Most liked posts in thread: What's new Pussycat too?

Hey, Al, I definitely agree with Andy. Very nice pictures, indeed. Especially considering the camera you were using. They really show some talent there, at least for framing. Where were you, and which harbour?

Last weekend I also was a console man... I've been playing around with an XBox Classic (first edition) hardware "modded" and configured with a dashboard called XBMC. I also had the time to configure my FPGA Mistica SoB, which I filled in with many retro systems and arcade cores. It takes a lot of time to experiment with all the systems in order to configure them properly, let alone the great amount of time to test applications and games.

Next weekend is the of a PS2 which was found in Rome and modified/prepared (software only) by my friend Cristiano for retrocomputing and ahem... "ISO games". Cristiano also should be here in AOC, if I remember correctly.

 

It is indeed..Have fun..

 

As Paul has alluded to previously he kindly gave me an old A500 to play with and I've been playing around with it over the last couple of weeks. Of course being me I had to tinker so I fitted a GOTEK drive and picked up a Super Denise and Kickstart 2.04 so now it's basically an ECS Amiga plus now. I fitted a 68010 12Mhz CPU to it as well not that it runs any faster but some of the internal operations of the CPU are executed faster. So Sysinfo says it's 1.06 times faster than a A600 LOL.
I am tempted by a PiStorm accelerator that can mimic a 68030 CPU at 32Mhz with 8MB Fast Ram and a Hard Drive but that's for another day.
I'm also working on my 520STFM, I i'll have all the parts to upgrade it to a 1040STFM when the RAM arrives. I fitted a GOTEK drive already so that makes life easier as the floppy drive was on it's last legs. So I'm playing Mercenary and Frontier Elite 2 currently and I'm 16 Bits instead of 8 Bits for now.
I have to make some room so I have some consoles I want shot of currently and then I'll have a review of my 8 Bits. Don't know what I would part with though.

Nice to see @nysavant has embraced the joy of owning an N64, I like all the FPS on the console like DOOM64 and QUAKE1/2 and Turok2

 

First computer was a ZX81, then a Speccy 48K when that packed in I bought a C64. My mate had a 800XL and we used to swap for a week or two at a time. He liked Paradroid and I liked Dropzone on the A8 and we both liked Gauntlet on the Atari even though it took forever to load and reload
I picked up an second hand 800XL a bit later, but in reply regarding Elks I saw the adverts in the computer magazines at the time and was tempted but it didn’t come out when it was supposed to and I’d gone down the C64 route by then. If you were blunt the 64 is a way better games machine. If your more interested in a very fast BASIC and programming the the Elk is very good. The Beeb wipes the floor with the Elk but cost double so as a Speccy competitor it was pretty good. The were still releasing software into the 90’s for it.
The Atari ST was my first 16bit computer I picked up a second hand 520STFM as my brother had gotten an Amiga A500 for crimbo and I was jealous. I used to say mine was better as it ran faster but when I heard the Amiga’s sound i shut up. It’s a shame they didn’t wait for the AMY sound chip. I went onto a Amiga A1200 and the onto an Acorn A3010 after my ST, I still like RiscOS as an operating system.

 

Great recall there, Al - I'm sure you're right - there were some great ST demo / menu disks (those bouncing scrolling long message things got on my tits tho!) and they did seem to pack more into them... somehow! I was always amazed by the sound sampling quality - on both machines and I've still many many happy memories of receiving sample disks in the post from mates and having so much fun playing them all night to my mates popping round as we had a few bevvies before hitting the boozers back in the late 80s/early 90s when we were just young yoofs ganning out on the pull... always ended-up ganning back home again round midnight, pished, empty-handed but at least there were the ST/AMIGA demos to enjoy...AGAIN! The gift that kept giving, eh, lads?! Happy daze.
Lost Boys were one of my fave coders and creators - stuff like this, Al:

 

Brilliant stuff. I ran a public domain and shareware library for the ST and the ingenuity of some of the coders never ceased to amaze me. Now excuse me while I go listen to the B.I.G demo and read the latest issue of ST Format....

 

Yea, you sure can get brand new ribbons for the Atari 1029 for $14.95 USD. Check out Best Electronics. Here's a link to all the printer supplies that are brand new. Scroll down a little and you'll see the 1029 ribbons among others: https://www.best-electronics-ca.com/laser_printers.htm

 

Never had a Saturn, my bro did, but I never borrowed it. I think I was a bit Sega blinded at the time, I wasn't a fan of any of the Sega series until I got a Dreamcast. Oddly, it was the sound the Sega series had and nothing to do with the games. To me, the music sounded awful, mind you, my tinnitus didn't help. To my ears, it sounded like a person was dragging nails on a blackboard, ie grating. I liked the look of some Saturn games, like Knights and Panzer Dragoon. Also, Daytona looked ace.

Would I own a Saturn, no, the cost and just semi lack of interest means when I do have the very occasional game, I use an emulator. Last game I played on it was some clockwork robot platformer, looked very nice, pretty sure clockwork is in its name.

 

PS, that Dreamcast bundle is a little overpriced (for me), Even if the Dreamcast itelf was say 70.00 notes, the rest isn't worth 130.00. When I brought my controllers they were 1.00 each from CEX (really) as were the mem card units, same price. It IS a nice little bundle and ideal for a starter, even better if its the firmware that can boot CDR's Only trouble with the CDR's is that the DC drive is 1GB and the CDR's are 700Meg, sommit has to go or be compressed. Normally they could nip out the padding files.

Make me laugh, I sometimes struggle remembering names of film stars, but stupid trivia re retro stuff just gushes out as if it was yesterday

I'm betting the Wii Cell games is either Madworld or Okami..Bot very striking games. There were quite a few Cell games on the Wii, probably more than 30 I'd guess.

 

I have gone and bought another Dragon 32 to add to my collection of 6809 Kit. If anyone has some Dragon software or literature kicking around I'm looking for stuff.
I don't know if it's working or not - it was sold as untested but we shall see. Looks in nice nick.

 

So my latest intake is .....
An Amstrad CPC 464, it was sold as untested but was in good cosmetic condition, and it was cheap enough to take a punt, even the tape counter reset button was intact. It arrived yesterday and connected to my CTM-644 and it works. I was worried it might be the cost-down version 4 board with the 100 pin SMD ASIC chip as it was made in Oct 1988 and that was being introduced in '88. The ASIC combined the 6845 and Gate Array so if that was faulty it would have been impossible to fix. So this turned out to be the version 3 so the chips are all seperate. So will get a deep clean and then play some games on it today.

 

My latest CPC buy is a DK'Tronics 64KB RAM expansion for my 464 so combined with the M4 board it behaves like a 6128 (mostly)
I also built myself a Multiface 2 for my Amstrad as well, it is the CPC version of the Multiface 1 made by Romantic Robot for the ZX Spectrum. It let's you freeze the game save it to disk or tape as a fastloader or you can poke around to find infinite lives or in the case of Tomahawk you can find the the codes for the damn Lenslok protection device.

 

Glad you're happy Andy. I always try my best to get it right.
I want to thank Allen for the 520STFM he dropped off on the way back up from Andy's, really nice to get hold of one again. I have already upgraded the TOS to 1.04 and fitted another bank of 512KB of RAM to make it a 1040STFM. It was interesting as it is a very late STFM with SMD DRAM chips, so it was a bit more challenging and I used my hot air gun that Paul gave me this time. All I can do now is fit a Blitter to it to max it out, so I either need a faulty donor Atari STe mainboard or help from an American friend to help me get a Blitter from Bradley @ Best. He is really not keen on sending one to me. Talked about shipping agents in the US, I was thinking maybe a group buy but how many people need stuff these days? So the STe donor board seems most likely
L8rS

 

Richard has been so kind and natural in his replies, it's been fun to wriite it down, certainly the best interview of the series so far.

 

Latest addition to my Llamasoft collection...


Couldn't get it to load on my Phonemark cassette deck nor my XC12, didn't try my 410 as the 4th belt is slipping. So I copied it using Audacity onto my laptop and then used A8Cas to make a .cas file and it works on Altirra and 800winplus as well as my real 130XE using a FujiNet. It is not available on Atarimania so if anyone wants a copy just ask.

 

That's one of the most original pieces of software I EVER came across, Rich.

I still remember my mate Kiddy booting it up around 87 at his mam and dad's before a night out on the town (a whole mob of us piled round) and he was demo-ing it on their colour telly giving us a kinda lightshow with some rock music on in the background.

We were all mesmerised by it and really I just wanted to stay in and lark around with the Jeff Minter software's zarjazz creations and get some tinnies in and play ATARI but in the end we all went out and got pissed/spent up/the magic of this temporarily forgotten.

I think I too have a copy but I havent even tried to boot it up in yonks and yet this is a v nice graphical "light show".

Must give it another go sometime - great work there, mate, showing determination and ingenuity to get the stubborn fecker booting in the end

Anyone unfamiliar with this novel swirly graphics make your own zarjazz vid creation utility on the 8bit classic (I'm sure the patterns can be recorded / saved to tape/disk) check this clip out:

 

Not seen flip n files for ages....We sold those and they went like hot cakes..

 

OOOOO back to the Dual or more PIA's
Well I guess as a Hardware guy I need to help my fellow, Mates, Colleagues, and Friends
Now who would be happy with writing the software side of things?
I have just purchased on EBay an 800 and came with a 1050, in addition sold as non working

They lied. Both work fine...

So I’ve a number of projects on the pile, I know Matt wants something he can play with for his robotic arm, Tim you seem to be in the same vein, (not sure about its use though) I’m happy to design a working second PIA board expansion, if I do what computers does it have to work in ?
I’d guess 400/800 maybe 1200XL for Matt? Tim? What’s your choice (I'll add 400/800 different circuit required to the later models)
I’d be happy to design for each computer, and up to a point the Schematic already exists but can be modified to suit, its board layout for each design.
However I will complete the XEGS 1st as that was voted for, followed by O.S Controller cards

 

Hi Tim

Well that of course possible, couple of things to point out, the joystick ports as you are aware can be made to work as inputs and outputs under software control down to bit level, the trick will be on deciding how to control this from two separate computers, ideally using the same program at each end, the only way to achieve this would be to cross over bit line between the two computers.

One joystick port only give you 4 Bits via the PIA chip those being on PORTA bits 4-7 for Joystick 2 (Joy 1 uses 0-3)

Of course the Trigger buttons could be used, but then that also means programming via POKEY.

If we leave that (Pokey) to one side for the moment a way of working out the direction of transmission is required, thus losing 1 Bit in each direction, i.e. say Bit 6 signals to distant end it wants to SEND (high or low what ever suits), connect this to Bit 7 at the other end to let the other end know what’s happening, the reverse is true as the 2nd computer can signal ‘o.k.’ but pulsing its line 6 ( received on the 1st computer on bit 7, hence same program can be used.)

Bits 4 & 5 can then send 4 x 2 Bits of data, to be reformed to one Byte, possibly signalling each 2 bits by pulsing the Bit 6 line.

The connections would be:1

End 1 1------ --3 End 2
. 3---------1
. 5---------7
. 7---------5
. 6---------6

These allow :-
End 1 End 2
PIA PA4 to connect to PA5
PIA PA5 to connect to PA4
PIA PA6 to connect to PA7
PIA PA7 to connect to PA6
Common ground pin 6

I can elabourate at some point with some Pokes and Peeks just need to check with something connected to the Joystick port to check.
The good thing is that the O.S on boot makes everything safe to interconnect as sets all port lines as inputs so no clash of two port pins being driven high by something at the other end driven low.
I'll have to check if any pull up or pull down resistor would be needed, certainly without additional driver chips being used, the distance should be kept fairly short maybe a metre for now.

 

A PIA board would be fantastic, and yes, I would want one for the 800 and one for the 1200XL. I would definitely be adding more ports to the 1200XL, but for the 800, now with incognito, I probably wouldn't add more ports, but just re-use ports 3 and 4 with it while the 800 is in XL/XE mode, and when in 800 mode I should still be able ports 3 and 4 as designed if I want, or use the second PIA on ports 3 and 4 too, as long as I'm not trying to use the first PIA on ports 3 and 4 with the second on those ports. Or, if need be, throw in a dip switch.

Schematics or purchasable boards from you, @Graham , works for me either way.

 

So with this, what I see is what I get? Just controller ports and cables? No PIA's in the package tucked away? No board under those cables in the box? I was about to purchase the one there, but it's about $20 with shipping and I could probably just salvage controller ports from elsewhere and I have plenty of wiring, even if it's not ribbons. I have two ports on my salvage 600XL for starters...so I'm basically making sure this is what I see in the picture only, which means I don't need to buy it.