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Returning to Atari after 30 years


ratwell

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I can't put it off any longer: I've got a Flip'n'File of 5.25" floppies I've been toting around for 30 years and I'd like to archive the contents.

 

Some of it is BBS related, some disks are not single density (Happy formatted if IIRC), but there are a couple of homebrew games written by myself and my high school buddy that have never been released as shareware or uploaded to any internet sites. I'd very much like to share these games...

 

Background: I'm running Atari800MacX and would appreciate any advice on connecting my Mac to the hardware required to read these disks which have been stored in a temperature stable environment. All of my 8-bit equipment was sold decades ago so I'm starting from scratch.

Edited by ratwell
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Do you still have an Atari computer? Do you have a diskdrive? (1050 or otherwise)

 

I backuped all my disks with an 800XL, MyIde1, and a real 1050. But, for example, if you don't have a computer, but you do have a diskdrive, something like this could be helpful. Works with Mac and Linux, too, apparently. I have no experience with this product.

 

If you don't have any Atari equipment anymore, a Kryoflix with matching drive might be an option, too. Not sure how the Mac support is on that one.

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2 minutes ago, ivop said:

Do you still have an Atari computer? Do you have a diskdrive? (1050 or otherwise)

I sold off my equipment decades ago to a fellow 8-bit computer club member.
 

Quote

I backuped all my disks with an 800XL, MyIde1, and a real 1050. But, for example, if you don't have a computer, but you do have a diskdrive, something like this could be helpful. Works with Mac and Linux, too, apparently. I have no experience with this product.

Will the 1050 attached using SIO2PC appear as a Drive in Atari800MacX?

 

Quote

If you don't have any Atari equipment anymore, a Kryoflix with matching drive might be an option, too. Not sure how the Mac support is on that one.

Support ends at Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan):

https://www.kryoflux.com/?page=download

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48 minutes ago, kiwilove said:

If you don't end up with the right equipment, etc to do transfers - you can always ask someone to do that for you..

There are useful and helpful people here for sure.

 

Harvey

That would be my suggestion. I assume you only want to transfer these disks to ATR. If you have no other need for disk transfer after this, asking someone here to do it for you is your best and easiest option. 
 

I did the opposite (transfer an ATR to a floppy disk for an AA member) a couple of years ago. I am sure someone would be happy to help you out. 
 

i do not know the Happy drive well enough to know if Happy-formatted disks have to be read on a Happy (or Happy clone) drive. If so, I won’t be able to help you out. 
 

Bob C

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Thanks for all the offers.

This looks promising...

Quote

 

It's up to date but only some tools work with the macOS command line and atarixfer doesn't seem to build with the posix options.

I suppose one option could be running Linux under Parallels on macOS.
 

This appears to be the compatible cable:

https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=157

 

Edited by ratwell
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  • 3 weeks later...

Progress Update: I'm slowly making progress towards archiving my old floppy disks.

Setup so far:

 

- 800XL logic board CA061854 (thank you Best 2006)

- 800XL keyboard (thank you B&C 2021)

- 800XL case on the way (thank you AtariAge member for the donation!)

- 800XL power supply (Best 2006)

- 1050 (B&C 2021)

- Monitor cable (Lotharek 2021)

- 1050-2-PC (Lotharek 2021)

- CX-40 (rebuilt it with Atari Service PCB from B&C 2006 and Handle from Classic Gaming Source 2021)

- Sony KV-1370R (mine first TV from 1985. It will need some recapping but it's surprisingly good for 35 years old!)
- RetroTINK 2x-MINI (thank you all for the recommendation. It works wonderfully.)

 

There's no Chroma output on the S-video as expected so I'll have to work on that next.

 

Minor Issue:

 

I just tried a Joust cartridge that's been sitting with the rest of the stuff in my basement for the past 15 years.

What is causing this garbage to appear on the right side on the screen? It's fine on the CRT but on the LCD it appears to be in the overscan area of the image?

 

InitialSetup.jpg

JoustCart-HomeScreenColor.jpg

JoustCart-GarbledScreenColor.jpg

JoustCart-TVScreenColor.jpg

Edited by ratwell
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55 minutes ago, ratwell said:

What is causing this garbage to appear on the right side on the screen? It's fine on the CRT but on the LCD it appears to be in the overscan area of the image?

An LCD displays information that would be off the screen with a CRT, mytek developed a circuit called V-Gate that blanks the chroma/luma signals outside of the normal borders.

https://ataribits.weebly.com/vgate.html

Edited by BillC
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47 minutes ago, BillC said:

An LCD displays information that would be off the screen with a CRT, mytek developed a circuit called V-Gate that blanks the chroma/luma signals outside of the normal borders.

https://ataribits.weebly.com/vgate.html

Thanks for this. I'll keep an eye on the blog for updates:

https://ataribits.weebly.com/blog

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I'm impressed that TV is still working. I had an AKAI TV with a rare (at the time) composite input that I used to use as a monitor, it lasted until around 1997 until I had to make the decision to dump it as I had the brightness cranked all the way up just to see anything on the screen.

 

Good 'ol Sony..

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Welcome back, I also rejoined AtariLand about a week ago, after about 27 years...

 

I saw in your earlier post that you are thinking of using Parallels on the Mac, an alternative if you don't want to pay for parallels is Virtual Box, which is free. Assuming that is you don't have Parallels already.

 

 

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22 hours ago, Mazzspeed said:

I had an AKAI TV with a rare (at the time) composite input that I used to use as a monitor

Good 'ol Sony..

 

Sony KV-1326R was RF coax input only.

KV-1370R has the composite video and mono audio inputs. KV-1395/1396/1397R the same.

KV-1380R has stereo audio inputs and speakers but only the composite video input.

Models lacking the R didn't come with a remote and sometimes had direct select channel buttons on the front.

 

Trinitrons were great. The three I used lasted forever (1974, 1985, 1999) as did the Sony tubes in all my Mac monitors.

I've seen Atari's hooked up to Commodore 1701 and 1702 monitors but I didn't notice a marked improvement in image at the time that would have seen me upgrade from my Sony. I probably wasn't even aware there was a chroma output as my monitor cable just had the composite plug as far as I can recall...


Here's a look back at Trinitrons:

 


 

Edited by ratwell
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59 minutes ago, ratwell said:

 

Sony KV-1326R was RF coax input only.

KV-1370R has the composite video and mono audio inputs. KV-1395/1396/1397R the same.

KV-1380R has stereo audio inputs and speakers but only the composite video input.

Models lacking the R didn't come with a remote and sometimes had direct select channel buttons on the front.

 

Trinitrons were great. The three I used lasted forever (1974, 1985, 1999) as did the Sony tubes in all my Mac monitors.

I've seen Atari's hooked up to Commodore 1701 and 1702 monitors but I didn't notice a marked improvement in image at the time that would have seen me upgrade from my Sony. I probably wasn't even aware there was a chroma output as my monitor cable just had the composite plug as far as I can recall...


Here's a look back at Trinitrons:

 


 

Interesting, cheers!

 

I was the same, in the day composite was a vast improvement over RF and good enough for me. Since switching to a 1084S with separately shielded chroma and luma however I now see a considerable difference.

 

The Trinitron's were nice, it would be interesting to somehow hack one for Svideo input.

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14 minutes ago, Mclaneinc said:

Trinitrons were ace, we had a 14" wood effect one with a rotary tuning dial, picture was great..Defender looked great on it even just as an RF lead.

My parents had one of those wide screen Trinitron's, the picture was amazing. In the end it started intermittently turning off. They bought a new set and I lugged the hefty old one out the front...Some kid rolled up on a skatebooard and asked if it still worked, I said "sorta"...And he stuck it on his skatebooard and wheeled it away....

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When my Panasonic 32" crt died I put it out by the bins, I'd got used to carrying it over a couple of house moves but it really was a 2 person TV because of the size and weight. I looked out my kitchen window and saw two skinny Somali guys trying to carry it away. After about 4 steps they dropped it, smashed the tube and just left it on the pavement. Could not leave it there so dragged it off back to the bins..

 

Was such a good TV...The new LED is easier to carry but unless its HD input it looks naff.

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In my case it was pretty good.  My advice is to read and re-read most of my disks worked a few in the dead pile read another day and I copied them over to a PC.  I spent around 2 months working on it a bit everyday.  

 

May the force be with you

 

Thank you

 

 

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1 hour ago, wmt029 said:

What are the odds that the data would still be in tact on 30+ year old floppies? I've been considering trying to get my data too. I have an Atari 1050 still but it doesn't turn on.

very good...

just keep the drive heads clean and dry, visually check the disks, spinning them in there jackets... put them in order of dirt, discoloration seen, while imaging the decent disks, you can clean up the dirty disks (all as described on preservation and other disk backup threads, just do a search).

when you get to problem disks, you clean the heads after each failure, trying to read the disk first time all in one go, then you start reading them with retries or even in sector order reversed. The object is to recover as much data as possible...

you can sometimes hear the disk make noise and sounds change when a disk is gumming up the works...

 

If you have a kryoflux , supercardpro or weasle then you can take a couple of dumps and the experts can examine the streams sometime patching up the info restoring your disk...

 

yes your chances are quite good if the media coating isn't falling/flaking/wiping off .... a number of time I've gotten the data off disks just before their epic demise.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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We do ask a lot of our tired old media but if its been stored well then you may get away with taking the disk out of the actual disk sleeve and making sure the sleeve is cleaned. (talking the plastic bit that goes around the disk)

 

Crud gets in them and makes it hard to rotate the disk and that can scratch the disk too so well worth a check...

 

If you get really stuff there plenty of people with Kyrofux's or equivalent that would help you get back ups (as long as the disk isn't badly damaged already)

 

A lot of us have long stopped using real media and just do it the digital way with SD-Max's etc. All my floppies went but many keep the real disks for show but use images..

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I lost about 50% of my floppies due to age, but more surprisingly I have a load of 5 1/4" floppies for my ST,

I acquired DS/DD 5 1/4" drive, so popped it in a case, patched a ribbon cable into my external 3 1/2" drive

which was an early SS floppy with a 520STM so I had a nice DS/DD drive, those floppies did not fair well, I lost

maybe 100 floppies even though they were stored in the same place as my 8 bit ones. 

 

Maybe the density had something to do with it, really don't know.

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1 hour ago, wmt029 said:

What are the odds that the data would still be in tact on 30+ year old floppies? I've been considering trying to get my data too. I have an Atari 1050 still but it doesn't turn on.

I've had a surprising amount of good luck reading my old 8-bit and 16-bit disks. Most of the stuff I have is either personal stuff, or games and apps that were copied from others, so very little original, purchased software. For that reason, I just copy most of mine using my SIO2PC-USB and APE ProSystem. Those that pass without error I consider done and put in one storage location. Those that seem to have errors, I don't mess with too much, and set aside in another location to try later with my Kryoflux once I get a decent 5-1/4" floppy to use with it.

 

My 16-bit stuff will probably be a little different since, having acquired a couple of complete "sets" from others in the mid-90s, I have quite a bit more original software. I'll probably try a similar approach using the floppy to copy personal or copied stuff, and saving any commercial stuff that hasn't already been archived by others for use with my Kryoflux.

 

Edited by bfollowell
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