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Help me figure out my rig


rickcollette

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Sorry... I did that thing where I started replying and then got distracted and forgot I never finished typing. :(

 

It happens more often than you know.

 

Anyway.  Since I'm guessing we're going Forem XEP at this point, you're going to need Basic XE, which might throw a wrench in it (it did for me).

 

Both the SIDE2 and MyIDE2 have the ability to be updated to have BasicXE running, so that would be my option.  To be honest, I really tried getting TVAG running with the MyIDE2 and it worked great without Basic XE (I only needed Basic XE for Zenobia, one of the games, not Carina itself, though it helps it run a bit faster).  Also, I should point out the image I used for the MyIDE2 that included Basic XE also had SpartaDos X, which I also had issues running my version of Carina with.  That could also easily have been the reason it didn't work for me, and why it might work great for you.

 

(I also think on the AtariMax forums, there are other flavors of MyIDE w/ Basic XE)

 

I was very happy with the speed and actually plan to use it potentially

 

The problem I had with it, was that the combination of the MyIDE2 bios, with the basic XE, MOE and Carina.... there was some kind of memory issue that caused me to get an error in BASIC.  I never tried it with SIDE2 since I had the IDE2+ by that point (and sadly, Simius told me I bought the last one... which is a shame, because for us BBS types, it's probably the closest thing to a real PBI hard drive and it doesn't take up any cartridge slots).  Actually, if you get one of the older versions, it's just IDE and you could use a real hard drive if I recall.

 

So honestly, that would be my first try - MyIDE2 with one of the Basic XE roms.  (Though I'm also assuming you use the SIDE2 more often for "other Atari things")

 

For others reading this and looking to buy something.... Actually from what I've heard, SIDE3 probably would work even better with the BASIC XE because of how it's implemented.

 

Hope that didn't become a Too Much Info memo.

 

TLDR;

- MyIDE][ with the above image.

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I actually built a handful of Voltron's 4-in-1 oss carts.. worked flawlessly.  

I just need to build a rom with bee 4.2 - this has 7.2, and I'm unsure of the extension file requirement with that version...

 

Carina 2.7 would be my first choice, but I had all kinds of problems trying to get it to run.

I hated forums 4 char passwords and phone number req.. (what the heck...) so I "fixed" that issue... other than that.. From XEP + AMP seems to be fairly equiv from a function standpoint to car2.. but.. if I had my druthers, id run car2...

 

 

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1 hour ago, rickcollette said:

I actually built a handful of Voltron's 4-in-1 oss carts.. worked flawlessly.  

I just need to build a rom with bee 4.2 - this has 7.2, and I'm unsure of the extension file requirement with that version...

 

Carina 2.7 would be my first choice, but I had all kinds of problems trying to get it to run.

I hated forums 4 char passwords and phone number req.. (what the heck...) so I "fixed" that issue... other than that.. From XEP + AMP seems to be fairly equiv from a function standpoint to car2.. but.. if I had my druthers, id run car2...

 

 

Yeah... I can tell you that when the real MIO/HD died, finding an acceptable way to get it back up with the options out there was hard.  I had actually given up (well, such as it was) (Mark and Rob were really great listening to me rant).  But the IDE2+ with the ECI/PBI adapter I had from my MIO (that had two cart slots) did the trick. (The IDE2+ didn't work on the 800xl but I think that could have been fixed with a quick mod)... but until I ordered that I had given up all hope.

 

That said... I did Carina for 2 reasons.  Robowar and Zenobia.  Neither of which I think anyone really plays.  People (the callers mostly) really don't like Carina it would seem.

 

Now the only thing I didn't try with Carina (besides the current configuration) was that at the time, I didn't have a U1MB installed in a machine I could use for a BBS.  I had one for my daily driver 1200xl, but I'd never run a BBS off a 1200xl (gets way too hot) and... well... it's my DD. ;)

 

But now that I have another U1MB that I'm about to install in an 800xl (hopefully this weekend if I can find where I put everything I need) I could try again with SIDE2 & SIDE3 and see what happens.  If that works out, that might be an option for you if you really want Carina.  (Also, that said, I know SIDE3 has some better standalone options than SIDE2 and I didn't actually have a SIDE3 at the time, so it might work fine without U1MB).  Unfortunately, I can't really test that since I already started popping stuff off the 800xl (and my other 800xl's are all some brand of flakey).

 

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2 hours ago, rickcollette said:

I actually built a handful of Voltron's 4-in-1 oss carts.. worked flawlessly.  

I just need to build a rom with bee 4.2 - this has 7.2, and I'm unsure of the extension file requirement with that version...

 

Carina 2.7 would be my first choice, but I had all kinds of problems trying to get it to run.

I hated forums 4 char passwords and phone number req.. (what the heck...) so I "fixed" that issue... other than that.. From XEP + AMP seems to be fairly equiv from a function standpoint to car2.. but.. if I had my druthers, id run car2...

 

 

So thinking about it again.....

 

Do you REALLY want to run Carina 2.7?

 

Because my thing is this... if you really want to be running Carina, but end up running something else... are you really going to get all the enjoyment out of it?  If it is, maybe we can focus on your real goal and not make you settle for the prom queen's still cute, but not nearly as hot cousin. ;)

 

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20 hours ago, rickcollette said:

Carina 2.7 would be my first choice, but I had all kinds of problems trying to get it to run.

I hated forums 4 char passwords and phone number req.. (what the heck...) so I "fixed" that issue... other than that.. From XEP + AMP seems to be fairly equiv from a function standpoint to car2.. but.. if I had my druthers, id run car2...

 

 

And just in case there was too much "information overload" (because the good Lord knows I can prattle on and on).

 

TLDR;

If you don't care about the online game Zenobia, you won't need Basic XE for Carina 2.7 and I DID successfully get that running with a MyIDE][ (I used a barebones image on that one that just booted straight to D1: with the Spartados 3.2z) and a 256k 800xl (Rambo, which I proudly installed myself while I was in elementary school!) with a PRC and WiModem 232 (and UDS-10 as well).  So if you really want Carina 2.7, I know we can make that happen with the stuff you have.

 

For me, "no Zenobia" was a deal breaker.... 

 

* Prattle prattle prattle

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I used to wonder why people would flip flop on what hardware chain they used for bbs's when these kinds of discussions startup.

I think we have lots of connectivity options - getting the thing onto the net isn't a big deal.

I built the Voltron oss cart - and it works perfectly.  except the whole bee 7.2 thing.. which is weird to me...

so booting into bxe, bxl, etc isn't and issue any more.

 

it really comes down to storage.  I want something as close to the supra drive, mio, blackbox, etc. as I can get.  "its just a hard disk" to the Atari.  no weird configs to fight through..  it sounds like that ide+ 2.0 you have is the saving grace.

I just ordered a set of the atarionline.pl ECI->ice boards from pcbway.. and a set of components to build it out.  maybe that will work well.  we shall see....

 

The more I think about it; the more I don't care what BBS software is - the ONLY requirement (other than "it works") is that I can mod I and it can handle door games; so source code is important.  I don't care what language its in - except ML.. that's always been something I used sparingly - basic, action, c, pascal (though I might have issues with nausea), whatever. 

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Not sure what you mean by the "bee 7.2 thing".  Not overly familiar with the Voltron OSS cart either.... Is it just a basics 4-in-1 OSS cart, or does it do anything else?

 

I think a lot of people flip-flop just out of necessity... "this didn't work, so I'll do this instead".  Other times it comes down to "I just want to run a BBS and don't care much how I do it".

 

For me with TVAG, it was MIO and real HDD (used an SH204 and just removed the host adapter and connected the MIO to the onboard MFM controller) until that drive died.   In the process of trying to get another drive to work with it (I eventually found a 44mb MFM drive but by then I think I had already jacked up the MIO).  If I could have found another MIO at the time, I'd have stuck with it.

 

SFHQ was the same way.  With the exception of the Lantronix box at the time, it was running the same hardware from back in the 90's.  When the HD went flaky though, and the MSTE died in a lightning storm, I went to the TT with it's real HD.  When I went back to my other Mega STE... Well... at that point my soul was at peace (mostly) from having gone to the CF card in the IDE2+ and I decided that the ability to easily back up and transfer stuff to the BBS's from my PC or other machines was more important.... so I bit the bullet and went all in on SFHQ with EmuTOS, UltraSatan and 48gb of SD Card storage in FAT16 partitions... So now I can pull those cards out, pop them into my PC and backup, or do whatever else I need to do.

 

Such is the journey.

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24 minutes ago, rickcollette said:

I used to wonder why people would flip flop on what hardware chain they used for bbs's when these kinds of discussions startup.

I think we have lots of connectivity options - getting the thing onto the net isn't a big deal.

I built the Voltron oss cart - and it works perfectly.  except the whole bee 7.2 thing.. which is weird to me...

so booting into bxe, bxl, etc isn't and issue any more.

 

 

Well, the real problem was .... how to get BXE when something else (like the SIDE2 or MyIDE][) was using the cartridge port.

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25 minutes ago, rickcollette said:

The more I think about it; the more I don't care what BBS software is - the ONLY requirement (other than "it works") is that I can mod I and it can handle door games; so source code is important.  I don't care what language its in - except ML.. that's always been something I used sparingly - basic, action, c, pascal (though I might have issues with nausea), whatever. 

If that is really how you feel about it, I would almost have to recommend this newer version of AMIS.

 

I mean, I haven't really looked at ForemXEP lately, but as far as Carina....

 

It's just a mess of a code base.  It's intertwined with MOE and that does some strange things... modifying it is a lesson in frustration in all honesty.  The new AMIS is probably far simpler and much better written, and the guy who did the work (our good buddy AMIS of SouthernAMIS fame) is easily available if you have questions.  Getting some of these other BBS games to run could be an interesting challenge.

 

Then again, if ForemXEP's code is well written, that might be an option too.

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"Not sure what you mean by the "bee 7.2 thing". " - its stupid autocorrect.. Basic XE 7.2 is what comes in the ROM image.

https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/OSSCART__The_OSS_4_in_1_Cartridge_for_Atari_8_Bit_Computers.html

Jeez.. that photo makes my fingers look super sausagy.

I don't HAVE to have MyIDE or SIDE in the cart slot.  

Photo on 8-29-21 at 9.51 AM.jpg

Edited by rickcollette
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Ah.... thanks.  I have another 4 in 1 laying around somewhere that I bought once... that one had a button and an LED numeric display to tell you what one it was currently set on.  Can't say I ever used it much. 

 

And where else would you put the SIDE2 or MyIDE? ;)

 

(I know, I know).

 

Actually, if I read that earlier message right and you're planning on building an IDE2+ yourself (or something similar) please let us know about where you sourced everything from.  I probably wouldn't mind building a couple more myself.

 

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6 minutes ago, Tillek said:

Ah.... thanks.  I have another 4 in 1 laying around somewhere that I bought once... that one had a button and an LED numeric display to tell you what one it was currently set on.  Can't say I ever used it much. 

 

And where else would you put the SIDE2 or MyIDE? ;)

 

(I know, I know).

 

Actually, if I read that earlier message right and you're planning on building an IDE2+ yourself (or something similar) please let us know about where you sourced everything from.  I probably wouldn't mind building a couple more myself.

 

absolutely.  first; I wanna see if it works :) if it does; ill have a couple of spares...

 

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4 minutes ago, rickcollette said:

absolutely.  first; I wanna see if it works :) if it does; ill have a couple of spares...

 

I'd be happy to buy if you're selling when the time comes.

 

Though I'm just stoked we might have a way to source them out since they really work so well for the BBS use case.

 

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I don't know how close these are to the IDE+ - but its a ECI board with passthru (so carts can still be used)

I only get excited if the thing works :)

Good news is - I have the caps and the resistors.. all the various hardware bits.. and mouser actually has all of the ICs in stock; and got the card edge slot connecters on eBay... so the parts are available.

Which is WOOT!-worthy.

 

If it does not just work, I am sure there is someone who could help fix the issues somewhere... I do not speak nor understand Polish, so I'm going 100% on the sch files and the BOM...

 

Edited by rickcollette
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Yeah, that was my issue too... I tried googling it and my lack of Polish just kinda stopped it right there.

 

The IDE2+ I have is fairly simple.  Maybe I could see if we can get the board schematic for that (mine is just PBI to a CF IDE adapter with a cart slot and 3 buttons/led's)

 

 

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5 minutes ago, Tillek said:

Yeah, that was my issue too... I tried googling it and my lack of Polish just kinda stopped it right there.

 

The IDE2+ I have is fairly simple.  Maybe I could see if we can get the board schematic for that (mine is just PBI to a CF IDE adapter with a cart slot and 3 buttons/led's)

 

 

I sent a pm to see if he'd release any docs/files/etc on the ide+ .. we shall see.

im a little hesitant to use a board design / logic that was someone else's and not expressly available to the general public...

 

 

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7 minutes ago, rickcollette said:

I sent a pm to see if he'd release any docs/files/etc on the ide+ .. we shall see.

im a little hesitant to use a board design / logic that was someone else's and not expressly available to the general public...

 

 

Well, yeah.. that's what I was referring to.  Should have been more clear that I wasn't intending to try to reverse engineer it, but if he did release the boards building one off it would be fairly easy since it's not as complex as some of the ones you see in the pictures.

 

Guess I needed a little more "prattle" in that one. ;)

 

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Which board?  The IDE2+?

 

Already has an R-Time 8. (Combat?)

 

Though depending on the dos, I find the SDX compatible R-Time not too useful, so I had to use an old school one.  Though there probably is a handler if I bothered to look hard enough.

 

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  • 4 months later...

It has not died. In fact; its getting closer to being back on my radar - honey-do, work projects, and new business kinda pushed it back a bit... but i do have the hardware setup - even have an amdek color-i monitor :) with the rig.

 

800xl with 512K

IDE+

Im still struggling with the bbs software.. 

I want something that is modular like Carina or FXEP; which is why I was trying to create a newer version of AMP/MOE 

 

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