Larry

April 12

If I buy a MiSTer off eBay (assembled), what should I look for about the MiSTer itself? There is a wide variation in prices, and that probably means there are things missing, etc. on lower priced units. (?) I want to buy an essentially ready-to-go device.

Well, one "biggie" that I see is that the lower-priced units don't include the DE-10 Nano board which is another $200+.

April 11

Just wondering. It would be great to slow down the swing without slowing down the game overall. Cutting down the hook and slice would be nice, too.

April 10

@DarkLord I had forgotten how big the STacy was! But Atari eventually had a smaller one, didn't they? I suspect looking back through my ST-Log's and STart's will refresh my memory.

April 9

I had a 1040ST BITD and was later given a Mega, but never developed the attachment for them that I had for the 8-bit. So I've installed STeem on my PC, and am looking for something compelling do with it. (Had mouse trouble with Hatari, BTW.) If this pans out, I might get a MIST. So what do you do on your ST?

April 8

20 hours ago, FifthPlayer said:

Check out the book "The Story of Commodore: A Company on the Edge" by Brian Bagnall. It covers the history of Commodore's 8-bit period from the PET through the C128, and has a lot of Tramiel biographical info. He's currently at work on a prequel covering the years 1954-1975, which presumably would have even more biographical stuff. (There are two other books in the series, one covering the history of the Amiga and the last covering Commodore's final years).

Thanks. I'm currently reading (on my Kindle app) "Commodore: The Amiga Years." There was a lot more going on with the Amiga project than I was aware of previously, but Jack had already left Commodore, so not so much about him in that one. I read "...On the Edge" when it came out some years ago. I'll have to revisit it.

April 4

I didn't think of YouTube. There are a couple of significant videos of Jack there (under "Jack Tramiel").

I'd never heard Leonard's comments.

April 4

I have not been able to find one. There are a couple of short articles that are quick biographical sketches. Love him or dispise him, the man had a very interesting and productive life. And he certainly changed the home computer market immensely. It would make quite a read! Probably the best depiction of him that I've read was in Michael Tomczyk's Home Computer Wars. Incidently, that Compute! book sells used for $113 on Amazon. Glad I kept my copy!

April 3

These were well done by the Portland folks -- better than most that I've looked at.

I am curious why the scans are so large. This surely lengthens the time for archive.org's servers to send these out. 70+ MB for a 20-some page scan seems like overkill.

April 2

I had a similar issue with a Black Box/Floppy Board combo. The FB mounts inverted on top of the BB, and the chips are in very close proximity to each other. Add to that, CSS supplied a plastic case that trapped most of the heat. So I used one of those PC fans that mounted in a back plane slot, only mine was sitting on its side at the right end blowing air into the space between the boards. Ultimately I quit using the FB, so I no longer needed the fan.

IIRC, @Mathy used longer connectors to join the two boards, thus increasing the air gap between them. Anyway, I share your concern about heat. If you could, please post a picture of your fan installation.

April 1

I am thinking very seriously about getting a MIST from Lotharek, and about the only put-off is the VGA output. Do the common VGA to HDMI adapters (typically under $20) provide a good display? BTW, I've done a fair amount of research on MIST vs. MiSTer, and I think the MIST is a better solution for me, especially the 1.5 version.

April 1

6 minutes ago, scitari said:

Here are step by step instructions on how to copy ATR files from your PC to a real floppy disk. This uses RespeQT, SIO2PC, and Copymate. I just went through this, and it works great!

Write Atari 8-Bit Computer ATR Files from Your PC to a Real Floppy Disk Using the RespeQT Peripheral Emulator Software and an SIO2PC Adapter (15-30 minutes) – Atari Projects

That's a nice tutorial! I prefer APE, but for this it's pretty much same as. An issue that I've always had with RespeQt is that the drag-and-drop does not work reliably. In fact, it mostly doesn't work at all.

March 28

I love my EclaireXL. But some things that I think were missing:

1. PCB form factor that would fit in a 600XL or 800XL case with most ports lining up.

2. S-Video in addition to the truly superb HDMI/DVI. (I'm probably in a minority, but being able to connect to CRT monitors with S-video is still pretty awesome.) BTW, Panos made a couple of the S-Video adapters, IIRC.

3. Ability to attach a real Atari keyboard. If you've typed on a real Atari for 40+ years, your fingers *know* where all those special keys are.

IIRC, the EclaireXL will run at something like 30+ MHz, although I no longer think that is terribly important. A mere 7 MHz makes for a very snappy machine.

March 25

After my 1040 ST, I built a 386 system with EGA graphics, a "big" HDD, Windows 3.0 or 3.1, etc. I was never much of a gamer, but the PC business/productivity software was definitely of great interest to me. Somewhere along the way, I got Turbo Basic (for the PC), and started writing business software for work. (BTW, I kept the 1040 ST for quite a few years after moving to PC's.)

March 17

I just noticed the entry: "ARGS-OS (Ralf David ROM-Disk: Select+Reset) ARGS-OS." Never heard of it. Can someone elucidate? (There's a word you don't see every day!) 🙂

March 11

7 hours ago, Rybags said:

How about PokeyMax?

https://atari8.co.uk/firmware/pokeymax/

Although you could call it a bit of overkill - stereo, SID and Covox also included. But, if there's space to spare then why not?

I'm focusing on the price for an original type replacement. BackSID at $32. Pokeymax 3 is going to be apx. 150 Euros + shipping. IIRC, TBA was selling used Pokeys for $65. On eBay, $60-$80 used. There is a Pokey One apparently for arcade machines for $50 and a Version 2 for $75, but at least the original version says "not for computers." Don't know about the V2 for computer use.

March 10

I was curious if anything like this has been done for Pokey replacements. I saw an advertisement for the BackSID for $32.00, so it seems logical that a Pokey replacement could be done for a similar price (say under $50). But no bells and whistles -- just a good Pokey replacement.

https://store.backbit.io/product/backsid/

March 10

@Mathy said:

"Didn't Atari already have something planned that was called 1600XL?"

The closest thing that I remember was Chuck Steinman's (DataQue's) idea for an Atari on a PC board. I think that the idea was for it to be an accelerated Atari. He wrote an article about it and also gave a talk at the Chicago Atarifest (1990 or 1992 I think). He had two ideas BTW -- one was a stand-alone computer and the other an Atari on a PC card.

Anyone know if Chuck is still with us?

March 9

Can the 1090 and cards be made any smaller without compromising assembly, etc. I realize that the 1090 is a 1980's reproduction, but smaller is better, I think.

March 8

Can anyone provide a link to the 1090 80-column card firmware and the charset rom? I tried to set this up in Altirra but can't find the roms. I searched using Altirra + 1090 in this thread, but didn't come up with anything.

March 8

What apps would work with the 80-column card? And (anyone) how big of a deal would it be to get one of the many word processors or text editors available for the Atari working with the 1090 80-column card? It may not be a killer app, but we need at least one app for it.

Do BASICs work well with it? IIRC, some 80-column configurations only allowed 80 characters on a Basic line. The Bit 80 was that way, I think.

And what are the dimensions (for those of us who are short on desk space)? Sorry for all the questions, but I think they are "good questions."

March 8

At this time, what cards are available -- 80-col., 320K ram, and CX85 keypad? Did I miss any? If one uses the 1090, they can't use a hard drive, nor have multiple OS? (Although I would think you could still have internal multiple OS, but the 1090 wouldn't work?)

March 7

What E: handler is used for the 80-column card? Is it in the 1090 firmware? How is it activated from stock 40-column?

February 28

10 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

green dot read only

directions explain red dot write

red dot slash ....

some of it is strange, like lubricate disk... maybe they mean liquidate....

Yes, from the context, I think "removal" would be a proper English word.

February 28

Wow! Never knew that was a toggle! Thanks, Roy.

It appears the green dot does nothing currently. Do you know if it ever did in an older version of Windows? Maybe was put there for a purpose that was never implemented?

February 27

Thanks, I'll check out the ATR header bytes, and presumably write a little Basic program to change any errant bits so it will work with ATADIM. According to that ATR table, it looks like there is a difference in the bytes between the original Nick Kennedy scheme and Steve Tucker's.

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