[ICD Expo! Hardware & Software]

In any case - that Flashback! disk needs turning into an ATR. Been looking all over the net for that.

 

If you're still looking for this by chance, I recently ATR'd my FlashBack! disk dated 1987.

 

Edit: I see the screenshot in this thread shows a v2.3 version dated 1989, so maybe this is a little older, interesting for archival purposes...

FlashBack! (1987).atr

[Switchable ROM but...]

But more on topic, I still can't understand why the switch in hidden inside, it makes no sense, the whole use of the XLBoss means it should really be outside..

Maybe the original owner really didn't want to make any alterations to his case.... maybe just ran it in BOSS mode most of the time, or left screws out to open it, Regardless, a 2-way switch is a pretty insignificant modification...

 

I have a 4 switchable stack of 4 OS ROMs in my preferred 130XE, Original, Omniview, BOSS, and Omnimon, but alas BOSS stopped working at some point.. I remember BOSS was preferred for 800 compatibility. Most 800 games work with Omniview at least. My dad did fancy stuff back in the day by making 4 LED's across the top of the keyboard to show which OS was selected with the 2 3-way switches on the back too Afraid to open it up with all those tiny wire-wrap wires in there he liked to use. We also upgraded it to 320KB - absolutely mandatory when I first got SpartaDOS X back then, so I could SCOPY a full DD disk to ramdisk!

[1050 Damaged Latch]

I don't know.... I have also a lot of junktech. Nezgar can have this if it fits, but when I look at the pictures I doubt it.... :-(

 

Heya guys -Thanks for checking your equipment! I have a couple other Tandon 1050's and can confirm some are White, some are black but I believe the shape of the plastic shunt is the same on both. That picture of Fred_M's drive is interesting, the plastic shunt & rod look correct, it just compresses down onto a different-looking metal clamp.

 

Edit: Looking closer, I notice in your mech that the open/close detect switch is moved from the front to the inside part of the rod. The shape looks slightly different (stopper so it doesnt close past 90 deg). Never thought there would be so much variation on the tandon mechs since others I have all seem similar to this!

 

Bryan - do your mechs look the same as Fred_M's? I've attached a better overview pic of a similar assembled drive with the open/closed detector in the front in case anyone has one with similar configuration:

[New 4MB RAM expansion]

You should have this firmware already.

 

Any other suggestions how to make SIDE2 work? It just goes to Self-Test memory test, and even reports some bad spots with cart inserted. SDX 4.48 on the SIDE2 currently if that matters. Maybe it will improve when I replace the socket with precision socket, but using disk-based SpartaDOS 3.2f I was able to make a 1MB RAMBO ramdisk, and run ANT.EXE ok.

[New 4MB RAM expansion]

Antonia boards are still available. Boards with the first version of firmware didn't cooperate with SIDE2. With new firmware already works.

 

Just got mine today, up and running in NTSC 600XL, but my SIDE2 cart does not work. (MEMORY TEST at power-on) Where can i get this new firmware?

 

Also the Antonia board seems to 'pop-out' of the CPU socket easily if bumped or moved. Any suggestions to secure it better? (Solder? haha) I stuck a rubber foot under the motherboard so when pressing down, it doesn't flex. Seems to have helped a lot. Just don't want it to happen once i close it all up.

 

I presume everyone else is ditching the shielding once this is in as well?

[1050 Damaged Latch]

It looks like a piece of thin tightly rolled up metal making up the 'pin' - like if I pulled/pushed it out I would never get it back in again. That's why I was thinking best to just swap the rod it's attached to as well...

[1050 Damaged Latch]

Let me have a look and see if I've got a junk mech somewhere.

Yeah, a part from an already-dead 1050 would be ideal. Would be most appreciated!

 

The plastic bit doesn't detach easily from the metal rod it seems.

[Atari 8-bit related BBS(s)]

Digging through my revived MIO hard drive, I came across a BBS Express PRO node-list from July 1994. Came across a couple notable entries. Notably node #244 (mine!) and #402 THE BATES MOTEL / aka MacRorie And a bunch of others in Canada and Netherlands that I was using Express_Net networking with. I seem to recall in the interview with Norman on the Antic Podcast he lost his node? if he meant the node number well, there it is...

 

Attached the converted text file if anyone wants to scan for others they remember! probbs.txt

 

Appears my BBS is mostly functional again, just the original hardware is too unstable... MIO is a little flaky with the DropCheck PBI2ECI adapter... we'll see

 

Also, came across one crazy ATASCII Animation file I had captured from another BBS at some point... Recorded a video of it with LEBREAK3 . Enjoy

 

And a screenshot of the on-line games menu file editing in TextPro, you can see how BBS Express Pro read the commands codes as well as actual menu text. Man.. I would love to play ARENA again! Anyone else remember that game?

 

Cheers!

(And how do I make smaller thumbnails? lol)

[1050 Damaged Latch]

I'm restoring a Tandon-mech 1050 that had a couple issues... 1st issue was a bad 6810 (isolated by swapping chips from another drive), so I have a couple of those on order from eBay. (Maybe a future USD? so i got a spare heh)

 

But the bigger issue is the drive latch. Looks like prior owner was a little impatient or something and rammed the drive latch closed on something which caused damage to the piece of plastic that pushes down to lower/clamp the top down. Now the drive will not fully lock closed unless i help it by pushing sideways on the internal part that holds it down to 'lock it in.

 

I figured out how to get it out, but does anyone know where I would even begin to search for this part? Maybe someone has a 'for parts' 1050 you'd be willing to sell me the part from? Would be much smaller to mail then...

 

Thanks in advance!

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

It's not a format command, it's an expanded $4F write

percom block command with additional info as to sector skew

order added to the end of a standard percom block.

 

Not sure at all which drives allow $66 command, IIRC the

happy will puke on it. It does appear the XF551 will use it

according to link below.

Yes I can confirm the happy pukes on an Ultraspeed format command from SDX, I presume the $66 command.

 

So for the fewest problems it would be $4E command and compare

density to desired for match, change only density fields if needed

to, then add skew order to tail of percom block and write it out

with $66 command. At that point a standard format is done.

Out of curiosity, I watched what is logged in RespeQt when issuing a format from SDX with 'Ultra' skew:

 

[Disk 1] Get status."

[Disk 1] Format with custom sector skewing (SD Diskette (90k))."

[Disk 1] Get PERCOM block (SD Diskette (90k))."

[Disk 1] Write sector 1 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 2 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 3 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 4 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 5 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 6 (128 bytes)."

 

Compared to a 'Normal' Skew:

 

[Disk 1] Get status."

[Disk 1] Get PERCOM block (SD Diskette (90k))."

[Disk 1] Format."

[Disk 1] Write sector 1 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 2 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 3 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 4 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 5 (128 bytes)."

[Disk 1] Write sector 6 (128 bytes)."

 

Interesting i also noticed format $41 is ASCII 'F' and $66 is 'f'. RespeQt NAK's the $A1/$A2 commands for XF551 'HighSpeed' / quad formats

 

Found a post from 2011 that has a good example of how to do the XIO 66 from basic...

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/187729-xio-call-to-format-a-css-xf551-80-track/?p=2371459

I'll be playing with this...

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

SpartaDOS Construction Set has a Custom Format command ($66). It will make any skew you like.

 

For further studies, if so inclined, you might look into the skew offered by Disk Communicator from Bob Puff. During the format phase, you are asked if you would like a high speed skew with that -- it might be a different one yet.

 

Normally I've always just used the Formatter Built into SDX. I tried the INIT command from SpartaDOS 3.2D, and the UltraSpeed Skew format option from Disk Communicator. I can confirm they all generate the same 5:1 interleave best suited for the US Doubler.

 

These programs must be using USDoubler's $66 SIO command, supposedly allows specifying any skew along with the command, so I'm wondering if there are any pre-baked programs to enter a custom skew instead of writing it myself. These programs must have just hard coded the US Doubler Ultraspeed skew to use along with $66 format command all the time...

This is the resulting SD skew, for the record: 4 8 12 16 1 5 9 13 17 2 6 10 14 18 3 7 11 15

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

Investigated this Indus GT DOS XL Disk this evening. Some interesting utlities on it. A batch file runs GTSYNC ON, which attempts to send high speed code to the drives (I have none), Theres also a GTSYNC.OLD file there, implying this is an updated version. Also some basic program listings for adding Indus download code routines to programs I think, and some tools such as RPM check, a config util to set what I presume are PERCOM Block parameters such as sectors, sides, density. Also interesting i saw step rate. All no effect on USD or Happy.

 

GTFMT.BAS/LST is "INDUS GT Multi-Formatter Version 1.0, Copyright 1985 Vervan Software. It offers 5 interleave options for SD, 1 for ED, and 3 for DD. The actual interleave data is in the BASIC listing as DATA statements, so here they are:

 

Single Density:

• Standard Atari Format (810) 18 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 (9:1 Same as Stock 1050 & Happy 1050 with 1 sector shift)
• Atari Fast Format (810) 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 (8:1 Same as USD and 1050 CHIP)
• Indus Standard (810) Format 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 (9:1 Same as Stock 1050 & Happy 1050)
• Indus (810) Format for Synchromesh (Slow) 11 3 14 6 17 9 1 12 4 15 7 18 10 2 13 5 16 8 (7:1)
• Indus (810) Format for Syncromesh (Fast) 16 13 10 7 4 1 17 14 11 8 5 2 18 15 12 9 6 3 (6:1)

Dual/Enhanced Density:

• 1050 Synchronous Format 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 (No different than stock 1050 layout)

Double Density:

• Indus (815) Format for Synchromesh (Slow) 7 14 2 9 16 4 11 18 6 13 1 8 15 3 10 17 5 12
• Indus (815) Format for Synchromesh (Fast) 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17

What I don't see in this list is an option that makes a 1:4 SD interleave. Inspecting this disk with Archiver shows it has a Stock 1050/Happy type standard skew on Tracks 1-3, then the following 4:1 interleave for the remainder of the disk. There is a modified version of the DOS XL format utility which includes an option 4 "Reformat boot tracks Only' - This would probably explain how they got this disk to have tracks 1-3 with a normal skew. Maybe the default format when Synchromesh is active is 4:1 and the utility provides the alternate options.

 

This disk:

Tracks 0-3: 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 1(9:1)

Tracks 4-39: 5 10 15 1 6 11 16 2 7 12 17 3 8 13 18 4 9 14 (4:1)

 

The 4:1 skew is too tight for my USDoubler, every sector is pretty much a full rotation wait, just below the 5:1 that USD uses.

 

ATR's and Screenshots attached. (Used Omniview 80 Columns for the basic listings)

Indus GT Dos XL.zip

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

I'll post the ATR's here tonight after I image that disk.

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

Great stuff guys!! Going to check out the SDCS $66 format command for the USDoubler, I noticed that code in another page wasn't sure about an easy way to use it.

 

I formatted SD disks using different drives/ROMs and was checking out the results with the archiver:

• Stock 1050 & Happy 1050 use the same skew: 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 (9:1)
• USDoubler Standard Skew, same as Happy converted to CHIP 810: 17 15 14 11 9 7 5 3 1 18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 (8:1 & Backwards)

I timed a full 720 sector SD read using the happy sector copier using a stock 1050: (1x/normal SIO speed)

• Disk formatted with Stock 1050 or Happy: 1m25s
• Disk formatted with USD or CHIP: 1m17s

This shows that the slightly reduced sector wait by interleaving the sectors backwards, as well as probably starting sector 1 half way through the track achieves an improvement of 8s over the entire disk.

 

Out of curiosity, I also benchmarked the happy reading these disks, at 1x/normal SIO speed with the track buffer enabled:

• Disk formatted with Stock 1050 or Happy: 1m04s
• Disk formatted with USD or CHIP: 1m04s

The track buffer eliminates any difference in performance from the skew alone, but it does show the theoretical maximum of 1x SIO with minimal inter-sector delay is only 13s faster than that achieved by the stock 1050 with skew generated by USD or CHIP.

 

Next, here is an example interleave I've seen on a number of old software titles (ie Atari Home Filing Manager, IDSI Pool 1.5) , some copied by happy, which would have reproduced the skew of the originals. (ie Grandmas house)

 

Pool 1.5: 12 7 14 3 10 17 6 13 2 9 16 5 12 1 8 15 4 11 (Skew 13)

Grandmas house: 9 16 5 12 1 8 15 4 11 18 7 14 3 10 17 6 13 2 (Skew 13)

 

Those two have the same skew, but different first sector offsets... odd.

 

For fun, I used MyCopyR to sector copy Pool 1.5 to a new disk that was pre-formatted with the USD standard skew (The fastest 1x skew). Track 12 of this disk is copy protected by means of a blank track... so I let MycopyR skip the 'bad' sectors and write everything else to the new disk. I then went into Archiver and read in only the blank track 12 from the original, and wrote that to track 12 of the new disk. Voila Pool 1.5 now loads faster in a stock drive, as well as passing copy protection since it only does a simple check that a sector on track 12 cannot be read in a timely manner. So, kinda cool to 're-skew' old software, even copy protected, to make it load faster on a stock unbuffered drive.

 

I came across an acquired disk in my collection with Indus GT utilities. The disk itself has a standard skew for the first 2 tracks, and custom skew for the rest. I've never owned or used one of these drives, but that's a great idea I presume so it can get the initial 1x boot syncromesh driver loaded at a reasonable speed before it bumps up the speed. This would be a great idea for bootable USDoubler formatted disks too, now that I think of it.. Maybe it would be fun to re-skew the 1st track or 2 of disk-based SpartaDOS before ultraspeed mode kicks in. Anyhow, the Indus disk also has some BASIC programs to format indus disks with a variety of skews, and they're all laid out in the data statements so I'll have some more info to post next.

 

Cheers! - Ryan

PS Some screenshots of the aforementioned disks from Archiver attached

Stock 1050 & Happy

US Doubler Normal & CHIP

Pool 1.5

Grandmas House Side B

[Another interesting speed comparison.]

Not sure if anyone is still paying attention to this old thread...

 

Since I made the recent discovery of being able to see the sector interleave of disks using the Happy2Chip converter and archiver/editor I've been curious to see the interleave used on various disks and what created them. It's interesting to me that you can use it to 'fingerprint' the type of drive that was used to format a disk. I always used a Happy drive in the day, so mostly never paid any attention to interleave, since everything was always fast due to the track buffer.

 

Recently my happy board died so spent more time with a USDoubler only drive doing disk imaging until I could get some new Happy boards from AtariMax, and noticed some VERY old atari disks like Timewise, home filing manager loaded with very long times between sectors. I suspected a wacky interleave used on these very old master disks from Atari, and some old original software disks. I was able to confirm they have a sector interleave of 12 - Apparently created by the format of old Atari 810 Roms. This makes the disks load at maybe 2/3 speed?
1 8 15 4 11 18 7 14 3 10 17 6 13 2 9 16 5 12

 

Also interesting was the difference of a disk created by a stock 1050 vs a USD 1050 without ultraspeed interleave. Same interleave, but one of them would shift sector 1 by 1. maybe a slight optimization to account for track-change time?

 

1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18

18 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

 

USD ultraspeed was an interleave of 3 or 4 i think

 

I'm curious what format tool you used to create all those custom interleaves?

I am going to try to see I can create a custom interleave disk using archiver/editor.

[Ultimate Atari Cart (Electrotrains) Pre-Order by 18 APR 17]

Realize I'm late to this party--Let me know if I can still order one. In NYC, NY.

There's a new thread specifically for ordering carts after pre-order here: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/263986-ultimate-atari-cart-electrotrains-purchase-thread/

[Things you learn when backing up 30-year-old floppies]

I pulled out all my disks and Atari8 stuff from the closet a couple weeks ago and have begun the laborious process of scopying from disk to ATR via SIO2PC-USB. A chunk of my disks got 'submerged' in a basement flood about 15 years ago, which was depressing, as there really is no way to 'air them out' properly... so I left them, and here we are today trying to read them, Many of them have a very visible film of dried water deposits with a very visible pattern of the mesh inside the sleeve. Add to that I only have 2 of 5 working 1050's now, and my happy upgraded one was one of them.

 

Anywho, I've managed to clean up my only other DD capable 1050 which has a US Doubler, and have been going through them disk by disk. I have been able to get some disks 'past the bad sectors' by applying a little extra pressure on the top-pad inside the drive with my finger at those points... Helps a bit with cleaning the head with IPA, but what really helps is cleaning thie DISK with IPA! Douse a qtip, then rub up and down inside the window... rotate a little, repeat until you've gone all the way around on both sides and gradually the bad sectors will slowly drop to 0...

 

I managed to recover my happy board from the dead 1050 and moved it into a 'working' 1050, but i think the water has damaged something on the board as it will work fine for a few minutes, then crap out, not respond, only partially initialize on power-on or nothing at all, but it was able to read some disks better while it was working. I was relieved the drive still worked when switched back to stock roms.

 

Forced to use the USDoublered drive, I learned something new I never realized in the past without the sector number display that AspeQt/APE gives you... SpartaDOS SCOPY is able to read non US-Skewed disks at ultra-speed because it actually reads the sectors out of order - which is visible when they are writing to APE. very cool! Never seen any other copy program do that, they are all sequential, which is perfectly fine on the Happy drive I was used to.

 

so I've ordered some new happy's from Atarimax! Looking fwd to that. Now onto the other 100 disks....

[New Demo release - MemoPad 480i]

A little late to this party, but just came across this had HAD to try it on my real hardware. (320XE) The prospect of this is amazing, would have been fantastic to have 48 line text screens in the BBS days!!

 

I had a cheap LCD monitor connected via RF, and simultaneously a Commodore 1702 monitor. The commodore monitor unfortunately refused to do the interlacing no matter whether it was connected via Composite video or Separate Luma/Chroma. Both fields draw on top of each other, making the small text essentially unreadable.

 

However, the cheap LCD monitor would pick up on the interlace signal, and did successfully display the full 480i, and the smallest text was extremely legible. Problem I had was 50% of the time, it would pick up the wrong field order, so it took a few resets of the progam / power cycles of the monitor to get it to decode the field order properly.

 

Bellow are snaps of what the same text looks like on the C1702 (failing to interlace) and the same video on the LCD. The third is an example of how incorrect field order affects Stellar Shuttle... Again, I could correct this manually with a but of fiddling with resets / power cycling the LCD etc.

 

EDIT: Apparently I missed the bit in the original post about use of function keys to toggle interlacing on/off, field order etc. This might have been a little easier to tweak things.

[Ultimate Atari Cart (Electrotrains) Pre-Order by 18 APR 17]

Yay Order #52 locked in in the nick of time. 1st post on AtariAge lol. Was hardcore 8-bit still running an Express! Pro BBS up until a bit after 2000, and its all been in boxes until the last few weeks and I've been tinkering/cleaning/repairing away getting machines, 1050's & disks working again, and quite enjoying the revolution of Lotharek's SIDE2, so quite looking forward to seeing this beauty of an add-on as well!