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Larry

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Posts posted by Larry

  1. Posted

    I've been using the XL7 a bit the past week, trying to relearn how things work. I was wrong about the original being 7 MHz only -- it is 1.79 and 7.16. If a rom OS is used, it is 1.79; if the OS is run out of ram, then it is 7.16. Here are several runs of Ahl's benchmark that show the differences:

     

    Atari Basic rom + rom OS -- 370 sec.

    Atari Basic rom + ram OS -- 117 sec.

    Atari Basic ram + ram OS -- 106 sec.

     

    Naturally, the more modern versions of Basic would be significantly quicker.

    • Like 5

  2. Posted

    "Any system you want as long as it's a 1200XL..."

     

    Hmm... Your project, your way, but what would prevent it from going in an 600XL or 800XL, assuming that you get a board shape so that it is compatible? The XL14 board layout was compatible with all 3 models, wasn't it?

     

    That was an issue with the original XL7 -- the pcb hung over the OS chip sockets, eliminating the possibility of using a different OS that that is thicker. (Think of the 32-in-1 or Puff 3-way OS module, whose name I can't think of at the moment.) The original had no PBI (of course it was for a 1200XL), and was 7 mHz only, IIRC. so having it 1.79 or 7.16 MHz sounds like a nice step forward. With a pbi interface, you would mount a CF card adapter on the pcb?

     

    Anyway, glad to see you are interested in improving the original. FWIW, 7 MHz is plenty fast for 99% of user projects. Most of the time, I ran the XL14 at 7 MHz.

  3. Posted

    Hi Lee-

     

    If you can get this working in an XL using an 800OS, that would be really neat. Rom Dos was one of the "holy grail" items in the early 80's, well before the XE's arrived and the "magic" of Dos 2.5 instant DUP swapping.

    I knew only of one guy that had this in a RamRod + an Axlon + Bit3. As the song says -- those were the days!

     

    -Larry

  4. Posted

    Hi Jurgen-

     

    I bought one of the Karin drives several years ago. (From memory) One issue with the Karin is that it uses a different floppy track read/write scheme. It's scheme is actually better than the XF -- alternating sides rather than using all of side 1, then going to side 2. But that means that if you already have a large number of XF format 3.5" disks, they don't work with the Karin. And since the Floppy Board uses the XF protocol, it is incompatible with that also.

     

    Long story short, 720K is a better option for the XF (including the questionable reliability of HD disks with the WD 1772-02-02). Unless folks don't mind losing a file here and there... ;)

     

    -Larry

    • Like 3

  6. Posted

    I've always used XP for my Atari operations. But I need to install APE on a Win7 laptop, and the file type icon is wrong and I don't know how to change it so that it is the typical one we see in XP. Can someone please help? Probably the thing I need most is the actual icon -- it does not exist in my Win7 icon data files.

     

    Thanks,

    Larry

  8. Posted

    If you want to use RespeQt, don't forget it runs on a Raspberry Pi, I have a multi input monitor, composite video via a scart

    is connected to the 130XE, VGA input connected to the Pi, all I have to do is switch inputs when I want to change a disk.

     

    Saves having 2 screens and a tiny Pi.

     

    I also have an SDrive-Max and think its great, can't comment on the SIO2SD

    Have a picture of your setup? The Pi sounds like an interesting option.

    -Larry

  10. Posted

    The advantage of APE or RespeQt as a drive emulator is the power of a Windows PC. (I'm not sure about Mac use with RespeQt, but APE is Windows only.) Scrolling and clicking a mouse instead of pressing buttons to scroll on an itty-bitty LCD or a bunch of key presses is a great benefit to me. Of course, not for everyone, but certainly offers easy navigation of images plus other features such as printer emulation, easy transfer to/from a PC. Need not be a huge screen; an old, small laptop with a 486 running Windows 95 should work fine with APE. I've personally run APE on a Pentium 50 MHz with Win 97 on a 5" laptop. (It is more useful on something like a 10" laptop since you have more room on the screen.)

     

    Here's the Atarimax homepage (scroll down for APE info)

    https://www.atarimax.com/

     

    And here are a couple of pics of my setups. Of the SIO2SD devices, I think that Lotharek has the nicest. Note the open folder of ATR images -- mouse click easy access to hundreds of images.

     

    -Larry

    post-8008-0-90573900-1553021558_thumb.jpg

    post-8008-0-05865100-1553021595_thumb.jpg

    • Like 7

  12. Posted

    I just watched (in amazement) the Bad Apple demo running on the Rapidus from Lotharek's site. Are those graphics done on the A8? If so, G8 I presume? The only downside is that the demo takes a long time to load. Anyone have any details on how this is executed and how much code is involved? Loading time aside, that is absolutely amazing!

    -Larry

  17. Posted

    I have quite a few Happy Compacted Disks that were created with the old version 4 or 5 Happy 810 software and hardware. I was attempting to extract several of the "disks" today -- of course now with a Happy 1050 and Rev 7.1 software. Doesn't seem to work -- the Happy gets as far as trying to extract an entry, but the just spins and the busy light occasionally flashes briefly.

     

    Does anyone know if these are supposedly compatible? If they are compatible, then I have a lot of bad disks -or- the track alignment was quite a bit different with the old 810, rendering them unreadable.

     

    -Larry

  18. Posted

    Question... When I am copying to Happy ATX images, after one copy is completed, if I mount a new blank ATX destination image (no rebooting), then as soon as the real Happy has completed reading the first portion of the new disk, then I get a Write Error immediately when the Happy Backup starts to write to the newly mounted ATX image. If I were using two real Happy drives, then the copying would proceed without error.

     

    I imagine that this is to be expected, but curious why it produces a write error.

     

    -Larry

  20. Posted

    Here is another issue I'm having, and this one may be more serious.

     

    I keep getting 139 errors while writing to an unprotected ATR with 4.3. I've got a good real FTDI chip, and I'm writing at 1X SIO. I'm also getting an occasional Data Frame Error notice from 4.3. This happens rarely, but it is happening repetitively. Any suggestions?

     

    Edit: I figured this out. For some "unprotected" disks, I need to use a Dos copy and for others I need to sector copy. Some of the tracks are not formatted, while data disks appear not to have a good VTOC.

  21. Posted

    A question about dragging and dropping files with RespeQt...

     

    I think I've always had an issue with this going back to AspeQt. Using the "mount disk image" always works fine, but dragging an ATR from a folder to the GUI to mount it only works about 25-50% of the time. Is this a known issue or is dragging and dropping from outside the GUI not really supported? (Windows XP OS)

     

    -Larry

    • Like 1

  24. Posted

    I'm making archival copies (ATX where possible) of my original disks, and I'm finding many early titles that won't execute properly. Since these were from the 800 days, some of this may be because of the OS rather than bad disks.

     

    Is there a list of commercial titles that require the 800 OS -- and -- what is the most compatible 800 OS? I've always thought that the Omniview OS was quite compatible, but maybe there are other good ones?

     

    Thanks,

    Larry

  25. Posted

    I've started making a serious effort to back up my original disks -- and it is not going real well. Some of my copy protected disks (maybe 20%) will no longer load properly. That's a bummer! One very interesting incident was with an original that would no longer load/run. But when it was copied with the Super Archiver, the copy will load and run. Isn't that interesting! All-in-all, it reminds me of just how much fun copy protected software is. ;) But I certainly understand the necessity.

     

    RespeQt 4.3 is doing a great job on most of the disks I've tried. But even with writing to images, this is going to be a really slow project.

     

    -Larry

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