IainGrimm
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Posts posted by IainGrimm
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SInce no reply on my reply: I posted DOTC floppy version fixed for STE: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ASTGA/D/defcrown.php
If possible, pls. not disappear, but give arguments for your claims, or say that were wrong. There is already enough confusion with this.
Right, please don't pull me over non replies, I am a carer for my mother in law who is currently terminally ill with lung cancer, I don't always remember or have time to reply to every response on the internet.
Anyhow, the STe version of interphase runs a fair bit faster and smoother, the blocks on the ceiling and floor on the STe are full squares that you fly through, on standard ST I believe the are just hollow square shapes (tested using Steem so may have been error)
DOTC I greatly appreciate you sorting a disc version, means I can write it onto a new disc and put it in with my original that crashes
Platoon does not work on TOS 1.62, I picked up the Hit Squad re release and it won't load in, you get the load screen but then it bombs. When I spoke to you last you recommended getting Pasti and linked me the American version of the game to run using Steem, you said it was going to be a fair bit or work converting it to run from HD or even fix, it was a while ago though.
I do need to update my collection from your site actually, last time I got anything was Game Over so quite a bit to be downloading and putting on SD card.
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Interphase is STe enhanced, runs buttery smooth and there are extra effects on ceiling and floor, it actually runs better than the Amiga version.
Platoon & Defender of the Crown don't work on the STe at all, I spoke to PPera about it ages ago asking if anyone had a fix, it only works on earlier TOS machines and not STe.
DOTC has been adapted and fixed for the STe now but Platoon has yet to be sorted.
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Very cool and very clever, this could be used effectively on smart phones and tablets. Not sure I would want to use it on my proper machine though.
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With the discs I did have some success using an external USB floppy drive, with the external drive I could write the 720k discs fine but non of the 800k discs using Omniflop. I also managed to format said discs as 720k (there is a bat file out there that will do it and it works with USB floppy).
After the discs are formatted Windows cannot read them at all, however you can copy & paste programs over to them, not disc images but the normal TOS type files then your ST will read them fine.
I did setup an old PC on my 3rd floor with a FDD controller on the board primarily for writing old formats, works nicely, need to get an internal 5" drive next so I don't have to keep connecting my C64 1541 up to the parallel port. Running this on Windows 7 32 Bit and it is all good, took a day or so to get everything up and running, working out correct Parallel Port settings for 1541 and installing the Omniflop driver etc but it has been worth it.
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I bought a D Type Scart for my ST from Retro Gaming cables (bought a few cables from them in the past and never an issue), few issues with it though, seems to be creating lag on my LG LCD (Non High Def) TV. When running through the RF lead works as well as you would expect it to, once I connected the scart though games etc started running choppy missing frames and becoming juddery is best way to describe it. Tried both scart sockets on the TV and both exactly the same, think I need to move it onto an old CRT and test again. They did send me another cable but it is exactly the same as the first.
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Omniflop does support the TI99/4A format so you have another option with that one, I use it for ST & Archimedes discs and it hasn't failed me yet.
http://www.shlock.co.uk/Utils/OmniFlop/OmniFlop.htm
Took a little working out writing the Arc disks, had to rename the .adf to .ads so it would write both sides of the disc but after doing that wrote everything I have thrown at it perfect.
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I bought an XM1541 cable a few weeks back and have been using that with GUICBM4WIN to transfer the D64 images onto floppy. I tend to test the discs on Vice first to make sure they are good, Project Firestart for example, I had 2 versions and both were faulty, one of them the main sprite distorted / glitched when moving and the other Side 2 wasn't working, grabbed the version from Gamebase and it works exactly how it should.
I have an old PC with the Parallel Port setup on the 3rd floor of the house on the lower shelf on a table to my C64 so easy to just swap out the connection between C64 & PC, I will however be getting a Zoom Floppy some point for future proofing and another disc drive so no swapping needed.
When it comes to tapes like previously mentioned you use Audiotap, play them out of your PC speaker or headphone socket, connect a lead to headphone to a Mic In on a tape recorder and hit record, alignment on the recorder needs to match where the C64 tape deck alignment is and don't have the volume set to high or you get distortion and it won't load, a bit of trial and error is required until you get it just right.
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Have Life of Pixel through PSN on my Xperia, it is a really good game, controls work nice for touch screen, done the first set of levels, some of the Spectrum levels and started on the BBC Model B levels. Wasn't aware that it was available on the PC in all honesty, need to pick it up.
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We originally had a C16 then upgraded to the C64 and then late 80's I bought the Amiga when I started working.
C64 was the main backbone though with getting it early 80's and still used it even when I had the Amiga 500.
I still have the machine (Breadbin) but it died earlier this year so now using a C64c, still use my AR4, 1541 disc drive and the likes also
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I have been planning on getting one of these for my Amstrad CPC464 at some point this year (I will also need the ram expansion and board that allows multiple cartridges plugged in as I also need a DDI Clone which allows connection of the HxC so its going to be a bit pricey for that machine), only gripe some people have with it is that you have to convert the files into their format but it is no real biggie as there is a batch conversion option.
Well worth investing in with it supporting many different machines, some people even take out their floppy drive and mount it in the case and cut holes into said case to see screen etc.
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Yeah, you actually have the desktop built into the ST machines also (granted the first models had to be booted from a disc) which makes it ideal for things like the UltraSatan.
The Amiga does suit running from discs much better, put a disc in and away you go, Workbench is handy and required for some items like the old Lucas games and some applications require a Workbench area to be able to load (EasyADF you boot from the floppy and then it gets files from the Workbench disc to operate properly, great thing to have on 600 or 1200 as it allows the emulator adf files to be transferred back to discs).
Overall though I am the same, I will use discs (and tapes on my 8 bits) where possible. With my Acorn Archimedes A3010 you can put a hard drive in it but its a right mess around so everything I have on that is on disc and I won't be even attempting to put a hard drive in it. Thing with the Arc also is that maximum size it supports when it comes to a hard drive is 160Mb, doesn't allow multiple partitions either unlike the ST.
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Why not go with the C64 biggest rival back in the 80's, a ZX Spectrum
Granted you may have to import one from the UK as they weren't big in the states and you will also need to get PAL to NTSC converter and a device to up the voltage to our 240 but overall it could be worth your time. Not forgetting thousands of PAL games cheap on tape are available all over the net, you can also get a Divide interface which has built in Kempston Interface (allows connection of standard 9 pin Atari joysticks) and has an SD card which you can run all the games from once downloaded, you can get them from Lotharek site.
I would go with a 128k +2A or the original 128k Toast Rack model as the extra ram is used in quite a few games and certain multiload games load up in one go so no extra loading required.
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I got the 520STe last Christmas, boxed complete with manuals and the software starter pack and a few extra games for £60, upgraded the ram which took all of 10 minutes to do, ram was only around £15 delivered. Then bought a D type scart cable from Retro Gaming Cables and the UltraSatan from Lotharek and PP's driver so it was around the £200 mark for the full setup.
Little pricey overall but well worth it, still cheaper than going for an Amiga 600 / 1200 then ram expansion, accelerator board and the internal hard drive setup for WHDLoad. Reason I haven't upgraded my 600 is due to the price of the kit needed to bring it up to same standard as the STe.
I would say go with a 520STe then gradually add to it till you have the full setup, most expensive item is the UltraSatan, you also have to buy the lead for it to connect to the ST.
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Using the Fast Load on something like the Action Replay Mk4 speeds things up nicely on discs on C64, use it all the time. Tape loaders are slowwwwwww but you usually get a decent pic and some loading music, I do love tapes still, prefer discs now but tapes are cool. Thing is in the UK disc games in most cases had to be ordered in specially, not many places actually held any stock, Top Soft near us back in the 80's did carry a few disc based games, normally when stuff was initially released and it was mainly the D&D games that are disc only, we did order a few games in like Zak McKraken & Neuromancer and I remember picking up Armalyte from there on disc. USA seems to be more disc based on the system but UK and Europe everything was on tape, most of the places you bought a C64 the C2N was included in the bundle and also a few tapes to get you started.
Anyhow, I have 3 gripes with the C64, first is the newer SID revision, at times it isn't as good as the one that shipped in the Breadbin, things like sampled speech on Myth which was released 89 you can barely hear it on my C64c but crystal clear on the Breadbin, on the flip side of that a lot of devs did better use the newer SID in the C64c.
Joystick Ports, like previously mentioned, having to swap them all the time between 1 & 2, don't know why they just didn't standardise and agree on a single port to use and second could have been used for a second player on games that supported it.
Joystick buttons, granted early 80's one joystick button was all that was needed, later games though a second button would have been nice, playing certain games having to tap space with your foot for a secondary fire function, or even a second button to jump rather than pushing up.
Then there was the Commodore 16 & +4, why didn't they use standard connections on the ports, granted you can get the circular plug to 9 pin for the joystick but when you look at the range in general all peripherals were compatible with each of the machines (C64 & c, 128, Vic 20), with the C16 & +4 they changed all the connectors, I feel the +4 especially would have done a lot better if they followed the standard connections, it had 64k ram (granted no Vic2 chip dedicated for graphics or the legendary SID) but it was a decent machine for the time.
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There is AHDI which is the original Atari ST hard disk driver :
http://www.atari-forum.com/wiki/index.php?title=AHDI
The thing is though you will need DOS/TOS compatible partitions, using AHDI you won't be able to see the partitions on your PC or whatever you use, same goes for ICD Pro. So then you will have an issue with transferring the various files / games over to the TOS formatted card.
I went through all of this earlier this year and the free solutions are no good if you are wanting to be able to use a PC for the file transfer once the drive is setup on your ST. You need to use either PPera Hard Disk driver or HDDriver so it is DOS/TOS Compatible.
In the end I just bought PP's driver and it has worked great for me.
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Thanks but no thanks 44 eur = 66. USD
that's a premium I'm not going to pay for software that I might use once or twice. 
PP's Driver is 10 Euros, I was exactly the same, not paying 44 Euros for something that will only be occasionally used. The thing with HDDriver is that it supports a lot more devices like CD etc hence the higher premium, PP's driver literally does what it says on the tin, it is for setting up the SD card as a hard drive.
http://atari.8bitchip.info/pphdr.php
His contact details are at the bottom of his site page :
http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php#Mail
Or send him a message here - ParanoidLittleMan
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Send PP (Paranoid Little Man) an email and get his hard disk driver, smaller and compact, easy to setup. His driver is also A LOT cheaper than HDDriver
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Sniper Elite V2 is free for 24 hours on Steam currently so best grab it quick :
http://store.steampowered.com/app/63380/
Just read on the store page that you have to install it to keep it, can't just add it to your account-
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I do have 2 floppy drives, one built in and an additional external drive also. I don't have the second drive hooked up all the time though. Only use it on the games that you can't install to the hard drive. I have all the adventure games I have installed to the USD like Monkey Island and Op Stealth (James Bond : The Covert Affair), also have things like Knights of the Sky and Their Finest Hour installed but F19 from Microprose won't allow a Hard Drive install so I hook the extra floppy drive up to play it with minimal disk swapping.
It comes in handy occasionally but its a bit of a pain requiring its own power so have to connect a kettle lead to the end before I can plug it in, will probably be able to clip the end off it actually and just put a plug onto it.
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I joined here and Atari Forum at the same time after getting my STe for Christmas gone. Was looking for info on setting up the USD I got and how to go about it. Between the 2 forums I found here a bit easier to talk with people, Atari Forum feels more technical. So I decided to stick around here with it being a great source of easy to digest info.
Community here are decent folk all of us with a common interest, Atari or whatever else!
I also REALLY like the way the whole site is setup, easy to find what you are looking for, easy to navigate round, can't ask for anything else really.
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You can get TOS 1.04 (6 or 2 Chips version for the STf) from Atari ST Freakz, he dispatches all over the world. Same goes for upgrading the ram, you can get a board there that allows you to add SIMMS to a STf machine, you can either get the board with or without the SIMMS.
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Initially I would buy a basic ST to TV scart cable as with that you will get sound and picture, doing this will just to get you going so you can spend a little time looking for a monitor.
Rather than spending on SCSI hard drives like already mentioned I would say hold off and get a Ultrasatan Disc (Get the drive from Lotharek and get PP's Hard Disk driver), it only took a few days through UPS to get to the UK from Poland and PP emails you his driver quickly once you send payment through Paypal.
Literally just go bare minimum with spend initially, you don't need a lot to just get a picture onto a TV, once you have it running this way then start looking into the extra items you are after.
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If you have a floppy drive (internal is preferable) you can write a few .st images back onto disk using Omniflop. If you have an external USB floppy drive, depending on the controller it uses you should be able to write the 720k discs but nothing above or below that. Its how I started out until I got my USD, I have an Iomega external USB floppy drive and can write the 720k images, anything below 720k (single sided stuff) just won't load on my ST, anything above 720k and it can't write the full image.
If you have an internal floppy drive you will be able to write any size disc just fine with Omniflop or ppera floimg (I personally prefer Omniflop)
You can also try grabbing a few of the DBug and ppera hard drive adapted games (720k or less in size, format the disc on your ST) and just copy and paste them onto a 720k formatted disc, Windows will try and tell you to format the disc but just cancel that off, once copied over you can run quite a few of them direct from a disc, just make sure you look at the ram requirements, anything above your 1mb won't work.
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Jinks (Rainbow Arts) with improved scroll
in Atari ST/TT/Falcon Computers
Posted
Wow that is buttery smooth and as good as anything the Amiga could put out
Another one to grab from yourself to add to my SD card
Thanks and keep up the great work