atarian1

That would be Classic Gaming Expo. Poorly attended? I don't think 1500+ attendees is poorly attended! Ed, I hope you exercise some persuasion and/or some independence from NBC to insure this will not happen again. Although I doubt having the Dallas VGexpo on the same weekend as CGE really affected the attendence of either, it REALLY looks bad for the classic gaming community as a whole. It makes the community look disorganized, splintered, and divided. Trying to have two large classic gaming shows within a month of each other may force people and vendors who normally attend both shows to choose which show to go to and which not to go to. The smaller shows sound interesting. Kind of like a Videotopia but not just restricted to arcade games.

You should not be using HD disks formatted as 720K disks. That's a recipe for trouble. I'm afraid you've learned a hard lesson here. Buy reliable DD disks from online stores instead to avoid this again.

Warp 9 was not meant to be used with games. It was used to speed up the screen redraws of GEM windows, dialog boxes, display graphics and the like in GEM applications. Most games don't use GEM so it's useless for games, and in fact, is quite incompatible with games. So there's not need to load it if you're playing games.

Let's see here... Warp 9 - screen accelerator and (depending on version) screen saver. Decent cheaper substitute for NVDI, but not as fast or as compatible. Hotwire - desktop replacement. Instead of all the mouse clicking through numerous windows to access a program buried deep in folders, just launch it from the Hotwire menu with one click. You can group certain applications together in the Hotwire menus. Also includes most standard disk functions (copy, delete, etc). Other desktop replacements (Neodesk, DC Desktop, etc) also behave in the same manner as you are experiencing as they are intended to replace the desktop (i.e. you never see the bland green Atari desktop). Hotwire was prefered by people who don't care as much for the window/icon-based graphical environment, but still wanted to use the mouse. MouseBoot - Boot manager. This allows you to choose which AUTO programs and ACCessories to load up at boot time. Handy for programs that don't like or need certain AUTO programs or ACCessories (which also saves memory and load time). Just click on the configuration you want to load up in. Universal Item Selector III - Replacement item selector. Very good for its time and much better than the Atari one. Its greatest feature is the handy disk functions, which means you can copy, rename, etc. files without quitting to the desktop. Handy when you're in program in a single-tasking environment. You can also sort by date, extension, etc. instead of just by name. Multidesk Deluxe - Breaks the 6 ACCessories limit in TOS. (You do know you're limited to 6 ACCessories, don't you? ) You can load as many desk ACCessories as memory allows, and you can load and unload accessories at any time. Handy if you like lots of ACCessories. To remove icons, click on the icon. Go to Install Disk Drive under Options. Click Remove. Go to Options and Save Desktop which saves your settings in the DESKTOP.INF file on the boot drive. If this doesn't work, then it may be MouseBoot loading in another DESKTOP.INF file from somewhere. Maybe it's time to RTFM . Hope that helps.

With the Falcon to VGA adapter I can access "ALL" the ST video modes plus the Falcons!!! That's great news!! I thought you could only access the ST's low and med video modes with only a few select VGA monitors? Why didn't Atari put in a VGA port in the falcon to begin with? I with a could use a falcon for a week to see if it's worth the $$$. I can see myself getting one someday.... New question, are there any 3D cad like programs for the Falcon? Or at least ST one's that will run on the Falcon? thanks all... 992926[/snapback] Actually, the original post was incorrect. You cannot access all VGA/ST resolutions on one monitor unless you have (1) a monitor that supports the low 15Khz horizontal scan rate of the ST resolutions (you also need a special cable switcher too), or (2) a scan doubler. Otherwise, you need two monitors to get all the VGA/ST resolutions. At the time of the Falcon release, RGB monitors were cheaper than VGA monitors. To help with the transition, Atari decided to support both monitors. I'm sure if there was a Falcon040, RGB support would have been dropped. As for 3D CAD programs...I don't know. All I can think of is photo and raytracing programs at the moment...

It's a Synchro Express disk copier. I have one myself. You need an external disk drive to copy from the internal to the external disk, thus bypassing the internal disk controller. A great way to get around copy protection.

I know DIP switch #7 is the high density disk drive enable switch. Don't know about the others.

Tempest, The MT-32 you have linked looks fine to me. You just need a MIDI cable. The best place to get them are professional music stores like Guitar Center (look in your local yellow pages under Music). I think any brand of MIDI cable should be fine, but if you can spend a few extra $$, you might want to get a premium cable that has all five pins seperately wired. They usually have silver metal plugs instead of cheap plastic plugs like these: Rapco 5-pin wired cables - the QPM and MF series The reason is that Atari cut costs by combining the MIDI OUT and THRU into the OUT port. This might cause some communication problems between the ST and some synths out there (like the Casio CZ101 and Yamaha DX100), but I don't believe the MT-32 was affected by this. Just in case I guess. The later and last Sierra games used the SCI interpreter. Off the top of my head, they are: Kings Quest IV Police Quest II Space Quest III Leisure Suit Larry 2 and 3 Hero's Quest Colonel's Bequest Conquests of Camelot Hoyle's Book of Games 1 and 2 Codename: Iceman Hmm. I think that's it. Another great thing about these games is that they are hard disk installable and not copy protected. I strongly recommend a hard disk as you will wonder how you lived without it. The games are huge by ST standards (3-4 double sided floppies), so they take forever to load by floppy. Enjoy!

Ah yes. I still have my MT-32. Now that you've mentioned it, it's time to play. But first... 1. I'm pretty sure the Sierra games that used the SCI interpreter were the only games on the ST that exclusively used the MT-32 to its fullest. I remember gaming magazines pointing out that while the PC version of a game supported the MT-32, the ST version did not, yet the ST has a built in MIDI port already. I hated that! I wanted the cool music that comes out of the PC version via the MT-32 instead of the crappy ST soundchip! 2. Just connect the MIDI OUT of the ST to the MIDI IN of the MT-32. That's it! Too easy. The Sierra games will configure the MT-32 itself when the games load. Oh, be sure the hook up the audio outs to your ghetto-blaster. (especially my fav - the Police Quest 2 intro tune ) 3. Yes, the MT-32 is just a standard MIDI synthesizer module, so it can hook up to any computer with a MIDI interface (all STs have them built-in ). To take advantage of the STE sound, Sierra would have had to program a new sound system into their SCI interpreter. This would be time consuming, costly and may take up too much of the system resources to implement. The SCI interpreter is why ST versions of Sierra games came out. The data files for all the games were interchangable as long as you have the SCI interpreter. So it's a matter of sticking in an ST reference manual, ST floppy disks, and an ST system requirements sticker on the box - there, instant ST version of a Sierra game! Sierra did the same for other platforms too (Mac, Amiga, etc). The MT-32 didn't have a serial port. All communication was through MIDI.

They work like a 1040ST except it has TOS 1.04 instead of 1.00 or 1.02. I would say they are pretty compatible with the 1040ST and more compatible than the STE. The STacy screen is off when a color monitor is attached to it, but the screen is mirrored if a monochrome monitor is attached.

Where are you located?

I thought I read somewhere that the reason why some Atari 520ST/1040ST computers have RF modulators and some don't is because of the FCC certification. Atari couldn't get the FCC Class B certification because of the RF modulator releasing too much radiation, so it was removed. I believe some got passed the FCC's eyes or a motherboard redesign fixed this which is why some US 520/104ST models have the RF modulator. Europe did not have as strict FCC radiation standards which is why I believe ALL 520/1040STs had RF modulators over there. (or at least I've never heard of a European 520/1040ST without an RF modulator) I think Canada also didn't have the strict FCC certification like Europe, so I think they also got all their 520/1040STs with RF modulators.

I'd like to know what the name of the digital courses are and a brief syllabus. I'm going to see if the local university has these classes. Right now, I'm in about the same situation as jaybird3rd. The exception is that I'm currently taking some basic analog and digital electronics courses (not EE courses), where we learn all about resistors, capacitor, transistors, logic gates, flip-flops, counters and stuff. However, the professors emphasize that I will not learn to design anything - just build already-designed circuits. I'd like to learn how to design the stuff that jaybird3rd listed too. I've already finished all the calculus and physics courses and took a circuit analysis course (I graduated a couple years ago though - I think it's still in my head ). I guess I just need some guidance. I don't care about an EE degree. I just want to see if I could design some cool gadgets for our beloved machines.

I second that. I just borrowed an old LCD projector from work overnight for a meeting. I brought it home and watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and...WOW! It was beautiful! I was able to stretch it out to an 85 inch widescreen on a blank off-white wall in my dining/living room. Even a low-bright white wall looked good. Cranked up the Dolby Digital THX 5.1 and I had a real home theatre. The only drawback was trying to use it during daylight, the dark scenes were a bit hard to see without turning up the contrast. Considering this model was made in 2001, I'm sure today's projectors work much better in daylight. I'm going to start shopping again for a projector now that I know what it would look like in my house.

One of the 13 pins (don't know which one off hand) on the ST's monitor port puts out a monochrome-composite signal that you could attach an RCA style plug to and then attach it to a RCA composite video input jack on a TV (or that Apple&cCommodore monitors composite jack) for testing purposes. This IS NOT monochrome high-res mode, it will display the low&medium resolution in monochrome. You'd hook the postive wire of the RCA jack to the pin and the negative (ground) wire to any ground position (or shielding which is grounded) on the ST. 944543[/snapback] Note that this method only works on machines that have an RF modulator in it. You can't use this method on the MegaST and you can only do this on your 1040ST if you have a 1040STFM version of the machine. You could wire up a VGA adapter if you know how to make cables. Diagrams to make this are available here: ST to VGA adapter.

The Atari MegaSTe and TT keyboards are very low quality and are known for having problems. I would suggest throwing that keyboard in the garbage and getting yourself an Atari MegaST keyboard. Like I always tell people, go for quality, not bragging rights. 942711[/snapback] You know, you're doing a really big disservice to the Atari community by telling people to throw away these MegaSTe/TT keyboards. The external keyboards for the ST series are quite rare, in demand and in limited supply already. Reducing the supply (no matter what you think of the quality) will only hurt the ST community more as there would be more CPU boxes than keyboards. The CPU box by itself is pretty useless without a keyboard. There aren't nearly enough MegaST keyboards to cover all the MegaST, MegaSTe, TT, and other STs with keyboard adapters. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that others should throw it away. If you don't like them, just say so. But then to recommend throwing it away when other people WANT it, is quite extreme and is greatly frowned upon by the entire Atari community. If anyone out there has an extra MegaSTe/TT keyboard they don't want, please don't listen to TheAtariKing. I (and I'm sure others) will gladly take it off their hand and put in to use or in a good home. 943244[/snapback] Actually, I will go one step further, anyone that owns an Atari MegaSTe or TT should throw it in the garbage, not just the keyboard. They are the lowest quality Atari computers ever made and they do not deserve the Atari name. The following, in order of quality, are the best computers Atari ever produced: MegaST, 800XL, 520ST (external disk drive and power supply), 1040STe, and the Falcon. The following are the lowest quality and the worst Atari computers ever produced: MegaSTe, TT, and the 1200XL. 943269[/snapback] You call yourself "TheAtariKing" and yet you advocate throwing away perfectly good Atari MegaSTe/TT computers that people want and willing to pay $$ for? Pathetic.

The Atari MegaSTe and TT keyboards are very low quality and are known for having problems. I would suggest throwing that keyboard in the garbage and getting yourself an Atari MegaST keyboard. Like I always tell people, go for quality, not bragging rights. 942711[/snapback] You know, you're doing a really big disservice to the Atari community by telling people to throw away these MegaSTe/TT keyboards. The external keyboards for the ST series are quite rare, in demand and in limited supply already. Reducing the supply (no matter what you think of the quality) will only hurt the ST community more as there would be more CPU boxes than keyboards. The CPU box by itself is pretty useless without a keyboard. There aren't nearly enough MegaST keyboards to cover all the MegaST, MegaSTe, TT, and other STs with keyboard adapters. Just because you don't like them doesn't mean that others should throw it away. If you don't like them, just say so. But then to recommend throwing it away when other people WANT it, is quite extreme and is greatly frowned upon by the entire Atari community. If anyone out there has an extra MegaSTe/TT keyboard they don't want, please don't listen to TheAtariKing. I (and I'm sure others) will gladly take it off their hand and put in to use or in a good home.

I don't like Nintendo because they competed with Atari. Actually, what really pissed me off with Nintendo was when they killed Phear for the Jaguar. The game was virtually complete and people who played it said it was as addictive as Tetris. I love Tetris, so I was looking forward to this game. What happens? Nintendo saw how excellent the game was and proceeded to offer the authors $4 million to stop developing the Jaguar version and to destroy it! Nintendo then made it exclusively for the N64 and renamed it Tetrisphere (I believe it was one of their best selling products too). What a bunch of @##$%^%^&*(*(()(*^%$!!!!! I don't know if the authors really destroyed their own hard work, or if it's somewhere lost in a hard drive or attic somewhere, but this still ticks me off. I vowed NEVER to buy a Nintendo product - ever. I continue to fulfill this pledge to this day...

Didn't JRI do the v. first graphics chip upgrade (4096 or 32k) of stf/m/st 939267[/snapback] Probably, It's just a board that allows the use of two video shifter chips instead of one. This increases the pallette from 512 to 4096 like an STE from what I understand, though I have no idea if it's compatible with the STE's 4096 color pallette. I haven't been able to try it yet, but my assumption is that it will work with one or all of the paint programs that were resolution&color independant, which was most of the later releases, that could work on an ST/STE/TT/Falcon and usually were also VGA compatible for most upgrades too. But I don't know if it would work with any games that use the extended pallette of the STE or not. I've wanted to take both the memory upgrade and 4096 color video shifter board out of this old 520 and install it in my 1040, but I could never find any documentation and there are literally dozens and dozens of wire hooking the memory mod and video mod together as well as to the motherboard. On mine, none are marked in any way and they are all red&blue wires. 939711[/snapback] I only remember it because it predated the Microcomputer mart's article of the test marketing of the'ÉST' (which eventually became the STE) though they did mention it did 32k colours but i could be wrong..... Whatever happened to the ST/STE/Falcon version of the Nova gfx card (16.7million colour range, pc stylee rez etc) 939896[/snapback] I honestly don't know for sure what the pallette is on the JRI 4096 color board, even though the name SHOULD say it all, but things like this can be decieving; does it mean it can actually display 4096 colors on-screen and the pallette is actualy 32k colors? Or is it merely enhancing the pallette to 4096 colors and the actual on-screen colors are still only 16 without the use of Spectrum 512 or other color-depth&resolution independent paint programs. I wanted to find out. I have never heard of the Nova card as far as I can remember, but back in the day when it was a going concern, I was still using 8-bit Atari's so I merely skimmed any info on the ST/TT line since I didn't have it yet. Most of what I know I've learned in the past two years while owning and ST, but I do suprise myself sometimes at what I remember about the ST from 15-20 years ago... I suspect that since this board merely uses two of the ST's video shifter chips, that it only expands the pallette to 4096 colors, but maybe, just maybe, it also expands the possible on-screen colors to 32...like the Amiga...4096 color pallette, 32 colors onscreen...? Hmm...maybe 64 colors onscreen? But without documentation on how to connect it and how it works, I'll never know. In anycase, you'd probably need color-depth&resolution independant paint programs to take advantage of it. It *might* be compatible with STE 4096 color pallette though... 940773[/snapback] The JRI 4096 color board just expanded the color palette to 4096 colors. It did not expand the number of colors on screen at the same time (i.e. you're still limited to 16 colors on screen at the same time). The expanded color palette was compatible with the STE's expanded color palette though. Some games such as Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and paint programs that took advantage of the STE color paletter could be used with the JRI board. However, my eyes STILL couldn't tell the difference between a picture displaying 16 colors out of 512, and 16 colors out of 4096. (I remember people kept pointing out how the shading is so much better with the 4096 color palette. Not to me unfortunately... ) BTW, having the JRI 4096 color board does not mean you can run STE-only games as they mostly use STE specific features that regular STs cannot be upgraded to. Fine scrolling is probably the biggest STE feature that can't be replicated on an upgraded ST. You have to read the system requirements in the manual/box to see if a game is ST compatible with STe enhanced features and so forth.

Actually, the JVC monitors were the first version of the SC1224. I always pick those up if I find them because they certainly are the best.

I agree that the MegaST keyboard was the best, but I got to disagree with you about the MegaSTE/TT keyboards. They were way above the regular ST/STE/Falcon keyboards. The spacing was better and it felt pretty good and comparable to the other quality keyboards out at the time. I think most will agree, but I guess it's really a matter of individual taste. The standard Atari MegaST keyboard is the highest quality and best made keyboard that Atari ever produced. The Atari MegaSTe and TT keyboards are low quality junk. It is better to use a MegaST keyboard with these machines. I had a TT keyboard and very quickly sold it on eBay, before it broke. It was not good enough for my Atari MegaST4 computer. An Atari MegaST keyboard in mint, boxed condition has a present eBay value of over $125.00. The MegaSTe and TT keyboards are valued at less then $65.00. The MegaST keyboard has seperate Cherry or Alps keyswitches from Europe. The MegaSTe and TT keyboards have cheap, low quality rubber "Chicklet" keyswitches, just like the 520ST and 1040ST. The only difference is that Atari added "springs" to fool you into thinking that the Mega STe and TT keyboards are just as nice as the MegaST keyboards, they are not. 934257[/snapback]

Hmm, I'm not sure - I know that you can use joysticks between the 8bit line of computers and the STs with no problem. Its a very subjective thing, but I like a Wico BOSS or the Wico model with the ergonomic hand grip. Best Electronics sells some pretty good joysticks, although they might be considered a little pricey. HTHs. :-) 930628[/snapback] If they work with 8-bit joysticks then they work with 2600 sticks. But do ST games make use of more than one button? Tempest 930631[/snapback] Atari 2600/8-bit joysticks work fine with the ST. No 7800 sticks though. The second button screws things up. Many games took advantage of multiple buttons by using the keyboard. So you have one button on the joystick...and 95 more buttons on the keyboard. Or does that count? Mouse games generally used two buttons though.

No, you canNOT hook up a parallel ZIP drive to the ST. Yes, you can hook up a ZIP drive via a WB Link 96/97, ICD Link 2 or AdSCSI host adapter. These plug into the ACSI port of the ST. You'll need Centronics 50 to 25 pin adapter to hook the ZIP up to the host adapter. I doubt that your BMS-100 host adapter will work as it's very old. It was one of the first generation of ST host adapters along with the original Supra and ICD host adapters. None of these support parity which the ZIP requires. You'll also need to supply +5V power to the host adapters because the ZIP can't pass power through its SCSI port.

I got mine in the Spring of 1990. I've always been an Atari enthusiast and read about the Lynx in the magazines. I could not justify spending $180 on a game machine. If only it were cheaper. They were still kind of hard to find, but better than before Christmas 1989 when everyone was sold out (and they were selling for $190 instead of $180). FAO Schwartz were the only place that sold them, and they were going fast. I remember while looking (drooling ) at the Lynxes behind the glass for about an hour, three Lynxes were sold and one guy bought two of them. Supply got better in the Spring though, but it still was too expensive for me. But good luck struck me in that at the time, I was also an Atari stockholder. Atari offered a 20% discount for all stockholders that Spring on the Lynx and its games and accessories. (They also gave a 20% discount for the Atari Portfolio products too) That brought the price down to $145. Expensive, but much better. So, I bought it along with Electrocop and Blue Lightning. Friends were impressed. Everyone wanted to play it. (I actually brought it to school) There were the usual people who hated it. (stupid Nintendo fanboys) (Digressing...) One annoying thing was that people kept saying it was "the Sega portable". Even after I clearly showed them the "Lynx" and "Atari" labels, they still thought it was not real. Even though it's right in front of them!!! Not only that, the GameGear wasn't even released yet! (idiots...) Then there were the people who said, "The TurboExpress is better". Well, duh, for one thing it was not released yet, and it wouldn't be released until a year later at double the price of the Lynx! (End of digressing...) So the Spring of 1990 was a fun time for me.

Say, can this be used in place of an EtherNEC? i.e. to make outgoing calls to a dial-up ISP line. This would be an interesting alternative if it's cheap enough and if Rory McMahon runs out of EtherNECs.