ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 (edited) Ahh, now THAT makes sense to me. I needed the "addressable space" to get on the same page. So anything more than 14MB would require bank-switching of some type, like with the 8-bits and 6502's with 64K of addressable memory. Thanks! 14MB is limit for so called ST RAM (2 MB is wasted, as said because HW port space (IDE at 14MB, and rest at 15MB) ) . But you can have Fast RAM of much bigger size - it goes usually with CT60/63 expansions. No bank switching needed, fortunately, but usage of Fast RAM is not exactly straight. Considering Falcon's built in hard disk : if it is original 60MB, you will find it very small soon. And CF cards are really cheap this days - you can get 4-8 GB for some 20 Euros. For hard disk drive info you may use this: http://atari.8bitchip.info/ahpt.html And while are there may find some other stuff too http://atari.8bitchip.info Edited April 3, 2013 by ParanoidLittleMan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 3, 2013 Share Posted April 3, 2013 What would I need with that piece of junk? I have a GUNSTAR. Okay, I have to admit - this made me smile. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 3, 2013 Author Share Posted April 3, 2013 Okay, I have to admit - this made me smile. It was too easy, that guy walked right into that one... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 My Falcon already has a hard-disk, weren't these built-in to start with? Or did falcons not come with a HDD? My Falcon 030 came with one, but the HDD would only spin up some times. Swapped in a good one and haven't had a problem since Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 You could buy a Falcon when it was released with no hard drive or a hard drive. If you picked the no hard drive option, it also lacked the hard drive cage/mounts, screws, etc,... The first hard drive models came with a 60'ish meg (I'm thinking 63/64 or some thing close to that) hard drive. Shortly after, they upgraded to one that was in the 80+ meg range. Atari didn't change the price for the model with the higher capacity, which was nice, but they also wouldn't upgrade the lower version to the higher version for free. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 how can I tell what version of TOS I have? Desktop info doesn't say. If you open the desktop info menu option TOS 4.01 is copyrighted to 1992, and 4.04 to 1993 (not sure about 4.02). The background on the info dialogue you just opened on anything pre TOS 4.04 should also be white by default, with 4.04 being grey as default (although a cpx which allows you to adjust these can confuse matters). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abraXXious Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Have you considered what you are going to put on it software wise? When I got my Falcon, the 14mb board, 32GB compact flash HD adapter and Tos 4.04 upgrade were the easy parts. I tried several of the Desktop and TOS replacements.... MultiTos is slow, Geneva was unstable, EasyMint was anything BUT easy, was slow, horrible to use, incompatible with a lot of stuff and ate a heap of the ram, Thing! was nice, but incompatible with some stuff, Jinnee simply crashed all the time, there was a couple of others I tried too but were not much chop. So I ended up leaving Tos on it with some nice system accessories - the best one is a small program that lets you display a 256 colour image as your desktop wallpaper - very nice. This with a nice icon set gives you a nice fast boot up, stability and compatibility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Wow, I've not heard too many complaints about Genevea being unstable. It was rock solid here, on all the machines I tried it on... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DarkLord Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Don't forget, as I posted earlier in this thread: "BTW, if you install Atari's extensible control panel and use the general CPX, you'll find RAM and TOS version details under "status"." and who isn't going to be using the CPX setup? Not many, I'd wager. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
abraXXious Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Geneva gave all sorts of issues on the Falcon - never tried it on anything else. I think it didnt like some of the other proggies I was running. Plus its UI is soooooo ugly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 5, 2013 Author Share Posted April 5, 2013 (edited) If you open the desktop info menu option TOS 4.01 is copyrighted to 1992, and 4.04 to 1993 (not sure about 4.02). The background on the info dialogue you just opened on anything pre TOS 4.04 should also be white by default, with 4.04 being grey as default (although a cpx which allows you to adjust these can confuse matters). I think some one answered this for me, but yeah, I checked, I have TOS 4.04. I need to buy or download the owners/TOS/GEM manual(s)....but I'm just transfering game files on floppy right now and using the Falcon as a console. I think I'm going to attach a couple old parallel (or SCSI, I don's recall) ZIP drives to my PC and Falcon tonight, for extra "hard drive" space and easy file transfer. i just have to dig for them in the...basement? Attic? Garage? Closet? Under the bed?... Edited April 5, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheNameOfTheGame Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Geneva gave all sorts of issues on the Falcon - never tried it on anything else. I think it didnt like some of the other proggies I was running. Plus its UI is soooooo ugly. OO hahahaha...geneva rocks. Well not for everyone I guess, but it is amazing for itself. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 You could buy a Falcon when it was released with no hard drive or a hard drive. If you picked the no hard drive option, it also lacked the hard drive cage/mounts, screws, etc,... The first hard drive models came with a 60'ish meg (I'm thinking 63/64 or some thing close to that) hard drive. Shortly after, they upgraded to one that was in the 80+ meg range. Atari didn't change the price for the model with the higher capacity, which was nice, but they also wouldn't upgrade the lower version to the higher version for free. Ahh, ok. I got mine from an Atari store in San Diego back in '95 that was selling all their Atari stuff and switching to PC's. It was the one they had on display and had the Conner CP2088 85MB drive... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 6, 2013 Author Share Posted April 6, 2013 (edited) Have you considered what you are going to put on it software wise? When I got my Falcon, the 14mb board, 32GB compact flash HD adapter and Tos 4.04 upgrade were the easy parts. I tried several of the Desktop and TOS replacements.... MultiTos is slow, Geneva was unstable, EasyMint was anything BUT easy, was slow, horrible to use, incompatible with a lot of stuff and ate a heap of the ram, Thing! was nice, but incompatible with some stuff, Jinnee simply crashed all the time, there was a couple of others I tried too but were not much chop. So I ended up leaving Tos on it with some nice system accessories - the best one is a small program that lets you display a 256 colour image as your desktop wallpaper - very nice. This with a nice icon set gives you a nice fast boot up, stability and compatibility. For now, TOS 4.04 and soon Neodesk 4, it also has 256 color desktop and wallpaper. But until I get neodesk, could you tell me the name of those accessories so I can find them for download? Once I upgrade to an 060 board and Raedeon graphics card, I'll switch to these, one for multi-tasking and the other for non-multi-tasking for compatiblity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCFBtIOMx7Y http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=JYtuO8iPOQo&feature=endscreen Edited April 6, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 I think some one answered this for me, but yeah, I checked, I have TOS 4.04. I need to buy or download the owners/TOS/GEM manual(s)....but I'm just transfering game files on floppy right now and using the Falcon as a console. I think I'm going to attach a couple old parallel (or SCSI, I don's recall) ZIP drives to my PC and Falcon tonight, for extra "hard drive" space and easy file transfer. i just have to dig for them in the...basement? Attic? Garage? Closet? Under the bed?... Probably want to stick clear of parallel ZIP drives on the Falcon side. I managed to temporarily kill a Falcon by trying to use a parallel scanner on it. SCSI is far safer. They are cheap as chips nowadays as are the zip disks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 7, 2013 Author Share Posted April 7, 2013 (edited) Probably want to stick clear of parallel ZIP drives on the Falcon side. I managed to temporarily kill a Falcon by trying to use a parallel scanner on it. SCSI is far safer. They are cheap as chips nowadays as are the zip disks. I'll keep that in mind. Once I dig out my old zip drives I'll look at them, I think one is scsi and one parallel, and if so, I'll connect the parallel one to the PC and scsi to the falcon. But I do know I see used ZIP drives at goodwills and other thrift/resale shops all the time for dirt cheap, and disks too, that's where I originally got the ones I have anyway. Edited April 7, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sh3-rg Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 SCSI can be all kinds of hell on the Falcon if you have an iffy machine - I remember MrPink's first falcon was like this and he lost years of work because of it and what he saved too some real leet haxxoring. There's no right and wrong with this stuff, you have to work with what you've got :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 (edited) I'm not exactly sure what you mean by an "iffy machine" if the falcon has a problem, I would just as soon expose it and fix it. Now, if you mean that SCSI devices in general are "iffy" on the Falcon, that it's a hardware problem then that is different. But All I'm talking about mainly is using it to transfer and run games and save hard drive space for constructive applications, etc, at least until I get a CF card adapter and have plenty of room for all. I've found my 2 ZIP drives, and one is parallel and one is SCSI, both 100MB drives (which is more than my Falcon HDD anyway). I intend to attach the parallel one to the PC and the SCSI to the Falcon becuase the OTHER guy said Parallel was "iffy" on the Falcon in so many words. Apparently EVERTHING is "iffy" on this machine or else the advice is "iffy." What I DO know for sure is that I used this SCSI Zip drive I have on ST/STE machines I have/had, and though it was through an adapter to ACSI, but it worked flawlessly just like other "hard drives" I'd used that were SCSI through ACSI. So I'm going with my plans, whatever may be "iffy." The proof will be in the pudding once I get it mixed. Edited April 8, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 You should be fine with a SCSI Zip drive, I've been using SCSI Iomega Jaz drives with both of mine without any issues at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 Cool. Unfortunately i have to find a cable, the ZIP drive even though it's SCSI, uses the parallel port type connection, and the Falcon, I've found out, has a smaller SCSI port, so I need a cable with one plug on one end and the other on the other end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 http://www.computercablestore.com/SCSI_Adapter_SCSI_2_HD50M_PID900.aspx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted April 8, 2013 Author Share Posted April 8, 2013 (edited) Thanks! Though I need the opposite of the one shown, my SCSI 1 cable is male at both ends and the Falcon's SCSI 2 is also female. But I'm sure I'll find it on the site...yep, found it: http://www.computerc...50M_PID902.aspx I'm going to have a Falcon with a backside full of adapters, first for VGA, next for SCSI...knowing Atari it won't end there... Edited April 8, 2013 by Gunstar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+CyranoJ Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 It's a lot easier to pick up a laptop HDD and a 2.5" IDE cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 8, 2013 Share Posted April 8, 2013 According to AHDI docs Falcon DMA chip has bug. Therefore at DMA transfer ends SW must transfer latest bytes in single-byte mode. I don't know are some drivers problematic because this, but SCSI is certainly much slower than IDE on Falcon - about 2x . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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