Help a newbie Atari STe owner

[DrWoo]

Greetings.

 

I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies?

 

I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation..

 

Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos?

 

Thanks,

Kevin

[MrMaddog]

You can get adapted games (http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php) that'll run off hard drives and nearly any Atari model & TOS version. This should run on MicroCosmos...

 

I still recommend getting a floppy drive emulator as soon as you're able to though since there's still more games on disk images.

[+Tillek]

Greetings.

 

I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies?

 

I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation..

 

Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos?

 

Thanks,

Kevin

It's a shame you couldn't get the full fledged CosmosEx... I hope he does another run again, as I'd love to get a couple more.

[DrWoo]

You can get adapted games (http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php) that'll run off hard drives and nearly any Atari model & TOS version. This should run on MicroCosmos...

 

I still recommend getting a floppy drive emulator as soon as you're able to though since there's still more games on disk images.

 

Which one would you recommend?

[hunter44102]

Other than scsi what does the full cosmos have over micro? I thought it just had scsi for the mega, tt, falcon.

 

They both use raspberry pi

[+Tillek]

Other than scsi what does the full cosmos have over micro? I thought it just had scsi for the mega, tt, falcon.

 

They both use raspberry pi

It doesn't have the floppy image functionality. You can emulate a hard drive, but not a floppy drive with floppy images. (The full CosmosEx has an actual connector for an actual floppy cable that can replace your floppy drive in addition to the ACSI/SCSI connector).

[hunter44102]

OK got it. Is there a way to mount the Floppy images using a PC emulator, then copying the files to the Micro Cosmos? That would make things easier to move to emulated hard drive instead of looking for the files

[DrWoo]

I didn't mean for this to turn into a cosmos discussion. So, do I need a floppy emulator? Assuming I do and the CosmosEX full isn't available for 5 months.. What other options do I need.

 

​What do people use for there ST's to load games and Apps?? Are all of you using floppies?

[DrWoo]

Do I need a GOTEK HxC?

[tjlazer]

Yes, you can use a Gotek to boot off of .ST disk images stored on a USB drive, from a boot menu when you turn it on. But you will need to hack up your case to fit it correctly.

[DrWoo]

Any other options?

[hunter44102]

Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism

[+Tillek]

Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism

Not all games can run from a hard drive though, so he wouldn't be able to use those.

 

Though that said, if game playing isn't your focus or the games you want to play work fine from the HD, then you're pretty much set with what you have.

[zzip]

Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism

Many ST games boot from disk only and cannot be installed to hard drive, so a floppy emu still makes sense

Greetings.

 

I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies?

 

I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation..

 

Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos?

Does the STe have a floppy drive? You could always get a small pack of floppys for those games you want to play that can't be install to hard drive

 

Other than that, you won't need one.

[DrWoo]

Many ST games boot from disk only and cannot be installed to hard drive, so a floppy emu still makes sense

Does the STe have a floppy drive? You could always get a small pack of floppys for those games you want to play that can't be install to hard drive

 

Other than that, you won't need one.

 

I like that idea. Let's talk about that workflow. So I would download an image from a PC/Mac transfer it to Cosmos and then write the image from the ST HD to the floppy? What disk tools would I use?

[ParanoidLittleMan]

CosmosEx has HW floppy emiulation. So no need for Gotek, floppy disks ... Of course, it can not run originals - copy protected ones, but that should be not relevant, I guess.

Edited May 1, 2017 by ParanoidLittleMan

[zzip]

I like that idea. Let's talk about that workflow. So I would download an image from a PC/Mac transfer it to Cosmos and then write the image from the ST HD to the floppy? What disk tools would I use?

yes- if they are in .msa format, you would need the ST program "Magic Shadow Archiver", it should be easy to find. It reads the .msa file and writes it to a floppy.

 

other formats would use a different program. I'm most familiar with msa.

Edited May 1, 2017 by zzip

[DrWoo]

CosmosEx has HW floppy emiulation. So no need for Gotek, floppy disks ... Of course, it can not run originals - copy protected ones, but that should be not relevant, I guess.

 

 

The new MicroCosmosEX does not have Floppy Emulation and you can't get an the original CosmosEX until November. So I'm stuck trying to find a floppy solution.

[hunter44102]

You can use this program to write the bootable floppies to disk on a PC that has a built in floppy (up to Win7)

 

http://atari.8bitchip.info/floimgd.php

[zzip]

The new MicroCosmosEX does not have Floppy Emulation and you can't get an the original CosmosEX until November. So I'm stuck trying to find a floppy solution.

I haven't heard of the MicroCosmosEX yet, and I don't see it on Jookie's page. Is it the original cosmosex without the Raspberry Pi, or something else?

[DrWoo]

http://joo.kie.sk/cosmosex/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=58

 

Not a ton of information on it yet. It's the only solution he's currently offering. Smaller and cheaper version without Floppy Emu. Still needs a raspberry PI to operate.

[+remowilliams]

Do I need a GOTEK HxC?

 

 

It's cheap, easy, and very effective.