Larry

Perhaps this will be the year of a working, salable Atari accelerator! (I can always hope.) -Larry

I had Atari810 running this AM, because it's SIO monitor is a little more comprehensive, and on a lark, decided to see if APE USB and Atari810 COM1 could co-exist. Surprisingly, they seem to work well together (in limited testing). I'm not sure why anyone would really need to do this, but hey, it works... -Larry

Hi Shawn- Yes, that's the original, partially-working program that I had in my Happy stuff. -Larry

Here is what I remember about the Happy software versions. Can anyone confirm or correct these? Ver 1.X to 5.X were for the Happy 810 with the original rom. Ver 6.X was for the 1050 with the Rev 1 rom. Ver 7.X was for the 810 or 1050 with the updated roms. ??? -Larry

I have found problem, but it is NOT an APE 3.0.4 (or 3.0.2) with a dual-core cpu issue. It is related to another APE printing issue that has been mentioned before -- if you have an SIO printer interface/printer attached with APE, they interfere with each other. I've know this for a long time, but it "bit me" again. It bit me because I changed my SIO cables around when I hooked up my SIO2SD interface, and attached the SIO2SD to the "switched" port on my Quintopus and attached the SIO printer interface to a regular (un-switched) port. Even though the APE printing feature was set to "Disabled," when I tried to print a BASIC listing on my Epson today, I started getting partial lines, and it aborted part way through the listing. "Hey, this looks familiar..." So I checked the SIO cables and switched them back so that I could switch both APE and the Epson OFF/ON as needed. Now, both devices print properly. However, if you don't have a Quintopus with switches, LOL. But perhaps not that many folks have real printers attached with SIO interfaces in addition to APE. (?) It is something that would be useful to fix in APE, I think. A8maestro has a "Spider" listed at his web site, and it looks very similar to a Quintopus. Perhaps he could add switches if needed? http://morethangames.a8maestro.com/proda8/a8-new1.htm -Larry

Partially... Here is the article: http://atarimagazines.planetmirror.com/v2n...aceutility.html Unfortunately, the program listing is not there. AFAIK, Antic didn't start putting there listings on disks until about 1984, so the early articles were scanned and in many cases, the program listings were ignored. This will have to be a type-it-in and debug it project. Will probably take a bit, but I'll get it done. -Larry I OCR'd and typed in the Basic Trace program and (finally) debugged it successfully. It will be posted at www.atarimagazines.com in about a week (or so). -Larry

I have found the issues with the Happy menu program that I was trying to use. $E459 *does* work when it is properly set up. Not every command seems to respond properly, but most do, so I can proceed. -Larry

Thanks, that is an interesting idea. I have played around with HTABS some, but never have been too successful (my lack of understanding, I'm sure). But I'll take a peek at this. -Larry

Thanks, everyone, for the suggestions. I have Mac-65 (but have used it a little, as you can probably tell!). But the above worked perfectly, as Rybags states. Had no clue the M65 could do that. When in doubt, get out the manual, I guess! -Larry

I have a pretty large asm source file for the Atari that has no line numbers. Is there an assembler for the Atari that either accepts this type of source file or (better) one that will accpt this type file and adds line numbers as it reads the file? Thanks, Larry

I've done a little more research on this issue, and it evidently is reasonably common -- some software definitely has problems with dual core processors. The fix that I believe you are suggesting is the "Affinity" hotfix for Win XP Professional. (Unfortunately, I have XP Home.) But evidently the hotfix can have some issues, too, but it does seem to correct most software issues and works most of the time (from what I've read). Evidently AMD has released some software to correct these issues on its processors. Perhaps Intel will do the same. (?) -Larry

$E459 is SIOV, which is the basic way to communicate with serial i/o devices using the OS interrupt drive routines. Unless the happy drive uses some very strange serial i/o communications protocol (which I doubt), you should be able to send commands to the drive that way. Check out this page: http://jindroush.atari8.info/asio.htm According to that you can use SIOV to send the $48 command to the drive, set the appropriate AUX1 and AUX2 to get the desired drive function. Hi Shawn- Thanks for the link. Yes, that's the way I've seen it written up and in programs, however, it does nothing for my Happy 1050, while the actual Happy menu works perfectly. Have you tried this? My take -- something is missing in the documented procedures. I also can't imagine that the Happy would have been that easy to manipulate, else software publishers could have messed around with the Happy to no end. Of course that's speculation, but seems logical to me. -Larry

Hi Mathy- Thanks -- using the XEP80 certainly could be useful, and I definitely hadn't thought of that. All of the Antic's have been scanned at atarimagazines.com, it's just that the early ones (pre-1984?) didn't come with disks, so there are "holes" in the accompanying software, since OCR'ing the programs is such a time-consuming PITA. Take care, Larry

Older versions of the Happy Backup suite contained a small Basic program to shut down the floppy drive immediately after completing an operation. The "new" version of Happy (7.0 & 7.1) had this built into its drive options menu. Unfortunately, I discarded my old Happy versions since they would no longer work with my 810 Happy with the update rom. This is hopefully a means to an end -- that is to be able to manipulate the settings on my Happy 1050 without having to load the Happy menu program. Perhaps something was written for a Lazer drive which might work? Does anyone have a copy of this program or a similar Basic program that works properly? I've seen some, but those that I've tried don't work; hence I'm seeking the "original." Ones in Basic that I have seen try to use the $E459 vector to communicate with the Happy drive. Based on what I have read from the Happy disk, that probably won't work. Instead, Happy uses a different data table to communicate with the drive. (?) Thers is a file "HPYSIO.UND" found on front side of the V7.1 Happy disk. This is an undocumented assembly file proposes to allow users to communicate with the drive via the "HPYTBL." I'm going to dig into this, but I wondered if anyone else has used this file? Any help, suggestions, or leads would be greatly appreciated. -Larry

While looking for the previously mentioned Trace utility from Antic, I ran across another one in a later issue of Antic, somewhat along the method you suggest. This is called Basic Tracer in the Sept. 1986 issue. Both the executable and the M65 source code are available at http://www.atarimagazines.com/software/software.html This one adds a 25th line at the top of the screen (similar to Carsten's) and allows the execution speed to be varied by a simple POKE. -Larry

Oops! Yes, didn't see the "left to right"... Sorry about that! -Larry

Hi, I have an Infoline tool similar to the ACTION! one in the Wiki, that displays the Basic Line to be executed, as long with other Information (free Basic Memory, Screen Coordinates of Cursor etc.). An Disk Image with the tool is attached. (snip...) Carsten Hi Carsten- Thanks, it looks like it could be quite useful, and the extra display lines work fine with NTSC, also. Most of the status items are easy to figure out, but a couple are not. Do you have a link or a very short doc file? -Larry

Partially... Here is the article: http://atarimagazines.planetmirror.com/v2n...aceutility.html Unfortunately, the program listing is not there. AFAIK, Antic didn't start putting there listings on disks until about 1984, so the early articles were scanned and in many cases, the program listings were ignored. This will have to be a type-it-in and debug it project. Will probably take a bit, but I'll get it done. -Larry

Hi Rybags- I did (just) find one from Antic written in Basic at atarimagazines.com. I may be able to modify that one. Of course, if someone knows of one in ML or Action!, that would likely be nicer! -Larry

Most Basic trace programs execute by showing the line numbers in [brackets] on the screen as the program is executing. That can cause some problems, depending on the program being traced. Is anyone aware of a Basic trace program that allows showing the line numbers traced on the printer or even written to a file? Alternatively, is anyone aware of a Basic trace program written in Basic? I might be able to modify that. Thanks, -Larry

Another quick note about Dos 2 XL -- after using this dos for a bit moving files around, I noticed that it does not appear to be compatible with Happy Drives nor high speed SIO as implemented with the Black Box drivers. In order to prevent errors, my Happy Drive had to be set to "UnHappy" and (with the Controller present) set to "SLOW MODE." It *appears* to use the same VTOC/FMS structure as MyDos 4.X as regards ED disks (unlike Dos 2.5 and IIRC, SuperDos. If you are a MyDos user, that's "a good thing." When you format a MyDos ED disk, a directory check shows 1027 free sectors. When you format a disk using Dos 2 XL, it automatically writes out its dos file and a disk title name, and then shows 963 free sectors; however, MyDos correctly recognizes the disk as having 963 free sectors. I would still treat any data movement between MyDos and Dos 2 XL with caution. This dos certainly has some interesting features! -Larry

Hi Fuji-Man- I've never heard of that. I'll do some checking -- didn't know one could do that. Thanks, Larry

The Author would be Thomas Richter, the author of the Atari++ Emulator, which contains DOS 2 XL. http://www.math.tu-berlin.de/~thor/atari++/ Carsten Yes, and the emulator manual file has a nice section that explains many features of this dos. That is the only doc file I have ever seen for it. Perhaps there is a German language file. (?) BTW, using ? PEEK(128) + 256*PEEK(129), I get a LOMEM value of $794 (1940 decimal). That's impressively low. I also need to check OSS Dos XL when hidden under a Super Cartridge. IIRC, it was also quite low, and didn't interfere with the ram-under-rom. -Larry

How about "maybe" for an answer? There is a very good section on floppies here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk On a PC with a HD controller and drive, this is no problem (although later writing to that disk with a DD drive may cause problems). The reason is that they were designed to be able to do this operation. The problem with doing the DD format with a DD controller on a HD disk is that the magnetic media is fundamentally different. In general, it takes a stronger recording signal to properly magnetize/align the HD media. So (again, in general) you end up with a disk that may have very short longevity of the data. Having said that, these factors vary from disk manufacturer to manufacturer based on the magnetic formulations that they used for the media. I have seen it successful with some disks and not with others. (And likewise the corollary HD format on a DD Disk). But if you value your files, it is not recommended. -Larry

Let me ask the question a different way -- is anyone running APE 3.0.2 or 3.0.4 *successfully* with a dual core Intel processor? -Larry