Atari 1050 addons/upgrades?

[TheEditor]

I have a 1050 that I have had for decades and I am wondering if there is something I can check, programmatically (peek) to tell me what upgrade may be installed (U.S. Doubler, Happy, etc?) so I do not have to take apart 30+ year old piece of working hardware?

 

Thanks,

T.E

 

[+MrFish]

I don't know about the other drive options, but the Happy Warp Speed disk will tell you if you've got a Happy or not.

[Ely]

The SIO2USB from AtariMax comes with a drive analysis option in the Pro part of APE. That tells me I've got a Happy so i assume it'll do it for others.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Ely

[Guest]

it's a bit hit-n-miss, tho.

because - to find out what upgrade (if any) you have you'd need to run lots of different software disks to eliminate each, and even then you're relying on a

"no ***** present/detected" message - and some software is easily fooled by other similar upgrades - esp some "happy clones".

 

 

going to be quicker - and easier to "pop the six case screws", gently raise the drive mech, take a pic of the board, and post it on here....someone will identify it very quickly for you.

Edited January 6, 2017 by Guest

[TheEditor]

Yea, I ended up popping it open and checking. I has an ICD US Doubler in it from 1985. Thanks for the replies folks.

Now, what is the best duplicator to use with the drive to make ATRs from floppies? I have been using MyCopier but I am wondering if there is something fast/better.

 

T.E

[Bryan]

You can tell to some degree by how long the busy light stays on when you close the door. Everyone seems to pick a different delay.

 

I've been reading a lot about MFM and various other magnetics topics. It's really fascinating stuff. It's also sad that flaky 1.44M floppies gave the technology such a bad reputation.

[Guest]

Yea, I ended up popping it open and checking. I has an ICD US Doubler in it from 1985. Thanks for the replies folks.

 

Now, what is the best duplicator to use with the drive to make ATRs from floppies? I have been using MyCopier but I am wondering if there is something fast/better.

 

T.E

really depends upon what you're using to make your ATRs?

 

if you're using atarimax SIO2PCusb - then ape/prosystem comes bundled with it and is pretty fast too

 

there's other options depending on the hardware used on PC side.

 

if you're using some other SIO/PC cabling, then pc software like MakeATR or ATRtools should do the trick

 

 

 

Edited January 7, 2017 by Guest

[TheEditor]

I am using my own SIO2USB cable the I created with an Inland FTDI board. Works perfect with RespeQT, reads and writes ATRs without issue. I guess I will just stay with MyCopier as it seems to support the U.S. Doubler natively.