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Could be the oldest ARABIC OS "NAJM"


Madi

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Until now, it is thought that there are only 2 versions of ARABIC ROM (NAJM) that were available.

Actually, there is one more operating NAJM Arabic system (sort of) available as a Cartridge.

It was produced for the XL/XE computers that have the XL/XE ROM as an Arabic prototype ROM way before the Arabic 65XE was moded. I am sure it was the first commercial product that supports Arabic language for Atari.


The cartridge resides in $8000 – $BFFF (16K area). Upon initiation, it steals some ram in the area $7B52 to $7FFA for misc routines.

The program is loaded from DOS (BASIC disabled), but it will activate its built-in basic after loading.


The Arabic characters are located in $9C00. They are mapped in unconventional matter. Some characters that are short such as sheen (SH) ( ( شـ ) and Seen (S) ( سـ ) had some thing like (ـ) as an extender (see picture).


I used to have the cartridge, but unfortunately it had gone with wind like most of my ATARI treasure.


madi


j7g2li.jpg

CART2.zip

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around $99A0: ABOS © ADVANCO 1984

 

I am sure that the cartridge was not available till late 1986.

I remember, in 1985, aDawliah was selling XL/XE without the Arabic modification to the OS.

I also remember this article "COMPUTE! ISSUE 67 / DECEMBER 1985 / PAGE 10 ,Arabian Atari?" where I was also looking for a way to make Arabic viewing possible.

I looked at the data in the $9000 area, it looks as if it is a code to dump a logo or "Picture" on screen.

The cartridge is not made as one program. May be it is merely an "assembly" of several subroutines.

From the size of the cartridge point of view (more than 8K other than the 8K for basic), it does not do that much of functions.

I made a basic program which writes from right to left and adjusts the letter ending (auto completion) in less than 1K. So no need for that much code.

Unfortunately, my knowledge in assembly is ranked at Novice level, but I think the extra code could be related to a picture or to a mini world processor.

Need someone to hack the code to clarify it. ;-)

 

madi

Edited by Madi
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The program is not actually an OS but a driver replacement for the "E:" and "S:" drivers that implements the reverse output in a way that it should work with any OS compliant program.

Looks like the "picture" at $9000 is font data for dot matrix printers that allow user defined fonts. That data is sent to "P:" when the program starts.

Hence the first 8k are merely "E:" and "P:" font data from what I see.

 

post-17404-0-38427700-1411766485_thumb.png

Edited by JAC!
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Thank you JAC! for the clarification and kind input.

I believe you are right about the font data that is coded for the dot matrix printers.

As a matter of fact I had a look today at a cartridge dump file called "NAJM Word Processor" (never had the original software though).

I found the same font data for some different dot matrix printers. This proves that the developers tried to localize some of the dot matrix printers to enable Arabic printing.

 

The first picture is the start up screen for the word processor. I tried to translate the wordings for any one who might get curios.

fmosr4.jpg

 

 

The second picture is the main screen. The name of the software (NAJM=STAR) and with the publisher name (aDawliah) were listed on top along with year (1989).

 

 

t5ssqe.jpg

 

 

If I am not mistaken, this word processor is the same software cartridge as in the following photo.

 

11wg5fk.jpg

 

Also, The NAJM word processor is attached

 

madi

 

NAJMWORD.zip

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Thank you for the dumps.

 

Have you checked this post?

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/98341-whats-the-latest-atari-related-things-youve-bought-on-ebay/?p=3053015

 

Did you/do you live in an Arab country?

 

Could you share informations regarding Arabic Atari 65XE?

For example, when/where was it sold?

How many units were sold? Obviously not the exact number. Was it a common machine in Arabic countries?

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Thanks Madi for sharing the files!

 

The cartridge resides in $8000 $BFFF (16K area). Upon initiation, it steals some ram in the area $7B52 to $7FFA for misc routines.

The program is loaded from DOS (BASIC disabled), but it will activate its built-in basic after loading.

I've taken the DOS file CART.NJM and extracted the ROM file from it; attached below. It's a "standard 16 KB cartridge".

 

This cartridge contains a copy of BASIC rev. A in the second half ($A000-$BFFF). The Arabic features are all in the first half.

 

Madi, do you know the country of origin of this cartridge? From their website, aDawliah is a Saudi Arabian company, but another website I found claims that aDawliah Electronics was established in Kuwait.

 

As a matter of fact I had a look today at a cartridge dump file called "NAJM Word Processor" (never had the original software though).

This file doesn't look like it comes from a ROM dump. It loads into memory outside of cartridge area, ie. $1F00-$4989. Maybe it was disassebled and modified to lad into lower memory, I don't know.

ABOS (1984)(Advanco).rom

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When human get aged, there BrainDisk tend to be “gradually” full of bad sector, fuzzy sectors and double sectors along with many other types of Brain data transfer errors.

 

Maybe, my brain is currently suffering from double sectors symptoms. After a second thinking, I remembered that “NAJM OS” cartridge was hiding something. The presence of all those printer “Drivers” must means some thing. So, I went back and had a deep look at the few disk that were saved from the apocalypse of my Atari collection. I found a “Protected” basic file, I got a garbled screen when I ran it. Wait , garbled screen and protected basic file meant only one thing to me.. It must be an Arabic basic file.

 

I started Altirra with the ARABIAN.ROM enabled and ran the program. It was clear to me that file was an Arabic “Word Editor” but with abnormal letter arrangement .I immediately loaded the NAJM.OS file and reran the file…. Waaaw… the second pass on that double sector was essential :)

Now, I remembered that the NAJM.OS cartridge dumps a basic program in mummery upon initiation and this word editor program was just part of that cartridge. Thus the printer font data issue is now solved.

 

The following are some translated picture of the BASIC “Word Editor”. Also, the basic program is attached in its original form “protected”.

 

2mwauz9.jpg

 

t7hl6c.jpg

 

 

t0206d.jpg

 

madi

 

ARBICBAS.zip

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Thank you for the dumps.

 

Have you checked this post?

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/98341-whats-the-latest-atari-related-things-youve-bought-on-ebay/?p=3053015

 

Did you/do you live in an Arab country?

 

Could you share informations regarding Arabic Atari 65XE?

For example, when/where was it sold?

How many units were sold? Obviously not the exact number. Was it a common machine in Arabic countries?

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Thank you for the dumps.

 

Have you checked this post?

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/98341-whats-the-latest-atari-related-things-youve-bought-on-ebay/?p=3053015

 

Did you/do you live in an Arab country?

 

Could you share informations regarding Arabic Atari 65XE?

For example, when/where was it sold?

How many units were sold? Obviously not the exact number. Was it a common machine in Arabic countries?

 

Tank you Philsan for your kind participation

Yes I am an Arabic speaking fellow who lives in Saudi Arabia,

Unfortunately, Information on Atari in the Arabic word is a scarce. When I finished my studies in Wisconsin, Madison and went back to Saudi Arabia in 1984, aDawliyah Co. was the only Atari dealer in S.A.

I visited the store in 1985 in Jeddah city, and only 800XL computer along with the unmodified computer line were there.

Later, at the end of 1986 (end of), I purchased the Atari Arabic cartridge to convert my 800XL into Arabic. This cartridge was the only Atari product I purchased form aDawliah.

Some time in 19899 I visited the aDawliah again and I copied some cartridges using CARTCLONE (I will post them here later).

I never had the OS ROM descried by savetz. which has the the CONTROL-CAPS function (puts READY on the right of the screen instead of the normal left) or the SHIFT-HELP (to sheft Character set).

Anyhow, ATARI was ill received in the Arabic world, because the home computer business was dominated by "SAKHR" and its clones which were found every where especially in schools (same story as Apple in USA).

For more information on Sakhr in the Arabic countries, please press HERE and HERE.

As a summery, you are really luck to acquire such really rare product (Arabic 65XE computer)

No one really know of how many Atari computers were sold in Saudi Arabia. I can assure you you that it had a short live before it went to demise.

 

madi

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Thanks Madi for sharing the files!

 

I've taken the DOS file CART.NJM and extracted the ROM file from it; attached below. It's a "standard 16 KB cartridge".

 

This cartridge contains a copy of BASIC rev. A in the second half ($A000-$BFFF). The Arabic features are all in the first half.

 

Madi, do you know the country of origin of this cartridge? From their website, aDawliah is a Saudi Arabian company, but another website I found claims that aDawliah Electronics was established in Kuwait.

 

 

This file doesn't look like it comes from a ROM dump. It loads into memory outside of cartridge area, ie. $1F00-$4989. Maybe it was disassebled and modified to lad into lower memory, I don't know.

 

.

.

.

This file doesn't look like it comes from a ROM dump. It loads into memory outside of cartridge area, ie. $1F00-$4989. Maybe it was disassebled and modified to lad into lower memory, I don't know.

 

Thank you Kr0tki for your valuable input.

I am sure the printer font "drivers" subroutines were dumped from the ARABIC OS cartridge, because I had no access to any other sources at that time.

Please see the above post I made earlier. The only explanation to your valid input is that, the ARABIC OS cartridge was not an ordinary 16K one. It might had utilized some sort of data banking. This may explain the fact that the Basic word editor was salvaged form the same cartridge.

I can think of that I may have used OMNIMON XL (I used to have) to copy the all ram area when that cartridge was inserted and then rearrange it. But not sure.

 

madi

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Hello Madi,

 

I tried to test your lovely program called "Arbicbas.zip" but my Atari 800XL , PAL emulator , Altirra ended up werid graphics , no arabic words appear ??

 

and ABOS.ROM sees not working , all I see the cursor on the top & left corner. Please instructing me to proper settings features on Altirra ....

 

And How to enable Arabic charcters in Arabic BASIC.rom ? When I type English keys and it still appearing English charcters ??

Edited by Caterpiggle
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Hey Caterpiggle ;

 

I don't see any special thins needed to run the OS or the BAS program.

Just be sure that BASIC is UNCHECKED in the SYSTEM --> Firmware

Don,t run any start with any OS other than the 600XL/800XL.

 

To make it easier, I put the NAJM.OS and ARBWRITE.BAS in an .ATR image disk (attached)

Boot from the disk image to dos (no basic). and load the NAJM,OS with "L" option

The loaded file will enable BASIC

type RUN "D:ARBWRITE.BAS" and you are on

 

Note: Don't load the BASIC file. Just RUN it because it is protected.

 

madi

NAJM.atr

Edited by Madi
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Tank you Philsan for your kind participation

Yes I am an Arabic speaking fellow who lives in Saudi Arabia,

Unfortunately, Information on Atari in the Arabic word is a scarce. When I finished my studies in Wisconsin, Madison and went back to Saudi Arabia in 1984, aDawliyah Co. was the only Atari dealer in S.A.

I visited the store in 1985 in Jeddah city, and only 800XL computer along with the unmodified computer line were there.

Later, at the end of 1986 (end of), I purchased the Atari Arabic cartridge to convert my 800XL into Arabic. This cartridge was the only Atari product I purchased form aDawliah.

Some time in 19899 I visited the aDawliah again and I copied some cartridges using CARTCLONE (I will post them here later).

I never had the OS ROM descried by savetz. which has the the CONTROL-CAPS function (puts READY on the right of the screen instead of the normal left) or the SHIFT-HELP (to sheft Character set).

Anyhow, ATARI was ill received in the Arabic world, because the home computer business was dominated by "SAKHR" and its clones which were found every where especially in schools (same story as Apple in USA).

For more information on Sakhr in the Arabic countries, please press HERE and HERE.

As a summery, you are really luck to acquire such really rare product (Arabic 65XE computer)

No one really know of how many Atari computers were sold in Saudi Arabia. I can assure you you that it had a short live before it went to demise.

 

madi

Hi Madi.

 

In fact I bought my 65XE from a seller who has sold two Sakhr MSX computers too.

I found very interesting your info regarding the fact MSX computers dominated Saudi Arabia market and were used in schools.

Can you confirm that 65XE was not common but was sold in shops?

Do you have friends that have more informations?

I would like to share infos with authors of the upcoming book Atari Corp. Business is War.

It would be nice if they would write something about Atari in Arabian countries.

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Hi Madi.

 

In fact I bought my 65XE from a seller who has sold two Sakhr MSX computers too.

I found very interesting your info regarding the fact MSX computers dominated Saudi Arabia market and were used in schools.

Can you confirm that 65XE was not common but was sold in shops?

Do you have friends that have more informations?

I would like to share infos with authors of the upcoming book Atari Corp. Business is War.

It would be nice if they would write something about Atari in Arabian countries.

 

Hi Philsan

As I mentioned earlier, Atari products were sold in Saudi Arabia solely by aDawliah CO. in there shops at major cities.

 

I was thinking to visit aDawliah in Jeddah (400 km away from my city) to ask for any left Atari products, but it looks that they are now selling music related instruments.

Anyhow, I will visit them within one month, and I hope someone can provide me with the needed info (or refer me to someone who will).

 

madi

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Voyage of Sinbad

 

16m3qxd.jpg

 

It is an Arabic educational cartridge about geography of some Arabic countries.

It provides general information such as:

Boundaries – Location – Important Cities – Population – Independence and Industry.

 

I wonder how did they manage to sell such a crab.

I can stand a lot of noise, but not this rubbish "music" and sounds that this software is infected with :skull: .

May be emkay or analmux can alter the imbedded music.. (no way :-D )

 

Warning: Cover your ears if you choose to run this ???

SINBAD.zip

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While I was maintaining the few disks I had, I noticed that one disk had a memory dump (verbatim sequential type of sectors) from sectors 400 to 525 (not a file link sector type). The sectors contain some Arabic words I did not see before. I used OMNIMON XL to read from that disk, then used DOS K option to write them back to disk as a file

I was surprised to see yet another version of NAJM "Arabic BASIC". I never recall having it before (and still do not know how I got it :P although OMNIMON had part in that obviously :? ).

 

I translated the Arabic text that appears when the cartridge (ROM) is started.

 

qq7jis.jpg

 

There are few new info. The Cartridge was developed in 1987 by NAJM team at KHOBAR, which is a city in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

The cartridge differ than the ABOS version in that it has its own screen colors. The rest look the same although, the code is modified a lot.

The memory area from $834D to $83E4 is empty. I think it was used by ABOS version to set initial memory variables such as memory high and low and the cartridge run address.

I believe that ABOS version was initially developed as a cartridge-disk type file to allow booting from the disk. Then, it was burned into cartridges withouh removing the memory protection code..

 

211p649.jpg

The above image is a summery of major differences between these version and the official initial built-in ROM version found in the Atari 800XE (NAJM).

The first NAJM-OS ROM differs from the later ROM in 2 major functions/Options:

1- It lacks the screen flipping mode (READY appears on the right side) when CONTROL-CAPS are pressed

2- Also, pressing SHIFT-HELP doesn't turn screen to full ATARI character set.

 

This version "along with ABOS version" have the following character behavior:

1- The Arabic Character set still in the area $9C00 (POKE 756,156)
2- The standard Character set obtainable by (POKE 756,224) . Only cursor movement is changed when typing the lower and control characters.
3- Also, the International Character set is available via (POKE 756,204).
This post will conclude my input regarding the ATARI "ARABIC NAJM OS". I hope that I shed some info regarding the NAJM OS development stages.

NAJM 1987 (KHOBAR).ROM

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  • 2 weeks later...
Smurfs


(Labibah and Smurfs) is a cartridge educational Arabic game produced by NAJM (aDawliah) in 1988 (Amman, Jordan).


The game is compiled Basic (can't tell what type of compiler though)


Smurfs and Labibah is an educational Math game is quite good one.

It has 6 choices as it can be seen in the picture.

It teaches counting in ascending and descending order.

The game has several difficulty levels (up to 4) in each category.

For example in the Addition category, there is the Demo where it gives the addition (summing) basics and summing rules in addition to the with the general exercises choices.


The Math game category is really interested with different difficulty levels.

The math game part is very similar to "Hangman" basic game, where you have to save the Smurf by going through several exercises and collect points in less than 60 seconds.


Labibah = Smart (for female)


Note: There are another 2 Cart educational games still to go. I will attach them here when get time


Madi


zo6rkh.jpg


2ztm00j.jpg


11aki6t.jpg


25f1uzr.jpg

Edited by Madi
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  • 1 year later...

ABC Najm

 

This is an educational game intended to teach children the English letters and some common objects and animals in a simple methods.

The corresponded meaning of the letter or object/animal is translated into Arabic.

The Game has a fair Memory Game in 2 levels.

One thing I really could not tolerate which is the awful sound and music. Really bad.

Here are some of selected picture for ABC NUJM game:

 

post-37046-0-30430600-1473510907_thumb.png post-37046-0-86912700-1473510908_thumb.png

 

post-37046-0-32343800-1473510910_thumb.png post-37046-0-99829200-1473510911_thumb.png

 

 

NAJM Letters

 

This educational game Is intended to introduce Arabic letters, objects and animal to children in a simple forms. It is very similar to the English version, except that it is totally in Arabic.

Again, I couldn't tolerate the bad sounds and Music.

 

post-37046-0-73278800-1473511479_thumb.png post-37046-0-77752800-1473511480_thumb.png

post-37046-0-97643600-1473511481_thumb.png post-37046-0-38831000-1473511483_thumb.png

 

Note: the 2 games are attached.

 

madi

Najm_ABC.XEX

Najm_Alhija.XEX

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  • 10 months later...

just bumping an old thread.

 

although Kevin's site suggests these 65xe ataris are rarities, i'd like to say that there were (at least) two very different keyboards used

 

http://www.savetz.com/vintagecomputers/arabic65xe/

shows a "G" key with a single Arabic character

while http://www.atari800xl.eu/hardware/computers/star-arabic-atari-65xe.html

shows a "G" key with two Arabic characters

 

incidentally, all three of my Arabic 65XEs (including one i've since sold) all have 2 Arabic characters for the "G" key

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I think that, the keyboards where the letter G key shows one character (L) is an older version compered to the other one with two characters.

Actually, the two characters on the G key are for the same letter which is "L: pronounced as LAM"

I think the reason of engraving both shapes of letter "L" on the key "G" is because:

The letter "L" or " ل in Arabic" is the written as "L" character when it comes at the end of the word like camel "جمل" or when the letter "L" is typed alone.

But if the letter "L" is typed within a word like dream "حلم" it will resemble the letter "A-a" ا " in Arabic ". Similar to the small letter "l" and number "1" when typed in some fonts.

 

Note that, all the Arabic letters in that row show Arabic characters graphics when typed within Arabic words except for the letter "L" where it is shown as if typed at the end of words.

Thus to avoid the confusion, they engraved both shapes of the letter LAM (L) on Key G to avoid confusion they created with the first Keyboards they issued with the Arabic Atari.

 

In summery Atari made a mistake in the older keyboard when they engraved printed letter "L" instead of "l" in a key row intended for letters to be printed at the beginning or within words. Therefore, they corrected it in a later version were they printed both cases on the KEY "G"

 

post-37046-0-59791800-1502104043.png

 

madi

Edited by Madi
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really good response. thanks for clarifying, Madi.

 

weird tho, that something with such an extremely limited existence - a few dozen (max)?

should have revisions and variations.

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  • 1 month later...

Hello all,

 

There is one thread on a Polish website that I cannot seem to forget or ignore. The author, by the alias "Nosty" wrote an article in 2007 and included a few more Arabic cartridges from aDawliah that he possesses.

 

He says he wants to distribute their contents but has not since, and I tried to bump his thread but no response.

 

If anyone can reach to him (I hope he is also on this website), please do. If there is a need for us to buy the cartridges from him, I am willing to do so and send them over to someone who can dump them (or if someone can lead me how to do it, I will do it immediately if I should ever get those cartridges).

 

Here is the link: http://www.atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1184283958&archive=&start_from=20&ucat=6&amp%3Bamp%3Bamp%3Btg=Puzzle+Mania&ct=wynalazki

 

Here are his snapshots!

 

Please share your thoughts.

post-47812-0-34693800-1506173321.jpg

post-47812-0-81765600-1506173321.jpg

post-47812-0-33690100-1506173322.jpg

post-47812-0-72083300-1506173322.jpg

post-47812-0-31956600-1506173323.jpg

post-47812-0-73221600-1506173323.jpg

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I think that, the keyboards where the letter G key shows one character (L) is an older version compered to the other one with two characters.

 

attachicon.gifG-LAM.png

 

madi

do you think that could be the other war around?

only suggest this, because my single "G" keyboard is with a later 130XE 4-chip mobo

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