Muzz73

Yes, definitely. I am currently changing all of the pages to B&W (not grayscale or the yellowed paper of the original) to fix the contrast, but I'm still not sure that the OCR process will do too much better with it. I'll post the pages when I'm done, just in case anybody want to use them for one thing or another, but I think the freshly-typed pages are much nicer.

Yep... if you want to keep doing these, I'll just leave it be, because there's really no better way than to re-type it, like you're doing. That's just an awful lot of work and I thought I'd see if Acrobat Pro's OCR engine was capable of pulling it off (within reason).

Here it is OCR'd... I'm not very happy with the results, so I'll keep messing with it. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ai2kl1m0khpt5iv/DND1_Complete_OCR.pdf.zip It's still a PDF, but you can select the text, copy & paste, and make any corrections in BASIC, using the original as a visual reference. A pain in the neck? Absolutely... like I said, I'll keep messing with it and try to get the accuracy down a little better.

It was about $3,500 USD, which was probably more like £2,000 at the time. Still, would you pay that much for a PC?! Even now?! Sheesh! I know what you mean, though... I have two Windows PCs and a MacPro at my desk at work, which is why I have an ST on my desk at home.

Exactly! I had a friend who bought a used '386 from an engineering firm back in 1990 for $3,000. He was so proud of his machine, that he spent more money upgrading it to VGA, adding commercial memory management software for his 4.5MB RAM, etc. He had almost $3,500 into it, when I pointed out that my A500 system was under $1,000 and did things his engineering PC couldn't comprehend.

This sort reminds me of when someone asked me if I'd rather have Win95 or Mac OS 9. I answered "DOS." LOL After all, when you choose the lesser of two evils, you are still choosing evil. Anybody remember this one? "In a world without walls and fences, who needs windows and gates?" Har har...

Just give it to me and I'll worry about the details. I'll gladly send you my Mega ST 4...

Oh, man... I want that thing in a bad way! Alas, having just been forced into purchasing a new vehicle yesterday, I don't see it happening. Somebody please give that thing a good home and not some collector who's going to put it away, either. Someone who's going to use the heck out of it... I would!

Nice... wait, is that the Yellow Brick Road?! LOL Seriously, cool pic!

P.S. - I apologize for all of the typos... the brain is faster than the thumbs, tonight! Or is it the other way...(?)

C=64 power supplies go haywire if you so much as look at the wrong! LOL But yes, I always keep the power strips turned off for reasons mentioned above. Being that I came from a Commodore background before I discovered Atari machines, I now that one dirty spike can slag your SID chip when you're not looking, so it's generally best to shut the door before letting in any unclean power, if you know what I mean.

Greetings, all! I recently dug my SF314 out of mini storage, only to find that the PSU seems to have disappeared into that black hole where all of the left socks go out of the wash. I was thinking that, instead of trying to find a new PSU for it, I might see about replacing the SF354 that's built into my PS3000 with a double-sided mechanism and saving some space on the desk. Is this feasible without having to hack up my poor PS3000? It's the only color monitor I've got right now and I don't want to risk it if I don't have to. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!

I don't have any kind of electronics skill to pull that off. That's my problem. I was hoping that it was just a simple adjustment, but it turns out that it really isn't that simple after all. If there's a chance that I'll burn my monitor out, then I'll have to pass on it. Is this something that just happens over time? I only recently got the SM124 and it has a huge border, but when I bought a used SM124 20 years ago, the border was much smaller than the one I have now.

If you can't get your hands on an Atari mouse, one thing you could do would be to get an ST to Amiga adaptor. I got one off of ebay from a guy in Greece for around $7 USD plus shipping. It just crosses the two pins that are different and passes the rest through. No circuitry, no drivers, just play & play.

The TT030 is great for music, graphic arts, desktop publishing and pretty much anything you can do with a computer that isn't a game. The things that some games don't like much on the TT030 are the advanced version of TOS that ir runs, and a few things about the architecture... primarily that fact that Atari didn't install the scrolling hardware that a lot of games use, figuring that having such a powerful processor would compensate for it. Unfortunately, that's not how a lot of programmers felt at the time.

<DROOL> I've never even seen a TT030 up close! Man, I'd love to get my knuckles around that! Seriously, though... it's a neat machine, designed more as a business/workstation type rather than a personal computer. It came out before the Falcon and has the most guts of any Atari desktop overall (68030 & 68882, both @ 32MHz). It has the same sound capabilities as the STE line and a really nice monochrome high res. mode (1280x960) with the right monitor. A lot of older games don't like it, but for running apps, it's awesome. If you ever decide to part with it...

What about the Koala Pad that you see people using on the Atari 8-bit machines? Do those work on the ST line as well? Being that the joystick protocol between the two systems are identical, it should just be a matter of software, right?

I have always understood that 9-chip SIMMs can always be used in place of 8-chip SIMMs, as the tag chip is ignored in non-parity systems. They probably tell you to only use 8-chip SIMMs in the manual, so that you would buy them from an Atari dealer back in the day and not opt for cheaper, PC memory. I know Apple used to tell everyone to only use 8-chip SIMMs in the Mac Plus and SE, but you could drop four 9-bit/9-chip SIMMs in there and everything worked fine. I used to repair those old Macs daily and saw it all the time.

Absolutely. I was going to scan it at 300dpi in grayscale, but I thought it'd probably end up too large to be practical, so I went with dithered B&W, 150dpi and it still came out to almost 15MB. Whew!

OK, I have scanned the entire Tweety Board manual in B&W, 150dpi. I'm sorry this took so long, but it's a surprisingly long manual for such a simple product. Please note: There were a few blank pages in the original manual that were inserted for print pagination. I have left these out (no point in having them in a PDF). There was also a four page addendum included regarding newer model ST's that came out after the original manual was printed. I have included all four pages of the addendum at the end of the manual (after page 29). You may download it here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lb5iudu8arjtv1s/Tweety_Board.pdf I hope this helps for anyone who might have needed it.

I have always wished and hoped that someone would have come out with a STereo upgrade, like running dual SIDs in a Commodore 8-bit or dual POKEYs on an Atari 8-bit. Sure, the synthesis might still be cheesy, but 6 voices in stereo would still be better than 3 in mono. OK, maybe not "better", but fun to play around with.

I may have the manual to my Tweety Board, but I'm not sure. If I do, I'll scan and post it on Monday.

Sounds like a fun project for Sunday (my birthday is on Saturday, so I doubt I'll be sober enough to do it then). Funny thing about the Tweety Board; you stick it to the top of the YM2149 with double-faced tape (solderless). I got mine used, so I am going to have to get some more double-faced tape, but now I am intrigued by all of this and am curious how games will sound going through my home theatre setup...

Hmm... on second thought, I think I'll just live with it. I wouldn't have any idea what to look for in there and like my monitor in working condition! It's not the only monitor I've got, but it's the only high res, paper white display that makes UMS look so nifty... Thanks for the pointers, everyone!

Yes, as I understand it, CRT and the flyback transformer can store upward of 50,000-60,000v even if it's been unplugged for years. Somebody once told me that it's enough to throw you across the room. Yikes! OK, maybe I'll just have to be REALLY careful and use something that doesn't conduct. I remember CRT adjustments from back in the day when I used to work on the old 9" Macs. I was hoping not to have to pull it apart, but you know what they say... "You can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs!" Thanks!