+Nezgar Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 (edited) Well now you can I realized I now had 4 (mostly) functioning happy drives so decided to try out a 4-drive multi-drive copy with the max 4 drives, and make a video of it! You can see 1 Drive reading, and see the proprietary SIO commands to 'broadcast' the writes to the other three drives at the same time at work, and the software would look for the confirmations back from each drive, retrying a track on a specific drive if necessary. Would love to hear any first-hand accounts of 'copy parties' back in the day where this might have been employed. Edited June 28, 2017 by Nezgar 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TXG/MNX Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 I had the backup program of CSS and did an 8 drive copy backup in the past of my blackbox harddisk only that setup is not build up now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Thanks Nezgar, nice setup there... I have never seen a 4 stack of happy drives in action before despite all the shady times and people I knew, 2 drives was the normal configuration seen even at copy parties, just loads of 2 drive setups and mostly just standard drives because 99% was cracked. Nice to see some real hardware getting fully used.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Very cool. We need more videos like this, showing the old-school stuff and not just the latest and greatest SD card gadgets. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Awesome setup! Never knew that was possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Interesting... is there a duplicate mode where the drives can do it without further computer intervention? e.g. send command to copy from D1: to D2: and the drives just do it between themselves. Also, re accidental boot of the wrong disk, usually you can just hit Reset without needing to turn the computer off and get a clean reboot. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 28, 2017 Author Share Posted June 28, 2017 (edited) Interesting... is there a duplicate mode where the drives can do it without further computer intervention? e.g. send command to copy from D1: to D2: and the drives just do it between themselves. The computer is still reading in a track from Drive 1, and then transmitting it back out to D2 D3 D4 with the special 'broadcast' SIO commands. I guess a full antonymous mode would be theoretically possible. Nothing saying a 1050 can't transmit SIO commands as if they were from a computer? Or maybe not, since there's probably an electrical reason the 10502PC and SIO2PC are different products... Full autonomous copy (like Mega Speedy?) was probably still rocket science in 1982-1986 haha. But even i think only something like Mega Speedy can do a full buffered disk copy only within the same drive because it has a huge RAM buffer, and maybe not copy protected stuff? Also, re accidental boot of the wrong disk, usually you can just hit Reset without needing to turn the computer off and get a clean reboot. Oh? I just assumed it would reset back to the menu as pretty much all the programs after the first menu are reset proof. That would make a lot of sense to help people out quickly set their drive to unhappy mode before booting a disk without a power cycle of the computer. I'll have to try that! Edited June 28, 2017 by Nezgar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 SIO has separate Data In and Out lines and I don't think the system would support a drive putting data on bus as though it were the computer. In other words, I'm not sure there's any way that stock 1050 hardware could talk drive to drive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 I should've thought of that... I think there might be some system on 1541 drives that does it but they'd be in similar situation with how the serial ports work. But they can probably change the DDR on the drive CIAs. The reboot thing - general practice is that most bootable software won't mess with the COLDST flag, or at least not until the boot is complete which allows in almost all cases to abort even at 99% completion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Happy multi-drive was an amazing. As I recently said in some other thread, I actually wonder if it was used by publishers and companies. But may be it was indeed more targeted for copy parties. LOL. It's a pity that Mr Adams is not accepting an interview with Kevin, or at least I understood he doesn't. He probably has so many interesting stories to tell. But perhaps precisely because of the "grey" usage of the Happy is that he doesn't want. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 (edited) There was always a rumour about Atari having something to do with his stopping of the backup business, others have said no but I do wonder what really happened.. I asked Scot ages ago if he knew what happened but he said that his brother kept his business very under wraps and didn't really discuss much Edited June 28, 2017 by Mclaneinc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 28, 2017 Author Share Posted June 28, 2017 (edited) It's a pity that Mr Adams is not accepting an interview with Kevin, or at least I understood he doesn't. He probably has so many interesting stories to tell. But perhaps precisely because of the "grey" usage of the Happy is that he doesn't want. I'm with you there!! Richard Adams, Bob Puff, and Michael Gustafson would be like the holy grail of interviews for Antic. Anyone who was involved in creating hardware 'backup' mods were definitely considered as something akin to dark magic voodoo masters to the rest of us back then. Edited June 28, 2017 by Nezgar 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ijor Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 There was always a rumour about Atari having something to do with his stopping of the backup business, others have said no but I do wonder what really happened.. I asked Scot ages ago if he knew what happened but he said that his brother kept his business very under wraps and didn't really discuss much A few years ago he appeared in Wikipedia. Somebody created Happy Inc and Richard Adams entries. And he posted something in the talk section shortly enough. I thought that maybe himself, or a close relative, or a close friend was the one that created the articles. I mention this because it seems that, at least at that point, he was interested in change "his very low profile" attitude. I'm with you there!! Richard Adams, Bob Puff, and Michael Gustafson would be like the holy grail of interviews for Antic. Anyone who was involved in creating hardware 'backup' mods were definitely considered as something akin to dark magic voodoo masters to the rest of us back then. Indeed. Hats off to them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mclaneinc Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 Very interesting man now involved with renewable energy it seems.. http://exoticsciences.com/ra_music.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AHA Posted June 28, 2017 Share Posted June 28, 2017 on a similar note has anyone here used archiver?, l might put a video up of that in action on my 800 & 810 if you are interested to see it, been a few years but i think both hardware and software are still good. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 28, 2017 Author Share Posted June 28, 2017 Very interesting man now involved with renewable energy it seems.. http://exoticsciences.com/ra_music.htm Great find there! "Richard used a DBA (doing business as) fictitious name for the company called "Plateau Digital Technology" This was a fictitious name for the Happy Computers Inc. corporation, that Richard started in 1983. The DBA was a simpler approach than forming a subsidiary." This man is definitely a technical wizard, beginning way before the Atari 8-Bits, and continuing way beyond. There's a paragraph there that shows how he got so familiar so familiar with the inner workings of the common WDC disk controllers every floppy drive used to use! "This expansion of the IMP16 computer was in part facilitated by using circuits Richard was given for hobbyist use while involved in a joint venture between National Semiconductor and Western Digital. The venture concerned inventive disk controller chips. Richard was one of the engineers involved in that disk controller chip project. Richard later applied the skills he learned of disk controller chips to his own inventions that he sold through a company he started called Happy Computers." Looks like the current venture is "The Sixteen Nine Time Company", with contact info on a similar note has anyone here used archiver?, l might put a video up of that in action on my 800 & 810 if you are interested to see it, been a few years but i think both hardware and software are still good. I spent 3 hours one night last week reading through the Archiver manual and trying to figure out how to create a custom sector track layout last week, as its all new to me since I only recently found software that will convert a Happy 1050 to a CHIP/Archiver ROM and convert the drive to work with the Archiver tools. Would be nice to hear a bit of an overview from someone with experience, or at least what they can remember haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phaeron Posted June 29, 2017 Share Posted June 29, 2017 I should've thought of that... I think there might be some system on 1541 drives that does it but they'd be in similar situation with how the serial ports work. But they can probably change the DDR on the drive CIAs. The 1050 can reverse direction on the PIAs as well, but the analog circuitry between it and the SIO bus is unidirectional. The Indus GT is the only drive that I have seen that is wired for both SIO peripheral and computer modes, and in theory it could do an autonomous copy with another drive. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted June 29, 2017 Share Posted June 29, 2017 Hello Phaeron The 1050 can reverse direction on the PIAs as well, but the analog circuitry between it and the SIO bus is unidirectional. We've seen lots of different upgrades in the last couple of years. Maybe one day somebody comes up with a "bidirectional" upgrade of the analog circuitry. Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 29, 2017 Share Posted June 29, 2017 The 1050 can reverse direction on the PIAs as well, but the analog circuitry between it and the SIO bus is unidirectional. The Indus GT is the only drive that I have seen that is wired for both SIO peripheral and computer modes, and in theory it could do an autonomous copy with another drive. That's interesting. I think they had big plans for that drive. We've seen lots of different upgrades in the last couple of years. Maybe one day somebody comes up with a "bidirectional" upgrade of the analog circuitry. I doubt it would be hard to do, but would anyone have a use for it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted June 29, 2017 Author Share Posted June 29, 2017 (edited) Hmm random thought I'll have to check out later... I seem to remember you can renumber happy drives in the utility menus. if it lets you renumber to 5-8 then in theory you could get 8 happy drives online with unique drive ID's.... i wonder if the multidrive backup supports drives above #4... stay tuned lol Edited June 29, 2017 by Nezgar 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Hello Bryan ... but would anyone have a use for it? Didn't they say something similar when Apple announced the iPhone ten years ago? Sincerely Mathy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bryan Posted June 30, 2017 Share Posted June 30, 2017 Hello Bryan Didn't they say something similar when Apple announced the iPhone ten years ago? Somehow I can't imagine every kid walking around with connected 1050's. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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