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

Cheers, Al.

I'll keep my mince pies peeled and look f'wd to your pics.

Well done, Paul - you remind us that the main presents - any given time - is the safety, health and company of our loved ones.

I'm sure you'll soon have your car up n running again real soon with some Chrimbo cash to chip in and as you remind us, your 1200XL is the kind of pressie which would keep anyone smiling for the rest of this festive season and well beyond towards next year's!

Enjoy, mate and all the best, fellas.

 

LOL! You've gotta larf at the black humour of it, Paul.

Cheers for the comical observations.

I remember when some Hooray Henry brought out Crap Towns in the 90s and Ull always used to top it... until one year it came 2nd or 3rd and everyone in Ull was shocked senseless - we wondered how any place could be worse than living around ere Oop North!!

;-)

 

@Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine Your Warp+ 32-in-1 OS will be shipped out tomorrow Paul, I've been blocked on getting it posted 3 days in a row now!. I went to the post office on Monday, arriving at 11:40 am, finding out that they changed their lunch hour from 12-1pm forward to 11:30 am-12:30 pm! I wasn't going to wait around for 50 minutes.

So I try again on Tuesday, but my local post doesn't open until 9 am and it was about 20 min. before as I was passing by my town, but on my way to work in another town 20 minutes away, so I stopped at that office when I got into town, waited in line for 10 minutes and finally got to the counter, package ready, international paper work done and ready, and either by user fault or just a crappy computer system, the lady couldn't get the computer to accept the package! After another ten minutes of her trying, over and over, she finally asks for assistance from here colleague in the next booth, who comes over and messes with it for another 5 min. and finally says the system will have to be rebooted. I ran out of time and patience and just left, package and paper work still in hand.

Today I returned to my home town Post office, a quarter after 9, while on my way to the job site, and had to meet my customer there at 10 am to get the keys to the rental house we are to work on. So I enter the post office, and there are two old ladies huddled over the computer screen, having computer issues and trying to get it up since before 9 am. I don't have much faith in them accomplishing it anytime soon...so I left. I will attempt sending it out again tomorrow.

We are waiting until 9 am to head out to work, which will bring us by the local post by 9:15 and we have no one to meet, so we have time. But of course I'll end up being the first customer with no waiting and with everything already filled out and ready to go it will all be lickity-split fast and I'll be in and out in two minutes, because I have the time.

 

It went out this morning without a hitch, exactly as I foretold yesterday. I'll PM you the tracking number and photo of the receipt for that block code thing to photo with your smart phone to take you straight away, if your into that, I don't really know how.

 

The old QR code, not really in to all that, I take a persons word, that's good enough for me (as long as I know the person )
I'll let you know when it arrives, thanks again Matt..

Was going to send you some of that Yorkshire tea over but saw Andy has already done that.

 

Bloody brilliant -

Get a brew ON, Matt!

 

Well, the retro-brite is more of a restoration attempt (before breaking out the paint). Now using the old standard joysticks from the Coco for Atari projects is a "never miss a modding chance."

 

Only change I'd make are new blinds..

 

Lovely looking but the price gave me a wake up (on Lulu.com).

The programmer's guide was another one I lost bitd...Nice to have a PDF.

 

Some lovely acquisitions there, Alex, Matt and Nysavant - they greatly enhance any retro collector's collection.

Lovely to see and thanks for the quality share - great pics.

 

Very nice @nysavant ! I didn't even know there were Atari related hot wheels! Are those a newer item or vintage?

 

Delighted you've got your rainy day filled, fella.

Enjoy, Al and do post up some results of your "play away" sessions!

 

Enjoy the best of both worlds then, Al.
A sunny stroll then a stroll down "memory" lane as it were with the vintage retro classic 1200 kit.
Completely persisting it down here with that "set in for the day" dismal grey sky look.
We've just done the DIY B&Q, stuck in queues of endless traffic run and now hunkering down for the day.
Get a proper fire lit etc.
Enjoy that bootiful find of yours, mate.

 

Sod DIY.. It can blooming well, do it itself...

Dry here at the mo, but looking at the sky tells me its going to be rather wet and very soon..

 

I used to use WHDload with both my ST's and Amiga, IIRC. Isn't that an app to transfer files from PC to Amiga/ST format standards? Or maybe it just had something to do with HDD's. I had a real HDD of course in my Amiga, and my first 1040STf I had an external one I built into an old IBM PS/1 computer case along with a second floppy drive and a SCSII Zip drive. When I got the Mega STe it of course had a HDD built in, but I also go a 1040STe which I used Satantronic's Satan Drive, IIRC, with standard SD cards which, IIRC, I either used WHDload in conjunction with it, or in making 3.5" floppies for the regular drives off the PC.

 

On the Amiga WHDLoad is a way of taking disk games and making them load off a HDD, it's purely a loader, the actual transfer of files is done by a talented hacker who has ripped the code off the disk, WHDLoad then does the loading of the packed game from the hard disk..

Don't know much about ST's and their software, me and them didn't get on

 

Pondering on it all, I actually think the biggest mistakes made that were a loss for the industry and the consumers in the end was Jack "stealing" Commodore's engineers and turning down further support or buying the Amiga. And the Commodore engineer's accepting and leaving Commodore. I don't know the chronological order of these events OTTOMH, but I don't think they jumped shipped until after Jack bought Atari home division and had some place for them to go. And he would have known about the Amiga by then if he hadn't before.

If he had gone with Amiga, then we would have that fine machine no matter what, through Atari or Commodore. But, if Commodore still had their engineer's (I just can't remember their names as well, OTTOMH) then they could have continued their 16-bit machine work at Commodore, which surely had at least been started design on by that time, but it could have been much better than the ST and stiffer competition for the Atari Amiga, because they could have still used next-gen versions of the VIC and SID line. We as consumers would have two great machines, greater than what we got, to choose from, and I think both Atari and Commodore would have had more success and maybe a more permanent spot in the PC market to this day. But at least we would have gotten and even better machine from Commodore than the ST, good as it is, since it had to be made in six months with off-the-shelf components! Which still shows how good the ex-Commodore engineers were too, with a time line like that and come up with a machine as good, and bug free (OS's aside), as the ST in that time.

It was such a "wild west" back then though that anything could have happened. Atari might have been gone and we never got the Amiga or any other next gen Atari hardware based on the ANTIC/POKEY/GTIA/AMY hardware and maybe would have gotten a 16-bit VIC/SID machine. Or both and the Amiga was lost to time and never picked up by either company, had Warner also held on to Atari through the crash.

Just imagine, machines with the 68000 CPU, but with Pokey II and Antic II and VIC-3 and SID II, with stereo sound, like two Pokey's or Sid's built into one chip, and of course expansion of resolution, color and sprites in the new ANTIC/GTIA and SID chips.

 

I always keep in mind my PSU when adding another extension to my Atari's, but both the 800 and the 1200XL use the "universal" PSU's that the 810, 1050 and several other peripherals use too, and that PSU, at least in NTSC land, comes in several different AMP sizes and all of mine on my computers and drives are the larger variety 31VA which is about 3.5 amps compared to other newer XL/XE PSU's that can handle less than half of that amperage load, IIRC. I think I'm still safe. All that's a new power strain is the one more Diamond cart. That's also why there was no issue installing a Happy upgrade, SIO2PC, 1050-to-PC and LED lighting in my one 1050 all sucking power from the 1050 too.

 

I did a little bit of research on the Atari "universal" PSU this side of the pond. Apparently they came in three varieties that worked with 400/800/810/822/1010/1050/1200/XF551 and XEGS(?) devices. Starting at 15.3VA, 31VA and 40VA which is divided by the 9V AC, so that's amp loads of 1.7 amps, 3.44 amps and 4.4 amp loads. And I thought I had the biggest load!

The 5V DC PSU's of the 600/800xl/65/130XE came in between 1 amp and 2 amps, IIRC, though I haven't found specific sources like I did for the universal PSU. But that also seems to be the range most people who are using modern USB 5V replacements are in too. Though I believe 5V DC PSU's USB or not can be found in the 3 amp range. I think that would be best if you have the later model Atari's and need a new PSU and plan to add upgrades and expansions. Or if you convert the 1200XL to straight 5V DC I think you are best making sure you have as much amperage load possible on the new PSU as you can find.

@Paul "Mclaneinc" Irvine what are you doing for a PSU with your 1200XL? An English version of the Atari universal supply? A 9V AC equivalent? Or are you converting it to direct 5V DC?

 

I'm human, joking aside, I can forget and appreciate reminders anyway. If I turn on the machine (first testing will be with nothing attached of course) and it's acting wonky with all the attachments, I'll look at the PSU and amperage being sucked off it's tit first...

 

They should last longer than us, and I'm sure will outlive any new USB PSU's that are so tiny. With that comes efficiency, but certainly not longevity. 37 years using the same PSU's (at least for my 1050's when I still had a 130XE) and mine all still work fine. Mind you, I've had to replace the 20A fast-blow glass-tube fuses inside the half a dozen times (among about half a dozen PSU's) over the years, really the only thing that "breaks" on them, the coil should last forever, being so large and under so little stress compared to smaller modern PSU's.

And I think 5 out of 6 of those times I had to replace the fuses were user fault on my part, like accidentally plugging them into my Indus Drives (no damage to drives) since barrel jacks and cords look identical, which use very similar 9V bricks, but are DC, not AC.

But that's why I've never done the 5V DC direct mod to my 1200XL, though I may be forced to in the future if I want to fit the 3.5" internal drive as planned. But I may also just modify the heatsink itself, move it out of the way...there's still room inside the case to do that too.

 

I did have one other order out that I forgot about, it arrived Friday or Saturday. I just let them sit until last night. It was four new CX40 boards, with contact bubbles, to properly repair my 2 Atari joysticks, the only two I have, both were painted to match my 1200XL system. My 800 has some good after market ones I use, modified to Joy2B+, one two-button the other three. I'll show them soon as they were just painted to match my 800CX.

I ordered 4 of the CX40 boards for future repairs. I still need to get a couple original CX40's for my Atari VCS, all I have for it atm is an Atari flashback 2 joystick, which is compatible, but not as durable or as good a feel to them with their rubber bubbles inside instead of metal contact bubbles. The boards on the left are the ones I replaced, the ones on the right are two extra new ones.

I'll save the old boards with the warn out bubbles, in case I can find the bubbles separately somewhere, which I haven't yet (If BEST E. only has them then I'll do without)

I also have to order an new Starmaster joystick from Video 61, as I was modifying it for my 7800 (the other is one I have was modified for the 800CX), to make both buttons on it work as left/right 7800 buttons (a success there of course) and painting it to match the 7800 better as it's "red" was more of an orange and my 7800 stuff was recently painted Apple red.

Anyway, one of the fire buttons (unique) fell to the floor next to my workbench, to the carpet and I was unaware...until I heard my dog munching on something and looked down to see a ruinous piece of plastic that was once a button! Atleast I'll have more spare parts for both my other Stamaster's.

At least they are only $12 and I had only ordered one the last time from Video 61, along with some other items, and Lance very kindly sent me a second Starmaster controller for free. So I'll order a couple other things from him and see if he throws another in for free too.

And what the hell, here is a pic of my other Starmaster and Megadrive controllers with Joy2B+ upgrades curing after painting to match the 800CX...I will still be painting the Starmaster text and arrows around the joystick blue too, I'll buy more Atari Fuji&name chrome logos and put one of them on the Genesis controller and a CX45 designation like I did with my CX35 mouse I made from the TRS-80 Coco mouse.

This and working on the house is what I'm doing to keep busy and give my mind a rest of dealing with my mother and her condition and most likely imminent passing. I'm a little to down to feel like taking on an deeper or more involved projects at the moment. I don't even really feel like doing these controller mods and repairs, but sitting around feeling depressed and sorry for my mother and myself isn't any good, so I force myself to do this, and even posting the stuff, is all just for my mind's own good...a break from the reality.



Dammit! I just noticed myself looking at the picture I took! You see that crack on the desktop next to my Atari 400 mouse pad in the first pic? I JUST fixed that last week and I see it's back! It's where to pieces of plywood join, and I guess I'm going to have to try using something other than wood putty since it keeps cracking when the desk is used...maybe just some silicon in the crack and paint over it. It was reinforced from the beginning with a board underneath holding both boards "tight" and that's also where I installed a support leg, but it cracks anyway.

I think because I made the hole apparatus out of scrap wood, and the two pieces of plywood have their grain running perpendicular to each other and flex differently along those grain lines when weight is applied. But that's the only way I could make the scrap pieces fit.

 

Though this was last week, and I shared on my profile update on AA and added pics to my blog over there on the Bally Professional Arcade, I did finish repairing the broken controller (details, before/after/process pics in my blog in my AA profile) and repainting it, including the gold badge trim with 18Kt gold paint pen by Krylon that another Bally restorer recommended for areas I couldn't use auto pin-stripe gold trim. You can still see a slight blemish where I fixed the controller at the top by the stick&paddle head, it would have been perfect but there was a delay between repair and painting, and I forgot to do a final sanding there, but it was the first test subject and my other one and two I'm repairing for the other guy will be perfect. I used Rust-oleum's Canyon Black, in satin, painter's choice spray paint for the controller to match the original color and sheen.

I also received a Bally Basic cart, ready to hook up to a recorder, which apparently you have to swap between mic and headphone/aux out to load and save. No disk drives were ever made since this cartridge was the only thing to be officially released by Bally toward upgrading to a real computer. Since DIY & Homebrew stuff has come along, which I plan to jump on the bandwagon for though to full fill the original marketing promises for yourself with the machine.

And my first DIY cartridge. I payed $5 for a Space Fortress rom&board from the same person that has been helping me with tips and parts (I'm buying a 32K ram expansion and multi-cart from him soon). I printed the cassette looking cartridge out with my Ender 3 printer, in white, then painted it Canyon Black, satin, to match official carts. I then found a clear picture of the original cartridge online and after resizing and cropping, I printed out my own label on premium satin photo paper, just like I did with my Atari 800CX computer badge, and glued it in place matching the Basic cartridge's label placement.

 

I went off on my video output tangent and forgot to talk about the DC and it's color some more. Yes, I did paint it black to match the older Sega consoles better, and there was a black sports edition released in the states at least, of the DC, but it has what I consider a very ugly 'Sega Sports' logo on it and the controllers that I never cared for unfortunately. But my next vintage console purchase will be replacing my Sega Saturn I sold years ago, and it will match it's black.

I don't know if I'll get another Sega Megadrive/CD/32X system combo again or not, if I do, it has to be the model 1 and the first model CD with the sliding door that goes underneath and they tend to cost more. But for the Megadrive/Genesis, I'm only interested in a few games made for each of the add-ons. The Road Rash games on the Genesis and a few others, the Core design games like Battle Corp. and Soul Star for the Sega CD, and there are a couple favorites of mine on the 32X too, even with it's tiny library. I can count the games I want for the entire system on both my hands though. Saturn and DC have many more games I like.

I also have emulators for the Master System, Genesis and Game Gear on my Dreamcast. And though I haven't checked the seen lately, I don't think they ever did, or even be possible, to do a good Saturn emulator even on the DC, it had custom chips and even though I think the DC's chips are next-gen of those, I don't know enough about it and how easy it would be to emulate a Saturn on it. As far as I know, no Genesis emulator was made to include the 32X emulation either, again, possibly too much for the Dreamcast to emulate well.

So it may end up just being the physical Saturn and Dreamcast in my collection, but at least they will match! I already have my Jaguar, 3DO and PS2 that runs PS1 software from the era. I never was a Nintendo fan, but the one system I did like (except for the retched controllers) was the N64. I may get another one of them again someday. The the next gen of vintage consoles is covered with my DC, PS2 and original Xbox as well. I briefly owned a PS3 and sold it (given to me used), nothing I wanted that wasn't on my 360. I have not owned anything newer myself, my brother has the Xbox One S I play sometimes.

 

My Megadrive/Genesis controller, converted to 3-button Joy2B+ for my 800CX is re-assembled and nearly complete. I still have to add an Atari decal and maybe some text under the buttons like it had before (TRIGGER), I'm not sure though, the buttons have their designations on them, but the controller looks pretty empty. Maybe I should paint the circle and "oval" around the pad and buttons grey? What do you guys think?

And since the controller start/pause button (I forget which it was) was no longer being used, and the fact that I seemed to have misplaced or lost it during the painting process , I decided to turn it into an LED light display for the buttons when they are pressed. 2 blue and one white LED in the middle. I do plan to still mask that oval with something white with just holes for the LED's to barely poke through.



Yes, there are a few tiny black specks that got on the controller case during re-assembly somehow, that's not on your screen. I didn't notice until I saw them in the photo. I cleaned it.