adamchevy Posted September 26, 2020 Share Posted September 26, 2020 I'd have to compare my Wico and my Atari trackballs to arcade trackballs. It would not surprise me if the parts (at least on the Atari units) were from the arcade vision (i.e. Centipede trackballs). Not sure about Wico. An interesting option would be to have a machinist make new shafts out of something a bit harder. Though that is going to get expensive for just a pair. I’ll make you some shafts. I was thinking about making myself a set when I took apart my CX22 a few days ago. I’m thinking about making them out of a hard stainless like 316 or 304. I just need to figure out how to take those plastic things off on the end of the shafts. I might even try some D2 tool steel or titanium if I can find some. The only problem with Titanium is that it may be to light weight. That and titanium eats carbide inserts for breakfast. Anyway I’ll make this a project for next week. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cwilbar Posted September 26, 2020 Share Posted September 26, 2020 (edited) I doubt the application would require titanium ? But the idea of a hard stainless steel is good. I think the only other bit is surface finish. If made too smooth it might not work well. I bet new originals have a bit of texture. If you pursue it, start a thread on the topic for people to follow. Edited September 26, 2020 by cwilbar addendum 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamchevy Posted September 26, 2020 Share Posted September 26, 2020 I doubt the application would require titanium [emoji846] But the idea of a hard stainless steel is good. I think the only other bit is surface finish. If made too smooth it might not work well. I bet new originals have a bit of texture. If you pursue it, start a thread on the topic for people to follow. I think I’ll pursue it. I’ve been wanting my trackball to feel a bit smoother. I think your right about the surface finish. Thanks! In the interest of not derailing the thread here’s my last purchase on eBay that’s Atari related. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted September 26, 2020 Share Posted September 26, 2020 16 hours ago, adamchevy said: I’ll make you some shafts. I was thinking about making myself a set when I took apart my CX22 a few days ago. I’m thinking about making them out of a hard stainless like 316 or 304. I just need to figure out how to take those plastic things off on the end of the shafts. I might even try some D2 tool steel or titanium if I can find some. The only problem with Titanium is that it may be to light weight. That and titanium eats carbide inserts for breakfast. Anyway I’ll make this a project for next week. Ahh man - you have a lathe? Which brand & size? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamchevy Posted September 27, 2020 Share Posted September 27, 2020 Ahh man - you have a lathe? Which brand & size?I’ve worked for the same Machine shop for the last 10 years. I run 2 Mori Seiki NL2500sy lathes. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gearhead Lu Posted September 27, 2020 Share Posted September 27, 2020 I tried a few things on my Wico track ball and shafts. I started a new thread on trackball repair and ball yellowing so we don't have to derail this thread. See it here. Trackball repair and ball yellowing thread. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hueyjones70 Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 I bought a Dell 2001FP monitor to use with my 1024ST. It works with high res and low res color. It also has composite and S Video so I can use it with my XLs and XEs. There are vertical bands with the S-Video. I may try an upscaler to see if it will eliminate them. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fierodoug5 Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 16 minutes ago, hueyjones70 said: I bought a Dell 2001FP monitor to use with my 1024ST. It works with high res and low res color. It also has composite and S Video so I can use it with my XLs and XEs. There are vertical bands with the S-Video. I may try an upscaler to see if it will eliminate them. See this thread I had vertical bands on my fp2001 till I changed to the Hecules workshop cable linked in that thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oakcitycomics Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 my latest ebay would be a US released 1040STE. Received over the weekend. Works great. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcamp48 Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 I just got 4 new zip drives to use with my Atari Portfolio , at least they are new to me. I will be getting more of them, and anticipating the problem with displaying over 3000 Atari Portfolio files on one zip disk, I am 25 % though writing a shell in Power Basic that will display each category of files that are on the zip drive, break things down into a manageable display of what is on the Atari Portfolio and on the zip drive, and actually execute the program for you when you type in a number from 1 to 10 (10 being a zero). Things are looking up in the Atari world for me and the IDE kits that are being made , Don and I have not abandoned anyone , its just that Don is incredibly busy and I am hopefully going to finally get a modified parallel port made. But if anyone already has a few that are modified kicking around and not being used, then why not send me one so I can get further on with testing that IDE prototype? The only thing that is holding me back with going through with production of new circuit boards, is the testing of the current one, and that has been a real drag on production, not having a modified interface. On the bright side I have 10 zip disks that I will format with the Atari Portfolio into three 32 meg partitions, and I will fill each one up with Atari portfolio software, and possibly make them available to all who have bought the IDE kits. They will of course have my new Portfolio shell on them, as for the software to make the zip drive talk with that Portfolio, Klaus has that, I have a registered version but cannot give it out, however I can give out the free version of both Pofozip and Palmzip as long a they are not the registered version. I am doing work to gather everything Atari Portfolio related and put it all in one place , organize it and put it on zip disks and eventually CF cards, I do have the full library available for everything Atari related on my BBS, an I am always writing programs for both the BBS and the Atari Portfolio. Its nice to hear from all of my Atari friends here and hope to to talk with each and every one of you, I have to get back to work programming for the Atari Portfolio, my programs for the shell will be modular, and will talk to each other, maybe by tomorrow I will have a demo copy that works for one or two categories of software. Your Atari friend , Russ Campbell. (sorry to ramble on but I am inspired, and have not been on here for a while). 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 34 pin IDC sockets to repair the ribbon cable on my external ST floppy drive and an 8Gb SD card for a GOEX drive Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillC Posted September 29, 2020 Share Posted September 29, 2020 8 hours ago, rcamp48 said: I just got 4 new zip drives to use with my Atari Portfolio , at least they are new to me. You should be wary of Iomega cartridge drives, the ZIP is well known for failure and I had a JAZ drive fail as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 https://archive.org/details/current-notes-volume-14-number-5-june-july-1994/mode/2up June, 1994. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 22 minutes ago, Allan said: https://archive.org/details/current-notes-volume-14-number-5-june-july-1994/mode/2up June, 1994. Cool to see the adverts such as American Techna-Vision. Their prices were always great along with San Jose Computers. I wonder who picked up their leftover stock. Probably Best Electronics. This issue also has an article covering one of MyTEK's invention. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 15 minutes ago, gilsaluki said: Cool to see the adverts such as American Techna-Vision. Their prices were always great along with San Jose Computers. I wonder who picked up their leftover stock. Probably Best Electronics. This issue also has an article covering one of MyTEK's invention. I still have that exact same unit that I lent out for the review, although I'm missing the GTIA board. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted September 30, 2020 Share Posted September 30, 2020 GenLock? What was the item? Video capture device? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rcamp48 Posted October 1, 2020 Share Posted October 1, 2020 On 9/29/2020 at 8:56 AM, BillC said: You should be wary of Iomega cartridge drives, the ZIP is well known for failure and I had a JAZ drive fail as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death I know how to fix them if that happens, I have fixed one that has a click of death , and use an IDE zip drive for making the disks, I have 22 zip disks, 12 are buried , 10 have been formatted fully on the ide zip drive and all passed .... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 On 9/30/2020 at 4:35 PM, gilsaluki said: GenLock? What was the item? Video capture device? It was a color GenLock called Prism Studio. Only two were ever produced, with only one of those being sold, and the other in my possession. It was replaced with an improved version called the Studio II which sold 5 by pre-orders. Not exactly a successful endeavor business-wise. Neither version really worked well unless the overlaid video source was a camera or a very high quality VCR (preferably something beyond VHS). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 On 9/29/2020 at 1:56 PM, BillC said: the ZIP is well known for failure Had one, didn't use for a little while, when I connected, wouldn't read/format/write a singe disk, binned it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blacka013 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 I bought a bit of a basket case of an 810 disk drive off eBay. The worst thing about it was the drive band and screw from the stepper motor to the read/write head were missing. No chance of replacing them then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gilsaluki Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 4 hours ago, mytek said: It was a color GenLock called Prism Studio. Only two were ever produced, with only one of those being sold, and the other in my possession. It was replaced with an improved version called the Studio II which sold 5 by pre-orders. Not exactly a successful endeavor business-wise. Neither version really worked well unless the overlaid video source was a camera or a very high quality VCR (preferably something beyond VHS). I remember the ads. I always wondered how many people bought such specialized hardware. Thanks for your hard work and inventiveness. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DocSavage2001 Posted October 2, 2020 Share Posted October 2, 2020 My latest Ebay purchase are re-establishing my Atari library with cheap books. Starting with Compute!s First Book of Atari, and ALL the Flight Simulator books from Charles Gulick (like five of them) Dave 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 Finished posting the last of the Current Notes I got last week. https://archive.org/details/@allan52 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mdivancic Posted October 4, 2020 Share Posted October 4, 2020 Picked up an Atari STE with 4 mb of memory installed. Floppy is supposed to be dead, but I haven’t be able to test, waiting for video cables to arrive. I’ve opened it and cleaned, it was a mess plus it had two screws rattling around inside. One wasn’t even from the computer. Testing the supply today and working on the floppy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Preppie Posted October 19, 2020 Share Posted October 19, 2020 Not purely Atari related, but I picked up a copy of Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics for £3.50 incl p&p Near mint, think someone put it on a shelf and never looked at it again. I might end up doing the same thing myself ? but hopefully it could help me fulfill my dream of writing a 3d game on the atari at some point in the future. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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