x=usr(1536)
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Posts posted by x=usr(1536)
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One other thing: in the seller's photos, the machine is connected to power, but not a TV, and the power switch is flipped to the on position. My guess is that the buyer did this so that he could claim that there's no power LED lighting up when the machine is turned on, figuring that the likelihood of an eBay employee knowing that the machine doesn't have a power LED is slim to nil. Connecting it to a TV would give the game away, though.
Any idea as to what's going on with the connector on the power adapter? Was it heat-shrinked or similar to prevent the plug head coming out of the end? I realise that it uses interchangeable plug heads to account for different jack sizes, but that's just unusual.
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On 9/13/2023 at 12:49 AM, r_type2600 said:
How about "Stellactic" or "Stellaxy" or "Stellaga" - sure would be fitting this project's impact 🙂
Stellantis!
Oh, wait...
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7 hours ago, JPF997 said:
So what you only want to engage in discussions that are bland, unoriginal and safe, then you should have gone somewhere else .
Uh, no. You put the thread out in public. By doing so, you're inviting commentary from the public. If you received commentary other than what you hoped to receive, too bad. That's just the risk involved with inviting opinion: it may not always be what you want to hear.
7 hours ago, JPF997 said:There is nothing mean spirited about discussing the failure's of previous leader's of Atari, we have the right to critique the business decisions of CEOs of any other companies but for some reason Atari CEOs are off limits?
By that logic, it seems as though critiquing your posts is off-limits. Again, when inviting public opinion you're not safe from that.
As others have stated, the issue isn't the subject matter, but rather how it was presented - and there are ways that the thread could have been started that wouldn't be likely to ultimately devolve into the mass of bickering, argument, and acrimony that we've seen play out again and again in threads like these.
7 hours ago, JPF997 said:Sorry but I have no intention of playing the game by your made up rule's.
Nobody's making up rules. They're stating an opinion, and, ultimately, trying to give you the benefit of their experience. Related to that:
7 hours ago, JPF997 said:Picking fights? Sorry but when someone's only contribution to a discussion is flooding the comment section with this insufferable millennial/zoomer style humor then they should look somewhere else to post they're cringe takes
Perhaps looking to see if there's a germ of truth to the replies you're receiving rather than taking them as personal attacks would be something worth considering.
7 hours ago, JPF997 said:(keep in mind this is a zoomer speaking, I'm just tired of this current mainstream soyboy culture most of my contemporaries engage with).
Here's the thing: you're receiving pretty much the exact opposite of the 'soyboy culture' to which you are referring. People are being straightforward with you and not softening their commentary; they want their point to be clearly understood.
Humour is used to soften that blow somewhat. Sure, it can be snarky at times, but so what? There are far worse things in life to have to deal with than some sarcastic guy sitting in front of his keyboard. Besides, he's probably wearing only a stained pair of tighty-whities and is shoveling Cheetos open-palm into his mouth as orange corn-based styrofoam snack crumbs rain down into the depths of his keyboard from above, irretrievably jamming the 'j' key to the point where he has to press it so hard it crunches in order for it to work. Roll with the punches and worry about things that are worth worrying about.
There is one thing I am genuinely curious about, however:
9 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:He's also Soylent Green!
When I wrote this, what did you think I was referring and/or alluding to? Again, genuinely curious.
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30 minutes ago, JPF997 said:
Ok you guys win this one, feel free to screw around in this thread, but remember this
Needs background music.
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23 minutes ago, jeremiahjt said:
I will go with Wade Rosen. I mean how are you going to buy a forum and not even come by and say hello. Wait a minute... Atari just bought AtariAge and @JPF997 is a brand new member... JPF997 is Wade Rosen!
He's also Soylent Green!
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On 9/8/2023 at 2:54 PM, Nathan Strum said:
Very cool! I got to play a Baby Pac-Man in person a few months ago.
I'm absolutely terrible at it.
But playing Bob and Kurt's version beforehand helped immeasurably, otherwise I would've been totally lost.
The trick lies in learning how to group and lead the ghosts: they don't really behave like they do in any other Pac-Man game. Once you can get into the swing of how to make that happen, the game becomes a lot less brutal and it becomes easier to reach the pinball playfield.
My recollection is that the ghosts have something of an affinity for homing in on you, but if you can get them at the right distance and change your direction, they'll change their direction of pursuit and it becomes possible to group and lead them. Making use of the tunnels also helps with this. Here're a couple of posts from earlier in the thread on the subject:
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OK, that clears things up a bit. Thanks.
A few comments:
2 hours ago, Mr SQL said:A DNS attack is a denial of service that prevents normal functioning of a system through repetition. In this case the endless fake calls constituted a DNS attack derailing normal business function through my business phone. Telemarketers calling endlessly preventing you from receiving normal phone calls create a similar DNS attack but this was more disturbing and more effective because social networking skills are used cleverly to trick out the business past the duration of the calls, while we know right away to ignore and hang up on telemarketers.
It looks like there's a bit of muddling going on re: terminology, which was part of what was confusing me. A Denial of Service attack is abbreviated DoS (lowercase 'o' intentional); DNS is completely different and is used to convert domain names to IP addresses.
If I'm understanding correctly, you were receiving a high volume of phone calls intended to basically busy out your business number. Is this correct?
2 hours ago, Mr SQL said:Here's the offending DNS crack version breaking both the embedded Atari 2600 emulator and the game. Usually in the C64 scene a crack preserves the original work but in this case presents a deliberately horrible sounding production presented as "my work" complete with it's own promotional Facebook page. If you look at the C64 directory on the crack, you'll see a direct reference to a DNS attack in markup as well as in the filename:
One caveat: I am not a Commodore guy by any stretch of the imagination. So far, I've managed to get c1541 to attach the disk image and extract arkanoidaird/dns to the local disk for inspection; x64sc has loaded and run the program in question. Neither of these programs were installed on my machine until about 30 minutes ago, so there's some learn-as-you-go for me here.
I think I now see where DNS was being used interchangeably with DoS: the 'DNS!' shout-outs shown in the directory structure likely refer to Dinasours1338, who look to be a C64 cracking group. Their name also appears at the end of the ARKANOIDAIRD/DNS file. This is about as far as my knowledge goes with respect to this end of things, because I just flat-out don't know enough about the C64 cracking scene. I realise that this is probably obvious to anyone in the C64 world, but I breathe Atari
Anyway, I ran the executable and it went as far as the screen that I think you were referring to:
There was a pretty solid synth string sound playing on that screen, but hitting space got past it and started the game itself. The game ran, but the synth string continued playing in the background; it also wasn't clear if the graphics were correct or not. It is possible that the crack had some knock-on effects on the rest of the game; that has been known to happen.
FWIW, the piece of music that initially plays during loading before that screen comes up is taken from an Atari 8-bit game, but I cannot for the life of me remember which one. From watching videos of a few of Dinasours1338's demos, however, it seems to be something of a signature of theirs. Here it is being (briefly and incompletely) used in an Atari menu disk:
Moving on: I haven't found anything referencing a Facebook page, so am not entirely certain where that appeared.
As for the caller: I'm still not understanding the suicide aspect. Was it that the caller was threatening to commit suicide, or was trying to reach a suicide hotline, or something else? Was there more than one caller? Either way, it feels like the crack and the calls are unrelated unless there's something I'm not aware of that ties them together.
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Kermit. After he took his fall down he stairs, things changed. Some say that was the beginning of the end for the company.
14 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:But I think the premise of this topic is shortsighted, mean, and stupid.
Agreed. Criticism is one thing, but this thread comes across as an invitation to shit on someone just because it can be done.
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4 hours ago, Mr SQL said:
This kind of malicious Cyberattack could easily affect a business acquisition by Atari or emulator licensing contracts for Stella.
While I'm far from unsympathetic towards your situation, this isn't something that affects you, AtariAge, Atari, or Stella uniquely. Attacks like this are happening everywhere, every minute of the day.
4 hours ago, Mr SQL said:Worse still the cyber thieves deliberately incorporated a disturbing theme found on AtariAge creating a "DNS" attack on the IP by incorporating the details from my post in response to suicide poster regarding a fake suicide caller attacking my business with a DNS attack consisting of endless calls to my business.
Can you explain what is meant by this? I have a strong cybersecurity background, but cannot follow what it is that you are describing.
- What is meant by 'disturbing theme'?
- Please describe your understanding of the DNS attack.
- 'Details of your post', 'suicide poster', and 'suicide caller' are not clear in this context.
- When you say 'calls', are you referring to phone calls or something else?
Happy to help as much as is reasonably possible, but the way that the incident is being described makes it impossible to understand.
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21 minutes ago, pcrow said:
I thought DOS 3 was only 128 bytes. DOS 4 is only 128 and 256 bytes. I'm under the impression that SpartaDOS is the only one that supports 512-byte sectors, and nothing does larger that I'm aware of. Please correct me if I'm wrong on this.
Nope, you're correct. I mixed DOS3 block sizes and sector sizes together in my head. Apologies for any confusion.
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My suspicions that this is an Aliexpress converter in different clothing are strengthening. No definitive proof is possible without comparing the internals of both the Apollo and Aliexpress units, but the following image (taken from https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256805525735745.html) is interesting:
Omit the AV/SP/PC, PIP, and MENU buttons and the RESET, MODE, and P.P buttons appear in the same sequence on the Apollo; there's even a gap in-between MODE and P.P where the MENU button doesn't appear on the Apollo. The button functions also line up, at least based on the descriptions of what they do. Finally, the SVGA port appears to be in the exact same orientation and location on both in relation to the buttons.
For $5, I decided to splurge and ordered one. It'll be here in two to three weeks. If anyone has one of the Apollo converters and is willing to open it up, I'd love to do a comparison once the Aliexpress unit gets here.
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Speaking of cheap Aliexpress converters / upscalers:
https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255799928860391.html
It would likely be very easy to remove some unused components, add in the appropriate cables, and rehouse it in a project box. Not a bad return on about €4 of investment.
Compare the sequence of the buttons on the Apollo to the ones on the Aliexpress unit. They seem to have the same order, and other things about the form factor line up.
Really want to see the inside of the Apollo unit. Hopefully it's taking its video input from luma and chroma, not composite.
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This isn't a device I've ever heard of before. FWIW, the same seller also has a C64 version available called the Apollo 64; my guess is that the Atari and Commodore versions are identical internally since both machines output the same video signals.
I'd really like to see the internals of one or the other, preferably both. Not much is coming up in searches for either one, and repurposing a cheap Aliexpress converter and charging €129 for it is not outside the bounds of possibility.
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28 minutes ago, pcrow said:
When I use this, I don't use "mount' to mount the image. I run 'atrfs' with the options, and it does the mounting. I turn on debugging, so I typically run:
atrfs -f -s --atrdebug --name=images/testimage.atr ./mnt
Just FYI: running atrfs without any options says that debug is -d. No mention is made of --atrdebug.
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Been doing some testing of various sizes of disk images. So far, this has meant 1440, 2880, 5760, 11520, and 23040 sectors at 128, 256, and 512 bytes each. Spreadsheet attached with results; secsize.zip contains the test images.
Images were created with `atrfs --create --name=number_of_sectors.atr --sectors=number_of_sectors --secsize=128|256|512'.
Can't create (yet) images with sector sizes above 512 bytes; I'm guessing that this will change once DOS3 support makes it in.
Mounting of images was done with `atrfs --name=number_of_sectors.atr /Volumes/number_of_sectors'. Messages in the spreadsheet occur after attempting a mount with those parameters.
Upon successful creation of an image with no mount point specified, it might be a good idea to exit cleanly rather than allowing the `fuse: no mount point' error to appear; this may cause confusion for some folks since the image was created despite not being mounted.
The addition of a --i option would be appreciated. Think of it as working akin to ffmpeg's -i option in that it would display information about an image; usage would be something along the lines of `atrfs --i --name=whatami.atr'. Or maybe just `atrfs --name=image.atr' with no other options specified?
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2 hours ago, Jfcatari said:
This is my hand-built devkit version.
In my tests with each 130xe everything was the same. Nothing is getting hot on the green one.
What tests have been conducted so far?
It's possible for there to be problems without anything getting hot, FWIW.
2 hours ago, Jfcatari said:I will check voltages at the gita especially. The green 130xe is a recent buy from ebay.
Got a source for 130xe regulator?
Sorry, minor brain fart on my behalf: the regulators on XLs and XEs are in the PSU. Apologies for giving the impression they're on the motherboard.
You may want to try a USB adapter rated for at least 2A. See https://www.8bitclassics.com/product/atari-xl-xe-usb-power-cable/ for the appropriate cable.
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18 hours ago, Jfcatari said:
I have two 130XE's both using the same power supply.
When I plug the fujinet (no external power plugged in) into the one the config screen is more on the GREEN side than BLUE. The other 130XE with the exact same setup is BLUE.
On the one that is on the GREEN side, it turns more BLUE when I add the external power supply to the Fujinet.
Any thoughts one where to focus on the 'GREEN' one?
Power supply and / or voltage regulator. It sounds like the FujiNet (or something else) is drawing down the XE's power to the point where the GTIA is being weird when it's connected.
FWIW, I did catch that you're using the same PSU with both machines. To eliminate the PSU as a possibility, you'd need a second known-good one to test with. Having said that, it seems more likely that the VR (as a starting point) may be getting flaky.
Also, check voltages on the main ICs (not just the GTIA) with the FujiNet both connected and removed. If they're under 5VDC at any point, at least you know it's a power issue.
Is this FujiNet one that was handbuilt or did you buy it from a retailer?
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3 hours ago, Jacques said:
Because of MorphOS, I own PowerBook G4, on which I have MacOS X PPC 10.5.8. installed as well.
In general, our hobby is related to decades-old hardware
Makes more sense now
Thing is, without a recent PPC build of macFUSE it's a moot point, since atrfs requires macFUSE in order to mount and manipulate images. Might want to ask around on the various Apple-centric PPC forums out there to see what would be involved in making it happen.
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15 hours ago, Jacques said:
would it work on MacOS X PPC?
Maybe. Try building it and see. My gut feeling is that there will be compiler / library issues.
Out of curiosity, the last version of OS X that supported PPC was 10.6, and that was well over a decade ago. Why are you looking at it as a target?
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3 hours ago, PacManPlus said:
I have to search the forums for the best video mod to use.
UAV. Extremely happy with the one in my 2-port.
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2 hours ago, TrogdarRobusto said:
so, what is the state of the Amiga platform in the opinion of this group? Hardware? Software? What is the appetite for Amiga content?
From my perspective, it's not on my radar. Never owned one growing up, having been an Atari kid. However, I have had a couple as an adult. Good systems, and I can appreciate them for what they are now much better than I ever did as an adolescent ST user.
They're also one of the things I had to let go of when I realised that my collecting habits were well and truly out of hand. Three storage units (mostly filled with arcade games) and an apartment full of computer and video game stuff was where the line in the sand was drawn.
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3 hours ago, zzip said:
If I remember right, at the Belagio you could come and go and avoid walking through the casino floor. A lot of the others you can't avoid it. Might have something to do with how nice the hotel is. You don't want to subject your wealthy guests to that
Now that you mention it, that does sound familiar. Haven't been in there in years.
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2 hours ago, guppy said:
However, Atari Homebrew isn't/wasn't the true Atari, either; it's more accurate to describe it as "various independent third-party development" than it is a lineal descendant of "original Atari" (the Company). Sometimes homebrewers trespassed on Trademarks, yes. And sometimes those Trademarks were Atari's and sometimes they were the property of still other entities. But the homebrew scene did so with good intent: not commercial piracy or to deprive the trademark holders of anything, but to pay homage or to do "justice" to a game that deserved a better version than the market got from the official version. (But that intent not to harm starts to become muddled once AtariAge got into producing and selling physical cartridge products.)
@guppy: this isn't particularly directed at you - it's just that your response happened to raise the general point, so this seemed like a good time to mention a few things in relation to it as well as a couple I just want to get off of my chest. This is likely to be more stream-of-consciousness than anything else as a result.
One distinction that seems to be missing in discussions of how AA relates to any iteration of Atari is that, from observation, most folks seem to regard it as the spiritual successor to 1996 Atari, not a continuation of the company itself. There is no doubt in my mind that from that point up to today, the community here has been the main driving force behind keeping these systems fresh and relevant, whether that came from administering the forums, developing new software, selling Atari-related games and peripherals (including upgrades), collecting for the various platforms, or being an enthusiast who just enjoys using them.
Because the community has been able to be that driving force for the past 27 years, some incredible things have happened. Look at the panoply of devices we now have to enhance our systems with: the AtariVox+, QuadTari, UAV, U1MB, FujiNet, and many, many others. At the same time, software libraries have expanded tremendously across the board. The 5200 and 7800 were once dead systems; now they both enjoy active development scenes. Ditto the A8 and ST ranges.
Now, all of the things mentioned above are ones that don't necessarily make sense to produce from a corporate standpoint. There is no mass market for them, but the market that does exist is both enthusiastic and appreciative. This is why I believe that the community has a solid future: we're the people who will continue to build and do things that simply can't be done effectively in any other environment. In this regard, the community holds the best position in terms of being able to fulfill the community's niche interests.
As this relates to last Thursday's announcement of Atari acquiring AtariAge: what's done is done, and the genie isn't going back into the bottle anytime soon. Regardless of one's personal feelings regarding either entity, this is how things are going to be. This does not mean that you should be oblivious to the potential for down-the-road changes, or that you need to like or dislike any of the parties involved. By all means hold both parties to their word in regard to the promises they've made; they should also be held to the maxim that actions speak louder than words. But it's absolutely not a reason to decide that the community is somehow permanently and irretrievably tainted or altered. That hasn't happened, at least not in the last five days, and would take a lot longer to accomplish than that.
There's no glossing over the fact that trust is going to have to be rebuilt between the community and Atari. There's also no glossing over the fact that that trust was minimal to begin with. Building that trust, however, is a two-way street and both sides need to work at it - what desire or incentive would anyone have to trust someone who doesn't trust them, or considers them to be the enemy? There's a lot of historical baggage to overcome, and this applies on both sides of the fence. By no means am I suggesting that any past events which have shaped negative opinion or eroded trust be forgotten or swept under the carpet, but rather that those events should not be the guiding memory behind every interaction. TL;DR: don't assume bad faith. By all means hold someone accountable if they fail to keep or act on their word, but not assuming that this will be the default when interacting with them should be the default.
A meeting of the minds regarding culture both within the community and within Atari needs to happen. This doesn't mean that anyone has to change theirs, but rather that both learn how to not do something inadvertently-appalling to the other at the dinner table. We're the high-strung prima donnas; the company consists of faceless suits who don't know the slightest thing about how the sausage is made, let alone appreciate the sausage for its tastiness but they'll certainly stick a price tag on it. If this is inducing a sense of déjà vu, that's because it should. It's nothing new, and to one degree or another both sides have engaged in it at various times.
And, just to make my own position clear: I have no opinion or expectations one way or the other regarding Atari's acquisition of AtariAge. It's not something in which I have any sort of business- or administration-related role, so cannot see a point in becoming emotionally-invested in it. What I do have opinions on, however, are the survival of this community and its continued growth. Those are very much important to me, and are not things that should be allowed to decline or disappear regardless of internal or external changes or pressures. For the long run, I will do what I can to prevent that from happening through my participation here, and hope that others will do the same.
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But playing Bob and Kurt's version beforehand helped immeasurably, otherwise I would've been totally lost.
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