1050 mod

[atari8warez]

I like your LED's on the XE, it looks cool with the oval opening. I didn't bother with seperate power switches, they just come on with the 1050 power switch.

Is that serial-to-USB adapter you have plugged in require a driver on the PC? I'm just curious, I already have a serial-to-USB legacy adapter, the one I got did require a driver installation on my PC, but works flawlessly.

 

Thanks Mike,

 

The oval LED opening is actually the result of my misfortune. I was drilling two separate holes for the two LEDs but one of the holes ended up being too big. So I had to fix that error. 2mins drilling job turned into hours of carving and sending event.

 

As for the VCP adaptor, yes it requires a driver, it's a Prolific chipset based adaptor, most people prefer FTDI. Mine works fine with AspeQt up to 3x read, 2x write, so effectively 2x SIO speeds. Don't know what the reason is for failing to write at 3x SIO, could be AspeQt or the cable itself (hopefully will figure that out soon). . Do you have any speed issues with your adaptor + AspeQt?

 

Ray

[atari8warez]

Thanks Ray,

 

Very sweet mod and thank you for your indepth explaination of the power requirements and connections as that will assist me in completing my drive mod. Yes, it was your eBay listing I have been looking at. I will probally secure one from your website later here in the week. Great pics too!

 

Mike

 

Thank you Mike and good luck and have fun with your mod...

[Gunstar]

I like your LED's on the XE, it looks cool with the oval opening. I didn't bother with seperate power switches, they just come on with the 1050 power switch.

Is that serial-to-USB adapter you have plugged in require a driver on the PC? I'm just curious, I already have a serial-to-USB legacy adapter, the one I got did require a driver installation on my PC, but works flawlessly.

 

Thanks Mike,

 

The oval LED opening is actually the result of my misfortune. I was drilling two separate holes for the two LEDs but one of the holes ended up being too big. So I had to fix that error. 2mins drilling job turned into hours of carving and sending event.

 

As for the VCP adaptor, yes it requires a driver, it's a Prolific chipset based adaptor, most people prefer FTDI. Mine works fine with AspeQt up to 3x read, 2x write, so effectively 2x SIO speeds. Don't know what the reason is for failing to write at 3x SIO, could be AspeQt or the cable itself (hopefully will figure that out soon). . Do you have any speed issues with your adaptor + AspeQt?

 

Ray

 

Well, I haven't written to AspeQT, when I write something, is generally to a real disk, but I've had no issues with the 3x speed for reading.

[+Firedawg]

I already build and sell SIO2PC and 10502PC (serial only) interfaces and will be adding the smaller (1.5" x 6/8" ) internal 10502PC version to my list.

 

If anyone is interested in getting one please see the links in my signature (the small internal 10502PC version is not on the website yet, so please PM me if you want one before the webpage gets updated)..

 

Ray

 

Very much interested as I'm ready to start this project. Thanks Ray! PM forthcoming.

 

Mike

[atari8warez]

I already build and sell SIO2PC and 10502PC (serial only) interfaces and will be adding the smaller (1.5" x 6/8" ) internal 10502PC version to my list.

 

If anyone is interested in getting one please see the links in my signature (the small internal 10502PC version is not on the website yet, so please PM me if you want one before the webpage gets updated)..

 

Ray

 

Very much interested as I'm ready to start this project. Thanks Ray! PM forthcoming.

 

Mike

 

Replied..

[Gunstar]

I just upgraded my APE 95/98 (2.4) to APE XP (3.2) becuase 95/98 wouldn't work on the laptop I'm using now. I'm happy to report APE XP 3.2.x works perfectly in software only mode using my RS232-to-USB cable and driver (as opposed to using APE's RS232 driver) along with my legacy RS232 SIO/10502PC adapters.

AspeQT is great, I especially like the direct EXE/COM/etc. boot function, but APE has so many more cool features along with Prosystem and Imagic. I actually like booting DOS from floppy for executables (with D2: and all my executables on APE PC mirror), or using Remote Control on the 8-bit. I also have 16MB disk images with DOS and executables too.

Edited March 28, 2012 by Gunstar

[atari8warez]

I just upgraded my APE 95/98 (2.4) to APE XP (3.2) becuase 95/98 wouldn't work on the laptop I'm using now. I'm happy to report APE XP 3.2.x works perfectly in software only mode using my RS232-to-USB cable and driver (as opposed to using APE's RS232 driver) along with my legacy RS232 SIO/10502PC adapters.

AspeQT is great, I especially like the direct EXE/COM/etc. boot function, but APE has so many more cool features along with Prosystem and Imagic. I actually like booting DOS from floppy for executables (with D2: and all my executables on APE PC mirror), or using Remote Control on the 8-bit. I also have 16MB disk images with DOS and executables too.

 

What exactly software only mode mean ?

[Gunstar]

you go into APE's setup screen for the RS232 handler and make sure RS232 setting is in software only mode out of the two possible choices(the other being APE's RS232 handler). This is so the driver for the com-usb adapter will be used instead of Ape's RS232 driver (otherwise two drivers will attempt to run at the same time).

Edited March 28, 2012 by Gunstar

[atari8warez]

you go into APE's setup screen for the RS232 handler and make sure RS232 setting is in software only mode out of the two possible choices(the other being APE's RS232 handler). This is so the driver for the com-usb adapter will be used instead of Ape's RS232 driver (otherwise two drivers will attempt to run at the same time).

 

So this must be a new option on v3.2.0, i have version 3.0.2 and that option is not present there. It is actually a kind of misnomer though, "Use VCP (virtual com port)" would have been more intuitive, after all any driver is "software" whether it is built into the kernel (i.e for the built-in com port) or insatalled separately (for a VCP), so software only is kind of confusing. Anyhow, does it also work in x64 systems (does it come with 64 bit drivers).

 

 

By the way AspeQt and Ape are two different animals (so to speak), also the former is still in beta and there is more work to be done before it becomes a real contender. Having said that, being open source and free is a BIG PLUS imho....also, most people will be well served with AspeQt for what it is primarily designed for.

 

I for one find APE's miriad of configuration options a bit of an overkill for the regular user who really wants to use the interface for convenience and larger capacities and better speeds than an Atari floppy drive can provide.

 

In any case APE is a great software for the Atarian who doesn't mind paying for the privilege of tweaking the software for the very last drop of performance that can be squeezed out of the inherently limited SIO protocol.

Edited March 28, 2012 by atari8warez