[Repairing / modifying ATX images]

Your ATX was OK and I was able to generate disk 2 with the atx.pl from yesterday. The only thing I had to do manually was to change the sector_status for sector 361 from $48 (bad CRC) to $00 (OK) with a hex editor.

 

Now we have restored two disks (see attachment).

One corrupt ATX + two good sector copies = two good ATXs

 

Can you change your script to copy whole tracks between images?

I have one more good sector copy which I could combine with a corrupt ATX to have a good ATX.

In this case the ATX misses sectors and your current script cannot add them from the ATR.

 

Btw.: Alle these disks need BASIC to run.

SurvivalMath-ATX.zip

TheSemanticCalculator.zip

[Repairing / modifying ATX images]

It worked flawlessly for a few disks which only contain two bad sectors but fails in line 136 for the disks I really wanted to convert.

 

I attached a ZIP with what I have to this post. Maybe you can do it.

SurvivalMath.zip

[Repairing / modifying ATX images]

Thanks, highly appreciated.

[Repairing / modifying ATX images]

Hi,

is there some software to modify ATX files?

Short story:
- Replace a bit-rotten sector with its good original
- Overwrite several good tracks of an ATX with content from a different ATR

Long story:
Kevin Savetz found an educational title from Sunburst Communications (Survival Math) but has only plain sector copies of the two disks.
Recently I found an ATX of disk 1 on Atarimania, but it obviously contains one bad sector which should not be bad.

By taking data from both images of disk 1 and cracking the protection I was able to make a working copy of it.

Since Sunburst used the exact same protection down to the location on disk for several disks, I was also able to make a working crack of disk 2. I took the protection part from disk 1 and the remaining sectors from disk 2.

I now would like to replace the bad sector in the ATX of disk 1 with the correct one from Kevin's ATR.
Then I want to inject the real data for disk 2 in an ATX of disk 1.
This way we would have copies as near to the originals as currently possible.

[Atari 8-bit Software Preservation Initiative]

Thanks for your great work. It is highly appreciated.

In my opinion these three dumps are bad. Maybe someone can verify this.

 

Mercenary - The Second City (1985)(Datasoft)(US)

It reads "Escape from Targ" during boot and then crashes if run in 64k mode. A comparison to the dump of Escape from Targ shows no difference in any non-bad sector.

 

FileManager 800 (1981)(Synapse Software)(US)

Keeps crashing for me with different settings of Altirra.

 

Zaxxon (1983)(Datasoft)(US)

Keeps crashing for me with different settings of Altirra. The October-torent contained a second dump which works. But this dump is gone in the February-torrent.

[Maximum Sectors in an ATX image?]

As far as I remember Rybag's answer on multiple sectors is correct.

 

But

I know of at least one exception: Synfile+

It has one track with 21 valid sectors.

 

This is the reason why it can only be copied on a modified Happy 810. The modification uses a potentiometer to reduce the rotational speed of the drive's motor. When it is present and you copy this disk, It is automatically triggered by version 5.2 or 5.3 of the happy software.

Even the VAPI dumping tool from Atarimania crashed when I tried to image the disk.

[Question about copying software that has copy-protection.]

The problem with the ATX format is you need expensive equipment to make a disk in that format

 

If you only want to create ATXs then you only need a 1050 drive with a Happy board and a 1050-to-PC cable.It will be expensive if you want to do it with i.e. a Cryoflux.

[Atarimania mods....where are you?]

Perhaps Allan can help.

[a8.fandal.cz]

Using FoxyProxy together with Proxy Offline Browser I created my own archive of Atarimania over the last years. Including book download I am currently at 2 GB.

 

It mirrors only what I have visited and this in a cluttered way, but it is better than nothing. Therefore you shoud at least visit the index pages for the letters once to have valid links to the programs.

 

You might give it a try.

[ANTIC the Atari 8bit Podcast is now available]

Dont break the episodes up into more episodes as discussed. Thats what the pause button is for on playback.

 

+1

 

Great would be some sort of "playlist" where one can find out which topic starts when.

[What is your All-Time favorite Atari 8-bit game song?]

The Tail Of Beta Lyrae

M.U.L.E.

[810 Drive with odd mod to it...]

> Any ideas what it is?

 

Happy 810 with the potentiometer to change the rotational speed for copying some Synapse titles?

 

My own looks not far different.

[Die Fundgrube (German)]

I scanned the follow-up "Die Trickkiste" as well.

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/77365752

[Die Fundgrube (German)]

Hi,

 

since I don't know if "Die Fundgrube" by Harald Zoschke has already been PDFed, I did it myself (inkl. OCR).

 

The file is approx. 6 MB and therefore I uploaded it to scribd.com.

If anyone wants to mirror it then go ahead.

 

http://www.scribd.com/doc/77279929

[Help me to find this Schreckenstein Cracktro]

So long Not Seen.... Great. and good old cracking service Stuttgart

 

LOL

 

No Outsiders inside CSS

[arcade2atari8 [asteroids]]

but I need these:

 

035145-04e.ef2

035144-04e.h2

Here you go.

 

Great work so far. :thumbsup:

asteroids.zip

[M.U.L.E. Manuals etc.]

Thanks for the post. I OCR'd the manual, however the limit here is 2MB, and the document is 4.5MB. Anyone want to host it? I'm maxed out on my ftp site currently...

I uploaded the OCRed version (only the manual) to scribd.com. In case someone has the first version, just redownload it with the above link from scribd.com.

 

thanks Havok69

[M.U.L.E. Manuals etc.]

Stuttgart?

Ja, klar - die kleine Stadt neben Pforzheim

 

... aus der damals all die Qualitätssoftware kam.

[Atari Schreiber Manual Deutsch]

Full scans of the german version of Atari Writer (including disk dump)

 

- Handbuch

- Referenzbeschreibung

- Referenzkarte

 

Bessere Qualität ist kaum möglich weil die Handbücher in dunkelgrau auf rot gedruckt sind.

 

- Disk:

 

Viel Spaß

Atari Schreiber (cracked).atr

Atari Schreiber (ATX).zip

[Print Shop Manual Deutsch]

Full scans of the german documentation for Print Shop (Ariolasoft)

 

- Handbuch

- Referenzkarte

 

- Disk:

 

Leider wieder ohne OCR.

 

Viel Spaß

[M.U.L.E. Manuals etc.]

Full scans of the Electronic Arts version of M.U.L.E.

 

- Cover

- Manual

- Reference Card

 

- Disk:

 

Unfortunately not OCRed since my Acrobat is too old.

 

Have fun

[Bounty Bob Strikes Back....the disk version, was it ever released]

I remember AA member 'Mathy' mentioning that the Dutch had a disk version (dunno if it was legit or not)

 

I have dumped the attached image from my own disks. It reads "licensed to aackosoft" and does not have a valid VTOC. So it might(!) come from a real disk version.

 

Bounty_Bob_Strikes_Back.zip

[XL/XE Translator questions]

 

The FixXL springs to mind immediately, and with a little research I also found "Atari XL To 800 Emulator V2.1 ". I am also pretty sure I once had another program of this kind called "Oldrunner" or the like.

 

But nowadays, I prefer patched software.

 

 

Thorsten

Here are versions 3.0 and 4.0 of "The Emulator".

 

Advantages to Atari's Translator:

- OS-400/800 can be booted several times without the need to reload the Emulator

- BASIC cabe switched on/off during OS-400/800 boot by a keypress

- The loader of version 4.0 detects an already loaded OS-B and does not load it again from the disk (very quick loading time for the Emulator)

- IIRC the compatibiltiy is much higher than with Atari's Translator

 

Important difference between the attached images of version 3.0 and 4.0:

- The OS of 4.0 needs necessarily an NMI-button (400/800-type reset button) which always nees to be pressed together with the key listed in the menu

 

There was a version 3.2 which had the 4.0-loader and did not need the NMI-buttton but my disk is no longer readable.

If someone is less rusted than I am after 25 years then version 3.2 can probably be rebuilt by combining the two versions.

Emulator 30.zip

Emulator 40.zip

[VAPI image creation]

Contact the guys from Atarimania directly. If they are interested in your stuff then they will give you the software.

 

At least this worked for me.

 

cheers

[Atari Rev B PAL Rom file]

A quick BASIC program can produce a dump of your ROM

Typed it in, ran it ... and found out that my 400 is so old, it contains OS Rev. A.

 

The good thing is that it's always surprising how good this old hardware works after all these years.