+DrVenkman Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 2 minutes ago, Savetz said: Lastly, this janky cart in a duct tape case, won't boot. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ How bizarre. Is it a Right Cart maybe? In any case, it would be interesting to see if the ROMS could be dumped to see what's on them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 10 minutes ago, Savetz said: Next, two copies of Cable Graphic Sciences. 1984. I think this is called INFO/gen and is dumped already. That's how mine looks too... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Cool to see these being preserved. I wish I had some old VHS recordings of my local cable provider using this system around the 1986 time period. I immediately knew they were using an 8-bit Atari for their display systems. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Quite amazing there were that many companies into this niche market producing software / hardware for the Atari. I remember seeing a scrolling message with the standard Atari font running on a hotel channel in Las Vegas as late as 1998! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 18, 2020 Share Posted May 18, 2020 The janky cartridge will probably clean up just fine and work, it could be a cart that relies on a dos or information stream to init and run also... I'd bet on a good cleaning working nicely though... just don't plug it in backwards... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted May 18, 2020 Author Share Posted May 18, 2020 3 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said: The janky cartridge will probably clean up just fine and work, it could be a cart that relies on a dos or information stream to init and run also... I'd bet on a good cleaning working nicely though... just don't plug it in backwards... Tried this morning, didn't help. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted May 18, 2020 Share Posted May 18, 2020 (edited) hmm, more likely it would work like it's fellow offerings using a boot cassette not disk, DOS or disk might have been a poor suggestion on my part. After that would it then be possible information pulled from from a dongle or kludge as we've seen with some of these system. Might you have some cassettes associated with these beasts? I wouldn't be surprised if they have the datasette players somewhere with the cassette still in it if not provided yet. The janky cartridge doesn't look to have uv erase windows on the chips though, maybe identifiable numbers are on the chips? Might turn out to be something standard yanked so their stuff could be put into it's donor cartridge shell. Edited May 18, 2020 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted June 9, 2020 Author Share Posted June 9, 2020 I scanned INFO/soft manuals: https://archive.org/details/info-soft-3000-5000-and-7000-display-systems-manual-images https://archive.org/details/info-soft-5000-display-systems-manual https://archive.org/details/info-soft-6080-vcr-controller There is some really interesting stuff in here. The list of potential applications for their character generator: hotels, apartments, hospitals, transportation, convenience stores, schools, Indian reservations, government offices, military bases, factories, corporate offices, banks, trade shows, golf courses... Ataris were working everywhere. And there's plenty of technical bits about replacing a cable channel with the Atari's output for distribution to hotel rooms, and automatic insertion of Atari-generated ads using DTMF tones. Versions of the software were available that let hotel operators only access 20 screens to display; the rest could be accessed remotely only by a third-party advertiser. There's information about the VCR controller add-on, and external control lines operated by the joystick ports. -Kay 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+orpheuswaking Posted June 10, 2020 Share Posted June 10, 2020 I love reading this info, thanks for showing all of this Kay. Now time for me to go listen to the interview. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scooter83 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 (edited) Just wanting to confirm it ( info/gen) works with any system not married to a system with hardware mods. The cable company computer isn't anything special that needs to stay married to the cart Edited March 3, 2023 by Scooter83 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scooter83 Posted March 3, 2023 Share Posted March 3, 2023 My boot screen looks different than safety 1984 boot screen. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 7 hours ago, Scooter83 said: My boot screen looks different than safety 1984 boot screen. Can you make a dump of this version? it's the Cassette version I haven't seen yet... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 Looking back through this brought back some memory's.. Had another look at the original encore dump and found a couple of interesting things. It appears the erase text routine has a problem. Wounder how the 6502 will handle the $9B? 2nd is with cassette routine. Either Bit rot or this routine wasn't tested. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Savetz Posted March 4, 2023 Author Share Posted March 4, 2023 So all this reminds me that I haven't yet dumped the carts that I got in 2020 (pictured earlier in this thread.) What's the best current way to dump carts that doesn't require Windows? I can use Linux or Mac. -Kay Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sup8pdct Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 1 hour ago, Savetz said: So all this reminds me that I haven't yet dumped the carts that I got in 2020 (pictured earlier in this thread.) What's the best current way to dump carts that doesn't require Windows? I can use Linux or Mac. -Kay If i wanted to dump a cartridge, I would use a monitor program like Supermon. (maybe omnimon or qmeg would do similar thing) Simply plug in cart, turn on, enter monitor, boot dos (NOT Dos 2.0) and write out the cart to file on disk. A less desirable method is boot dos, move screen down then insert cart and hope for the best. This most likely wont work on standard xl/xe as os detects cart removal/insert and does a reset. To make it work as a file on another real computer, you would need to create a small program to move the screen memory below where the cart rom was then append cart file to load and run after. That was how it was done back in the day till people did copy protection on the carts by writing to cart memory. Only way around that was a bit of hardware that was inserted into the cart slot to write protect ram or find the code that wrote to cart area. Sometimes that would be hard to find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 4, 2023 Share Posted March 4, 2023 (edited) Atarimax or Jindroush cart dumper. Edited March 4, 2023 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dean Wittmann Posted August 10, 2023 Share Posted August 10, 2023 Yes, the Information Display System and Cartridge to Disk utilities were both written by me (Dean Wittmann). The Atari 800 wasn't my first computer, the first computer I owned at 15 years of age was the Radio Shack Model I with cassette tape backup. I self-taught myself to program in Z80 and integer Basic on that machine. The Atari 400/800 was 6502C based and I self-taught myself those assembly languages too. I was a teacher in the Atari club in SLC, UT. My passion at that time, as is most teenagers is to have fun, so in order to get as many games as possible, I was able to use my assembly language knowledge to break into cartridge and disk programs by bypassing or re-routing code that was used at the time to prevent copying. There were other factors too. I had a super modified Atari 800, modified by an electrical engineer that was also a part of the SLC, UT, Atari club at that time. That enabled me to grab cartridge programs that would have been otherwise unbreakable. I published the cartridge to disk utilities in an Atari magazine. I was approached by Ensign Communications to create an application for the Atari 400 to be used for closed-circuit TV in the Red Lion Hotel located in downtown SLC. It was all done in 6502C assembly language and I was proud to see it working in the hotel shortly thereafter. I think I was paid around $1000 at the time. A lot of money for me at the time. Where that application went from there, I don't know, but due to these posts and other mentions, it went further than just 1 hotel. I don't know who James Marshburn is, but from what I hear, there was additional functionality added and maybe a bug or two fixed. Thanks to Savetz for the interview with Dean and Max Derhak. It was fun. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.