DrWoo Posted April 29, 2017 Share Posted April 29, 2017 Greetings. I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies? I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation.. Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos? Thanks, Kevin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrMaddog Posted April 29, 2017 Share Posted April 29, 2017 You can get adapted games (http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php) that'll run off hard drives and nearly any Atari model & TOS version. This should run on MicroCosmos... I still recommend getting a floppy drive emulator as soon as you're able to though since there's still more games on disk images. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 29, 2017 Share Posted April 29, 2017 Greetings. I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies? I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation.. Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos? Thanks, Kevin It's a shame you couldn't get the full fledged CosmosEx... I hope he does another run again, as I'd love to get a couple more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 You can get adapted games (http://atari.8bitchip.info/fromhd.php) that'll run off hard drives and nearly any Atari model & TOS version. This should run on MicroCosmos... I still recommend getting a floppy drive emulator as soon as you're able to though since there's still more games on disk images. Which one would you recommend? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunter44102 Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Other than scsi what does the full cosmos have over micro? I thought it just had scsi for the mega, tt, falcon. They both use raspberry pi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Other than scsi what does the full cosmos have over micro? I thought it just had scsi for the mega, tt, falcon. They both use raspberry pi It doesn't have the floppy image functionality. You can emulate a hard drive, but not a floppy drive with floppy images. (The full CosmosEx has an actual connector for an actual floppy cable that can replace your floppy drive in addition to the ACSI/SCSI connector). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunter44102 Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 OK got it. Is there a way to mount the Floppy images using a PC emulator, then copying the files to the Micro Cosmos? That would make things easier to move to emulated hard drive instead of looking for the files Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 I didn't mean for this to turn into a cosmos discussion. So, do I need a floppy emulator? Assuming I do and the CosmosEX full isn't available for 5 months.. What other options do I need. What do people use for there ST's to load games and Apps?? Are all of you using floppies? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 Do I need a GOTEK HxC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Yes, you can use a Gotek to boot off of .ST disk images stored on a USB drive, from a boot menu when you turn it on. But you will need to hack up your case to fit it correctly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 Any other options? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunter44102 Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tillek Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism Not all games can run from a hard drive though, so he wouldn't be able to use those. Though that said, if game playing isn't your focus or the games you want to play work fine from the HD, then you're pretty much set with what you have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Floppy emulator makes little sense on machines that were designed to have hard drives. The CosmosEx allows you to drop files between pc and ST anyways so it defeats the argument of using floppy emulator as transfer mechanism Many ST games boot from disk only and cannot be installed to hard drive, so a floppy emu still makes sense Greetings. I've finally found an Atari STe and I should be getting it within a week. It's been 30 years since I owned an ST and I'm excited to be reliving my golden days of computing. Since I do not own any 3 1/2" floppies anymore and I'm not interested in acquiring them. I wanted to know what the best solution/solutions are for being able to play games and run programs without floppies? I did purchase the MicroCosmos, but I understand it doesn't support floppy emulation.. Do I need a Floppy Emulator? Can I run everything off a hard drive emulator with a MicroCosmos? Does the STe have a floppy drive? You could always get a small pack of floppys for those games you want to play that can't be install to hard drive Other than that, you won't need one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 Many ST games boot from disk only and cannot be installed to hard drive, so a floppy emu still makes sense Does the STe have a floppy drive? You could always get a small pack of floppys for those games you want to play that can't be install to hard drive Other than that, you won't need one. I like that idea. Let's talk about that workflow. So I would download an image from a PC/Mac transfer it to Cosmos and then write the image from the ST HD to the floppy? What disk tools would I use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 (edited) CosmosEx has HW floppy emiulation. So no need for Gotek, floppy disks ... Of course, it can not run originals - copy protected ones, but that should be not relevant, I guess. Edited May 1, 2017 by ParanoidLittleMan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 (edited) I like that idea. Let's talk about that workflow. So I would download an image from a PC/Mac transfer it to Cosmos and then write the image from the ST HD to the floppy? What disk tools would I use? yes- if they are in .msa format, you would need the ST program "Magic Shadow Archiver", it should be easy to find. It reads the .msa file and writes it to a floppy. other formats would use a different program. I'm most familiar with msa. Edited May 1, 2017 by zzip Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 CosmosEx has HW floppy emiulation. So no need for Gotek, floppy disks ... Of course, it can not run originals - copy protected ones, but that should be not relevant, I guess. The new MicroCosmosEX does not have Floppy Emulation and you can't get an the original CosmosEX until November. So I'm stuck trying to find a floppy solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hunter44102 Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 You can use this program to write the bootable floppies to disk on a PC that has a built in floppy (up to Win7) http://atari.8bitchip.info/floimgd.php Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zzip Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 The new MicroCosmosEX does not have Floppy Emulation and you can't get an the original CosmosEX until November. So I'm stuck trying to find a floppy solution. I haven't heard of the MicroCosmosEX yet, and I don't see it on Jookie's page. Is it the original cosmosex without the Raspberry Pi, or something else? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrWoo Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 http://joo.kie.sk/cosmosex/shop/index.php?route=product/product&path=59&product_id=58 Not a ton of information on it yet. It's the only solution he's currently offering. Smaller and cheaper version without Floppy Emu. Still needs a raspberry PI to operate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Do I need a GOTEK HxC? It's cheap, easy, and very effective. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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