Alfred Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 How common are 800's with Axlon-type expansions ? I have a 1MB 800 and another with 288K, but bitd the few people who had 800's just had stock 48K systems. I never knew anybody else who had the 1MB expansion but there were a couple of the 288K 800's kicking around. So just curious how common >48KB machines were and what was the most common size. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sugarland Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 BITD 800's with >48K were very rare from my experience. As in I never knew anyone with one. 256K XL's were mentioned in discussions but never saw one of those either. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 Rare and probably not supported by much software at all aside from Ramdisks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 2 minutes ago, Rybags said: Rare and probably not supported by much software at all aside from Ramdisks. Synapse Software had versions of some software(Syncalc/Synfile+) that supported banked RAM (400/Mosaic, 800 Axlon/Mosaic and 130XE). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 I homebrewed a 192K RAM in the day: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/122750-64k-atari-800/#comments 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+slx Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 I'd suppose rather rare as you'd mostly use it as a ramdisk, so unless you did heavy programming or ran a BBS there was probably little use for it. Would have been great for DataPerfect but then you'd have the problem of needing two to three floppies to save all that in-memory data. Same with word processing, nice to have a huge doc in memory but then you'd want to save frequently in case of power outages, etc. I'd suppose close to nil this side of the Atlantic. Don't think they were sold retail at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 Yes, my main use of the Axlon was as a RAMdisk. Though I did also make a wireframe animation of 76 2K pages (see my avatar). 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 Mine had 52K so only just >48k, used 4k RAM in the left cartridge slot, came in handy for debugging large machine code programs. It did require a little bit of a rewire of the left slot tho. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted October 20, 2019 Share Posted October 20, 2019 I would think the 52K scheme would have been even rarer for software support, though for only 4K extra the more common use would be user workspace. Wasn't there also a 64K scheme where $CFFF was the banking register? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alfred Posted October 20, 2019 Author Share Posted October 20, 2019 18 hours ago, Sugarland said: BITD 800's with >48K were very rare from my experience. As in I never knew anyone with one. 256K XL's were mentioned in discussions but never saw one of those either. I'm a bit surprised that Axlon/Magna Systems machines are so rare. Oh well. 256K XL's, man everybody had them around me after the ICD board came out. I think pretty much every BBS was either a 256K XL or a 130XE. I don't recall too many people having Newell boards, we all had Rambos; I think I had four or five 256K machines at one point. I don't remember now, but I think Puff's board that CSS sold was a Newell clone rather than a Rambo. I suppose that means I needn't worry about an Axlon-using DOS if nobody has a machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted October 21, 2019 Share Posted October 21, 2019 46 minutes ago, Alfred said: I suppose that means I needn't worry about an Axlon-using DOS if nobody has a machine. There may not be many 800s with original Axlon/Magna upgrades, but the Incognito modded 800 is supposed to have a "1MB Axlon compatible memory expansion for Colleen mode". According to the manual SpartaDOS_X 4.48 is supposed to work with up to 4032 KiB Axlon type upgrades. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andymanone Posted October 22, 2019 Share Posted October 22, 2019 On 10/21/2019 at 2:46 AM, BillC said: There may not be many 800s with original Axlon/Magna upgrades, but the Incognito modded 800 is supposed to have a "1MB Axlon compatible memory expansion for Colleen mode". Ya´re right, so check out the latest topic for the Incognito too... -> Incognito 800 So I guess, much more people using actually this feature now?. Gtx., andY Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted October 23, 2019 Share Posted October 23, 2019 (edited) On 10/20/2019 at 4:43 AM, slx said: I'd suppose rather rare as you'd mostly use it as a ramdisk, so unless you did heavy programming or ran a BBS there was probably little use for it. Would have been great for DataPerfect but then you'd have the problem of needing two to three floppies to save all that in-memory data. Same with word processing, nice to have a huge doc in memory but then you'd want to save frequently in case of power outages, etc. I'd suppose close to nil this side of the Atlantic. Don't think they were sold retail at all. I vaguely recall at least one of the UK-based shops advertising RAM upgrades. Can't remember which ones in particular, though. We did have one person with a 256K 800XL in our user group, but I have no idea which upgrade he used. His was definitely the exception rather than the rule, though. Edited October 23, 2019 by x=usr(1536) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 On 10/20/2019 at 6:06 PM, Rybags said: I would think the 52K scheme would have been even rarer for software support, though for only 4K extra the more common use would be user workspace. Wasn't there also a 64K scheme where $CFFF was the banking register? The Mosiac 64K board gave you 52K of main memory and then allowed you to bank 3 more 4K banks giving a total of 64K. Synapse apps mentioned above used the extra 16K. I believe this board uses that register, IIRC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted October 24, 2019 Share Posted October 24, 2019 Axlon banking is controlled at $CFFF - mosaic can't be the same because that would conflict with the last byte of its usable RAM area. The data written selects the bank. Seems mosaic's banking control register is by writes to $FFxx. The address of the write is what matters, not the data: $FFC0=bank zero, $FFC1=bank 1 etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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