ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2017
Entry 9th June 2017: Post: 01
Atari Heavy Maintenance
Hi
Not a great fan of the Atari. The OS for the Falcon is a pig and reminds
me of the Amstrad. Whilst I am a fan of the Amstrad I prefer CP/M and
BASIC but the GEM style interface is really not my cup of tea. problem
is I have a lot of kit that drives through the Atari and for the most
part its all specialist for the Atari. Even the cable connectors for the
drives is a special cable used only on the Atari. It isn't unusual to
get such special cables for machines but in Atari's case there seems
little retro substitutes and you have to wait for an item to surface on
the Bay.
One such item is the floppy DOS disk for the 1050 drive. The unit is
dead in the water without it and I just wait and watch and hope I can
get one. I have downloaded the image of the disk and have a zip folder
with the contents on but how do I get that onto an Atari formatted
floppy without the actual drive working. Chicken and egg and it needs to
be 5.25". Maybe there was an Amiga emulator I could use.
I tried to join the Atari forum but they ignored my request twice. I
have no idea what you have to do to get on their group.
For the most part I tend not to muck around with the Atari. I won a bid
yesterday for a busted cassette drive to see if I can extract the
buttons to repair my broken 1010. The other Atari cassette I have
doesn't work even though I replaced the drive belts. Again the unit is
unique to Atari so unlike say the Spectrum I have to get hold off the
Atari cassette player to start saving data. I have to be able to save
stuff or I just am not going to be playing about with it.
I have a 400 and 600 set up at the moment and I am hopeful of getting a
repair soon on the cassette recorder. if I can get the DOS floppy for
the 1050 I'd be happy to put the XE to bed. I keep out the Falcon to
fire up just to make sure the computer is working. As to the STs I
really have no interest. Sadly, like the Apple the Atari is another one
of those computer systems that bores me. I'm convinced its cus they were
rival to what ever I was using in my early days and so viewed as the
enemy. Dunno.
Anyway... for every step forward with the Atari I seem to take two back.
Very frustrating I have to say.
Saying that the Woody is cool. River Raid time !!!
By the way.. I have searched everywhere and I still cannot find this
monitor .. So strange.
http://www.scuzzscink.com/amiga/car_0807/car_2708_177.jpg
scuzz
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