Larry

Thanks to all three of you! I had forgotten that Nir made a video about Mega Speedy.

I haven't used my Mega Speedy in a couple of years, and basically have forgotten how to use it. I *think* that all the user needs to do is to power up and set the selector to the appropriate hardware type and then boot the appropriate software. (?) But perhaps I'm missing some key points? Are there some actual docs. Couldn't find any in the thread or at Hias' site. Thanks, Larry

Where/when is the VCS?

Thanks! That works great! I tried several "drive swaps" previously, but I did not try leaving the drive off until your post. I haven't tried the Super Archiver yet, but presume it will be a similar procedure. This is really great for making archival copies, and much simpler than Kryoflux. I have one, but have never gotten really satisfactory results using it -- mostly just flogging it repeatedly. Probably the next best thing (IMO) is the Freezer + Happy or SA. But this is even easier and quicker than that. Thanks again! -Larry

I've been experimenting with 4.3 off-and-on for a couple of weeks, and thus far, I've had no trouble with loading ATX images. Most of these are older titles. I'm now ready to make some new images from real disks using Happy, but I'm having trouble with it. At this point, I keep getting a "High Speed Transfer Error" from Happy when trying to use the Happy Backup program, booting from the 7.1 ATR disk image in D1:. When I run the Happy diagnostics without RespeQt, it passes the high speed transfer every time. My real Happy is set to D2:. Presumably, I need to use the Happy backup to copy a protected disk from D2: to a new image mounted on RespeQt. Perhaps I'm missing something in the setup. Here's what I'm doing: 1. Set real Happy 1050 to D2: 2. Place an ATR image of the 7.1 software in D1: 3. Place a new disk image in D3: 4. Boot the 7.1 image and the Happy menu says I have 3 Happy drives D1: , D2: , D3: 5. Select the HBP (#4) from the Happy menu and load it 6. Pre-defined Backup option question is displayed 7. I toggle the Happy button OFF on D1: 8. I say "N" to PDB 9. Drives start to program, but every time says "High Speed Transfer Error" Any thoughts? Thanks! Edit: There doesn't seem to be any way to change to defined Source and Destination drive in the Happy Software from D1: and D2:. (?) -Larry

Check out this page: http://www.athana.com/html/diskette.html I've had Athana, and don't remember any issues with them. OTOH, I have lots of good used diskettes (cheap). If you are interested, send me a PM. -Larry

Hi ijor- That reminds me about some of the CSS software disks that I had. I read long ago about how this was supposedly done on Atari disks, and looking carefully at the CSS disks, I *think* I could see damaged spots on the disk surface. If a disk was formatted/written using the timing hole, I can see how it might be possible to calculate the position of an area to be intentionally damaged. But that's just a guess. Or perhaps you could just damage a few areas and then format the disks and find what sectors could not be formatted, and use those in your copy protection scheme. Perhaps you have a better understanding? -Larry

Here's a 720K version with CSS upgrade.

The greatest asset of the XF551 is that you can add a 3.5" drive easily and get rock-solid 720K (DS/DD) performance, if you are interested in that sort of thing. In addition, the data separation of the WD 1772-x-x is superior to any other I've found in Atari drives. I've got several of them. Overall, not as useful as a 1050 Happy drive, but I would put it at #2, especially if you are interested in the extra storage capability of the 720K diskettes. But think very, very carefully about buying one off eBay -- not only the mechanical aspects, but the XE series gets UV discoloration easier than the XL's, so you can easily get one that is "tanned."

How do the upconverters do? S-video to HDMI -- anyone using one of those, and have some screen shots? I'm still using S-video with my All-In-Wonder capture card. It does a great job, but I can't use it with Win7 or greater. Keeping an XP system running is becoming more and more difficult with each passing year. So I'm now actively looking for a good alternative. All of the WinTV models (which support more modern versions of Windows) that I've looked at are using signal buffering, which really kills their use for a hobby computer or older gaming system. -Larry

I think the difference is the southern vs northern hemisphere thing... Actually, I've heard this POV before, and never really found it to be true. I've got a lot of different Ataris -- and on virtually all of them (NTSC), the S-video is dramatically clearer and with better overall pictures. In fact, even with video mods, S-video still is much better. But Australia is PAL, isn't it? That might make a difference? -Larry

Some interesting stories in this topic. My little story, briefly... In 1983, it essentially required divine intervention for anyone at our plant to get an IBM PC -- it was an expensive "Capital Item". Yet we had need for a computer in our tooling section to track pattern wear and dimensional conformance of our castings. We were able to purchase an Atari 800XL, Indus GT, numeric keypad and a few other odds and ends which were relatively inexpensive, and did not rise to the level of being a capital investment. I wrote the custom software (a perfect application for Basic) to track dimensions, print reports, and do statistical analysis of our dimensional conformance. We used that systems for a maybe 8 years, until we got all new equipment which was completely "computerized" from the manufacturer.

If you search around here or internet, I'm sure you will find sources. At last check, they weren't terribly expensive. You still find them on eBay, and occasionally for reasonably sane prices. If you want some (NOS or used), send me a PM -- I should have some spares that I can sell. At last check there was an outfit in Europe (IIRC) that was still manufacturing and selling new ones -- Athana, I think). OTOH, although I have not used a 1.44 HD XF551 (obviously), I have used a floppy board with HD 1.44's and a C64 CMD HD 1.44 drive. Neither system was completely reliable -- I would typically lose maybe one or two files after a few months/years -- I would say maybe 98% reliable(?). A 720K drive/disks have been the most reliable combination that I've found -- at least as reliable as good SS/SD disks - which are amazingly reliable. I also have a Karin Maxi Drive, but it is not compatible with XF's or Floppy Boards. (It maps the tracks differently.) I wonder..... a big issue would be solved if just the write current could be safely doubled on an XF. Maybe with some type of switching mechanism (auto or manual) to select the correct write current for DD or HD disks. That would allow use of the still common 1.44's. And last -- there are other drawbacks to using 1.44's such as compatibility. ATR's have virtually no compatibility nor reliability issues, so why not just use ATR's with digital media? -Larry

Rev d. I don't know how it happened, but when it loaded, something took out the whole partition. Just thought of this -- that computer does have a 65816 in it.

It would be cool if the original Dos-Mod turned up -- it would be interesting to look at and see what differences there are between it and Dos 2.0. I've looked several times over the years, but have never found it.

The simple answer is that TOP-DOS is a large and generally complicated replacement for Dos 2.0. It started its life as "DOS-MOD" which patched Dos 2.0 and added some features. Then came TOP-DOS, TOP-DOS 1.5, TOP-DOS 1.5A, TOP-DOS PLUS, and finally TOP-DOS Professional. It does have lots of features if you are tolerant of the learning curve and have need of them. The manuals are large and "full-featured" with good explanations. IMO, it's interesting, but not worth messing with. There is several downloads at the Internet Archive, including these docs to DOS-MOD: https://archive.org/details/DOS-MOD -Larry

Outstanding! I've made up a whole new 4-GB card, and now I'll go back and reinitialize this smaller one. Thanks, guys! -Larry Edit: I found the card's partitioning was bad. I combined some smaller partitions and ended up with the correct size, then I used APT and set it up correctly for the Atari.

Call or email Brad at Best and ask him some questions about the two keyboards. But a suggestion -- know what you want to ask before you call or email him, and be concise. I've bought a few keyboards from Best, but I don't remember what I bought. However they have all been fine. My only bugaboo about XL keyboards is making sure I get one that has two mechanical connections for SHIFT. Otherwise, it is difficult to push without the key binding. -Larry

If you have a Windows PC handy (and a small, even really slow laptop is fine), then some form of SIO2PC is a really nice way to go. Unlike Atari devices like S-Drive or SIO2SD, you have the ease of Windows GUI to make you tasks easier and more intuitive. I've just never cared for the "push the buttons" method of file selection/manipulation the SD card devices use. (Although there is a file for the SIO2SD (and maybe the S-Drive) that allows you to use the Atari screen for file selection.) I must admit, I'm intrigued by the S-Drive Max since it gives you better screen info than older versions. I'm a 98% APE Windows USB user, and the other 2% is usually RespeQt. RespeQt also supports Linux, I believe. These aren't all the methods available, but they are the most common for moving ATR images from/to a PC. At any rate, with the Atari, you have plenty of ways (and software) to choose from. Here are some links to check, if interested: (some are duplicates from above) http://atariage.com/forums/topic/275629-sdrive-max-atx-support/ https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=60 https://www.atarimax.com/ http://atariage.com/forums/forum/184-respeqt-sio2pc-software/ Good luck! -Larry

I had to completely set up my CF card with the IDE+2 HD this AM and ran into a couple of questions since I haven't done this in several years (and with the current version of the APT Toolkit). My desired configuration is 20,000, 256-byte sectors for MyDos. 1. Is start is the absolute starting sector number on the device -- CF card in my case? The above number just popped up, so I didn't/couldn't change it. It seems very high on a 2 GB card. Should I have formatted the card on a PC first? And would that have resulted in a lower starting sector number? 2. Do we have to double the size if we are using 256-byte sectors? I don't remember exactly how that worked, but we had to double something if using 256-byte sectors previously (IIRC). Thanks, Larry

If you have an IDE+2, be careful of these files. I booted these with the IDE+2 attached (holding down SHIFT, I think) and by doing that, it clobbered the HD partition. I had to set the HD up completely from scratch, partitioning and everything. I'm not sure what happened, but it was working perfectly before I booted, then nothing. Yes, I know they are for an 800, but I wanted to see how it behaved, loading into an XL. Now I know... -Larry

On the above Dropcheck PCB -- where do the SIO jacks go? Was there another small board that connected to it? Once upon a time, I adapted an Indus GT1000 (IIRC the number) -- it was a 3-1/2" 720K drive for the ST, but I had to hook it to a Black Box/Floppy Board for it to work. -Larry

Re: MYDOSPLS I downloaded Tim's file, and it shows no file type under Windows. But after looking at the file from the Atari screen editor, it says it is a patch file to convert MyDos 3.015 to MyDospls. So (assuming that the file works properly), we would still need 3.015. I have 3.013, but not 3.015 (and I didn't try 3.013). There are so many different early versions of MyDos... Edit: I did try it with MyDos 3.013, and it fails -- it appears aware that it is not 3.015 in D1:. The patch file does load and run, but terminates with an error. We're going to need to come up with 3.015. 3.015 is mentioned in this thread (including "Archive Copy"): http://atariage.com/forums/topic/169735-sweet-8-bit-haul/ Re: MyDos 3.116.rom -- I've never seen this one before -- for the elusive ROMDOS setup? -Larry

No. There are several products that have the verbage "A... Basic Compiler," but ABC was from Monarch Data Services. It was first released about 1982 or 1983. The ADVAN system came later and was first sold (published?) by Antic. I bought ABC from the author the day that I read the first ad for it. I had several questions and called ABC. A woman answered the phone, and I remember that she said that the "Compiler Person" was not there, but he would call me back. He was a very helpful guy, and I purchased every update that he released. ABC had some interesting copy protection that I thought would never get broken, but of course, clever programmers proved me wrong. I also find it really amazing that Phaeron managed to get his new ATX Basic so close in speed to an ABC compiled program, but ABC is still unique because of its extremely compact compiled code. The history of compilers for the Atari is quite interesting, I think. -Larry

Will Basic++ run OK using a stock (or other XL/XE OS) or does it require using your OS? I didn't realize that it was romable. Good to know. -Larry