Atari prob, etc.

From: Larry Anderson & Diane Hare <foxnhare_at_goldrush.com>
Date: Mon Apr 28 00:07:10 1997

Had a huge success at a local thrift store this saturday, much of it is
components < 10 years old. But I did find a Power Supply for an Atari
Computer (Ihave aquired an 800, 1200xk and 1050 all sans Power
Supplies). Soooo.. today I hooked the buggers in one by one:

The 800, powered up like a champ! Got the Atari FAQs up and determined
I have an 800 with a GITA and the BASIC cartridge is Revision A.

The 1200XL is a different matter, Powered up, got the logo, went to
diagnostics, sound O.K., Memory looks good, but keyboard... I can get
the top row (reset,start,select,option, & help) working but the other
keys seem dead. The strange thing is I gboot up BASIC and I press a
letter and the computer responds with it's 'click' sound but no key
(maybe something in the decoding logic???) Any Atarians got a clue?

Since I only have the one power supply I had to power up the 1050 as a
standalone the head did a quick back-fourth motion and the activity
light stopped so that seems to be a promising sign. Second request:
When I get a second supply I gonna kinda need a disk to run on this
thing, can anyone help set me up with some essential disks (DOS,
utilities, maybe some common games, etc.) I can trade for some fine
Commodore Programs and such. (=))

One yard sale find was a batch of Radio Electronics Magazines, dated
back in the 80s... Will have to scan through those closely. At first I
thought I'd just weed out the ones I wanted and pass on the rest, but
I've made that mistake once before.... They will go into storage.

Yet another yard sale purchase was a 64 system (I dare not count how
many I have), so far so good, the C64 and power supply are fully
functional and the keyboard is amazingly clean (i.e. all the keys work,
even though It looks like someone tracked mud on the computer). I still
have to test the monitor and 1541, but I feel confident they will
function.

-- 
>From: Paul E Coad <pcoad_at_crl.com>
>Subject: weekend additions
>I picked up some good stuff today.  Here is the haul:
>One nearly mint copy of "More BASIC Computer Games" by David Ahl.
>One "The Best of Creative Computing V.3" by Ahl and Green.
>One boxed copy of Adventure for HP 150 and HP 110.  (yes, THAT >adventure).
>One boxed Commodore Plus/4.
>One Sun type 4 keyboard and mouse (not yet classic, but good none the >>less).
>Total: $11.00
  Good haul!  I would've paid that much for that Creative Computing
book.
>I have a few questions:
>Can the Plus/4 run C64 software?
BASIC, pretty much so, except if there are POKEs and SYS commands in it
it may need some converting, some BASIC may not be easy or possible
mainly if there is sprite or sound usage as those chips are VERY
different then on the 64.
There are some good FTP sites for the Plus/4, just make sure when you
download games and demos they are NTSC and not PAL, (PAL graphics are
unviewable on an NTSC Plus/4), there are game conversions available (Jim
Hehl is probably the most noted for converting programs 64 and Plus/4
european to the American Plus/4 platform).
This reminds me I really need to get the adapter pinouts of the
Joysticks and the Cassette port on my web page. (whisper.. "if you write
it they will browse...")
>In the user's manual there is a picture of a 1541 disk drive which looked
>black.  It was a black and white picture, but the 1541s that I have seen
>all match the color scheme of the C64.  Has anyone seen a black 1541?
Not me, though you can tell Commodore was toying with the idea (on the
Plus/4, C-16, MPS-803, DPS-1101, and the 1531 datasette for the
Plus/4/16)
It could have been the rare Commodore 1551 disk drive.  Commodore's
attempt at a fast parallel drive.  It was to hook into the parallel port
of the Plus/4 and delivered a great speed improvement over the 1541 (not
too hard of a feat.)  I hear it was released in Europe but not in the
states.
>I now have volumes 1 and 3 of "The Best of Creative Computing", how many
>volumes where published?
I think they stopped with volume 3, I remember they closed out a bunch
of their inventory to schools (which included vols 1-3) at about $100 or
so, that was sometime in 1982. Gosh I wish I had all that stuff today:
posters, computer music record, books, etc.
>Happy hunting,
------------
>From: hellige <jeffh_at_eleventh.com>
>Subject: Re: weekend additions
>   Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but the Plus/4 (like the C-16) was
>intended as an upgrade, and total break, from the C-64 and is incompatible in
>both hardware and software to the C-64.  I've seen it said that this was one
>of the main reasons the machine never caught on.  As for the color scheme of
>the 1541 though, the later 1541's were the ones that matched the brown color
>of the C-64.  The earlier 1541's, labled VIC-1541, matched the lighter color
>of the VIC-20.  It is the VIC-1541 that I have in my collection.
The 1541 is VERY compatible with the Plus/4 and Commodore 16 (thank
goodness!)  You can adapt a datasette to use on the Plus/4 but Commodore
decided to change the pitches at which the data is recorded thus making
it impossible to interchange data via tape between other Commodore
8-bits. The format and timing are the same from what I understand.
                 Larry Anderson
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Received on Mon Apr 28 1997 - 00:07:10 BST