Most liked posts in thread: Guys, there be a DRAGON in that there CAVE(!)

Thanks for the “Glue Money” Graham, the Araldite has set like concrete now and the power supply case is stronger than before now

 

You got it, Graham.

Your keen eyes spotted those well-wrapped and well-cared for Oric items... refurbed PSU and Microdisc units. They will be coming out of bubblewrapping AND appearing on these screens...

IMMINENTLY!

I swear I'm going to get those babies out of their wrappers and powered up...

TOMORROW!

Cheers again, matey.

Have a relaxing Saturday night all - we're just about to leave for a night of lasagne, Withnail and I and possibly a few cheeky ones around at Fast Eddie's(!)

 

Hi Graham,
The 6821’s are just the old non 2mhz versions sadly, don’t have any 68B21’s but that can change
There are several options for upgrades.
https://www.dragonplus-electronics.co.uk/product/dragonplus-board-for-dragon-32-or-64-kit/
http://tormod.me/udw.html
http://tormod.me/mooh.html
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/174233145411

So I don’t know just yet.

 

That's fair enough, and first I'd heard of the Dragon plus board, very interesting.
Shame the MooH and the SDC are both cartridge port based as have to choose, or get a Multi port adapter,
Maybe worth seeing if there is an internal 512K upgrade, saying that the Dragon Plus, seems to have lots of memory chips, it this a memory upgrade, prom replacment and a Video upgrade, or purely memory for the video side. ?
At least it's nice to have the options..

 

Hi Richie
In my case it was to allow me to control items external to the Atari, It will give me two additional 8 Bits ports directly, and I can add serial shift registers both input and output to the two CA1&2 CB1&2 lines in addition to this

One of the original uses was to add a Centronics compatible printer port that used some of these lines, I have a 800XL from Computer House with this part fitted, the 6821 directly soldered on top of the 6520 in the Atari (same pin out) with the port legs bent out some broken off (believe unused in the interface I'm talking about) on the back is has a 25Pin socket that accepts the PC type printer port to Centronics 36 way cable. Relied on the C.U.P.I.D. software driver to be loaded, then acted like the 'P:' device.

Saying that I found an Assembler listing, that I must have wrote, it seems to be a general control handler assigning G & H that you can read/write 8 bit data too that routes to the additional two ports added. I don't remember writing it and didn't thing I'd got to that level of coding in 6502. I'll type it in and check what happens seems to hook into 'Hatabs' the Handling routines that add say R: , P: etc. and has my name on the listing .. we’ll see.

Matt wants his to control an external robotic arm as some idea.

I was going to try using mine to control some additional led’s and possibly add a DMX controller for stage lighting. Just because I can with no practical reason other than learning to code, or maybe re learning.
Think I’d better go back and re read the links you posted.
I think I would go with replacement for floppy disk 1st, then memory upgrade, then the Video option, but depended on the amount of software available for the video upgrade.
I guess ported software from the BBC B could be cross compiled? 6502 to 6809.. likely need to change base address but Suspect a lot more involed (just edited)
Would the 64K memory upgrade on the Dragon Plus clash with a 512K upgrade something to think of?
I did wonder about removing all the DRAM chips on the motherboard, and patching a single 64K SRAM , Patched directly to the CPU socket as well.
Not that I have a Dragon of course Just thinking out loud of the things I would consider ‘playing’ with.

 

Wow! There is a lot to digest there It’s always fascinating what enthusiasts think of to do with 8 & 16 Bit computers. I think the PC era lost that to a degree.
I would imagine that you will run into conflicts with the Dragon Plus board and something like the MOOH board with 512KB on board. You could probably use the uDW or DriveWire expansion with the Plus board but not anything with expansion RAM. Not too sure right now but plenty to get into.
Maybe I can get Sonia to get me one for my birthday this weekend, who knows...

I really need to get some more Atari kit as well as Dragon but the Dragon which is in effect a U.K. Co-Co Is a very interesting machine. The 6809 is a very interesting CPU to study ( in addition to the old SALLY ) it was also in the Vectrex console ( Minestorm is probably one of the Asteroids clone ever ) so plenty to keep the old grey cells ticking over.
Just need to find a decent assembler for the Dragon now...

 

It's absolutely absorbing "eavesdropping" in on retro micro members' minds mulling over the potentials of our veteran machines. It just shows you, as you point out, Rich, that without wanting to sound over-dramatic or ungrateful for the 'Windoze/beige PC box era' (it really did bring business computer power into our home lives - perhaps not always to our benefit as we're never away from "work" now), why is it that we get miles more enjoyment on a hobbyist level still playing with the potential of our little beauties which still do a great job entertaining us, enthralling us and still punching way way way above their weight via all these stimulating projects that don't just push the envelope - they rip the bugger up and send it on its way - truly incredible, fellas.

No wonder - at 50/60+ there are still addicts like us kicking around - we want to explore ever more what our childhood dreams were all about. The magic hasn't left us and with the kind of expansion and upgrade paths you fellas are constantly finding, every day something new seems to light up this hobby in our lives.

Keep on rocking in the retro world, guys - this thread (and many like it on Atari Owner) has massively exceeded what it started out on.

 

I think that assemblers for the 6809 arn't so much of a problem, but those for use directly on the Dragon maybe.
I've started using Altirra to test short program's before moving to the real think, it's surprising just how good the emulator is.
One thing that the Atari has is a very well documented O.S with what all the Memory areas and shadow Ram contain, (Atari's own O.S & DOS dissasemblies, Mapping the Atari, De Re Atari, etc.) I suspect that the number of publications will be lower for the Dragon, but I could well be wrong. the one I downloaded from your link seems pretty good.

Best you decide quick if it's your Birthday !
" Happy Birthday" to you and hope you have a good weekend

 

Well Andy, someone keeps tempting us with new 'OLD' retro goodies...
I hear what you say with the boring IBM's BUT at least the early one's, with there 8 Bit ISA slots made them very hmm playable/ hardware wise not games, I had a number of additions on the one I built, motherboard had a soldered on 386sx at 25MHz but I added addition ports via I think 8255's (memory here could be wrong) Eprom programmers etc, in fact just dismantled my original EPROM programmer it's very very well made, however it's large, and won't do many of the modern chips as the software didn't know about them .. things have changed over the last 30 years. beside the USB one I use is maybe 20-30 times smaller.(yes it was big..)

I'll wait for my neck to be chopped off, but I think the Atari 8 Bits and the C64/128 are the most interesting purly because of the custom chips they used. Most other computers relie on off the shelf chip's arranged in different ways.
i.e. x computer has 6502, two xx sound chips, 32K RAM graphics chip Y
another y computer has Z80 one zz sound chip, 64K RAM, but the same graphics chip Y and so on.
In many ways it was the operating systems that made these machines that much different from each other.

If you take the O.S of the Atari, the 'Kernal' of the C64 and the O.S of the BBC these are probably the most well documented, and 'clever' with the way hook's can be added (and designed for) from the start ..

P.S. Collecting a boring IBM XT tomorrow.. I've promissed some internal pic's for Richie.
P.P.S. I turned on the old soldering iron, first time in a long while started makeing up the XEGS. so expect some updates to that going on. (Going back to it now for a bit)

 

You are in Show House mode, looks great but nowt hooked up

 

Shame, would be nice to have it done for Xmas....In the lap of the gods now...

Mind you, Xmas on lockdown is going to be boring for some, we hope Serena will be allowed home but we don't have a family do, its just us 3.

 

No problem collecting her and I heard about the blanket covid test for uni's but they also said about the term being shortened because there was no face to face but Serena so far has not been told of that.

And yeah, we hope Andy and Bev's place takes shape in time for Xmas, living in a building site is just the worst, add a covid take out of the key worker and its hell.

You seem to be a busy bunny Graham, no wonder you nod off.

After my epic double MOT walk the other day and the fall I had I had a bath and just noticed I've just a huge jaffa sized bruise by the knee, didn't notice before, mind you I did hit the floor like a bag of spuds.

All, stay safe and keep away from hospital while I chase up a bloody sod who brought my camera on Ebay and still hasn't paid, if he thinks I'm sending it to the Philippines before he pays he's soft in the head.

 

Hi guys, I was about to start a new 6809 thread, when I saw this one, started by Andy!
And since I know that Andy already misses his 32k roaring beastie, here's some silly "cross platform" experimenting that I've done with my CoCo2 (ex-16k, recently updgraded to 64k with a little help from some cool CoCo fans abroad)...

An excellent demo for the Dragon by Genesis Project (yes, the onez with the warez on the C64), called Dragon Pepper, also running on CoCo with 32k or more...
Here's a proof, on my beloved Sony Trinitron KV2032ME! On such a screen the scrolling is perfectly ultra-smooth!

Long live the real retro-gear! Long live the infamous M6847 with its eye-burning green display (even greener than the Atari ST, haha!!)
Cheers, mates! I hope you like it!!

 

Nice but I just love the Trinitron, we had the model below that with the tuning knob, superb picture too....Had many a game of Atari 8 bit defender on it...

But wait, a plasma effect on the Coco...Wow

 

I love to read about people's have pet projects, love the creativity so keep us informed please

Paul..

 

Yes, I will keep you informed, lads! Not much of Atari news from my side, but anyway, whatever 8bit-related might be of interest to you, will be shared here!!

 

Absolutely, fella.
The next thing we know, there'll be an Atari FALCON swooping down from the Baz battlements to drop hard drives on our heads etc(!)
I will PM the Dragon costings to you tomorrow, fella, as you are 1st in the queue (form an orderly line there, that man and his mouse!).
The beast cost me £80 and I've added a few bits and bobs here and there - more pics to follow of the tape library - so I'll be looking to at least recover my costs, fellas.
I almost 'invested' in a pair of Dragon Data joysticks...

ABOVE: These joysticks are neither perfect or good value

But at £40 the guy can forget it - I made him an offer around the 50% mark and he clearly didn't like it as I heard nothing more(!) but this might be a better bet for the would-be Dragon gamer:


ABOVE: The Dragojoy joystick interface - just use your Atari jossie and have done with it.

This bit of kit is much better value at £27 incl postage but of course you only get one useable jossie port and have to use your own Atari joystick!

Right, I'm heading topside - work in morning and the builders lining up with their cement mixers to seal my collection of floppy disks as per Bev's instructions to "skip all of his dust and throw it away with whatever other 80s junk you find in the cave...", so I'll need me wits about me and start hiding it all... before beasts like the Dragon breathe no more!

 

I wonder if the Dragon 64 was a better machine or the same with more memory . I'd better look it up

 

OO So were to I start ..
Vyper68
The spectrums I've found may well be from this ere, But I really don't remember how it was done, I suspect I added a Z80PIO chip, and among my box(s) of electronic devices I've found a Tube of these, along with Z80 CPU's and a few other chips that I can't remember.
I remenber writing the machine code /Assember for something that was plugged in but that's all. would have been on a miccrodrive tape but no longer have that or many of the bits from that ere. It was more of quick fix to solve an issue ( All three of us hadn't taken our morse test, plus we needed to make sure it was accuratly timed as peeps all over the world listened out for it.
And who would have know that a bunch of farmers had there own Dragons to play with, Always wondered where the ones in the Harry Potter Films came from
And yes it looks like the 6809 was a good chip in it's day and there is a more modern version in CMOS the Hitachi 63x09E
has a few additional instructions etc. I found this originally from the link to Cloud9 Matt posted.

 

Yep standard interface one, think it had networking via cable similar to earphone cable, I don't recall ever using this. just the microdrive's and tapes. The QL internal drives much improved due to shielding required to get them to work within the case. they are apparently different to those in the ZX Microdrive. not sure, thought tapes all the same ..

 

Ops what am I like missing that one... lot more money but seems in good condition and working...
Mind you I'm sure you have a Dragon 64 hiding away

 

I'd guess some will be surprised at this, I must have owned an A1200, as I've found reciepts in my name at an old address, and remember using it for adding captions to fast Scan TV Transmissions required by my Amateur Radio Licence. I don't recall ever playing games etc. just a paint program of some kind remember it has king Tut's piccy on the box and used a Genlock for the rest, the upgrade was for an internal 2.5" Hard disk upgrade. Also found two Amiga Books as well.

I don’t remember when I bought it or how I sold it. Odd that. I wouldn’t mind one someday again.

 

Is the first picture in the thread the actual dragon in its lair?

 

I will, not sure when as yet, really want to sort out XEGS 1st. (mind you a few piccys shouldn't derail me for too long I guess.)
Now collecting XT this Monday coming

 

And most likely are !! (seemed to have missed that post earlier)