Never seen (by me) XF551 clone

[manterola]

Technically, Argentina is located to the south of US border, or to the south of almost every country border. ?

[machf]

Yes, the only thing further south from it is Antarctica... and it's just a single hop away.

[+Larry]

SOT, but looks like from a Google map that part of Chile extends further south than Argentina?  Anyway, I was curious about how cold the climate is at the southern tip of South America.  Is it below the Anarctic circle?  Didn't see that on the maps I found. Just curious.

[ijor]

On 6/11/2022 at 5:52 AM, Peri Noid said:

What if you're both right and. There were two companies with the same name in two countries? ?

It is, of course, possible that there were two SKYDATA companies in two different countries. But the company that branded the disk drive we are talking here in this thread, is SKYDATA from Argentina.

[_The Doctor__]

still south of the U.S. border and still bought Atari surplus and assembled labeled and sold Atari (like so many did especially in the end)... what is the issue exactly? An authorized reseller/dealer/representative... did someone say they weren't? I didn't read anyone say that. I suppose if it's a contest to see who's furthest south maybe there is a geological listing with lat and longitude to help in that area.

 

https://www.ebay.com/dsc/i.html?_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=18045&_sop=15&_dmd=1&_ipg=60&_fosrp=1&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=skidata&_nkw=SKYDATA

 

the skydata name is on plenty of items not listed on ebay at them moment as well, though some have better looking labels and info and are made around the world like any other electronics of the era.

 

There is/was SKYDATA Canada, SKYDATA USA. SKYDATA Argentina. and if look a little more....

 

read some labels and do some looking up, but the information still stands.

Edited June 13, 2022 by _The Doctor__

[+DjayBee]

23 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

still south of the U.S. border and still bought Atari surplus and assembled labeled and sold Atari (like so many did especially in the end)... what is the issue exactly? An authorized reseller/dealer/representative... did someone say they weren't? I didn't read anyone say that. I suppose if it's a contest to see who's furthest south maybe there is a geological listing with lat and longitude to help in that area.

 

https://www.ebay.com/dsc/i.html?_sacat=0&LH_TitleDesc=1&_udlo=&_udhi=&_ftrt=901&_ftrv=1&_sabdlo=&_sabdhi=&_samilow=&_samihi=&_sadis=15&_stpos=18045&_sop=15&_dmd=1&_ipg=60&_fosrp=1&_in_kw=1&_ex_kw=skidata&_nkw=SKYDATA

 

the skydata name is on plenty of items not listed on ebay at them moment as well, though some have better looking labels and info and are made around the world like any other electronics of the era.

 

There is/was SKYDATA Canada, SKYDATA USA. SKYDATA Argentina. and if look a little more....

 

read some labels and do some looking up, but the information still stands.

 

So, what exactly is your point in regard to this topic? 

[+Allan]

While you guys argue over borders (. , can I put out a request for the person who won this auction to scan the manual if possible? Thank you.

[Mclaneinc]

Sounds too sensible for this thread, Allan..   

 

 

[manterola]

4 hours ago, Allan said:

While you guys argue over borders (. , can I put out a request for the person who won this auction to scan the manual if possible? Thank you.

That is assuming that the person reads this forum. We all want the manual and a picture of the board.

 

[machf]

19 hours ago, Larry said:

SOT, but looks like from a Google map that part of Chile extends further south than Argentina?  Anyway, I was curious about how cold the climate is at the southern tip of South America.  Is it below the Anarctic circle?  Didn't see that on the maps I found. Just curious.

I think they both may keep having some dispute...

 

2 hours ago, manterola said:

That is assuming that the person reads this forum. We all want the manual and a picture of the board.

 

Yeah, does anybody know who was it?

 

[ijor]

A picture of the motherboard would be interesting. Not so sure about the manual, I don't expect anything very interesting there.

 

But considering that the box mentions an Intel 8040, it is most likely just a XF-551 clone. What else could be? Conceivable they "borrowed" one of the third party enhanced roms.

[spicyjack]

On 6/13/2022 at 5:16 AM, Allan said:

While you guys argue over borders (. , can I put out a request for the person who won this auction to scan the manual if possible? Thank you.

 

 

Scanning of the manual will happen at some point.  Trust me.  I'll also have Google translate the OCR'ed version, but take that for what it's worth.  I can't make an exact promise when scanning and translation will happen, however; figure before the end of this year (2022) sometime.

 

As well as scanning the manual, I will be making good pictures of the circuit board(s), drive mechanism and dumps of the firmware ROM(s) so I can post them "somewhere" (not sure where yet).

 

Speaking of "firm warez", is there a public archive somewhere where I can find the official (or unofficial) XF551 firmware ROMs?   When I dump the ROM from this thing, I can at least checksum it against known XF551 firmware ROMs to see if I get any matches.

[machf]

2 hours ago, spicyjack said:

 

 

Scanning of the manual will happen at some point.  Trust me.  I'll also have Google translate the OCR'ed version, but take that for what it's worth.  I can't make an exact promise when scanning and translation will happen, however; figure before the end of this year (2022) sometime.

 

As well as scanning the manual, I will be making good pictures of the circuit board(s), drive mechanism and dumps of the firmware ROM(s) so I can post them "somewhere" (not sure where yet).

 

Speaking of "firm warez", is there a public archive somewhere where I can find the official (or unofficial) XF551 firmware ROMs?   When I dump the ROM from this thing, I can at least checksum it against known XF551 firmware ROMs to see if I get any matches.

Great news! How long is the manual? It may be better to manually translate it if it's relatively short than to attempt an automatic translation. Seems very thin, judging by that picture... if so, I may gladly volunteer.

 

[Mclaneinc]

I'd imagine that ROM wise it will probably match existing XF551 ROMs (or possible minor differences), chances are the mech is a known type and it's merely the box it's in that has the most changes..

 

Nice monitor. I spy a good looking chap and his old cat on it

[+Allan]

12 hours ago, spicyjack said:

 

 

Scanning of the manual will happen at some point.  Trust me.  I'll also have Google translate the OCR'ed version, but take that for what it's worth.  I can't make an exact promise when scanning and translation will happen, however; figure before the end of this year (2022) sometime.

 

As well as scanning the manual, I will be making good pictures of the circuit board(s), drive mechanism and dumps of the firmware ROM(s) so I can post them "somewhere" (not sure where yet).

 

Speaking of "firm warez", is there a public archive somewhere where I can find the official (or unofficial) XF551 firmware ROMs?   When I dump the ROM from this thing, I can at least checksum it against known XF551 firmware ROMs to see if I get any matches.

Thank you.  

 

Please, please, please scan it at 300 DPI (not 150 DPI).  It is terrible on the eyes to read text at such low-resolution. If you have scanning software that has a 'text' mode you can have a 300 (or 600) dpi scan that is easily readable but is also much smaller in memory size. Of course this only works with pages that have just black text on a white background.  For archiving purposes, color and grey scale (black and white photographs) are always best scanned in color or grey-scale for obvious reasons. Please don't hesitate in sending me private message for any questions on scanning. I scanned thousands of Atari 8-bit stuff.

 

Here is my Archive.org account.  https://archive.org/details/@allan52

[+Larry]

@Allan In your experience, does 600 dpi make a significant difference over 300 for text?  I find the 600 dpi scans at archive.org just make the downloads from their servers slower.

[spicyjack]

2 hours ago, Allan said:

Thank you.  

 

Please, please, please scan it at 300 DPI (not 150 DPI).  It is terrible on the eyes to read text at such low-resolution. If you have scanning software that has a 'text' mode you can have a 300 (or 600) dpi scan that is easily readable but is also much smaller in memory size. Of course this only works with pages that have just black text on a white background.  For archiving purposes, color and grey scale (black and white photographs) are always best scanned in color or grey-scale for obvious reasons. Please don't hesitate in sending me private message for any questions on scanning. I scanned thousands of Atari 8-bit stuff.

 

Here is my Archive.org account.  https://archive.org/details/@allan52

I'll scan it at 1200 DPI grayscale and then use ImageMagick and the magickal power of bash scripts to convert it into something more workable before I OCR and upload.  I also want to try out some of the ImageMagick tools (textcleaner) and see how that helps, if any.  After my adventure with the Indus GT manual, I know I have more to learn about creating smaller PDFs with clean text.

 

If I have questions, I'll reach out via PM, thanks for offering to help.

 

Have you ever thought about writing "Allan's Guide to Scanning Cool Atari Stuff" and posting it somewhere, maybe on your archive.org homepage, in order to coax other people in to scanning stuff?

[+Allan]

1 hour ago, Larry said:

@Allan In your experience, does 600 dpi make a significant difference over 300 for text?  I find the 600 dpi scans at archive.org just make the downloads from their servers slower.

If you are going to print it out on paper again and you want the best possible quality, yes. If you are just going to read it (use it) in digital form and don't want eye strain nor jaggie lines, than not so much. As screen tech gets better this may change as well, but for now 300 dpi seems to be fine for reading.

[spicyjack]

12 hours ago, machf said:

Great news! How long is the manual? It may be better to manually translate it if it's relatively short than to attempt an automatic translation. Seems very thin, judging by that picture... if so, I may gladly volunteer.

 

It's 26 pages, roughly, not including the front/back covers.

 

Once it's scanned and I upload it somewhere (probably Google Drive while it's being worked on), you will be able to download and translate it.

[+Allan]

1 minute ago, spicyjack said:

Have you ever thought about writing "Allan's Guide to Scanning Cool Atari Stuff" and posting it somewhere, maybe on your archive.org homepage, in order to coax other people in to scanning stuff?

Yes but just never got around to it. Plus there are differing opinions on the subject and it can get a little heated.

[spicyjack]

1 minute ago, Allan said:

Yes but just never got around to it. Plus there are differing opinions on the subject and it can get a little heated.

Suggestion: "Allan's Very Opinionated Guide Thank You Very Much To Scanning Cool Atari Stuff"

 

You could at least write about the current process that you use now, and what hasn't worked in the past and why not, or how scanning/reading has changed over time (increase in DPI in displays, for example).

 

I think your "volume" on archive.org speaks for itself.

[Mathy]

Hello Allan, folks

 

2 hours ago, Allan said:

Yes but just never got around to it. Plus there are differing opinions on the subject and it can get a little heated.

 

That doesn't stop most writers/authors.

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

 

 

[spicyjack]

Hello everybody,

 

I have an update on this; I got a bit of free time today and scanned in the manual.

 

The manual has a section on hooking up the drive and setting drive number switches, then another section on how to use a disk from BASIC.  That's it.

 

It looks like there was an "SK-DOS" or "DOS-SK" (it's listed both ways in the manual) released with the drive, but the drive didn't come with any disks at all.  A quick search on various search engines didn't cough up any disk images, so I have no more info about the DOS.

 

I scanned the manual at 1200dpi, then downsampled to both 150dpi and 100dpi and then OCR'ed, so you can choose which copy to download based on your Internet speed/desire/whatever, the contents of both PDFs are otherwise the same.  The font is small, so there are OCR errors; the sample code came out good, because it used a bigger font.

 

Please let me know if you have any questions.

 

Next up, a teardown of the drive.  Not sure when will happen though...

skydata_sk-551_disk_drive.2023-07-04.100dpi.pdf skydata_sk-551_disk_drive.2023-07-04.150dpi.pdf

[spicyjack]

On 6/17/2022 at 6:23 AM, Allan said:

If you have scanning software that has a 'text' mode you can have a 300 (or 600) dpi scan that is easily readable but is also much smaller in memory size. Of course this only works with pages that have just black text on a white background.  For archiving purposes, color and grey scale (black and white photographs) are always best scanned in color or grey-scale for obvious reasons. Please don't hesitate in sending me private message for any questions on scanning. I scanned thousands of Atari 8-bit stuff.

For what it's worth, I tried this with the software that I'm using (Nitro PDF for macOS, used to be called PDFPenPro).

 

The "Optimize PDF" dialog in Nitro PDF just downsamples to 150dpi for anything over a preset size (currently 200dpi).  I manually downsampled using ImageMagick from 1200dpi to 600dpi and then ran it through the "Optimize PDF" cycle in Nitro PDF as a demo, and it managed to save another 200KB over the 150dpi version that I created by manually downsampling to 150dpi using ImageMagick and then importing.

 

The front and back covers are in colour by the way, and the rest is greyscale, so there's more room there to shrink the PDF size.

 

I'd still love to see and/or hear how others in the PDF-generation community are doing it, the way I look at it, for something like scanning documents, there's always more to learn.

Edited July 5, 2023 by spicyjack