Nickolasgaspar

Why are you addressing arguments I never made? I never said that it stopped software from being ported. -"Atari tried to keep the market for themselves by suing those who attempted to write games for their systems and by not sharing any info on how to program their custom chips." I never said that Atari 8 games were indistinguishable from 2600 titles. I said that many low quality titles created that impression. -"Atari low quality of games also confused the customers who most of them, even today, are unable to tell the difference between 2600 and computer 8bit games." To this day many retro users(check big retro youtube channels) have this impression and they are amazed by the great titles of the past and the amazing homebrew games. And I never claimed that Piracy was unique to Atari. Atari had huge sales in Central and Easter Europe where piracy was huge...I mean hugeeee ! You couldn't buy an original boxed game from a store even if you wanted.

Well that doesn't really answer the "why" aspect of the question. It only describes the ups and downs of software support. There were many reasons why the platform didn't enjoy the same support other platforms had at that time. First of all Atari was a game company with a main goal to sell their own games. Atari tried to keep the market for themselves by suing those who attempted to write games for their systems and by not sharing any info on how to program their custom chips. De Re Atari came too late (1982) only after they saw the competition closing in and even then the effort was made by employees not the company itself. After all these legal disputes and the video game crash which affected Atari, third party software houses didn't trust the company, plus software piracy was growing , especially in Europe, due to the popularity of dual cassette decks. Commodore's price war and marketing practices (selling computers in SM and game stores) didn't help either. Atari low quality of games also confused the customers who most of them, even today, are unable to tell the difference between 2600 and computer 8bit games. Another crucial detail was that, Atari 8bit machines had to fight as computers against the reputation of the company (known for game consoles) but they arrived early at a high price but when the market matured (for home computers) around 1982, they were identified as the "older machines". The Atari 1200's flop didn't help either. As with many ''disasters" the Swiss cheese model accurately describes the disaster of the lack of support by major software houses of the system. In Europe things were a bit different. During the 90's and 00s, Central and Eastern European groups provided a remarkable support enabling the rise of the modern home-brew community with all those great software tools and releases that we enjoy to this day.

High Pass Filter wasn't "properly" used (i.e. demo:GENE by lamers, bomb jack etc) so the result was never going to match that of SID's. Btw I find Sanxion loader to be really noisy and muffled on the C64. The extirpator was an excellent if not the best playable tech demo for the system.

only 10%!!! lol Same here! I only afforded a 1010 tape drive and when I managed to save some money I couldn't find a drive to buy!(late 80s) I understand the instrumental value of that switch back then but I can not justify the act of drilling holes on vintage hardware in 2022 especially when there are really easy alternative solutions and after all the effort I put in restoring both of my drives!

I think the SIO2PC solution has rendered this switch a nonessential feature but I really enjoyed the article!(thanks for sharing!). I wonder if the phone number and charging fees are still valid lol. Having a backup on a pc is the best way to protect our drive case from permanent holes and our precious files from being erased...;)

Update. The doctor was right! Just from curiosity I unscrewed the IR LED and found a dust bunny resting on the sensor. The drive came in a filthy state so your comment about "spider web" and "egg sack" made a lot of sense to me. The drive works fine!

Thanks all three of you for your input and your prompt response! So from what I understand, I had the wrong impression that some 1050 drives were sold as "write protected" by default. Its just an issue with the sensor that prevented mine from writing, right?(that explains the low price tag of this drive!=) ) I can not imagine a company expecting from the average user to open and modify his drive in order to enable its writing capability! I get how practical a "write protected" switch would be back in the days compared to sticky tabs and electrical tape. Since I already have all my library on my pc, I don't really need the "write protected" mode so your tip with the jumper suits me perfectly and keeps the drive in its original state! Thanks again for all the all information and help!

thanks mate! Great tip! After wasting a day trying to understand why one of my 1050s refuses to write or format, your fast fix was a savior. Here is a silly question...why on earth a disk drive would be set as "write protected" by default????

Hi Jacek. Count me in for one of these pls! Cheers!

Well the drive is already shipped. Let's hope the seller did a good packing job. He has an excellent rate (ebay) so I want to think he knows what he is doing. The good thing is that the drive comes without a psu.... minus one threat for things going wrong . Thanks for your time.

Will it survive without anything in it? The seller doesn't seem to be willing to bother about it.

Does anyone know the best way to ship an 1050? The seller doesn't have the cardboard so should he leave the hatch open or closed? Should he use an old floppy if available?

The update is....the Pokey was bad. I was tricked by 3 different Pokeys and their incompatibility issues between 3 boards? One pokey chip works great (touch tab) in all three boards. The second pokey in just two boards and the last one doesn't recognize tab inputs in all three boards. Really weird ....

So in my case, I bought and repaired a tablet. It works on a 800xl and 900xlf(65xe) board but it refuses to work on the 800xlf board. I checked the +5V pin on the joystick port and I replaced all the ICs one at a time but still nothing. The resistors and caps appear to be ok. Any ideas?

I am experiencing the same issue...it works on a 65XE but not on a 800XL(XLF). From what I read in here I have to switch most of the ICs in order to find the issue. But first I will check the 9pin port and the passive components of its circuit. Did you manage to use your tablet with RAMbrandt?

To be fair, in the episode 3 he admits he is using a 400/800 cpu board as a blue print. Well he is Dutch so maybe the "reverse engineer" statement is a "language barrier" issue.

Well I don't really understand how you "know it is not". You can literally google the pinout of both versions and find out that Sally just uses two previously disconnected pins (#35,36) to implement a specific function previously performed by 4 logic chips on the main board. Who knows what other changes were made. We weren't members of the "board" during that time to "know" anything. The Default Position in Logic is defined by the available evidence. The things we know about the "Liz" project, their identical pinouts, the ability to reproduce Sally's function by adding some external logic chips, the cost of designing and producing new CPU architecture while there was already a die available and of course the use of the name "6502"...all provide sufficient and necessary evidence to dismiss further unnecessary assumptions.(Parsimony). Maybe there were additional changes...but the moment to accept that claim is only after we can put our fingers on objective evidence. A C014377(400/800 models) is a standard 6502. The pins 35,36 are disconnected and there isn't a logic circuit on the XE mainboard to perform the needed function hence allow a 130xe to function.

How a wiki link on dies is relevant to the modified version of a 6502?

That is not the sense I use the phrase "faster chips". When I say faster, I mean to run faster. Faster chips means more money. That makes no sense in our economic system even back in the 80s.

I think the answer is obvious since the early machines (400 800) came with a standard 6502 and those additional logic chips and the daughter board in this video can run on an XL machine with a standard 6502.

I never said that our posts contradicted each other. In a discussion one can add to other people's comments. I only pointed out that, independent of the method (binning or not) 6502s were graded and Atari's internal nickname (6502C) caused confusion and ambiguity specially when it was included in commercial documentation. There was also no reason to put binned cpus in Atari 8bit and C64 machines because it would affect the rest of their architecture. As far as I know the PCs were the first to allow such upgrades without the need of any daughter boards...and this was their recipe of success.

correct he oversold his efforts there....

Check this series of a guy restoring an Atari 800xl . In episode 3,4 and 5 he reverse engineers, designs and builds the circuit that is inside a Sally chip and uses it with a standard 6502. He literally uses 4 logic chips. btw this dude is the high priest of new age woo, Bernardo Kastrup. His philosophy may suck but he is a master in computer engineering.(actually he has a PhD on this).

I was addressing ijor's post......

The 6502C stands probably for "custom 6502". I quote the relative article from atarimania.com "This chip was originally named SALLY by Atari engineers, but Atari Customer Support documents (Field Services Manuals) variously described it as "6502 (Modified)", "6502 Modified", "Custom 6502", or "6502C". Field Service Manuals published by Atari, Corp./Atari Corporation reverted to using the chip's original name, SALLY, while Atari, Corp./Atari Corporation XE consumer owner's manuals (unfortunately) continued to use "6502C" in reference to the SALLY 6502. Several manufacturers produced the SALLY 6502 for Atari, including MOS Technology, Synertek, Rockwell, NCR, and United Microelectronics (UMC). It is important to note that chips marked "6502C" such as the MOS Technology MCS6502C, MOS Technology MPS6502C, Synertek SY6502C, Rockwell R6502C, or UMC UM6502C are NOT the Atari "6502C" but rather equivalents to the standard MCS6502 that are certified for 4MHz operation. Atari SALLY 6502 chips are never marked "6502C" but, other than the UMC UM6502I, always carry the Atari part number C014806." So using letters(A,B,C) to grade 6502 by maximum speed IS a thing but it's not relevant to Atari's C014806 variant. Its only for the standard 6502 cpus. We are talking about two different products. There is another variant that can only be found in early 400, 800 models which appears to be a standard 6502 cpu. The Sally chip replaced a number of logic chips responsible for the same halt routine in those early models. The truth is that Sally chip exists only because of cost reducing practices. link: http://www.atarimania.com/faq-atari-400-800-xl-xe-what-are-sally-antic-ctia-gtia-fgtia-pokey-and-freddie_14.html