About the Turbo-816 upgrade:

"COMPETITIVE"?!?!  give me a break!  Since when would a somewhat faster 130XE
be competitive with an ST?  I feel Atari is being foolish for not helping
this product along.  This could give another boost to XE sales in new foriegn
markets, where the C64 is king.  One feasable possiblity would be to socket
any parts that would have to be moved to install this upgrade, then give a
discount if you buy the Dataque and the  8-bit at the same time.

"Why would we want to improve the 2600 to be competitive with the
7800 anyway?"  --No One

John Kawakami  /  c91a@franny.berkeley.edu  /  I'm sorryyyy, I'm sorryyyy,
              /                               /   I'm sorryyyy, I'm sorryyyy.
             /                               /         -S. Central Rain (REM)

In article <7@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, c91a@franny.Berkeley.EDU (john kawakami reader) writes:
I agree with John - a Turbo-816  upgraded  130XE  would  not  be  very
competitive  with  an  ST.   Not  without a lot of s/w that would take
advantage of the 16-bit mode.  And even then, the  68000  would  still
prevail.   (With the T-816, 8-bit progs. would see only enough speedup
to make a perceptible difference, unless they do a  lot  of  floating-
point  calculations.   Chuck,  if  you  are  around, correct me if I'm
wrong.)  I was in the 8-bit conference on Delphi last night, and  Matt
Ratcliff  pointed out that the T-816 has another problem:  it requires
h/w hacking.  It takes special skill and/or tools  to  remove  a  chip
from  a  130XE  board and install a socket - I know, I tried it myself
and burned the board.  (My 2nd XE went to a repair  shop,  where  they
had  no problem socketing the OS ROM.) It would be nice if Atari would
socket the 6502 and OS ROM, but I don't think they could be  convinced
to  do  this.   Sockets  cost  extra,  and  they  are  extremely cost-
conscious.  Chips sometimes come loose from sockets.

But if my XE had the 6502 in a socket, I would seriously consider  the
T-816.

Nick DiMasi                      n@ihlpm.ATT.COM     ...att!ihlpm!njd
Uni'q Digital Technologies (Fox Valley Software subsidiary;
   ^          working as a contractor at AT&T Bell Labs in Naperville, IL)
(  | this is an accent mark, supposed to replace the dot over the 'i')

In article <8811010122.AA01@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> <AXDFM%ALASKA.BIT@Forsythe.Stanford.EDU> writes:

  Well, I've never been a big fan of SpartaDOS, but having used the X-cart for
over two months now, it *seems* like a solid performer.

  HOWEVER...I've been using SpartaDOS X those two months with a brand-new
Seagate hard drive. And if anybody saw my earlier post, I'm having the most
MYSTERIOUS problems with said drive (anybody care to re-read that post and
tell me what is going on?). I'm not sure if SpartaDOS X is to blame for this,
but...

  Just a caevat, I suppose.

                                                --R.J.
                                                B-)

 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Disclaimer: These are my views, and mine alone.
                                                             # ## #
  Mailing address: Beats me, just reply to this message      # ## #
                    (r@nunki.usc.edu?)                  ## ## ##
                                                         ####  ##  ####

In article <Oct.31.18.07.24.1988.@topaz.rutgers.edu> langb@topaz.rutgers.edu (John E. Langbein) writes:
Please send the list to me also.   thanks for your help.

  I have been asked by a couple of people if SDX does work with Turbo BASIC.
The answer is yes.  If you have an expanded memory machine (greater than 128K
not including 128) then it works without any special handling.  If you want
optimum use of your extra banks or are using a stock 128K XE, then you will
be forced to use a different configuration.  This is done by creating a
CONFIG.SYS file on D1: with the line USE BANKED in it.  Others and/or the
manual explain it better, but the bottom line is SDX and Turbo are a working
combination....

David Franklin Murphy
University of Alaska Anchorage

--  Earthquake?  Nah....  Earthquake?  Earthquake!!!!                   --

The Atari 1010 program recorder (I have one) has two SIO connectors.

I have the Atari 1050 disk drive, and DO like it, although I wish it did "true"
double density, with twice the data storage of single-density, rather than
half again.  And imagine what 512-byte sector support could do for program
interchange: "Sure, I can read that PC-DOS diskette!" (Happy Computers Inc,
are you listening?).

As already pointed out, the Atari uses the Pokey two-tone mode to output FSK
on the serial output pin.  (This FSK is, alas, apparently not phase-coherent,
which may be why we are limited to 600 bauds.)  Thus, you can *record* Atari
tapes, with no further electronics, on a standard cassette deck.

To read them back, however, you must present the decoded data to the serial
input pin.  That requires an FSK demodulator, the only "magic" in the Atari
program recorder.  Before I bought my Atari 1010, I bought an Exar XR2211 FSK
Demodulator chip, and got excellent results writing and reading tapes.  In
fact, the 1010 gave much *worse* performance than my simple one-chip solution!

One of these days, I'll do some serious experimenting with some custom tape
I/O software and the XR2206 (phase-coherent) FSK modulator. If a Bell 103
can do 300 baud in 1.5kHz bandwidth, 12kHz on a tape deck would give 4800bps
and using all four tracks in a stereo deck will yield 5 Megabytes on a C-90.
--
Charles Green   char@c3pe.UUCP      {decuac,cucstud}!c3pe!charles

In my pre-atari, pre-sinclair days, I was fooling around with a
home-built 6800-based system.  I built a simple mod-demod with a 555
(voltage controlled osc) and 556(?) phase locked loop.  I connected a
UART to the 6800, and connected the serial I/O from the UART into my
widget.  I used freq's like 3000Hz for a 1 and 3300 for a 0 or so.  It
worked totally reliably at 1200 baud!  I guess I should have tried it
at higher baud rates...  I had fun anyway.
-Stan

No, I DIDN'T write that.  That was written by the person who quoted part of
my earlier posting.

Chris
--
UUCP: <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!cfchiesa
cfchi@bsu-cs.UUCP                                          

/ hpclkms:comp.sys.atari.8bit / char@c3sw.uucp (Charles Green) /  5:56 pm  Nov  1, 1988 /

  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Yes, they have listened.  If you format an IBM PC disk single sided, 9 sector
double density, you can convert files back and forth between the atari and the
IBM PC.  Unfortunately, you cannot format IBM disks on the Atari since the
1050 ignores the sector hole, and the IBM doesn't.

BTW, on MS-DOS 3.x, to format a disk single sided with 9 sector tracks, type:
   format /1 a:

It works quite nicely.  I use it to move lots of software from usenet to
my atari.  (Save the file to my workstation, walk over to the vectra, and FTP
the file to the vectra.  Take disk home, and convert file to Atari disk.  No
more fighting with Xmodem, Kermit and other stuff!)

Kenneth Sumrall
ken%hpcl@hplabs.hp.com
...!hplabs!hpclkms!ken

Hmm...

I once tried an experiment: I had a double density DOS XL formatted disk (from
an Indus GT drive). One side had several programs on it, and the other side
was blank (but also formatted double density with DOS XL.)  I took the disk to a
PC and tried two copy programs.  They both gave me errors, but I got the errors
in different sectors for the two different copy programs.

I took the disks home to my Atari 800.  I found that both copies would give me
a correct directory (neither copy program gave me errors for the directory sectors
though), and also I found that I could successfully run some of the programs
off the copy.  The particular programs I could run depended on which copy program
I used.  In one case I was able to boot the copy and have it work (though some
files still could not be accessed.)

So, how do I convert files between the PC and Atari?  (And for that matter, can I
copy Atari disks on a PC?)  In other words, please, please, please supply the
details...
--
"I don't care if you _did_ do it in a movie once, Gilligan is not breathing
through that reed!"

--Kenneth Arromdee (ins_a@jhunix.UUCP, arrom@crabcake.cs.jhu.edu,
        g49i0@jhuvm.BITNET) (not arrom@aplcen, which is my class account)