TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) Hi, I picked up an Atari IndusGT floppy drive that's not working (repair soon to come!), but I have a few questions about it as I've never owned one. 1. Can this make copies of games similar to the abilities of the 'happy' drives? 2. Does it use more of the floppy than the standard 1050? (formatted size is larger) 3. Other than looking cool, and having a track readout, what are the benefits of having one as opposed to a standard 1050? I know that I always wanted one for my C64, but to this point I've never laid eyes on one... Thanks! Edited July 28, 2014 by TheRealAnubis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
russg Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Hi, I picked up an Atari IndusGT floppy drive that's not working (repair soon to come!), but I have a few questions about it as I've never owned one. 1. Can this make copies of games similar to the abilities of the 'happy' drives? 2. Does it use more of the floppy than the standard 1050? (formatted size is larger) 3. Other than looking cool, and having a track readout, what are the benefits of having one as opposed to a standard 1050? I know that I always wanted one for my C64, but to this point I've never laid eyes on one... Thanks! No, it won't copy like a Happy. No, it doesn't make a larger double density drive than a US Dblr 1050. It is double density, so it will make a 180K single side disk, the stock 1050 is 90k. It is neat looking, but in my experience, not as reliable as a US Dblr. 1050. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ricortes Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 The track readout is really an esoteric experience that unless you typically deal with a lot of abstraction will have little value. Just as a couple of 'for instance' if you were into cracking software, it would give you a clue as to which tracks had bad sectors which would lead to the routine that read sectors on that track. If you ran a bbs, you would see the drive step to tracks and even with the display off on your Atari would be able to tell 'They are in the download area' or 'message base' from the track reading. Atari has an automatic retry built into DOS so you get a clue to a disk going bad by both the drive sounds and the track readout when it stutters. You could get the same information from other methods of course, making the track read out somewhat redundant. The high speed I/O, syncromesh<?>, never worked right in the day. I believe it has been fixed with a few different methods. The disk is still single sided. IMHO: If they would have come stock with a DSDD mechanism it would have been a much hotter and sought after drive. Still, it is nice and whisper quiet compared to just about any other Atari drive. The drive originally came with the option to install a CP/M expansion. There's been some great work on duplicating the expansion and getting CP/M running on the Indus. http://trub.atari8.info/index.php?ref=cpm_en 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 That's the big missing feature of the Indus. Why make this ultimate programmable drive device and not make copier software for it? They would have sold twice as many IMO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) Great! All good information! I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't something that I couldn't live without... Sounds like a neat gadget but not as useful as a modified 1050, of which I have several working ones that are ready to be modded.. Thank you! Edited July 28, 2014 by TheRealAnubis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 They are quiet and look cool. The most solid drive is a 1050 us doubler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 (edited) The most solid drive is a 1050 us doubler. Are these kits still available? AND, will it work with the 'happy' mod? I did a quick search and found a lot of older articles, but nothing current... Edited July 28, 2014 by TheRealAnubis Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Atarimax has the happy 1050. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 An 810 archiver is probably the best. You can copy software that will run on any drive, where as with the happy, you can only run happy copied software on another happy drive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 I'm working on getting two 810 archives right now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 Also, I found this info: Happy Doubler - Allows you to program your Happy 1050 drives to fully emulate ICD's U.S. Doubler, including formatting disks in the U.S. sector skew (which is not normally possible!). Also allows you to re-program your drive numbers up to D8:, without touching the switches in back! This way, up to 8 - Happy 1050s can be used at once! (4 - programmed as Doublers 5-8 and another 4 - as normal). Completely software based, no installation required! Price: $19.95 (+ S&H). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 An 810 archiver is probably the best. You can copy software that will run on any drive, where as with the happy, you can only run happy copied software on another happy drive. So an 810 modded drive is better than a 1050 modded one? I didn't know about the happy copy had to use happy drive deal.. Hmmmm.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 810 archiver is more useful, the 1050 is just a better drive, modded or not. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Happy copied software will run on any drive... it's only the tricky ones where they had parameters to emulate the copy protection that were limited to Happy drives only. Personally, I don't see a modded 810 being better than a modded 1050. For starters the 1050 is a more reliable and compact unit. Also re the Indus - I also find it strange they didn't make it more soft-moddable... or maybe it is but nobody's ever bothered to try it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheRealAnubis Posted July 28, 2014 Author Share Posted July 28, 2014 Happy copied software will run on any drive... it's only the tricky ones where they had parameters to emulate the copy protection that were limited to Happy drives only. Personally, I don't see a modded 810 being better than a modded 1050. For starters the 1050 is a more reliable and compact unit. Also re the Indus - I also find it strange they didn't make it more soft-moddable... or maybe it is but nobody's ever bothered to try it. Good to know. Maybe not enough Indus drives made it to market to be hacked and messed with.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 They put some effort into supporting CP/M. They must have thought that was a bigger market than piracy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMartian Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 810 archiver is more useful, the 1050 is just a better drive, modded or not. Well, put the Super Archiver into a 1050, and you get the best of both worlds then.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Happy copied software will run on any drive... it's only the tricky ones where they had parameters to emulate the copy protection that were limited to Happy drives only. This is my recollection, as well from my original Happy 1050 in the late 8-bit era. They were called PDB's - "Pre-Defined Backups." The software title had to be analyzed and "cracked" by the folks at Happy Computers, and then they'd release a "PDB" for a specific title. As I recall, it was very few titles, and only at the end of the line for A8 computing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 Not all PDBs made Happy-only disks. Some simply had information to assist the drive in making a successful copy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thorsten Günther Posted July 28, 2014 Share Posted July 28, 2014 For (quite) exact copies of an original disk ("Atari Smash Hits Vol. 1" - there's no ATR of the original Smash Hits disks including the menu anywhere on the net), I tried the buit-in "Copy Machine III" software of my 1050 Turbo drive - worked like a charm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+wood_jl Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Not all PDBs made Happy-only disks. Some simply had information to assist the drive in making a successful copy. Now, I seem to remember that being the case. Thanks. Please move back to the U.S., Bryan! The A8 scene misses you here, and there's none in Costa Rica!!!! (Or is there????) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Now, I seem to remember that being the case. Thanks. Please move back to the U.S., Bryan! The A8 scene misses you here, and there's none in Costa Rica!!!! (Or is there????) I haven't found an Atari scene yet, but there's certainly a hi-fi scene (my other main hobby). I met a guy today who is a classical guitarist and Martin Logan dealer with $25K speakers in his house. Don't worry, I brought some A8 equipment and I'm still messing around with it. It's been really awesome living here. It's a beautiful country with friendly people and a very relaxed attitude. It's a nice change of pace from being in the US. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tregare Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 i think the reason you saw duplication upgrades for the atari drives but not the indus was the processor in the device, where the atari drives use a cost reduced 6502 compatible chip, the indus uses a z-80, and while assembly for most 8 bits is somewhat similar, it is different enough to cause a programmer issues, not to mention hardware differences in the different cpus. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Larry Posted July 29, 2014 Share Posted July 29, 2014 Happy Doubler is built into Real Dos. IIRC, you can also do formatting with SDX. (Recent thread) 1050 Happy Archiver runs Archiver software on Happy. After loading Archiver software, you can load/run Super Archiver still on your Happy. 1050 Kiwi chip file converts Happy to Archiver-compatible, also allowing loading of Archiver/Super Archiver software. (Recent thread) 1050 Happy is the most versatile drive/mod you can get. The track buffer + programability is what sets it apart! Larry 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bf2k+ Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 1050 Happy is the most versatile drive/mod you can get. The track buffer + programability is what sets it apart! I agree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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