Jeffrey Worley

Thank you for your good news and encouragement! If this crystal works, I'll have them available for the ask. best, jeff

Do you think the 8.388mhz crystal will work?

This specific frequency is very hard to find. Impossible. I DID find affordable crystals at 8.388608mhz. The difference is less than 6 tenths of 1 percent......... I'm trying this to resurrect my Skydata SK-551p disk drive. The existing 8.333mhz crystal isn't producing anything.. best, jeff

Each time I've had to update one, usually one of Candle's black-masked ones, I have to re-learn the process. As for this thing, My Goodness it is just SICK. I LOVE it. jeff

I've been running my bbs on Fujinet a couple of years. I recently discovered I cannot use any later version of the firmware than: 2023-02-26 0.5.83bae4a1 The next revision: 2023-03-18 0.5.64f05da8 works but introduces a glitch in loading Rs232.com for the first time. It doesn't load properly and breaks batch processing in Spartados 3.2d. My Startup.bat file should run uninterrupted from power-on to Waitcall, but with this version of the firmware the batch drops to a command prompt after failing to load. Rebooting the computer Without resetting Fujinet will allow the entire startup.bat file to do it's job, including rs232.com loading without fault. So, the first failure to load rs232.com is necessary with this firmware. All three later firmware do not work for me in a strange way. They all three break the ability of Fujinet to log on to my wifi router (Luxul XWR-3150), but CAN log on to my phone's wifi hotspot! (Samsung Galaxy Note 9). The Fujinet Sees the access point and shows all-bars, but it fails to negotiate a connection. Best regards, jeff

Thank you all for discussing this here. I cut my first computer tooth on the ECS and while it wasn't a great machine, it has that distinction for me. I'm especially glad to have seen again the ECS owners manual and the ECS Basic programming manual. Our's came with this book and I got a LOT out of it. I only used the ECS for a year or so, until I was given an Atari 1200xl. The Atari was so much more powerful, and because of the ECS I could begin to write real programs. best, jeff

IIRC, the line length limit is 39 chars.

All it does is add double-density to the drive. It does not make it any faster. Technically it IS a titch faster just by virtue of lower overhead, but it isn't anything like a US Doubler. I think the version made for the TRS80 would probably work on our Percoms.

I know what the problem with this upgrade was. You absolutely HAVE to use plain 74 or 74LS parts only. The Crowell-Davies mod exploits the longer gate delay of these chips and since the S and F and HCT versions operate with much shorter delays, the modification is broken. I learned this from Claus Buchholz himself, though I still do the Crowell-Davies mod, I am careful to source the older 74 or 74LS chips to do them. best, Jeff

Last night, just for kicks, I daisy-chained two brand-new Fujinet together and booted. The first in the chain wins, more or less, but operation is flaky and weird. Best to use just one. 🙂 Jeff

I'm building a brace of Fujinet Adam. They aren't done yet, but I'd like to offer some constructive criticism. That the board is almost entirely through-hole makes it very much more likely hobbyists will attempt it. I get why the contacts on the spdt switch are so close to each other, it is unavoidable if you want the miniature part. But there's no good reason I can think of why the transistor legs are set in-line. Staggering them in a Vee would be much kinder to the hobbyist. My gear is ordinary and my eyes and hands are challenged to tack down those six legs without bridging them. Staggering these pins in a future revision of the pcb would reduce the difficult-to-solder connections from nine to three. I can't wait to get this thing running. I bought an Adam for this purpose, always wanted one but peripherals were rare and expensive. Best, Jeff

When 2.3 came out, I was done with Ataridos and Mydos forever. 🙂

😉 I discovered FJC's side emulation early on in my career with AVG, but only recently discovered the automatic mode for that emulation. Since, I've been using the AVG cart as a Side2 exclusively on my personal machine. Over time, the emulation has gotten faster, so much so that there's no material difference between an AVG in Side2 mode and an actual Side2. The only argument I have against AVG is how smart it is, it is a fast, powerful computer in its own right, compared to the Atari. Candle's designs seem to try to avoid such, rather using CPLD's to perform glue functions that PALS or GALS could do in sufficient numbers. Both are great, wonderful tools.

I'm a big fan of Side2, own several, (a dozen?). These past few months, after discovering the automated Side2 emulation of AVG, I've been using it exclusively. AVG is a very very cool device, has some advantages on Side2, as a cartridge emulator for sure. AVG's interface is not as intuitive as FlashjazzCat's code, but it is very flexible. A geek's joy. best, jeff

Back when this thread was current I could not remember where I had gotten the "Drive Zap" program, but yesterday it popped into my head. It was a type-in, from a magazine I think but it may have been a book. 75% sure it was in Analog, Antic, or Compute! issue from between Jan 1984 and Jan 1988. I think the inspiration was the introduction of the XF551, which put Atari finally in the Percom control block standards camp. Best, Jeff

Funny, but in 1992 a warehouse full of NOS NIB 825 printers came open. They were selling for $19.95 a pop. Shipping was more. I bought two with the intention of giving a free printer away with new machines but though I made the cable perfectly, it set the printer on fire. I got another printer and tried a cable made by Cables And Chips of New York and it set the printer on fire. Don't try to connect this Centronics 733-series printer to a Centronics printer port. lol 'Course with the 850 and PR connection it works perfectly.

I took care with this one to use only Ataridos with nothing to interfere. I also noticed it produced a command output file, which is included in the attached arc file. best, Jeff romdump.arc romdump.arc

I have not gotten gotek to work in CP/M on ATR8000 as yet. The disk format is kinda unique. Real drive mechanisms will work fine however. best, jeff

I did it with the dump tool provided in a previous message.

Hi brother. Thanks for the heads-up. I just dumped the rom. Took me long enough! Jeff ME1050F c1985 HCI Technoind Mutant sample.bin

I have in stock some 14 of these boards, all built and tested. Any takers? ($39.00 each). Free shipping in continental US.

The 825 is a Centronics 733 mech in Atari livrey. Since the printer is Centronics, and the card-edge interface on it is Centronics, I tried to connect the 825 to the Pea Sea, several times. Each time I connected a perfectly made cable from the DB25 on a Pea Sea to the 825, the 825 caught fire. After the second fire, I quit the experiment.

Do you have the ATR8000 up and running?

I think that's an Atari stock joystick with one of those add-on tips (the ball).

I retract the method I started this post with. It will work, but it isn't necessary. Rather than increasing the strength of the springs, you can return the keyboard mylar to its proper state by lifting it and laying it back down again according to the method I described this past Saturday. The mylar has a layer of latex? on the underside. That isn't supposed to get stuck to the pcb, but with time it does glom on. That adhesive action prevents the mylar from deforming under the keystrokes. The mylar when stuck down so is too tight, is out of tolerance. Best, Jeff