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Atari Newbie Questions [message #316506] Sat, 16 April 2016 22:07 Go to next message
Martin Brunner is currently offline  Martin Brunner
Messages: 147
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Hi!

I got an Atari Mega 1 (with Megafile 60 Hard Disk and 1224 and 124
Monitors for Color or Hi-Res Monochrome).

The TOS doesn't tell any Version number and the Hard Disk does not seem
to work (well, when I switch it on, I can't access Disk A: with the
drivers anymore).

So, I have some Questions:

How to get a game from the Internet to the Atari?
Can I use a PC drive, does it work with the Kryoflux somehow?
I was able to find some SFX or IMG files, but none of them suitable for
Kryoflux.

How do I get the hard disk to work? Will a newer version of TOS helb to
solve the conflict with A:?

Will I need the monochrome Monitor? I just want to use the Computer for
some games (that I'd like to have on the hard disk).

Thank you
Re: Atari Newbie Questions [message #316525 is a reply to message #316506] Sun, 17 April 2016 03:34 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adam Klobukowski is currently offline  Adam Klobukowski
Messages: 16
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
Junior Member
W dniu niedziela, 17 kwietnia 2016 04:08:58 UTC+2 użytkownik Martin Brunner napisał:
> Hi!
> How to get a game from the Internet to the Atari?
> Can I use a PC drive, does it work with the Kryoflux somehow?
> I was able to find some SFX or IMG files, but none of them suitable for
> Kryoflux.

There are many options. I'd suggest you to get the floppy emulator from http://lotharek.pl/. With it, you can run games from any image.

> How do I get the hard disk to work? Will a newer version of TOS helb to
> solve the conflict with A:?

If everything is properly connected, try turning on disk before ST, wait few seconds (old disks used tak its time to spin), then turn ST on. If after that it will not work, most likely the disk is broken.

There is no conflict, there can't be any conflict between floppy drive and harddrive. If floppy drive led is on, but it does not work, somebody might have connected the floppy cable to the drive the wrong drive - you can check it. If it still does not work, it is broken.

> Will I need the monochrome Monitor? I just want to use the Computer for
> some games (that I'd like to have on the hard disk).

Most games work only on color monitor. There are some that work on both and very little that work on monochrome only.

Photo of the screen after boot might give some more details.

AdamK
Re: Atari Newbie Questions [message #316533 is a reply to message #316525] Sun, 17 April 2016 06:10 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Martin Brunner is currently offline  Martin Brunner
Messages: 147
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
Adam Klobukowski schrieb:

> There are many options. I'd suggest you to get the floppy emulator
> from http://lotharek.pl/. With it, you can run games from any image.

Ok, but can I download a game on the PC and copy it to a real disk somehow?

Or copy it on the Megafile harddisk?

> If everything is properly connected, try turning on disk before ST,
> wait few seconds (old disks used tak its time to spin), then turn ST
> on. If after that it will not work, most likely the disk is broken.
>
> There is no conflict, there can't be any conflict between floppy
> drive and harddrive.

Guess I tried that but had no sucess. So the hard disk should even work
with the oldest version of TOS if it is not formattet yet?

> Photo of the screen after boot might give some more details.

I just have the normal green TOS screen without anything special. Drive
A: and B: (which is both the same disk drive) and the paper basket.
Re: Atari Newbie Questions [message #316547 is a reply to message #316533] Sun, 17 April 2016 08:47 Go to previous messageGo to next message
dave[1][2] is currently offline  dave[1][2]
Messages: 119
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
On 17/04/2016 11:10, Martin Brunner wrote:
> Adam Klobukowski schrieb:
>
>> There are many options. I'd suggest you to get the floppy emulator
>> from http://lotharek.pl/. With it, you can run games from any image.
>
> Ok, but can I download a game on the PC and copy it to a real disk somehow?
>

"It depends". Early Mega's have single sided drives and so won't read
720k floppies which are two sided, only a 360K single sided diskette.
Later machines had a PC Style 720K disk and would read normal DOS
diskettes. However diskettes formatted on the Mega won't read on the PC....

Most folks swapped the drive for a double sided. Can your Mega format a
two sided floppy? If so then it will read 720K disks created on a PC.
Most PC's with a floppy drive can create this type of diskette.

> Or copy it on the Megafile harddisk?
>

most games boot special code from floppy and can't be installed on a
hard disk.

>> If everything is properly connected, try turning on disk before ST,
>> wait few seconds (old disks used tak its time to spin), then turn ST
>> on. If after that it will not work, most likely the disk is broken.
>>
>> There is no conflict, there can't be any conflict between floppy
>> drive and harddrive.
>
> Guess I tried that but had no sucess. So the hard disk should even work
> with the oldest version of TOS if it is not formattet yet?
>

Its an old drive, how can it not be formatted yet?. All versions of TOS
support Hard Drives. The Mega 60 will usually have a Seagate ST277R RLL
drive in. Most of these have gone to drive heaven....
.....


>> Photo of the screen after boot might give some more details.
>
> I just have the normal green TOS screen without anything special. Drive
> A: and B: (which is both the same disk drive) and the paper basket.
>

Then its not seeing the hard drive. I would expect that the hard Drive
is in-operable.

Dave
Re: Atari Newbie Questions [message #316548 is a reply to message #316533] Sun, 17 April 2016 09:48 Go to previous messageGo to next message
Adam Klobukowski is currently offline  Adam Klobukowski
Messages: 16
Registered: November 2012
Karma: 0
Junior Member
W dniu niedziela, 17 kwietnia 2016 12:11:49 UTC+2 użytkownik Martin Brunner napisał:
> Adam Klobukowski schrieb:
>
>> There are many options. I'd suggest you to get the floppy emulator
>> from http://lotharek.pl/. With it, you can run games from any image.
>
> Ok, but can I download a game on the PC and copy it to a real disk somehow?

Yes you can - but it is tricky. I gave you probably the easiest solution.

>> Photo of the screen after boot might give some more details.
>
> I just have the normal green TOS screen without anything special. Drive
> A: and B: (which is both the same disk drive) and the paper basket.

Other then A: and B:, disk letters are not shown on the desktop by default. You add them using menu options.

AdamK
Re: Atari Newbie Questions [message #316602 is a reply to message #316547] Mon, 18 April 2016 06:29 Go to previous message
Martin Brunner is currently offline  Martin Brunner
Messages: 147
Registered: January 2012
Karma: 0
Senior Member
David Wade schrieb:

> "It depends". Early Mega's have single sided drives and so won't read
> 720k floppies which are two sided, only a 360K single sided diskette.
> Later machines had a PC Style 720K disk and would read normal DOS
> diskettes. However diskettes formatted on the Mega won't read on the PC....

Ah ok.

Well TOS shows me A: and B:. When I click on B: it says something funny
like "Insert Disk A into Drive B" and just will show the content of
floppy drive A: afterwards. Does this indicate if this has a two-sided
floppy?


> most games boot special code from floppy and can't be installed on a
> hard disk.

Ah ok.

But which format should the games be in, so that i could copy them on disk?


> Its an old drive, how can it not be formatted yet?. All versions of TOS
> support Hard Drives. The Mega 60 will usually have a Seagate ST277R RLL
> drive in. Most of these have gone to drive heaven....
> ....

Ok, maybe it's broken but then I expect the system at least to do
anything else with the drive instead of not doing anything at all.

Guess the best option is that someone who knows how to do it just will
copy some games on disk for me. But these STX files do not seem to be
suitable for that purpose. Maybe I'd bring this computer to some meeting.

Thank you
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