jmccorm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 Not sure what this is. As a side note and as far as I know, the Flight Simulator II scenery disks still missing entirely are 5, 8, 9, 10 and 12.Isn't it usually two disks? There's also a very rare Instructional Version still MIA.Definitely: 2, 3, 5, 6 and 8 are missing I'm unclear if some of the double-sided Bank Street Writer disks are duplicates, or what. If an answer doesn't jump out at me,. I'll archive them all. I'll grab the Flight Simulator II mode disk. I'll also be sure to snag those Spelling add-on disks for specific grade levels. That older rev USAAF disk, too. This round has a decent set of commercial disks that are less mainstream. I'm going to have to spend more time investigating. Do you have additional disks with questions for the Party Quiz? When I looked, I did not find anything beyond the main program disk and the default trivia question disk. I'll be sure to keep an eye out for more pieces in this set. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roydea6 Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 Another day, another couple of disks have been archived. The first disk seems a mix of loose pictures, sounds, games, utils. Some filenames might suggest a chance of content which may have been considered titillating at the time? The second disk looks like a couple of Avalon-Hill military strategy games. Disks for Loading. Disks for Archiving. Disks for Atari. Disks for Users. DOUBLE DENSITY Mixed (Some Basic) AMS, PICs, Game, Util.ATR SINGLE DENSITY Military Sim Games (Basic) - Panzer-JADG, Panzerun.ATR Please report any problems. Please report any totally awesome experiences. Please report this or any other disks if inappropriate for AtariAge to distribute. Mixed (Some Basic) AMS, PICs, Game, Util.ATR has three new to me pic files that I have added to my collection. and a great graphics viewer. one basic program that plays Hill street blues. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 Bank Street had more than one version, and side A as well as B on disks.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 Today's batch of disks. When I watched the sector copy of the "Mode Library Disk" (side A and B) for Flight Simulator II, both sides were mostly empty (each in their own way). I have not investigated this any further. "Cheap Talk Software" requires a matching piece of hardware to be connected to joystick ports 1/2 or 3/4. I believe that this is the article which describes the chip and the hardware interface, both derived from Radio Shack parts. There was a disk with just an AUTORUN.SYS file that was labeled, "Extended BASIC". On my 130XE, after it boots in BASIC, there was a continual string of errors. The name of the disk implies that these are some extended commands, but was it for one of the earlier Atari versions of BASIC? Or was this a Basic XE or Basic XL extension disk? I haven't explored those answers. Maybe you'll know? The Bannertizer does a simple vertical or horizontal ASCII printer banners with mixed font sizes. I only gave it a cursory inspection, but I assumed that it pulled the font from the system's active character set map. A NEW BATCH. THEY'RE FROM TODAY. THESE ARE DISK IMAGES. Flight Simulator II - Mode Library Disk Side A.ATR Flight Simulator II - Mode Library Disk Side B.ATR Cheap Talk Software (Basic).ATR Disk Tools (Basic).ATR Games and Misc (Mostly Basic).ATR Games and Util Disk (Basic).ATR Quest for the Gold Moon Adventure (Basic).ATR Extended Basic Autorun (for Basic Version Unknown).ATR The Bannertizer from ANTIC Magazine (Basic).ATR Some of this stuff might be good. Some might be junk. This is not an endorsement, but an attempt to preserve legacy software and data before their original magnetic media becomes corrupted. If something really speaks to you, you might give a shout out to others to check it out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 (edited) Quest for the Gold Moon was completely unknown, I added it to our database -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Edited February 11, 2018 by www.atarimania.com 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 More disks. But first... I've had some off-and-on again problems with MyCopyR. Sometimes it would have problems reading and writing to my SIO2SD (regardless of SIO speed settings). It wasn't entirely predictable. Once I moved MyCopyR from the simple boot menu of a Utility Disk and onto a full copy of MyDos4.53, it has been very reliable. If you are looking to make copies with a similar tool, here is what I am archiving most of my disks with: MYCOPYR DISK COPIER ON MYDOS4.53: MYDOS453 with MyCopyR.ATR So... ...for those who are interested in such details, here are the rest of the disks from this post. The top Bank Street Writer disk will be Disk 1, the middle as Disk 2, and the bottom as Disk 3. The USAAF disk is version 1.0. I don't know that the physical disk labels actually signify anything interesting, but just in case, there they are. The USAAF disks... USAAF v1.0 DISKS: USAAF v1.0 Scenario Disk (Side A and Boot Disk).ATR USAAF v1.0 Game Disk (Side B).ATR Moving on to the Bank Street Writer disks... (Question marks represent uncopied bad sectors on all the Bank Street Writer Side A disks.) All the Bank Street Writer "Side A" disks had a patch of bad sectors in the same place (as seen with Indus GT and a Atari 1050). I'd be pretty sure that they're intentional and used for copy protection. Additionally, there were some scattered bad sectors towards the end of Disk 2 Side A, but those felt more like actual data corruption. I believe I managed to get a good copy of Disk 2 Side B. Keep these facts in mind if you try to use these disks. I don't think these Bank Street Writer Side A disks will work in an unaltered state. Side B of all of these disks (apparently, the tutorial) didn't have any copy protection. I did not compare these three disks for differences, other than the obvious difference in the physical label of Disk 2. BANK STREET WRITER DISKS: Bank Street Writer Disk 1 Side A.ATR Bank Street Writer Disk 1 Side B.ATR Bank Street Writer Disk 2 Side A (May be corrupt).ATR Bank Street Writer Disk 2 Side B.ATR Bank Street Writer Disk 3 Side A.ATR Bank Street Writer Disk 3 Side B.ATR Let me know if you have any questions. Again, the Bank Street Writer Side "A" disks probably aren't going to work out-of-the-box for anyone. They're for archival purposes only. Enjoy. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 yep if you use the wrong DOS with a copier it can leave things in memory and at the wrong places causing bad results, I hope you caught that early on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 making atx and pro images can help with copy protection and recreation Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 11, 2018 Author Share Posted February 11, 2018 making atx and pro images can help with copy protection and recreation Hmmmmmm. My goal isn't to back up all my disks, but just to distribute archival copies of any unique software that I might have. I should still have hundreds of disks left to go, so I'd rather stick with something easy. But if you guys aren't finding it useful for the purpose of archiving unique images, let me know, and I'm willing to change. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted February 11, 2018 Share Posted February 11, 2018 No, you're doing great. However, in case the Atari Software Preservation Initiative team wants to fully archive some of your original software later on, you may want to set aside unusual titles after you dump them (such as that V1.0 USAAF disk). Could somebody compare the V1.0 and V1.1 editions? V1.0 doesn't appear to work (because of the missing protection?). -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 Could somebody compare the V1.0 and V1.1 editions? V1.0 doesn't appear to work (because of the missing protection?). For me, the v1.0 side "A" disk boots, but when I go through a few screens, I see that it has some corrupted in-game data. I just ran another sector copy of it. As it turns out, I overlooked that the copier hit a bad patch on Disk A (the boot disk) at sector $263. I confirmed the bad sector with both drives. Of course, I can't say authoritatively if it is copy protection or simple corruption with age. I looked at version 1.1 on Atarimania and the sector just before and just after were identical. If it isn't copy protection, migrating that sector over may fix things up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 (edited) For me, the v1.0 side "A" disk boots, but when I go through a few screens, I see that it has some corrupted in-game data. I just ran another sector copy of it. As it turns out, I overlooked that the copier hit a bad patch on Disk A (the boot disk) at sector $263. I confirmed the bad sector with both drives. Of course, I can't say authoritatively if it is copy protection or simple corruption with age. I looked at version 1.1 on Atarimania and the sector just before and just after were identical. If it isn't copy protection, migrating that sector over may fix things up? I ran another sector copy of the v1.0 disk, this time using the Atarimania v1.1 image as the destination disk. (So when it skips writing the bad sector, the data from the v1.1 disk will remain on the image.) I still can't say if it was copy protection or not, but the in-game corruption has disappeared. HYBRID DISK IMAGE: [-REMOVED-] EDIT: The hybrid disk worked fine the first time, but subsequent power cycles had the same in-game corruption. (I operate both my Atari 130XE w/physical SIO2SD and my PC-based Atari emulator without write protection.) I'll defer to your expertise. Edited February 12, 2018 by jmccorm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 does the real disk boot and play? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 does the real disk boot and play? Yes, it does. I just went back and booted it up, and with no corrupted game data. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 (edited) make an atx or pro image or both and see which will boot. The extra info in that image scheme should make a playable atx or pro image and that can more than likely make a bit writer or other drive capable of making useable real disks and or a crack easier. Edited February 12, 2018 by _The Doctor__ 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brentarian Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 I've been meaning to archive my disk collection for years and thanks to this thread I was motivated to start this past weekend. 90 down and about 400 to go. I don't expect to find any missing titles, but I'll keep an eye out. A lot of my disks have had the label fall off, so I'm having to boot up the images later to identify them. It is amazing how much stuff I accumulated in the 80's @ only 300 baud. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 12, 2018 Author Share Posted February 12, 2018 make an atx or pro image or both and see which will boot. The extra info in that image scheme should make a playable atx or pro image and that can more than likely make a bit writer or other drive capable of making useable real disks and or a crack easier. It seems worth trying. Hey, I'm not using an SIO2USB. Can you point to some of those imaging tools that you named which will work on native Atari 8-bit hardware? Here are my current items: 1. Atari 130XE 2. SIO2SD configured as Drive 1 3. Indus GT and Atari 1050 (only one powered on at a time) configured as Drive 2 4. Windows PC for manipulating / naming .ATR files on the SD card Here is my current workflow: 1. Copy pre-existing and pre-formatted BlankSD1 to BlankSD9 files to SD card from Windows 2. Copy pre-existing and pre-formatted BlankDD1 to BlankDD9 files to SD card from Windows 3. Copy pre-existing and pre-formatted BlankED1 to BlankED5 files to SD card from Windows 4. Boot Atari 130XE from MyDOS 4.53 image on the SIO2SD 5. Launch MyCopyR from that same image 6. Set source disk to Drive 2 (physical drive), destination to Drive 1 (SIO2SD) 7. Turn off destination formatting because it breaks on the SIO2SD for some reason REPEAT LOOP 8. Set SIO2SD to an unused BlankSD(x) image in Drive 1 9. Put physical disk in Drive 2 and begin copy with MyCopyR 10. If density is not auto-detected as Single, then quickly switch SIO2SD Drive 1 to an image of the matching density 11. If bad sectors detected, wait until complete, swap in other physical drive, repeat to same destination image on SIO2SD 12. Finished with source disk. Put away, grab new source disk to copy over 13. Go back to step #8 and repeat with next disk If I can create individually named archive files on the Atari side, that might be just as efficient. I'd just need to use a giant MyDOS virtual disk on the SIO2SD to hold multiple images. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 I've had some off-and-on again problems with MyCopyR. All the Bank Street Writer "Side A" disks had a patch of bad sectors in the same place (as seen with Indus GT and a Atari 1050). I'd be pretty sure that they're intentional and used for copy protection. Additionally, there were some scattered bad sectors towards the end of Disk 2 Side A, but those felt more like actual data corruption. I believe I managed to get a good copy of Disk 2 Side B. Side B of all of these disks (apparently, the tutorial) didn't have any copy protection. I did not compare these three disks for differences, other than the obvious difference in the physical label of Disk 2. MyCopyR is fine if your disk has only good sectors. It will not abort the copy with bad sectors but it also will not copy any data from sectors with bad status. Unless your disk is an enhanced density disk it is better to use Disk Wizard II (see below) because it will also copy bad sector's contents. There are other sector copiers which copy bad sector's data but each one I tested so far does also copy garbage data for missing sectors. The protection is the well-known Broderbund protection with several duplicate sectors in the 6th track of the disk. The bad sectors you see are the one's missing from this track because they have been replaced with the duplicates. Find attached working copies for your disks 1 and 3. Both images differ by only 2 bytes and from what the running program looks like I would guess the difference is the background's color. I could not get disk 2 to work, even with patched-in data for the (probably) bad sectors. Please re-do this disk with Disk Wizard to obtain data from these sectors. The B-sides of disk 1 and 3 are identical but differ from disk 2. There are files which look like timestamps "FEB0384 SYS" on disks 1/3 and "APR0783 SYS" on disk 2. However, in case the Atari Software Preservation Initiative team wants to fully archive some of your original software later on, you may want to set aside unusual titles after you dump them (such as that V1.0 USAAF disk). Could somebody compare the V1.0 and V1.1 editions? V1.0 doesn't appear to work (because of the missing protection?). I second the idea to support the Atari Software Preservation Initiative. USAAF ist the exact same version I have posted in posting #25 of this thread. And yes v1.0 differs from v1.1. Interestingly v1.1 has no disk copy protection but v1.0 has a track alignment protection. make an atx or pro image or both and see which will boot. The extra info in that image scheme should make a playable atx or pro image and that can more than likely make a bit writer or other drive capable of making useable real disks and or a crack easier. This does not work with a SIO2SD device. You need a real 1050 connected to the PC using a 1050-2-PC or ProSystem cable. To dump an ATX with ijor's tool the 1050 must also be enhanced. Disk Wizard II.atr Bank Street Writer Disk 1 Side A.atx.zip Bank Street Writer Disk 3 Side A.atx.zip 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted February 12, 2018 Share Posted February 12, 2018 I can't add anything to what DJBEE has told you other than a sio2pc and APE makes all these chores a great deal easier. A quick stop at Atarimax can get your 1050 upgraded for cheap. Using a sio2sd without formatting, having to keep fighting with that and physically swapping sd cards, WOW you're working your posterior off! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 (edited) Additionally, there were some scattered bad sectors towards the end of Disk 2 Side A, but those felt more like actual data corruption. I managed to get a working version of disk 2. It is actually the same version as the one I posted in posting 25. The bad sectors from your dump are replaced with the same ones from Atarimania's dump. The track with the protection is taken from The Arcade Machine, which uses slightly different sector data than all the other Broderbund titles. I still would like to get the original data from your disk because the attached image is not identical to the one I posted. And both images currently contain "assumptions" made by me. Btw.: I guess that your Disk 3 is unmodified and on disk 1 the color has been changed using the utility program (press ESC while booting) from Atari standard to b/w. Bank Street Writer Disk 2 Side A.atx.zip Edited February 13, 2018 by DjayBee Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted February 13, 2018 Share Posted February 13, 2018 A very nice surprise! It turns out the tiny Star Trek game written in BASIC is actually a hacked version of StarTrak by Programma International: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-startrak_27480.html Programma International was one of the very first software publishers in the Apple world and they briefly sold Atari titles at cheap prices ($6.95) in 1980. Only nine programs were made for the Atari and this is only the second one to be found (or at least identified). Does anybody have or did anybody see an original tape for the Atari? -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmccorm Posted February 14, 2018 Author Share Posted February 14, 2018 A very nice surprise! It turns out the tiny Star Trek game written in BASIC is actually a hacked version of StarTrak by Programma International: http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-400-800-xl-xe-startrak_27480.html You've piqued my interest, but I can't find it. What disk had it, and was it properly named? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
www.atarimania.com Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 It's on one of the TRACE disks, the June 1984 issue. -- Atari Frog http://www.atarimania.com Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farb Posted February 14, 2018 Share Posted February 14, 2018 @jmccorm, thanks for taking the time to dump everything. If you are interested in having us do a low-level dump any of your original disks, please shoot me a PM! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarxx Posted February 27, 2018 Share Posted February 27, 2018 (edited) USAAF ist the exact same version I have posted in posting #25 of this thread. And yes v1.0 differs from v1.1. Interestingly v1.1 has no disk copy protection but v1.0 has a track alignment protection. Restored Skew. Now boots from floppy. A8 SCPs & ATXs. U.S.A.A.F. v1.0 (1985)(SSI) Skewed.zip **Oh, sorry DjayBee, just seen yours. Edited February 27, 2018 by Zarxx 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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