Atari 8-Bit Hardware Questions

[Draugr]

Hi,

I'm looking to enhance my Atari 130XE system. I'll list what I'm looking for and hopefully some of you more experienced Atari 8-bit users can help me. I grew up with the C64 system back in the 80s. While I used that system extensively back then, it wasn't until 1993 or so that I got my 130XE. Now I decided to pull it out of the closet and setup a serious workstation. The hardware items that I'm looking to obtain are the following.

 

1. 3.5 High Density Floppy Drive. Are there any and where can they be found for sale? What is the standard price to pay for one?

 

1a. If there is no 3.5 drive, what is the best 5 1/4 inch drive to get for the system?

 

2. Hard Drives. I'd like to get a nice sized hard disk for my Atari. Anyone have any info on these or know where you can still buy one today? Also, anyone know what the going rate is pricewise for these?

 

3. 80 Column Adapter. What does this do? Does this make the games look sharper on a monitor or TV?

[welshleo]

There are several things you can do:

 

1. Get a Black Box with Floppy Board. This'll let you use standard 3.5" and 5.25" drives, plus let you use a SCSI hard drive. It also has other things like a printer and modem interface.

 

2. Try to find an MIO board or Supra Hard Disk.

 

3. Try to find someone who has the floppy drive board that was developed and sold by Micro Discount in the UK.

 

4. Or ... try one of the homebrew IDE hard drive projects on the net. The only problem with these is that they are technically 'incomplete' in that they only allow access to half the hard drive (the BB above is a 'complete' solution).

[El Destructo]

I don't have experience with hard drives. But, if you decide on a floppy-only solution, I can recommend upgrading an Atari XF551 with Bob Puff's US Doubler kit.

 

Not only does it triple disk access speed and write the full 360KB DS/DD without a disk flip, a bridge cable allows you to attach a 720KB 3.5" external floppy drive. Unfortunately, the old DD 3.5" drives and accompanying DD (as opposed to 1.44MB HD) disks are scarce nowadays.

 

[ 05-05-2002: Message edited by: El Destructo ]

[Mindfield]

quote:

---

Originally posted by John Von Draugr:

Hi,

I'm looking to enhance my Atari 130XE system. I'll list what I'm looking for and hopefully some of you more experienced Atari 8-bit users can help me. I grew up with the C64 system back in the 80s. While I used that system extensively back then, it wasn't until 1993 or so that I got my 130XE. Now I decided to pull it out of the closet and setup a serious workstation. The hardware items that I'm looking to obtain are the following.

 

1. 3.5 High Density Floppy Drive. Are there any and where can they be found for sale? What is the standard price to pay for one?

 

1a. If there is no 3.5 drive, what is the best 5 1/4 inch drive to get for the system?

 

2. Hard Drives. I'd like to get a nice sized hard disk for my Atari. Anyone have any info on these or know where you can still buy one today? Also, anyone know what the going rate is pricewise for these?

 

3. 80 Column Adapter. What does this do? Does this make the games look sharper on a monitor or TV?

---

 

1) There's no actual 3.5" drive for the 8-Bit. There are prototype XF351 drives, but they were never released to the general public. there is a 3.5" upgrade mod you can do to an XF551, though. If you're not up to modding, however, then the 3 best drives I ever used were the XF551 (DS/DD 360K, high speed 38.4k), the Indus GT (SS/DD, built like a tank and sexy besides, what with it being all black, with a nice LED track indicator and hydraulic cover), and any 1050 with US doublers (SS/DD but blazing fast)

 

2) Your best bet is to get an MIO and build yourself a small hard drive, unless you can find a direct-connect. Supra made one, as has already been mentioned, and I *think* the Atari Megafiles also had an SIO option. (can't rightly recall, actually)

 

3) The XEP80 basically only allowed for 80 column output in programs that were made to take advantage of the appropriate handler. It doesn't do anything for games, and frankly looks a bit like crap on standard televisions, since it doesn't enhance your resolution or anything, it basically just gives the 8-Bit an 80 column font (4x8 pixels each character) to use text mode with the help of the handler. It's really only nice looking on a monitor, though the characters still look a little on the squished side. (Well, they _Are_ 4x8 after all. Rather like ANSITerm looked on the ST)