Bee

February 19, 2020

Thanks for that information.

Thank you

February 17, 2020

I want to overwrite "SpartaDOS" in TDline with say "123456789". Anyone. know where the line starts in memory?

Thank you

February 16, 2020

I was testing a tigger switch and hooked it up from ground to Pin4. The XE locked up when it was pressed. I need to see if there is short to 5V+ somewhere on this board. Hooked to pin 6 it works fine. Now both ports on the XE do not report right movement with a know good joystick. Time to replace PIA? Any Ideas? Anyone seen something like this?

Thank you

February 15, 2020

I found a guy on e-bay with sealed boxes, I bought 30 disks.

Thank you everyone for your input.

February 10, 2020

@Mathy I have down loaded Bob Term from you and the fast XEP80 handler. When I un arc the fast driver it is a file called modual1.off? I'm not sure how to use it.

Any advice?

Thank you

February 10, 2020

I used it today to recover a hand full of disks my Indust GT didn't read so it was worth the investment. I doubt I will be using it that much, I'm making a hand full of 360k images by copying files from the 90k disks. I do appreciate the info. I might get used to using it.

Thank you

February 9, 2020

@marius - That makes me feel better. I will say I can hear the fails are binding or sticking, not a consistent spin like the good ones.

Thank you

February 9, 2020

During Format I get. Error 173 - Couldn't format in DOS XE. The floppies I have were/are in a shoebox Not stored well. They were originally "bulk" swap-meet disks and the lowest cost quality / cost available at the time. Now they are all I have available. That is good info on the disks.

Thank you

February 9, 2020

I always wanted to hook up the 8 inch drives from my IMSAI 8080 to an ATR8000. Wish I didn't sell them off in the 80's. The ATR is a cool toy I had one for a few years.

Thank you

February 9, 2020

In an exercise in futility, I have about 40 blank disks from 35 years ago. I just got a XF551 (360k) drive. I'm finding a close to 50% failure ratio of formatting my disks. They go the "junk" pile to be retried at 40 tracks when they fail. My question is where to get new ones. Amazon and Ebay has NOS. No guarantees. I feel that is lighting money on fire and tossing out the window. Any input? FWW this is not a long term solution but a tool to reorganize my 90k disks and test the ones that fail to see if maybe they are higher density or double sided.

Thank you

February 9, 2020

XF551 in hand running XE DOS. Pretty cool drive. Working well under Sparta DOS too. It really is a nice product for it's time period.

Thank you

February 8, 2020

I found a way to check the 400 out. I created the Sdrive2 as a autoboot XEP80 disk. Plugged the XEP80 into the 2nd Joystick port and booted with the Basic Cartridge in and Bang up came the XEP80 running off the 400 and now I could use it. I have found the UVB and have educated myself on getting that installed in the 400. I should have composite video on the 400 in a week.

This is very exciting stuff for me.

Thank you

February 8, 2020

OK 400 & 800 revived. 800 is happy as can be. The familiar squeak of that cartridge door brings back memories. I was able to test it with a 1050 and composite monitor. The 400 is a diffrent matter, it powers up and I hear key input but it only has RF out. When I reached for my 40 year old 13 inch Black and White - no power

I have no current chain to get rf to composite. What is the fastest way to composite on a 400? I believe it is stock.

The only missing member of the 8 Bit family is a 600XL I have but I know it was stacked vertically between 2 boxes over 26 years ago.

Thank you

February 7, 2020

I'm going to look at a XF551 this Saturday. By look I mean take a 130X, attach and test. I have 2 Indust GT drives that work and 5 1050s that don't. The Extra capacity of the XF551 is useful for some of my "reorganization". Any one have any tips/tricks or advice on this?

Thank you

February 7, 2020

Bill,

Are you booting form an Atr(s) or XEX(s). Can you post the files? I down loaded the Archive but only see RAW and hav no idea what to do with them.

Thank you

February 6, 2020

I have 2 Transets, I never setup. They were already obsolete when I got them. I'll look up the Interbridge.

Thank you

February 3, 2020

Ok, I found a Sony Trinitorn PVM13420 13 inch Monitor in the junk pile. It is unbelievably smooth and delicious! Having not seen a color tube TV in almost 20 years it was surprising how much warmer, bright, and vibrant it is. I had never used Svideo connection either. the text is so crisp compared to Composite. It's a 50/60 Hz Monitor so I think it might be good for other connections as well.

Seriously one of the best things I have found on this path.

Thank you

February 1, 2020

Moving right along -

I now have a USB cart and New 400 USB keyboard -

Will need to make a driver for this. Things are really coming together.

Thank you

January 21, 2020

So I knew Andy until he was 23. He had told me doctors told him, he would only live to 26. When I spoke to him last he was living with his girlfriend and had moved to Northern California. I've made friends with his Mom recently and she gave me a video of Andy.

This is Andy early 2000's, per his friend Muke after the 3rd time he passed a date they told him he would die by, he stopped listening and he made it into late 2005.

image.png.34a3468d87b1ec507a7fa90ce77f8e90.png

Here is a Video of Andy as I knew him. -

Thank you

January 21, 2020

Yes - Basic because I have a bunch of things already written in basic. I'm currently using the XEP80 driver in Sparta Dos. I will have a stab at making a bob term Disk.

@Mathy Thanks I had a read through and learned a lot.

Thank you.