+orpheuswaking Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 I guess I need to change my avatar to 8 x 801's Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+David_P Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 Super Archiver II 1050. But I still miss my twin Indus drives... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+S.D.W. Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 I have an Indus GT and a Happy 1050 and I love them both. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ransom Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 I used stock 1050s back in the day, then switched to XF551s when you could get them cheap. They were great with SDX - fast and high capacity. But the PCBs kept breaking on me when ever I needed to unplug an SIO cable or move them. I had an Indus GT for a while there as well, and really liked it, but it was too hard at the time to find them (this was back in the garage sale/flea market days), so I ended up selling it since I couldn't be sure I'd have a ready supply of them if it broke. These days, I use two Happy 1050s. There are tons of 1050s out there, and AtariMax sells the 'Happy' boards, so that seems like the best option for the foreseeable future. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari_thomas Posted March 8, 2013 Share Posted March 8, 2013 I have about 10 Atari 810 stations. One (1!) of them is working fine ! I got about 15 Atari 1050 original drives, but only three of them are broken. I got about five Atari 1050 with Happy/Turbo/Speedy enhancements. None of them is working permanently flawless. I got three XFs. One XF is operating fine. One works just 'sometimes' and the other one doesn't read the backside of a disk. Best drive ever is a originally sealed Atari 1050. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 You could also manage to write a bad sector on a 1050 by pressing down on the disk sufficiently to slow it down Took some practice but Ive managed to copy bad sectored disks this way without a Happy/laser etc Now I really remember those days... fondly. The old "user group" meetings in the basement of the local churches/rec centers, etc..... I always found the "slight twist" worked best! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
idavis Posted March 9, 2013 Share Posted March 9, 2013 We just kept the cover loose on our US Doubled 1050. We would use a disktool to check rpms, then drop them down with a pot adjustment, write to the sectors you wanted "bad" and then turn the speed back up. IIRC the normal speed was around 288 rpms. But it's been a while. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACML Posted March 21, 2013 Author Share Posted March 21, 2013 (edited) I've got more data that says it's the 810 for me. Found two 1050s and a MPI 810. first 1050 spins, but no read = no good second 1050 no spin= no good MPI 810 =works perfectly!+30 years old and runs like a champ! Edited March 21, 2013 by ACML Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kamakazi Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 I'm responding a little bit late to this thread but my first encounter with any Atari drives was back in 1998. An old consignment store (more like a second-hand store) had an XEGM with 2 XF551 drives, a SX212 Modem, a 1010, and an OkiData color printer. It all worked flawlessly and I never had an issue with the drives. The XEGM was complete with keyboard, all cartridges, and light gun as well. I had a blast with it. Later, not knowing just what I had, I traded it off for another Atari console which I regret to this day. It wouldn't have mattered much since happenings in my life since that trade-off would have ended up with me losing it anyway. I later acquired an 800 but I never got a floppy drive and instead could only afford a 1010 which I did like. I now have another XEGM and, thanks to Lance, I have a 810 drive. Although I am not sure exactly which 810 I have. The casing is cracked due to aging (and possibly a rough trip during shipping) but the mechanism is solid and works flawlessly. I wouldn't part with it for anything. I can deal with the single-side disk issues and I hope to get my hands on a couple of 1050s soon. I don't need them modified. Original works fine for me. I do, however, hope to get an 800 or 800XL as I don't like the XE keyboards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 I'm responding a little bit late to this thread but my first encounter with any Atari drives was back in 1998. An old consignment store (more like a second-hand store) had an XEGM with 2 XF551 drives, a SX212 Modem, a 1010, and an OkiData color printer. It all worked flawlessly and I never had an issue with the drives. The XEGM was complete with keyboard, all cartridges, and light gun as well. I had a blast with it. Later, not knowing just what I had, I traded it off for another Atari console which I regret to this day. It wouldn't have mattered much since happenings in my life since that trade-off would have ended up with me losing it anyway. I later acquired an 800 but I never got a floppy drive and instead could only afford a 1010 which I did like. I now have another XEGM and, thanks to Lance, I have a 810 drive. Although I am not sure exactly which 810 I have. The casing is cracked due to aging (and possibly a rough trip during shipping) but the mechanism is solid and works flawlessly. I wouldn't part with it for anything. I can deal with the single-side disk issues and I hope to get my hands on a couple of 1050s soon. I don't need them modified. Original works fine for me. I do, however, hope to get an 800 or 800XL as I don't like the XE keyboards. An ICD US Doubler upgrade is simply the way Atari should have shipped the 1050 in the 1st place, penny pinching limited the buffer capacity which created the 1050s limited DUAL density. The 6810P buffer chip is replaced to make the hardware capable of true double density and then upgraded firmware to make use of the extra buffer plus add triple speed I/O. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted May 26, 2014 Share Posted May 26, 2014 810? A poll would have been useful for this "beauty contest..." 810 -- single density only, fairly unreliable overall -- especially the first two years of units. B--I--G and pretty noisy. Happy 810 made it much more useful. 1050 -- SD, ED. Can be easily upgraded to Happy 1050 with the track buffer and other useful features like DD. With a Tandon mech, built like a tank. XF551 -- SD, ED, DD, double sided. Easily upgraded to a 720K drive for increased storage and improved reliability. Tough choice, but I'd say 1050 Happy first place with XF551 a close second. 810? Nice for collectors. -Larry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 US Doubled 1050 does it for me, haven't owned any other drive and I currently have a collection of 8 1050 drives all in working condition. 810 is too big, Indus is too flashy and expensive (or was expensive), Happy 1050 was unnecessary as I wasn't into copying protected disks, XF looks like a PC floppy drive, wasn't interested with other 3rd party drives so 1050 with a US doubler was the ultimate disk setup for me and still is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Never had a 1050 back in the day. Now I do: all I can say is it's noisy but looks nice. However, I've had my XF running trouble-free and quiet for twenty-five years and all my disks are DS/DD. If the mech dies, it can be replaced fairly easily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Never had a 1050 back in the day. Now I do: all I can say is it's noisy but looks nice. However, I've had my XF running trouble-free and quiet for twenty-five years and all my disks are DS/DD. If the mech dies, it can be replaced fairly easily. Well.. that last point could end up in a big disappointment. I bought myself a nice 5.25" PC mech, but that mech did everything, but only wanted to format and read 360K floppies... and only the ones that were created with THAT mech. (not the 360K disks I had from my original XF551 mech). The XF551 is a very nice diskdrive, but not out of the box. The original rom has a few problems (especially with the density check). With a fixed ROM the XF551 turns into a beast of drive, which is very reliable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Is that why the drive could never pull itself out of single density mode unless DOS sent a PERCOM command (the BIOS bugs, I mean)? I remember this was an issue when using MyDOS. SDX was fine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 I think so yes. When the XF551 came out, I already had one pretty soon on my desk. Since I was -back then- mixing up DOS 2.0S and DOS 2.5 all the time (I was a kid, I had no idea why the first dos gave only 707 sectors, and the other dos 999+ sectors after format) I soon discovered this nasty problem with swapping these kind of disks. A few years ago I finally started appreciating my XF551 again, after I installed an OS upgrade, which also gave a few more extra's. IIRC it was created by Stephan Dorndorf (also creator of QMEG OS). Well... that was a huge improvement. So yes... the XF551 has certainly the potential of being THE ultimate a8 diskdrive. I'm looking forward to the new XF551 PCB. It must be extremely exciting to improve the diskdrive and give it a second life. On the other side... I dislike non-matching design (XL with an XF551 is terrible, and XE with 1050 is even worse) ... and since my first choice will always be XL ... I guess a happy 1050 will be the winner in the end for me. A happy is also a very fine upgrade. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Muzz73 Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 I have owned five 1050's in my time (still have one) and they never let me down. I've only owned one XF551 (acquired it in a trade). I can't say for longevity's sake, because it didn't work with some of my older software, so I never used it and decided to get rid of it. I offered it for trade on usenet years ago, nobody took me up on it, so I eventually gave it away (yes, I now see the error in my reticent behavior and yes, I would love to have it back). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
576XE Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 There are no one preferable! Only beloved! I think (in theory) that Indus GT and clones is slightly more preferable because of the ability to give Atari CP/M I have learned strange creations like LDW Super 2000 and D.8002.HS. Both of them was slightly silly then IBM's of this generation. (It's no suggestion. It's imagination!) But I never know that I can use CP/M with LDW... Thus one part of my life gone... The second. I Don't like black bricks for atari at all! I love grey! My opinion that LDW has much more tender mechanism then D.8002.HS. This fact forced me to bye D.8002.HS and then there was a day when I dropped it down occasionally. There was the end. Now I need Indus GT, but it's very expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 i just found this, maybe of interest to XF551 owners. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 hmm can't decide: I got 2 Percom drives, 2 Indus GT, AMDEK dual 3" floppy, Floppy 2000, XFD602, 4x normal XF551, XF551 (modded 3.5), XF modded XF Speedy, 3x normal 1050, 3x 1050 Happy, 3x 1050 mini speedy 1050, 1x 1050 Turbo, 1x 1050 Supermax, 1x 1050 US Doubler, 1x 1050 Archiver, 810 with archiver, HDI (3.5" HD floppy), 2x RANA Also Blackbox (3x) and 1 Floppy board, Karin Floppy interface and much more... I am sure I forgot some but don't have the space (yet) to put all the drives on a desk... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
576XE Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Decide? Don't even try! You are the famous of happys who are able!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 (edited) Decide? Don't even try! You are the famous of happys who are able!!! The most lucky are the people with 320KB in on the outside of their XE *evil grin* Edited May 27, 2014 by ProWizard Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atari8warez Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 hmm can't decide: I got 2 Percom drives, 2 Indus GT, AMDEK dual 3" floppy, Floppy 2000, XFD602, 4x normal XF551, XF551 (modded 3.5), XF modded XF Speedy, 3x normal 1050, 3x 1050 Happy, 3x 1050 mini speedy 1050, 1x 1050 Turbo, 1x 1050 Supermax, 1x 1050 US Doubler, 1x 1050 Archiver, 810 with archiver, HDI (3.5" HD floppy), 2x RANA Also Blackbox (3x) and 1 Floppy board, Karin Floppy interface and much more... I am sure I forgot some but don't have the space (yet) to put all the drives on a desk... Wow!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Hmm did find me 2 mio interfaces in a box didn't even knew i got two of those :-) I have two 130xe with 320kb and 1 with my own build 1 meg simm upgrade... Also an 800xl with home build 65c816 Found me a romdisk pcb with eproms that acts like a diskdrive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
576XE Posted May 27, 2014 Share Posted May 27, 2014 Just now I've kill my little SIO2SD It's needs reflashing... ... My fault Oh God!!! Are they need to be refreshed every month? Mathy I know about the fuses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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