Burning questions from a new ST owner

[danm]

I got my first ever 16/32 bit Atari on Sunday - a 520STFM with 512K running TOS 1.02. Fifty quid! It didn't include any cables or peripherals but its still a steal I think, its looks like its been looked after quite well. Obviously I intend to at least upgrade the RAM and I'll get it recapped too.

 

I have several questions for the Atari elders please.

 

I see there are several options for me to get SD card adapters. Using an external gotek looks like my best bet for the money. I'd like to keep my floppy disk drive in place. What SD card adapter / floppy emulator is recommended for the 520FM?

 

Is it worth me upgrading the TOS ROM from ye olde 1.02? I'd imagine so right.

 

I don't have an Atari mouse or a PS/2 or USB mouse adapter yet. It seems I can veeeeery slowly control the GEM cursor using a joystick plugged into the first port but its unusably slow. I already know I can control the cursor with the Alt + cursor keys but should I be able to control it with a joystick too? Maybe this was fixed in later TOS ROMs or there is a program to add this feature?

 

I already own an Am*g*, yes I said it, so I already have a couple of PS/2 mouse adapters for that, plus I have a couple of Mega Drive controllers I'd like to use with my ST so what I think I need is:

 

1 x Atari to Amiga joystick extender (to use my Amiga DB9 to PS2 mouse adapters)

2 x Atari to Mega Drive extender cables

 

Because all three platforms use slightly different pin outs I believe and I want to avoid having to lift it up to change them about as much as I can. Is anyone selling these cables ready made or will I have to make them myself? I'd rather not. I've owned a 2600 since birth and I still have that and its joysicks but I can't stand to use the Atari joysticks. They didn't bother me as a kid but they do now.

 

What is the best version of GEM (or GEM replacement) that I can run on the 520, when upgraded to 4 MB?

 

There seem to be several wikis for the Atari ST. Which is the best (most comprehensive and accurate) wiki?

 

What other upgrades should I consider and what other must have tools are there for a Linux and ST user? I've already used HxCFloppyEmulator - very handy program!

 

Thanks!

Edited July 16 by danm

[theboyfromanotherplanet]

Certainly power without the price 🙂

 

ST boards are quite tough and normally don't need racapping. That said, the PSUs sometimes do and is recommended by many.

 

You really need at least 1Mb to use a hard drive/sd hdd, as the driver and cache take up a bit of RAM (c.100k). TOS 1.04 is also recommended when using hard drives.

 

It's pretty straightforward to upgrade the TOS but bear in mind that there were quite a few STFM board revisions and some are easier to RAM upgrade than others. Most can be upgraded to 1Mb easily enough. 4Mb upgrades are available but depend on the mobo.

 

A sidecartridge is your easiest bet. It plugs into the cartridge slot and can emulate quite a few things: floppy drive, hard disk (without using up any RAM), cartridges, RTC. The list of features is growing and since it uses a PICO it's easy to upgrade the firmware. Development is quite active and the dev pushes out frequent updates.

 

https://www.atari-wiki.com/index.php?title=Main_Page is the main wiki. 

 

Also a couple of ST/TT/Falcon specific forums:

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/index.php

https://www.atari-forum.com/index.php

These are the English language ones (mainly) - others  in French, German, Polish

 

I must admit - not tried the Joystick as a mouse but I don't think it will work as the Joystick won't send frequent enough movements iyswim and the keyboard needs to be programmed to treat port 0 as a joystick.

 

I made my own joystick extender when none were available but I've seen quite a few on ebay recently. Definitely worth it.

 

[theboyfromanotherplanet]

Also take a look at 'Commodore is not the only fruit' on YouTube - loads of good vids there

[danm]

Thanks theboyfromanotherplanet!

 

There seems to be TOS 2.x. Should I upgrade to TOS 1.04 or 2.x? I would like to emulate a HD and floppy drives on a SD card (or USB) so I will need to upgrade to use that.

 

sysinfo doesn't seem to tell me what rev board I have but the sticker underneath says:

 

GS 21137 DATE 18/11/88 and it was made in Taiwan. It has a British TOS 1.02 and GEM 0.13.

 

I presume I'm going to have to buy a new TOS rom to upgrade? I'm sure this must be covered on the wiki somewhere right?

 

I do like the idea of using the sidecartridge to emulate disks. I want to use that for something and that seems like its ideal purpose. What is the best or most affordable floppy / HD emulator that is available for the sidecartridge?

 

Of course I need at least 1 MB RAM to play most games but I'd prefer 4 MB if I don't have to do any desoldering to install it.

 

I've not opened my ST yet. Maybe I'll have to do that to find out the board revision?

 

What replacement PSU's are recommended for the 520STFM?

Edited July 16 by danm

[danm]

1 hour ago, theboyfromanotherplanet said:

 

A sidecartridge is your easiest bet. It plugs into the cartridge slot and can emulate quite a few things: floppy drive, hard disk (without using up any RAM), cartridges, RTC. The list of features is growing and since it uses a PICO it's easy to upgrade the firmware. Development is quite active and the dev pushes out frequent updates.

 

Found it! It was easy enough to find:

 

https://sidecartridge.com
 

Yes, that does look like exactly what I wanted and it should fix my mouse problem too so all I think I need cable-wise after I get a sidecertridge is 2x Atari to Mega Drive extension cables.

 

sidecartridge.com also sell replacement PSUs and TOS replacements. What do people think of their PSUs? Maybe I should buy their reprogrammable TOS too?

Edited July 17 by danm

[theboyfromanotherplanet]

59 minutes ago, danm said:

Thanks theboyfromanotherplanet!

 

There seems to be TOS 2.x. Should I upgrade to TOS 1.04 or 2.x? I would like to emulate a HD and floppy drives on a SD card (or USB) so I will need to upgrade to use that.

 

sysinfo doesn't seem to tell me what rev board I have but the sticker underneath says:

 

GS 21137 DATE 18/11/88 and it was made in Taiwan. It has a British TOS 1.02 and GEM 0.13.

 

I presume I'm going to have to buy a new TOS rom to upgrade? I'm sure this must be covered on the wiki somewhere right?

 

I do like the idea of using the sidecartridge to emulate disks. I want to use that for something and that seems like its ideal purpose. What is the best or most affordable floppy / HD emulator that is available for the sidecartridge?

 

Of course I need at least 1 MB RAM to play most games but I'd prefer 4 MB if I don't have to do any desoldering to install it.

 

I've not opened my ST yet. Maybe I'll have to do that to find out the board revision?

 

What replacement PSU's are recommended for the 520STFM?

No probs.

TOS 1.04 (sometimes just referred to as TOS 1.4 or rainbow TOS) is the latest TOS compatible with the STFM, all later versions are for the STe/TT/Falcon.

You'll have to look at the markings on the mobo to get the revision.

There's a shop attached to the Exxos forum, you can buy a few ROM versions there. I've seen plenty on ebay. TOS is split over multiple chips (6 iirc).

The sidecartridge has an SD card slot - so you just need an SD card.

There are a few PSUs available. Exxos and Centuriantech both have them. I don't know which is the best tbh. Exxos is UK based, Centurian in the EU. Exxos has recently started selling a DIY "base board" so that you can use Meanwell PSUs. 

[+remowilliams]

That sidecartridge is pretty neat, I just learned of it the other day.  However I'd be concerned about compatibility with floppy images at least on that one. 

 

I saw someone point out on youtube - 'It will not work with any software that bypases TOS and talks directly to hardware (a lot of games do). So it is far from perfect I'm affraid'  Which is something I would have assumed myself by the nature of the device, and probably something to double check.

 

Anyhow, PS recap is a good idea.  Centurion tech also offers replacement power supply assemblies.

 

Gotek/Flashfloppy is an excellent floppy drive replacement.  For hard drive my response for a very long time would have been automatically Satandisk, but I've now been super impressed with ACSI2STM after picking up a compact three slot version.  If you plan on moving into the hard drive arena, TOS 1.04 is highly recommended - and plan on upgrading to at least 2MB.

 

 

[theboyfromanotherplanet]

7 minutes ago, danm said:

Found it! It was easy enough to find:

 

https://sidecartridge.com
 

Yes, that does look like exactly what I wanted and it should fix my mouse problem too so all I think I need cable-wise after I get a sidecertridge is 2x Atari to Mega Drive extension cables.

 

sidecartridge.com also sell replacement PSUs and TOS replacements. What do people think of their PSUs? Maybe I should buy their reprogrammable TOS too?

 

Yep that's it. Used to be called SidecarT but that name's trademarked apparently.

 

I don't know about their PSUs tbh. I'm still using my original (although recapped)

 

A flashable TOS is definitely handy although 1.04 covers most bases. With flashable TOS you could also install EmuTOS 

[theboyfromanotherplanet]

3 minutes ago, remowilliams said:

That sidecartridge is pretty neat, I just learned of it the other day.  However I'd be concerned about compatibility with floppy images at least on that one. 

 

I saw someone point out on youtube - 'It will not work with any software that bypases TOS and talks directly to hardware (a lot of games do). So it is far from perfect I'm affraid'  Which is something I would have assumed myself by the nature of the device, and probably something to double check.

 

 

Yes that's a good point - just thought it might be less hassle. Any kind of hard drive for the ST is a real game changer (opens up possibilities for alternative OSes etc). Perhaps the ACSI2STM is 'the one' 🙂 You'll just have to get more RAM first

[Forrest]

The SidecarT is amazing - especially because it allows computers with a bad/missing floppy drive and/or a bad ACSI hard drive port to run many games. Many of the games which have been modified to run with the SidecarT can be downloaded and run directly.

 

If your intention is primarily to run games - the SidecarT might be all you need. TOS upgrade isn’t needed. You may still want a memory upgrade. Most current memory upgrades require soldering, because solderless memory upgrades of the past were not reliable over the long term.

 

You really need a mouse and a 9 pin Atari joystick to run most games. Adapters for PS/2 and USB mice are available.

[danm]

TOS is 6 ROMs!!! Craziness! I'm sorry but that is definitely one up for team Amiga with its single chip Kickstart ROM.

 

I've had a look of the sidecartridge.com site and can't see any warnings like "most games won't work". I think it would be a massive showstopping bug if most games wouldn't work with its floppy emulation.

 

tbfap is correct tho. I really need to get the RAM upgraded first before I bother with any other upgrades.

 

I'm pretty sure I'll be taking a punt on the sidecartridge by the looks of things.

 

I mainly want it to run games but I'm a Linux user since the 90s and a Uzebox user/dev. I just like messing with tech but I'm not bothered about having an 060 and 128 MB RAM, not that the STFM can manage that. 4 MB and 8 Mhz will do me.I may do a bit of dev stuff. If I go there I'd be cross compling so I don't need a fast m68k.

Edited July 17 by danm

[Forrest]

There are 2 chip and 6 chip ROM sets - buy the one that matches your board.

[danm]

I will bust it open tomorrow to see what my RAM options are.

 

It seems Exxos don't offer a RAM soldering service? I'm OK with soldering but if I have to desolder anything I'd prefer to pay to have it done.

Edited July 17 by danm

[+remowilliams]

I'll take the existence of a 'modified image' library as evidence that my assumptions were correct...

[danm]

6 minutes ago, remowilliams said:

I'll take the existence of a 'modified image' library as evidence that my assumptions were correct...

 

Yeah. That's a shame. I would've liked the USB ports for a mouse (mice? Two player Lemmings anyone?)

 

A ACSI2STM and a Amiga to Atari joystick extension cable (so I can use my Amiga PS/2 adapters) might be better. I think I want highly compatible floppy emulation more thanI want hard drive emulation. I want both but I think I want good floppy emulation more.

Edited July 17 by danm

[danm]

1 hour ago, remowilliams said:

That sidecartridge is pretty neat, I just learned of it the other day.  However I'd be concerned about compatibility with floppy images at least on that one. 

 

I saw someone point out on youtube - 'It will not work with any software that bypases TOS and talks directly to hardware (a lot of games do). So it is far from perfect I'm affraid'  Which is something I would have assumed myself by the nature of the device, and probably something to double check.

 

Anyhow, PS recap is a good idea.  Centurion tech also offers replacement power supply assemblies.

 

Gotek/Flashfloppy is an excellent floppy drive replacement.  For hard drive my response for a very long time would have been automatically Satandisk, but I've now been super impressed with ACSI2STM after picking up a compact three slot version.  If you plan on moving into the hard drive arena, TOS 1.04 is highly recommended - and plan on upgrading to at least 2MB.

 

 

 

I've had a quick look into this and now it seems my best bet for the floppy emulator is an external gotek with the gotek custom ps2 mouse adapter than also provides power to the gotek.

 

I presume a gotek will be perfectly usable with only 1 MB RAM if thats all I can upgrade to?

Edited July 17 by danm

[+remowilliams]

8 minutes ago, danm said:

I presume a gotek will be perfectly usable with only 1 MB RAM if thats all I can upgrade to?

 

1MB and a Gotek will get you access to just about all the original floppy crack based game library.

 

USB port things for the ST also come with the same compatibility caveats - i.e. probably is not going to work with the games you want it to.  If you want to use a USB mouse look into things like Mouster / ImpoSTer, etc.

[oracle_jedi]

36 minutes ago, danm said:

 

I've had a quick look into this and now it seems my best bet for the floppy emulator is an external gotek with the gotek custom ps2 mouse adapter than also provides power to the gotek.

 

 

If you use an external Gotek, be aware that a lot of software will expect to be booted from Drive A. 

 

An external Gotek will default to Drive B.  If you want to go this route, you will likely have to add a boot-switcher to swap Drive A and Drive B, so you can boot off the external floppy.

 

They are simple enough to do, but it is one more complication to be aware of.

 

[Forrest]

So a Gotek can only play cracked games - just like the SidecarT?

[+remowilliams]

7 minutes ago, Forrest said:

So a Gotek can only play cracked games - just like the SidecarT?

The point being that a Gotek can use any of the tons of standard existing .ST/.MSA floppy images that have been out forever.  

 

Versus someone having to modify existing images all over again to deal with the inherent incompatibility of a single device with the real hardware that it is supposed to be replacing...

[ijor]

23 minutes ago, Forrest said:

So a Gotek can only play cracked games - just like the SidecarT?

No, the Gotek can also run some copy protected images, just not all of them yet.

[+DarkLord]

3 hours ago, danm said:

TOS is 6 ROMs!!! Craziness! I'm sorry but that is definitely one up for team Amiga with its single chip Kickstart ROM.

 

Ah, yes, but then part of the OS has to be loaded from floppy (originally), correct?

 

TOS isn't always 6 chips, BTW. There are multiple 2 ROM versions...

 

[danm]

2 hours ago, DarkLord said:

 

Ah, yes, but then part of the OS has to be loaded from floppy (originally), correct?

 

TOS isn't always 6 chips, BTW. There are multiple 2 ROM versions...

 

 

Yes, no Amiga workbench without a disk.

 

I will try to get a 2 ROM TOS if poss.

 

I've barely used GEM but I like that it can be controlled using cursor keys. I don't think Workbench has such controls baked in and it seems like a big omission to a currently mouseless user.

 

I also like that the ST uses msdos format disks for "normal" (non game) disks, rather than Amigas more PC unfrendly formats.

Edited July 17 by danm

[danm]

3 hours ago, oracle_jedi said:

 

If you use an external Gotek, be aware that a lot of software will expect to be booted from Drive A. 

 

An external Gotek will default to Drive B.  If you want to go this route, you will likely have to add a boot-switcher to swap Drive A and Drive B, so you can boot off the external floppy.

 

They are simple enough to do, but it is one more complication to be aware of.

 

 

Ah OK! I wasn't aware of that. That's another thing for my shopping list.

 

I'm not so sure about about using the external gotek PS2 mouse power adapter. That would seem to prevent me playing 2 player games but I'm sure there are other options for sorting out external power.

[danm]

I got hold of a internal PC floppy disk drive last night. The one I had attached to my Pentium 4 wasn't working so hopefully this one works.

 

I don;t think I've found any correct and complete instructions for writing ST game disks onto floppy under Linux yet but I think it goes roughly like this:

 

* First, convert .msa into .st (.msa are compressed right?) if required. Will I also need to convert .stx files to .st? I'm pretty I read they would need to be converted before being written onto a real floppy.

* Use something like HxCFloppyEmulator to find out how many tracks and cylinders the disk uses.

* Use `superformat` (in Debian/Ubuntu package `fdutils`) to format the disk to the correct spec then use

 

dd if=disk.st of=/dev/fd0

 

As root to write the image to floppy.

 

Should that work or will I need to use a special tool to write ST game  / 800 Kb disks under Linux? HxCFloppyEmulator doesn't seem to have an option to write real floppys?

 

I hope I won't need to install Windows just to write ST game disks onto floppies. I can see there being potential issues trying to run any Windows floppy disk software under wine.

Edited July 17 by danm