> I didn't know that Rana and Indus were one and the same.
If they aren't then I'm an idiot. The Rana cover fits the indus like a
glove and vice-versa. They are so similar it isn't possible for two
different companies to have made them unless it was the same engineering
team. I know for sure that Indus became Future, but it was surmise that
Rana became Indus.
> That's pretty cool. Regardless of just how well it worked, it'd be
>interesting to see it done at least once. I wonder if the console I/O
>was directed to the screen I/O of the Atari 8bit?
The console was intended to be the Atari using a Bit3 font ala the ATR's
ADM3a Atari terminal emulator software. The ATR didn't need an atari, it
could use a serial terminal, but I've never hooked one to my ATR's to find
out. There was a special cable to use the SIO jacks on the ATR connected
to a serial dumb terminal. Otherwise you had to use the only other serial
port on the thing and lose the ability to run a modem.
> The 810 I like, especially with the additional speed of the Happy
>upgrade. Without it, the 810 certainly is a slow and noisy beast! The
>1050 I've never been a big fan of, though none of mine ever got upgraded
>to true DD.
The 1050 was an even better drive than the 810. Quieter, just as
bulletproof, and faster because of onboard data separator etc. It also
used a modified MFM scheme to store more data while still using 128byte
sectors called 'Enhanced Density'. ED was a 26spt scheme no one really
liked much. Really the drive was a Double Density drive lobotomized to
save a couple bucks in onboard RAM. ICD produced the US Doubler which was
a Rom with a ram replacement. Very easy to install and the drive was
instantly a true DD machine. Reliability was NOT compromised at all. My
prize 1050 has the SuperArchiver II with Bitwriter installed. This
doesn't affect reliability either! It will copy a paper plate if you want
it to.....
For those not in the know, the Sarchiver is a hardware option that will
copy just about any copy protected disk out there. Duplicate sectors,
Long sectors, Short sectors, Phantom sectors, fuzzy sectors, duplicate
tracks, long tracks...... It could also vary the drive's rotation speed to
aid it in reading/writing these sectors.
The BITWRITER hardware option comes in when all else fails and is
generally used to copy only those portions of the disk that other methods
could not. The Bitwriter does an analogue bit-for-bit copy. Because it
is analogue, whole disk copies using this method may not allways work.
> Does Bob still do anything? Other than in conversations
>about his older stuff, I've not heard his name mentioned in a while.
I spoke with him a few months ago. The CSS bbs was still up and running
and Black Box's, SuperEburner, and other products were still available.
Rtime8's are getting scarce as are some other gear. MIO can't be had for
love or money, but the Black Box has more features by far. The only thing
the MIO had that wasn't in the BB was RAM. That 1mb external ramdisk was
pretty cool.... But my xe's have 512k ramdisks anyway so I don't miss it.
I ran a modified Carina II bbs system off that ramdisk for years. All the
modules in ram made it alot faster. Data went to hard disk.
CSS (Computer Software Services) is now known as New Life Electronics
(
http://www.nleaudio.com). Bob has allways made hifi stuff. A catalogue,
information, docs, source, and other such is on the site. To this day Bob
is STILL an Atari hacker. Something of a god he is to me.
> Jeff
--
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Jeffrey S. Worley
Asheville, NC USA
828-6984887
UberTechnoid_at_Home.com
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Received on Thu Nov 01 2001 - 17:09:51 GMT