atarian1

:roll: Darklord has already politely asked you Amiga owners to stop the ST/Amiga comparisons. Please stop now before it gets ugly....again.

Same here. Still no product.

Well, that's odd. I didn't know that. Why did they do that? Oversight? It's just another example of progress. I'm sure Jim Allen @ Fast Tech took a look at the JATO and thought "how can I improve this JATO to give a real speed increase?". He did it by adding a cache and also made it smaller. I guess he couldn't figure out how to make it revert back to a true 8 MHz so he just left it at that. Then ICD took a look at the T-16 and thought "how can I improve this T-16 to revert back to a true 8MHz?". I don't know what they did, but they did it AND made is even smaller to barely larger than the 68000 CPU itself. It just shows how awesome those ICD engineers were.

Okay, my bad on the time-frame then. They (Fast Tech.) must have done some retro-writing on their software then. Because the T16 I've got in one old Mega ST2 has software that switches it between 8 and 16mhz... Thanks. What I mean by "true" 8MHz is exactly 8.0000... MHz. The T16 reverted back to 8.01 MHz or something like that. If you run a benchmark program on a T16'ed ST switched to 8MHz, you will see some of the benchmarks show 101% or something. A genuine 8MHz ST should have all their benchmarks say 100%. Some programs and games won't work due to this.

You know, I'm not 100% sure. Just looking at the manual, it says copyright 1990 for the Adspeed. I believe the Fast Tech stuff came out after ICD's stuff. Actually, it's the other way around. The Fast Tech Turbo16 came out first before the AdSpeed. The AdSpeed was an improvement over the Turbo16 because it could revert back to a true 8MHz Atari.

Parker, Any update on my order for the 7800 mod that I made back in September? Thanks.

mrbigreddog, Did you send me my original Jaguar cart end labels that I ordered from you? I haven't received them yet. Thanks.

The CDAR-504 was sold in Canada for a little while before 3rd party drives pretty much killed it. The 3rd party drives were faster and cheaper than the Atari drive. In fact, one dealer (Computer Rock in San Francisco) actually advertised it and imported them from Canada. I was lucky to get one myself from someone who was leaving the Atari scene.

I saw 2 or 3 in the middle of the day after the noon newscast on our local independent station. In other words, when no one was watching. That's about it. I'm pretty sure it's the 520STFM commercial. Print ads ran more often, but it was like 1 every 2-3 years!

Don't forget "Return to Crystal Castles" that was announced for the Jaguar. I don't think it was ever started, but it would be cool if someone finds some documents or notes that showed what Atari had in mind for this game. I suggested this back on the old GEnie discussion boards that Atari personnel frequented, but like many fan ideas, it looks like this idea was ignored.

They're styrofoam = not recyclable. Better to re-use.

Great! I hope my assembled 7800 mod is one of them as I ordered it in September (I think - it's been a while). I want to install it on Thanksgiving while everyone else is getting drunk (adults) or destroying the house (kids).

Yes! IIRC, the few times I've seen them on Ebay, they went for about $10-$20. The SF314 will probably be on the low end while the other 2 will be on the high end ($20-ish). I hope it's still worth your time to ebay them...

Actually, Tetrisphere was called Phear on the Jaguar and was one of the most impressive titles early in the Jaguar's life. However, [email protected]#$%* Nintendo saw it and paid them to stop developing the Jaguar version and make it exclusively for the N64. I still hate Nintendo. :x

I think the reason you hear more about 8-bit gaming is because the 8-bits came first. I know, duh, but the 8-bit games came out first and started to explore the uncharted territory of computer gaming, which featured better graphics and sound, not to mention larger and more sophisticated games that sometimes required keyboard input and disk drives/tapes for saving. There were quite a number of "first game in xxx genre" on the 8-bits. When the ST and other more advanced computers came out, the games were the same concept as the 8-bit games, but featured even better graphics/sound and larger and more sophisticated games due to the jump from 64K to 512K of standard RAM and the disk drive being standard equipment. It gave authors more room to expand their vision which started on the 8-bit platform, so it wasn't as groundbreaking as when it first showed up on the 8-bits. In other words, 16-bit games were super-enhanced versions of the 8-bit games.

The cable will work for LCD screens too. I actually tested a cable I made with about 10-15 monitors at work of various brands (NEC, Samsung, Dell, etc) and they all work. The only exception was Viewsonic - I don't know why they didn't work... The difference is in the quality of the picture due to the scalar built into the monitor to rescale the screen to a non-native resolution. It's hit and miss for me. I tested 5 NEC monitors and 3 look bad, but 2 looked awesome. The Dells and Samsungs look OK, but the ones I tested were widescreen monitors, so everything was stretched out. Otherwise, they looked OK. You can find 4:3 monitors - just stop looking at Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc. They are available through mail order. I see some on the NEC online retail store, the Dell website, etc. Stop looking at mainstream stores for non-mainstream items.

A Portfolio for $175?! :lol: Unless it comes with a bucket load of add-ons, a stock Portfolio is worth around...$40-$50. You can buy a near-mint reconditioned Portfolio for the same price at Best Electronics. Oh wait, B&C Computervisions has it for only $100! :lol: I will stop laughing now. Anyway... The STacy can fetch about $200 and up depending on condition and specs. The STBook is a great collector's item. However, you won't fetch that much if it's broken. They are a b**** to fix and find parts for. However, someone will still want it, so don't send that to the e-waste! It still would make a great decorative piece in a collection.

Hi Bob, OldAtarian has a point. Do you have any MegaSTs in your stash that have the monitor adapter boards installed in them? You should see an extra 9 or 15 pin port where the expansion slot cover is on the back of the MegaST just above the monitor and MIDI ports. It would be a good idea to lump them together to sell or give away. I may just come by and pick them up if you can bundle them up with a MegaST. Anyone know if these Moniterm monitors work on the TT030? Maybe they don't need an adapter board in this case if someone can verify this.

This is where I got my 1040st in '84!! I emailed them a couple times last year to see if they were still working on ST's. They never replied back. But yet the web site is still up That's impossible. ATY Computer opened in 1989. The 1040ST came out in 1986. I know, we're all getting older and forgetting how long it's been...

Really? That's not what I remember. In the early 80s, there were software rentals which were eventually made illegal due to the ease of copying floppies. I remember ads for software rentals suddenly gone after the law was passed. That lasted until CD-ROMs came along. I vividly remember renting PC CD-ROMs at my local video store (Blockbuster, etc), but not floppy media. Like I said, that was already illegal in the 90s. Renting CD-ROMs back then was not big deal because hard drives were barely 1 GB (unless you were rich) standard. So if you pirated the CD-ROM by copying the contents to the hard drive, you could only squeeze in 1 or 2 games. Even with several GBs, you could only squeeze a handful of games on the hard drive. CD writers were well over $1K, so copying CD-ROMs was quite rare. Of course when big hard drives and CD writers dropped in price, the stores stopped renting CD-ROMs. Geez, wonder why?

All sound is routed through the RCA jacks in the back and the monitor output pin at the same time. The difference is that the RCA jacks output stereo when the program running takes advantage of the STe stereo sound. The original ST sound output is mono through the RCA jacks. All sound output is mono through the monitor output pin.

If they are really going to the dumpster instead of other users, I can take the computers. However, I have to think about the monitors as they take up more space. I'll send you a PM.

Hi Bob, I'm interested in your ST stuff too. What do you have? I'm willing to pickup locally in SF Bay Area. Thanks, Phil

The major degrading aspect of the Lynx version of Roadblasters is the music. Even the 2600 could make better music than this! I would have gladly sacrificed a digital recording for more faithful music. I mean, after finishing a hard level, I'm all pumped up ready for the next level when all of a sudden, I'm greeted by some lame ass music that a 3 year old probably made and then some scratchy voice muttering something and then...silence...until the next wave begins. That's not how to keep the adrenaline going! I thought the arcade had some of the best music in a video game and the Genesis version faithfully reproduced it. That's why I think the Genesis version was a notch above the Lynx version since they are practically alike in all other aspects.

I used Spectre GCR to run MS Word and Excel back in college because that was what everyone else was using. I had to swap files with lab partners and classmates, so to keep the formatting, I went the MS Mac route. (note: I tried RTF format, but it doesn't keep the graphs/pictures from the original Word files). The MS-DOS disk formatting that the ST shares was a lifesaver for me. Even better as the fact that I could read/write Mac and PC disks, but neither the Mac or PC could do the same. Well, actually, you could do it on the Mac but needed a Superdrive in the Mac which was not standard yet at the time. I really needed Excel because it was quickly replacing Lotus 1-2-3 as the standard spreadsheet on the PC/Mac, and again, everyone was using it. Unfortunately, LDW Power (the best ST spreadsheet at the time) only loaded/saved 1-2-3 format, so I would have had to beg my classmates to save it in 1-2-3 format just for me. I was not that special.