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Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative


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Logic analyzer as a viable alternative for Atari 8-bit floppy preservation?  While looking into the Kryoflux and SuperCard Pro I stumbled upon this page, "Preserving a floppy disk with a logic analyzer and a serial cable".  Could the 810/1050 drives be used for preservation using this method?  How easy/hard do you think it would be to hook everything up to a logic analyzer, or just using an old PC drive instead?  Has anyone here tried this method?

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8 hours ago, Porkchops & Applesauce said:

@ijor Oh man, where to begin?  I actually worked for a couple duplication companies in Silicon Valley during the early 90's.  Major clients then are still big today; Microsoft, Apple and Adobe just to name a few.  Most of the software where I worked saw business applications or firmware updates (how it was done pre-internet), but there were a few game companies like Activision, at the time Mediagenic.

 

Thanks a lot . Mostly out of curiosity, do you know/remember which kind of duplicating equipment they used? I understand that Trace Mountain was the most common industrial duplicators at that period.

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8 hours ago, Porkchops & Applesauce said:

Logic analyzer as a viable alternative for Atari 8-bit floppy preservation?  While looking into the Kryoflux and SuperCard Pro I stumbled upon this page, "Preserving a floppy disk with a logic analyzer and a serial cable".  Could the 810/1050 drives be used for preservation using this method?  How easy/hard do you think it would be to hook everything up to a logic analyzer, or just using an old PC drive instead?  Has anyone here tried this method?

 

I didn't try myself, but I don't see why this wouldn't work. Using a PC drive should be straightforward. It is certainly possible to connect to a 1050 (or 810) Atari drive, but has some issues. In first place you don't have the index pulse, which is, at least, important. In second place, you need to compensate for the different rotation speed, but this is not big deal. Last but not least, these Atari drives don't use the simple step motor control that more modern drives have. You need 4 pins/wires to control the 4 phases step motor.

 

Note that a good logic analyzer, like the one Christian used in that article, is not much cheaper (if at all) than a SuperCard Pro.

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On 10/28/2019 at 11:43 AM, BigBen said:

The discs are from the luckybuck (Roland).

Both are the same versions, as currently in the torrent.

In both cases the two last sectors differ (719 is used for copy protection, 720 I dunno).

And SynTrend is a bad dump with three more sectors differing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 10/28/2019 at 1:19 PM, manterola said:

That is interesting... I never saw that game as a stand alone game before. 

It is correct that this pong game (can be used for 1 player, or fronton, or 2 players more like classic pong) was used as a way to entertain you while waiting for another game to load. This was very innovative at the time in Chile and it actually made the waiting less tedious. The cassette loader also included error recovery so you don't need to start over if an error occurred, you just needed to rewing the tape few seconds. Cassettes with this loading system and games were sold in retails stores in Chile probably end of 80s or beginning of the 90s, which were quite popular. 

As far as I know, a group of chilean Atarians met with the creator and reproduced/recover the sources and compiled a binary, so now you can create your own tapes with games using the system. 

What is great now is that I'll be able to play this point game without the need of a tape recorder. 

Great job! 

 

 

Hi! I was one of the team who restored the Turbo Tenis from Chile. It took a very long time to restore the source, as we started with a printed source that it was very buggy. Also, the tape creator make heavy changes on the OS tape routine, such as:

 

- Change the initial IRG from 20 to 15 seconds.

- Changes in the short IRGs length from 250 to 100 miliseconds.

- Added an ID block number so the error recovery routine can identify the resuming.

- Added FSK signals so it can't be copied with standard programs.

 

Our goal was to reproduce the "look and feel" from that time, as if you were loading an original tape from Turbo software. The FSK signals recording were reproduced, as well as all the timings.

 

We also added some features, such as:

 

- PAL compatibility in the recording and playing process (believe me, the original tapes doesn't work on PAL machines, specially because the FSK signals).

- Created a new version which makes the tape at 800 bps. We realized that the OS support natively that speed.

 

I hope I contribute a little about it. Regards!

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fondo.jpg

 

The official turbo software documents can be found in an article that I created on the next page. https://dogdarka8.blogspot.com/2018/06/copiador-turbo-software.html. The work took almost 4 years to finish it to make it available to all users on the web thanks to the gentile of Wilheim

codigos_finales.atr copiador_turbo_software.atr Turbo_Software_mas_codigos.atr turbo_software_stac.atr

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Happy New Year!

 

Dump of a collection of disks from eBay of mostly utilities, which looks like it may contain some rares/missing. Some might be PD due to content/no protection but not sure so included scans.

 

130 X.E. Disk Copier was the on the B side of RAM-DOS XL

Smarty was the on the B side of GamesPac 7 - 8 Bit Arcade

 

Collection 7

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Cdj3oSciabpmilLkQIbcfdjVEnZ37ovy/view?usp=sharing

 

Previous Collections

https://drive.google.com/file/d/111QioYca414ZbD64bQ88WhcMawlxD9iS/view?usp=sharing

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

Thank you sooo much Timothy, greatly appreciated! ?

Just took a look inside the archive and missed:

Atari BASIC Version B: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Atari BASIC#section-Atari+BASIC-CARImages

OSS BASIC XE - BASIC XE Extension Disk: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Basic XE#section-Basic+XE-ATRImage

OSS BASIC XL Toolkit: 2 sides!: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Basic XL#section-Basic+XL-ATRImages

OSS MAC/65 1.0, 1.02 and so on, further the ATRs: https://atariwiki.org/wiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Mac65#section-Mac65-ROMImages

EDIT 6502 CAR and ATR : sadly, AtariWiki hasn't got a go from Ken L. from LJK Enterprises, Inc.

Microsoft BASIC II (1982)(Atari)(US)[cartridge]: here the additional disk is missing

Missile Command (1981)(Atari)(US)[cartridge].zip: here the version for the XEGS(?) is missing, which supports the trackball

Strip Poker (1983)(Artworx)(US)[disk]: the Data Disks are missing? OMG what a miss... please see the attachment, when > 18 ;-)

Turbo-DOS XL-XE v2.1 (1992)(KE-Soft)(DE)[disk]: Version 2.0 ?

TURBO-BASIC XL? Genuine type-in from the magazine?

 

2,538 titles!!!!!!!! OMG what a work!!!!!!

1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif1979414947_goteam(animated).gif.93e1a3f75219f67f4951f55dccaa5260.gif

 

 

SP.7z

Edited by luckybuck
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