PC Mode "On-A-Stick" (from Atari store)

[Atarick]

An hour or so into using this thing, I think I see it's biggest utility as a pretty sweet emulation device. I easily brought up NES and 2600 ROMs without issue. You could obviously achieve this in Windows, but the user interface here simplifies that a bit. I am trying to tap into Steam but looks like most of the games in my library won't come up. Also trying to figure out how to go full screen or use a controller in Stella. All in all, a cool little add on.

[bugcatcher88]

I remember their July 2022 annual results document mentioning they were developing new hardware to compliment the VCS. I suppose they were referring to this USB device.

 

 

 

[acem77]

Shocked on how fast you guys got your USB sticks. Still waiting on a shipment notice for the system, extra controller and speaker hat I ordered. Sold out of USB stick while in my cart

 

Any chance people can make an image of this usb stick?

[digitalbilly]

30 minutes ago, acem77 said:

Shocked on how fast you guys got your USB sticks. Still waiting on a shipment notice for the system, extra controller and speaker hat I ordered. Sold out of USB stick while in my cart

 

Any chance people can make an image of this usb stick?

i too would like an image i tried to buy but sold out

[SoCalAttorney]

I have Windows 10 Pro installed in an internal SSD. It works great and does what I need it to do. Is there anything compelling about Debian that I should consider?

[zzip]

5 minutes ago, SoCalAttorney said:

I have Windows 10 Pro installed in an internal SSD. It works great and does what I need it to do. Is there anything compelling about Debian that I should consider?

For desktop use, probably not.

 

Where Linux becomes interesting is when you want to do a lot of customization or run exotic software

[digitalbilly]

On 12/3/2022 at 9:50 PM, digitalbilly said:

i too would like an image i tried to buy but sold out

I too am looking for a image but they have to create a image before they plugin and use the stick as the first time setup will attach the user account and profile.

 

PLEASE SOMEONE UPLOAD A VIRGIN IMAGE!!!

[Rob Merritt]

On 12/6/2022 at 3:20 PM, SoCalAttorney said:

I have Windows 10 Pro installed in an internal SSD. It works great and does what I need it to do. Is there anything compelling about Debian that I should consider?

I'm just looking for something new to do with my VCS.

[Greekgeek]

Is there any way to return to the VCS main menu when you are finished using PC mode?  So far, it seems all we can do is power off and remove the USB that has Debian

[+joeatari1]

58 minutes ago, Greekgeek said:

Is there any way to return to the VCS main menu when you are finished using PC mode?  So far, it seems all we can do is power off and remove the USB that has Debian

That's pretty much it.  That is the way it was designed to work.

[zzip]

1 hour ago, Greekgeek said:

Is there any way to return to the VCS main menu when you are finished using PC mode?  So far, it seems all we can do is power off and remove the USB that has Debian

There are a few other options you could do.

1) install a boot manager onto the USB key, such as grub2 or refind,  this will give you a boot menu to select which environment to boot into

2) there's a command called "efibootmgr" that you can use to set what happens on the next boot.   In theory you could put this in the shutdown scripts on Debian and force Atari mode to boot next time, although I'm not 100%  sure if this will override the BIOS boot order which says to boot USB before anything else.

[Wizzard]

On 12/3/2022 at 8:11 PM, Atarick said:

An hour or so into using this thing, I think I see it's biggest utility as a pretty sweet emulation device. I easily brought up NES and 2600 ROMs without issue. You could obviously achieve this in Windows, but the user interface here simplifies that a bit. I am trying to tap into Steam but looks like most of the games in my library won't come up. Also trying to figure out how to go full screen or use a controller in Stella. All in all, a cool little add on.

Could you please share the image of that USB on Internet Archive? I think that many of us would like to try this OS. You can use software like https://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

[+joeatari1]

1 hour ago, Wizzard said:

Could you please share the image of that USB on Internet Archive? I think that many of us would like to try this OS. You can use software like https://www.osforensics.com/tools/write-usb-images.html

Here you go:  THIS is all it is.  The only thing that is custom are a couple of wallpapers.

[Wizzard]

2 hours ago, joeatari1 said:

Here you go:  THIS is all it is.  The only thing that is custom are a couple of wallpapers.

Have you checked that? Ok, good to know. I thought there were some special emulators or custom games or something. They really could add the AtariOS store at least

[+joeatari1]

It's just Debian already flashed to a stick for you and a few nice wallpapers put in there by Atari.  The other stuff on the stick are a BIOS and an OS image for recovering your VCS if you mess it up somehow.  It's really intended for people that have no idea how to put an OS on a stick with a few nice added bonuses.

[digitalbilly]

if you want the official PC mode image come and grab it here https://archive.org/details/pc-mode-image-20230116-001