It is important if you want your system to run original software. Many protections are based on those opcodes. And they are sometimes still there even after they were cracked. It might be even break compatibility when no undocumented/illegal opcodes are used.

Hi GeoHolub, Very interesting. But I'm not sure why you are using Pasti images. Are those disks copy protected? If they are MAC GCR native disks, then Pasti won't be able to read them (Pasti imaging tool doesn't know how to read through the Spectre GCR cartridge) at all. And if they are not MAC disks, and they are instead in MAGIC SAC format, then they shoudn't be copy protected. So I'm not sure I understand what you did.

Well, the prompt instead of a menu is not because it is so old. It is because that it was designed to be more similar to MS-DOS. DOS XL has an optional menu, may be OS/A+ has it as well. Try typing MENU at the dos prompt. Yes, it is ready after it is "initialized". Technically, as Nukey Shay said, it is not enough to just "format" the disk. The file system structures must be initalized. But all DOS format/init commands do this automatically when you format the disk. In some cases it is useful to write the DOS files to the disk, even when you are not going to boot from that disk. This is because whenever you go from BASIC to the DOS menu, it must reload the utilities. And for your case (bare 800, no Ramdisk) it would mean swapping between the data and the DOS/Master disk.

No, this is needed only to boot from that disk.

In first place, get a new DOS. OS/A+ is very old, possibly buggy. If for some reasons you want to keep using an OSS DOS, then use DOS XL. But those DOS are normally for advanced users. You might prefer to use MyDos or simple Atari DOS 2.0 Also, I wouldn't recommend using XIO for formatting a disk. Just go to DOS (type DOS at the BASIC prompt), and format the disk with the DOS menu or promt. It is safer and will provide you with several options. Not sure about OS/A+, but in DOS XL you use the command "INIT". It is very likely that OS/A+ uses the same command.

1) Yes. All ST computers with 4Mb RAM have the problem. There are workarounds such as programs that limits the amount of RAM available by software. 2) The keyboard is better than regular ST ones. Don't remember for sure how it compares to TT's one.

If everything fails, start WinXP in recovery mode. You should then be able to delete the file without problems.

To be precise, they usually don't actually detect if a cartridge was inserted or not. All cartridge protections I've seen they just write to the cartridge area. If it is RAM and not ROM, then this will overwrite data or code. It is not exactly the same as detecting a cartridge. There is a way to do this in the 8-bit, but I've never seen it used. It is very surprising they didn't, because you could easily defeat the PILL this way.

Atari Frog's point was about an ATR image, not about a cracked version. True, you can't convert a ROM cartridge image to an exe, but you can't convert it to ATR neither. It must be cracked. But why an ATR, why not a simple cracked exe that you can load with PC mirror, or with your favorite menu?

I know that they are not exactly "extros", but two ends I loved: MULE of course. Didn't make you proud when "you" appeared marching as big! ? AGENT USA: Just text, but very funny.

AFAIK there is no alternative software. Furthermore, there is a single version of the main backup software. Except that there was a small update to increase the allowed size of the configuration file. I've heard somebody made a graphical editor for the configuration file. Never seen it myself. There is no "best" settings, it depends on each and every disk. Yeah, that's the main problem with the DC; the software is very unfriendly. As I told you by email (guess you are the same person), a Pasti imaging tool version specific for the DC will be released. It will be fully automatic.

But if you look closely at the packageing in hand, you can generally tell, and if it doesn't have the sealed-in "new paper/plastic" aroma, it's not vintage new. 883457[/snapback] Sometimes yes, sometimes is difficult. Some months ago I purchased one game "factory sealed" at Ebay. When I opened everything looked and smelled like NIB, but there was a problem ... The game is from Datasoft, but the sleeve there was from Broderbund If somebody opened the box carefully some time ago, changed the sleeve (or the disk) or say, removed a poster, and then it sealed it again; it would be very hard to tell. I purchased other brand new stuff that I found it wasn't. Sometimes was obvious (in one case the disk had a cracked version), sometimes was not.

I open all games that I buy brand new. Don't know, might be if I could get M.U.L.E. brand new I'd like to keep it like that. I agree with Gunstar, MINT condition is what it matters. The only advantadge of getting a game brand new, is that you know it is MINT. However nowadays, you can never be really sure if the game is indeed brand new or it is not. Just because it is shrink wrapped doesn't mean it is factory sealed.

I think the "hardest" 8-bit I completed (without any cheating) was Spelunker. Spent lot of times playing that game. Love it, really great game. I "completed" (sort of) Lode Runner Championship as well, another very hard game. But I skipped, as I recall, a couple of levels in the middle. And I didn't complete it in a single session from the start to the end, plus added myself as many lives as I needed. I do remember I did the last screen only once (or perhaps twice). When I tried LRC in subsequent years, I suceeded at most of the screens except the last one. Never was able to did it again. I completed DQ long time ago. Sorry, don't remember too much. I remember there is help (clues and hints) available though in the game itself. Did you try them?

I don't know why you get different hues with the PAL Antic. But I know for sure that changing the Antic chip won't change the standard/norm video signal. This depends on the encoding circuit. In many countries it was normal to adapt US machines to PAL. The conversion was done (for economic reasons) without changing Antic or Gtia.