Best options to read in floppy media used with Indus GT?

[jmccorm]

I finally want to access and archive my old floppies in storage.

I primarily used an Indus GT, which I think did Single, Enhanced, and Double Density... but single sided? What are my options to access or archive the media? Another Indus GT, of course. A Happy 810 or 1050? A Rana? Is there some other good PC-based solution?

Thanks for advice. At the least, I'm hoping to recover one of own large custom BBS implementations written in BASIC XE. Or my old customized Madronna Marsh board for the XM301 Atari 1030.

 

EDIT: Too be clear, I'm looking for a solution to read my old disks disks from the period, in mixed density types.

Edited January 21, 2018 by jmccorm

[Guest]

you haven't said if they are originals or copies/menu disks

 

a safe bet for non-original disks -

sio2pc usb and software like APE/Prosystem - this will create ATR (images) for PC use/restoring to floppy later

[jmccorm]

you haven't said if they are originals or copies/menu disks

 

Quite the mix of both. My current challenge is in finding a drive for reading the disks in. I no longer have my Indus GT, so I've got disks which are a mix of single, enhanced, and double density, and I'm wondering what my best option will be to read those in (with some specific potential options listed, including getting another Indus GT drive).

[_The Doctor__]

Marshware BBS, Madronna Marsh

by Matt Arrington, creator of the the Pro-Term telecommunications software for the Atari 1030 modem. Many versions of the Marsh BBS and Pro-Term were created improving each time.

It was primarily written in a mix of Basic and Machine language and was a great BBS program. Well structured, and nice for customization. The Madrona Marsh, his BBS, was named after the Madrona marsh of Torrance, CA,

The Marshes of note were

Dodge City and The Farm by Farmer John.

Earthport 2 BBS by John Hardie in San Antonio Texas

Fort Mac by Sarge -Fort MacArthur in San Pedro, CA.

 

PM was sent.

Edited January 21, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Guest]

 

Quite the mix of both. My current challenge is in finding a drive for reading the disks in. I no longer have my Indus GT, so I've got disks which are a mix of single, enhanced, and double density, and I'm wondering what my best option will be to read those in (with some specific potential options listed, including getting another Indus GT drive).

if you can get another Indus, then you cover most options.

a 1050 with happy enhancement is also a great option

[jmccorm]

Marshware BBS, Madronna Marsh

 

by Matt Arrington, creator of the the Pro-Term telecommunications software for the Atari 1030 modem. Many versions of the Marsh BBS and Pro-Term were created improving each time.

 

It was primarily written in a mix of Basic and Machine language and was a great BBS program. Well structured, and nice for customization. The Madrona Marsh, his BBS, was named after the Madrona marsh of Torrance, CA,

 

All true! The system required users to select a userID number (1-500, I believe) as their primary means of identifying their user record. The SysOp was either user 0 or 1. This, of course, was the index of their entry in the password file.

 

Interesting story: a local miscreant, when signing up as a new user, was asked for what userID number they wanted. They selected 0.5. The system determined that this userID was not taken, and promptly created it, partially overwriting the records for userID #0 and userID #1. I happened to witness it at the time (which otherwise could have been quite the mysterious data corruption) and re-coded the selection only to allow integer values.

 

At the time, I made a bug report to Matt, who promptly informed me that this was not something that he was interested in patching this exploit in future releases. Such is the fate of many a bug report and feature request that I've made in various pieces of software over the years.

[+slx]

You probably used the IndusGT in double density mode. You can't read that with a stock 1050 and not at all with an 810. You either need another Indus or any other "double density" drive. 1050's can be upgraded to double density with an electronics upgrade available e.g. from Atarimax.

 

If archiving your code is the only thing you need, you'll probably find someone around here with the hardware to copy your code to a floppy disc image who will be happy to help you with archiving. I have it but I live in Europe.

[jmccorm]

You probably used the IndusGT in double density mode. You can't read that with a stock 1050 and not at all with an 810. You either need another Indus or any other "double density" drive. 1050's can be upgraded to double density with an electronics upgrade available e.g. from Atarimax.

 

If archiving your code is the only thing you need, you'll probably find someone around here with the hardware to copy your code to a floppy disc image who will be happy to help you with archiving. I have it but I live in Europe.

 

I've got some media in single, enhanced, and double... I need to make sure the solution will read all three.

I'd rather buy the hardware and recover them myself. As best I understand, my choices are:

 

1. Another Indus GT

2. A 1050 Happy Drive (do I avoid an 810?)

3. A RANA drive?

4. Anything else?

 

Alternatively...

 

Years ago, there was software for the IBM PC that would allow you to read Atari floppies on the 5 1/4" drive of an IBM PC. Has that capability been maintained? Is there still a hardware/software combo for directly reading into Windows with commodity hardware (no SIO devices)?

[_The Doctor__]

add an XF 551 to your list...

IBM pc floppy deal is spotty at best you need a mother board w/ or controller that gets along with finnicky software and mechs.. bottom line it's a pain in the arse unless someones come up with better options...

 

another idea KryoFLux or similar archival tools

Edited January 21, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[JR>]

Percom, Trak, Astra are some other brands that made DD drives, but a 1050 with a simple DIY US Doubler mod or Atarimax Happy board is probably your best bet.

 

[_The Doctor__]

INDUS

1050 w/ Atarimax Happy board

1050 US Doubler

XF551

 

since you have all three densities to consider..

[xrbrevin]

The 1050 would be the least costly as they are the most common. Get double density with either the Happy board from Atarimax (a 'plug-n-play' solution) or a US Doubler mod which would require minimal soldering and an EPROM to be programmed. Happy drives are reported to have issues with some original game disks though

The other drives are sought by collectors and seem to sell for much more

Use an SIO2PC device and emulator software to copy from the floppy drive to an image file on your PC

[xrbrevin]

...continued

Or there is also the Mini-Speedy upgrade for the 1050 drives - for a little over 20 euros so much lower price than the Happy device

If youre interested, pm Jurgen - his username on here is: tf_hh. He may still be knocking them out

 

Hope this helps!

[+DrVenkman]

The 1050 would be the least costly as they are the most common. Get double density with either the Happy board from Atarimax (a 'plug-n-play' solution) or a US Doubler mod which would require minimal soldering and an EPROM to be programmed. Happy drives are reported to have issues with some original game disks though

 

 

I have one of Atarmax's repro Happy boards. Incredibly easy to install and works great. A few games won't boot with it by default but you can run the Happy utility on the provided disk and set the drive to "unHappy Mode" - so long as you leave the drive powered up, it'll act like an ordinary stock drive. Put your game disk in your drive, reboot your Atari (not the disk drive!) and it should load just fine.

 

Anyway, just my tuppence - no affiliation, just a happy and satisfied customer. I really wish I'd had one of these as a kid. Being able to use double-density disks alone would've been great, let alone the ability to copy most protected disks.

[xrbrevin]

 

I have one of Atarmax's repro Happy boards. Incredibly easy to install and works great. A few games won't boot with it by default but you can run the Happy utility on the provided disk and set the drive to "unHappy Mode" - so long as you leave the drive powered up, it'll act like an ordinary stock drive. Put your game disk in your drive, reboot your Atari (not the disk drive!) and it should load just fine.

 

Anyway, just my tuppence - no affiliation, just a happy and satisfied customer. I really wish I'd had one of these as a kid. Being able to use double-density disks alone would've been great, let alone the ability to copy most protected disks.

 

Hi Dr.V - you are correct, i forgot about the unhappy mode because ive never had to use it yet! Im a happy Happy customer too

I read somewhere that original Epyx disks are sensitive to this but its definitely a very minimal issue

Edited January 25, 2018 by xrbrevin

[jmccorm]

Ok! I just got an Indus GT in the mail, and I am letting it warm up to room temperature before using. I have a large mydos disk on my SIO2SD, and I'm looking for a backup program that will run on the Atari and will read single/enhanced/double disks and archive them to a file... hopefully ATR. Any recommendations?

 

Thanks.

[_The Doctor__]

what happened when it came up to temperature? Did the Marsh creature come to life?

[xrbrevin]

ive no experience of writing to SIO2SD im afraid

 

I would recommend SIO2PC and a drive emulator software like aspeqt

you can then load a sector copier like mycopyr or copy2000 and copy from your disk drive to a virtual drive on the PC

this will create an ATR file from your floppy disk that you can store on your PC