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Picked up 1040STf, need some cheap accessories


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Hey all, got a cheap 1040ST (finally), taking delivery later today, hoping it at least boots.

 

Need some recommendations to get this sucker on a monitor, I need a mouse, and if possible an ASCI->SCSI adapter.

 

Looking to just get it going on the cheap. I'm living in Norcal in Monterey County, but I commute to Milpitas (East? Silicon Valley). Wondering what folks would recommend?

 

I was thinking of going to a weird stuff warehouse and picking up a couple cheap SCSI HDDs, hoping to find a monitor as well. I don't know if an ST>VGA cable is the way to go or how hard it is to find a cable/monitor combo that supports color instead of just mono. I work near Best Electronics, was thinking of picking up the ST>VGA cable there.

 

Funds limited, hoping to verify it's at least bringing up the desktop, just want to see what people would recommend. Going to check out the PSU when I get it, I assume I'll want to check for distended caps first, correct?

 

Also for Serial -> TCP/IP, I was told a UDS10 adapter was a good buy.

 

Thanks much,

-Andy

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What is the exact model # that you have? Example; 1040STf, 1040STE, 1040STfm?

 

If you have a modulated model (the "m" designation in the name), you can build a composite cable (or buy one) fairly inexpensively. That'd allow you to hook it up to a TV or composite monitor. It might not look great, but it'd get you to see if the thing boots up without funneling too much cash into it up front.

 

Mice are not difficult to come by. Check ebay, but don't pay much for a used one. You could try getting a genuine STM1 (the stock, gray mouse) used and as cheaply as possible, just to get you going. You can always get the parts to rebuild it from Best later on.

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Those Acsi - Scsi cables can cost a pretty penny. Best bet for mass storage is an Ultransatan or Satan memory card adaptor. They can seem expensive, but they work really well and are probably a good deal cheaper both in short and long term than a adaptor cable, such as a Link.

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Initially I would buy a basic ST to TV scart cable as with that you will get sound and picture, doing this will just to get you going so you can spend a little time looking for a monitor.

 

Rather than spending on SCSI hard drives like already mentioned I would say hold off and get a Ultrasatan Disc (Get the drive from Lotharek and get PP's Hard Disk driver), it only took a few days through UPS to get to the UK from Poland and PP emails you his driver quickly once you send payment through Paypal.

 

Literally just go bare minimum with spend initially, you don't need a lot to just get a picture onto a TV, once you have it running this way then start looking into the extra items you are after.

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Yeah, I looked at the HxC floppy emu and UltraSATAn. I saw those composite cables in ebay, guess I could pick one of those up in the meantime, at least that way I'll have an extra monitor connector for hacking apart later.

 

What about updating TOS chips? I'm sure it's a 6 chip tos 1.00, what's the easiest way to get 1.04 or is there a better rev I should use?

 

Ram upgrade recommendations also welcome, I have a ton of SIMMS lying around, so would rather go that way.

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Yeah, I looked at the HxC floppy emu and UltraSATAn. I saw those composite cables in ebay, guess I could pick one of those up in the meantime, at least that way I'll have an extra monitor connector for hacking apart later.

 

What about updating TOS chips? I'm sure it's a 6 chip tos 1.00, what's the easiest way to get 1.04 or is there a better rev I should use?

 

Ram upgrade recommendations also welcome, I have a ton of SIMMS lying around, so would rather go that way.

Make sure you have a "M" model if you get a composite cable. The non-M models do not output composite video.

Scart is useless in the US unless you have some sort of device that accepts it, like an XRGB, but even that device is J-scart.

 

SIMMs are used in the STE and think the Mega models.

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Make sure you have a "M" model if you get a composite cable. The non-M models do not output composite video.

Scart is useless in the US unless you have some sort of device that accepts it, like an XRGB, but even that device is J-scart.

 

SIMMs are used in the STE and think the Mega models.

 

I'm looking at that ST-Freaks site (UK), they have a nice looking SIMM board for 1040STf's

 

I don't have the "M", my old 520STfm was, but sold that in the 90s, the 1040STf I picked up is yellow as heck on the outside, but the inside looks pristine, it even had a repair tag from a San Jose Computer repair shop. Drive seems to read disks, but gotta get a mouse/video going. I played around on STeem all weekend, setup a HD image. Going to consider UltraSATAn or if possible I wanna piece together an actual HDD, but we'll see.

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Starting to feel less and less thrilled about getting this ST up and running. Money!

 

Anyone have any opinion on the Marpet 4mb ram upgrade? Looks like you have to clip 4 resistors in order to disable the 1mb onboard ram, since I don't think you can have 3mb ram (1 onboard + 2 on upgrade), even though it looks like 2.5mb upgrade is possible (2 on upgrade + 512kb onboard on a 520st).

 

Also, the best electronics monitor cable that claims to do all 3 resolutions, anyone tried this? I have a couple old dell vga lcd screens, what are the odds they'll do 15khz freq?

 

I work at a cable shop, I should build one of these if I can find the DIN plug part#, and schematic.

 

Maybe I'll just focus on getting tos 1.04 and the monitor going for now.

 

edit: poked around online, 15kHz(H) freqency VGA monitors are not too common, at least the 3 monitors I have don't do 15kHz, and I can't find exact specs for my HDtv, but I suspect an ST to Component video won't work for some reason. I don't knows, so confusing.

 

-A.

 

ps. thanks for all the comments you guys. I know I'm asking obvious questions, and i'm sure I could find the answers, but sometimes you just want one answer and the web can get saturated with various answers from time to time.

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You mgiht want to look at Jookie's latest efforts, instead of the Ultrasatan:

 

 

http://joo.kie.sk/?page_id=384

 

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26088&start=75

 

Hopefully, he should be releasing it soon. I think he's working on the DB19

problem at this moment...

 

Yeah, you mentioned that guy a while ago, thanks for linking it again. Hopefully I can afford it once he's ready for production. That with my Incognito 800 should make for an awesome Atari battlestation.

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Starting to feel less and less thrilled about getting this ST up and running. Money!

 

Anyone have any opinion on the Marpet 4mb ram upgrade? Looks like you have to clip 4 resistors in order to disable the 1mb onboard ram, since I don't think you can have 3mb ram (1 onboard + 2 on upgrade), even though it looks like 2.5mb upgrade is possible (2 on upgrade + 512kb onboard on a 520st).

 

Also, the best electronics monitor cable that claims to do all 3 resolutions, anyone tried this? I have a couple old dell vga lcd screens, what are the odds they'll do 15khz freq?

 

I work at a cable shop, I should build one of these if I can find the DIN plug part#, and schematic.

 

Maybe I'll just focus on getting tos 1.04 and the monitor going for now.

 

edit: poked around online, 15kHz(H) freqency VGA monitors are not too common, at least the 3 monitors I have don't do 15kHz, and I can't find exact specs for my HDtv, but I suspect an ST to Component video won't work for some reason. I don't knows, so confusing.

 

-A.

 

ps. thanks for all the comments you guys. I know I'm asking obvious questions, and i'm sure I could find the answers, but sometimes you just want one answer and the web can get saturated with various answers from time to time.

The DIN is a 13-pin and you can get them easy enough. The easiest way to get the ST displayed for those of us in the USA is to get a SCART to YUV (composite) device from ebay.

They cost like $30 or something. Then build or buy a DIN 13 to SCART cable. All you would need is a LCD that takes component (RGB). Naybe an HDMI device would work too, but I've never done it.

However, you will find the problem to be that that setup only works well for 60Hz (NTSC) things. Many, many things on the ST run at 50Hz however. Mostly our TV's and even the YUV devices do not like 50Hz and it won't work when the ST switched to 50Hz. Games do this commonly given the ST's popularity in Europe.

Bottom line... Atari monitor SC1224. Gives you the best low-med resolution usefulness.

 

I should also add, that if the ST is, again, not an M model, it doesn't have composite and most YUV converters need composite for sync.

I had very limited success getting a non M model to display on anything that wasn't the Atari monitor.

Edited by Official Ninja
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Hey I work at a job shop (custom cables), so i'm making a ST-HI->VGA adapter. I was looking at the best-electronics 2-in-1 cable which I assume needs a scart -> yuv device for color. Is there one of these devices that'll pick up either the 15khz color or 30khz mono signal and display it correctly, or do I need to just disconnect the yuv device when I want to switch to hi res?

 

Curious if anyone has the schematic for the 2-in-1 cable design? I can find the hi-res version all over the place online, but the color version has me confused.

 

-A.

Edited by Android8675
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I've been using the Marpet upgrades for years without issue. 2.5 is a good compromise if you don't want to snip anything although its a fairly easy operation to reverse if you are even vaguely compentent with soldering iron and are careful where you make you snips. 2.5mb will be enough for most things though.

 

You could try looking for Amiga and (although unlikely in the US) Acorn colour monitors based around the Phillips design from the same time period also, as these are virtually the same as the ST one with different casings. They may need a different cable but it sounds like you are sorted on that front.

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Hey all, got a cheap 1040ST (finally), taking delivery later today, hoping it at least boots.

 

Need some recommendations to get this sucker on a monitor, I need a mouse, and if possible an ASCI->SCSI adapter.

 

Looking to just get it going on the cheap. I'm living in Norcal in Monterey County, but I commute to Milpitas (East? Silicon Valley). Wondering what folks would recommend?

 

I was thinking of going to a weird stuff warehouse and picking up a couple cheap SCSI HDDs, hoping to find a monitor as well. I don't know if an ST>VGA cable is the way to go or how hard it is to find a cable/monitor combo that supports color instead of just mono. I work near Best Electronics, was thinking of picking up the ST>VGA cable there.

 

Funds limited, hoping to verify it's at least bringing up the desktop, just want to see what people would recommend. Going to check out the PSU when I get it, I assume I'll want to check for distended caps first, correct?

 

Also for Serial -> TCP/IP, I was told a UDS10 adapter was a good buy.

 

Thanks much,

-Andy

 

Not to interrupt the thread, but I hope you attend the Sunnyvale Atari Party since you are in the Bay Area, Andy!

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Alah H. over at Atari Forums has an 8 meg kit for the Mega ST's....

 

Kinda weird that it would only work for a Mega ST… I could possibly understand a Mega STe considering all of the architecture changes as well as TOS updates.

 

Which reminds me, is there a TOS ROM switch adapter like the various OS switch boards for the Atari 8-bits?

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Kinda weird that it would only work for a Mega ST… I could possibly understand a Mega STe considering all of the architecture changes as well as TOS updates.

 

Which reminds me, is there a TOS ROM switch adapter like the various OS switch boards for the Atari 8-bits?

 

I think its because it relies on the Mega ST's internal bus adaptor port.

 

There have been several TOS adaptors over the years, but they are a bit hard to

come by now.

 

Here are some links to some interesting threads and one to Lothareks Lair (ST section).

 

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=26358

 

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=24467

 

http://www.lotharek.pl/category.php?kid=16

 

HTHs.

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Not to interrupt the thread, but I hope you attend the Sunnyvale Atari Party since you are in the Bay Area, Andy!

 

I Emailed Bill, and I'm on the list! I'm bringing my 800 with Incognito for people to play around with. If anything the board just looks cool, but I'm trying to load some demos to the CF card for easy showing.

 

So yeah, I'll be there. Possibly with wife it tow, but she get's distracted easily so so unless the arcade games pique her interest she may or may not be there.

 

At any rate, so my ST thing. I keep wanting to just get one of those GBS-8220 cards and using that for color, but then I had some free time and my schematic skills are shit, but I loaded up Visio and tried to lay out how I could make a switch box for STf that allows Color and Mono without having to unplug... stuff.

 

I'm not even sure I got this figured out, basically I figure I could run the ST vid to a 2-1 VGA switch, one output goes to the GBS-8220 (upscaler thing) for color to VGA, and the other port would skip the card and just go right to the output port.

 

Is this something I could do with 1 VGA switch or would I need another?

 

http://imgur.com/Y0UGAmK

 

I'm sure I'm over thinking this, but what I wouldn't give for an all-in-one solution.

 

Any ideas?

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What can you actually do with the RAM above 4MB on an ST or STE? Is it primarily used for RAM Disk purposes? Maybe load TOS completely into a portion of it, or perhaps GDOS too?

 

One of the links I found seemed to imply theoretically it could be expanded to 20MB… 4MB "ST RAM" and - to borrow the Amiga term - 16MB "Chip RAM" [or Fast RAM]. Now I could understand "Fast RAM" - or "TT RAM" - if the ST had a 68030 added to it but not a 68000 with the stock MMU.

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What can you actually do with the RAM above 4MB on an ST or STE? Is it primarily used for RAM Disk purposes? Maybe load TOS completely into a portion of it, or perhaps GDOS too?

 

One of the links I found seemed to imply theoretically it could be expanded to 20MB… 4MB "ST RAM" and - to borrow the Amiga term - 16MB "Chip RAM" [or Fast RAM]. Now I could understand "Fast RAM" - or "TT RAM" - if the ST had a 68030 added to it but not a 68000 with the stock MMU.

 

Partial credit!

 

With TOS 2.05 or later, or MagiC (and presumably FreeMiNT) - from what I can dredge up - these boards supplement the MMU in the ST adding up to an extra 12MB.

 

I found this on the Sound on Sound Atari pages: "Even though the ST's memory-management unit (MMU) can actually only handle 4Mb, the Magnum card supplements this, working in tandem with the ST's MMU to access the full 16Mb."

 

Your Amiga analogy is bob-on. ST-RAM is like ChipRAM, in that the chipset and CPU need access to it because all the I/O is memory mapped there, the Video Shifter needs access to it to generate the display... so there's bus contention. TT-RAM is like FastRAM - the chipset doesn't need to access it so the CPU doesn't need to worry about being locked out of accessing it.

 

So, I don't think games and TOS binaries will be able to see the extra memory, but after the installation of the driver to access the new MMU, I'm guessing it just gets mapped into the free memory pool - providing there's OS support.

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