• Please review our updated Terms and Rules here

Scored an Atari 520ST

A

ahm

Moderator
Staff member
Joined
Apr 4, 2004
Messages
1,252
Location
New Jersey
Just scored an Atari 520ST (Thanks Kelly!) with external floppy drive, power supplies and even a dust cover. I was a little worried that I didn't get a monitor with it, but it works just fine with my TV.

So now I'm looking for some cool games for it.
I've found some sites that have disk images.
How do I write images to actual floppies?
 
Okay, so here's what I've learned so far...

The floppy images I've been using in the STeem emulator are for double-sided disks. The drive I have, the SF354, is single-sided. :(
So now, I'm looking for an SF314 drive, which is double-sided.

The utilities I've found for writing images to floppy are called MakeDisk and STdisk, the former is for DOS and the latter is for Windows.
I can't tell how well they work though until I get a double-sided drive.

Andy
 
Do what I'm gonna do, user terminal to talk from one machine to the next. That way you canmake the floppies on the atari after you ransfer the files directly to it from say, the cd-rom.

Doesn't the atari just LOOK neat?

Nathan
 
Then of course there's sneaker-net. You download the zipped file to your PC floppy and then open it with ST-Zip on your ST. No image files involved

I always liked the Atari XE 1300 which I call my 8-bit mini ST.

The XEGS also had an appealing if somewhat cutesy form factor. My favorite Atari 8-bit game machine. With the light-gun you could shoot bugs to your hearts content. And wth the amazing built-in flight simulator program with the paper major airport approach maps you could practice landings.

It's surprising that Homeland Security hasn't put a ban on it.

Lawrence
 
Since this is a diskless sytem with an external fdd, wouldn't you need two floppy drives, one to run a program and one for the program to use? I had to do that with my c64 and the tandy 1000 that I worked with. And the mac 1mb that i used to have. What a pain it was with that mac. Neat machine, and I wish I had gotten a harddrive, but a pain to keep swapping floppies over and over again.
 
NathanAllan said:
Since this is a diskless sytem with an external fdd, wouldn't you need two floppy drives, one to run a program and one for the program to use? I had to do that with my c64 and the tandy 1000 that I worked with. And the mac 1mb that i used to have. What a pain it was with that mac. Neat machine, and I wish I had gotten a harddrive, but a pain to keep swapping floppies over and over again.
Click to expand...

While an extra fdd did make it easier, especially with the 520, it would retain sections in memory and you would switch from the disk being unzipped or swapped to the disk that was being created. It could be painful tho and the tedium of disk in, eject disk, disk in was frustrating.
I managed to obtain an external FDD early on and that did make it easier but still was a pain.

Because the ST, like the Amiga, and Mac had more internal memory it was a bit less of a chore than on other home computers.

For me HDs weren't an option at the time because of their high price.
All because Tramiel (may the gods heap dung on him) wanted a proprietary HD interface to make more money off peripherals.
The Link 2 SCSI adapter freed me from that. Halleluya !!

Lawrence
 
NathanAllan said:
Do what I'm gonna do, user terminal to talk from one machine to the next.
Click to expand...
Sigh. It's not about getting stuff to the ST. That's easy.
The problem is that you can't fit 720K of data onto a floppy that will only hold 360K.
As I said, I need an SF314 drive.
 
I found an internal fdd that can replace the one in the 354.

http://www.1632-sales.zenwebhosting.com/acatalog/index.html?http%
3A//www.1632-sales.zenwebhosting.com/acatalog/16_32_Catalogue_Enter
_Here_for_16_32_Systems_Online_Shop_40.html&CatalogBody

above is al one link

and it looks like I'll be getting one of these too. SF314's seem to be getting really rare.

I asked them about it and shipping. I'm still looking around for us.

/EDIT I'm finding a few sf314's for sale but all across the globe.
www.retrotrader.com

http://www.1632-sales.zenwebhosting.com/acatalog/
 
Really stupid question: in MS-DOS (or equivalent), can you not FORMAT /F:360 /1 in order to make an one-sided 360K DD disk which the Atari might be able to read? I've never tried it myself, so I don't know if DOS chokes on this command or whether there is a low-level BIOS method that could be used to make it happen.
 
Something wierd came up. ALL of the disks that I thought were either bad or blank are coming up on the 95 computer, and not being seen by the st.

Bad floppy drive.

I tried to format a few 1.44 disks but dos wouldn't let me. Incorrect parameters it told me.

NOW I know why this st is choking on disks. I have another one coming in (I ordered from that vintagefun site). I guess I'd better get the win95 computer a cd-rom. I have a lot of atari stuff on cd now(thanks John!). I can terminal from it.
 
Ok, rather than giving out false suggestions, I tried it myself. At least in Win98-DOS (4.10.2222), all these commands fail as incompatible or not supported (two different errors) when using an unformatted 3.5" DD disk:

format a: /u /1 /f:360
format a: /u /1 /f:720
format a: /u /f:360
format a: /u /1

Too bad. I assume single sided 3.5" disks have never existed in the PC world. Maybe Linux can help, or transfer software using some emulator or custom program as suggested elsewhere?
 
At least in Linux (my favourite love-hate operating system), I was able to:

Code: 
setfdprm /dev/fd0 360/720
fdformat /dev/fd0
mformat a:

It results in a 3.5", 360K single-sided disk. Perhaps this MS-DOS command also works:

Code: 
format /n:9 /t:80 /1 a:

but I haven't rebooted to test it. The corresponding mformat command in Linux gave an I/O error, but the low level fdformat appeared to work. Of course I don't own an Atari ST or other system with single-sided drive so I can tell if it will be able to read disks written to.

Update: No, at least not in the mentioned MS-DOS version it is not allowed to format a disk with 80 tracks, 9 sectors but only one side. Possibly there is some special formatting program one can download, or run in Linux to format the disk. At least it is possible to read and write the disk from DOS/Windows, and I successfully mounted it via CrossDOS on my Amiga to determine that some other computer can access it.
 
Okay I fired up my Atari with Fastcopy on it and checked an old Atari Format zine disk that could be used with both SS and DS fdds. I scanned it and because it was in fact a DS disk reported that. It used 10 sectors and 00 to 78 tracks unlike the normal 9 sector 00 to 79 tracks. Nothing strange in that because many of the computer zine disks were formatted with 10 sectors so they could cram more goodies on them.

It scanned up to track 39 and then did a jump to track 69. Clicking on the ( drive.. File.. info) showed 360k. Now perhaps someone moved rather than copied the disk, but it did show the headers for what should have been on the DS disk. No DD desity disk handy so I didn't try to copy it or extract the files. Many of the zine disks had a menu once you extracted the files, depending on whether or not your fdd was SS or DS.

In any case the question is esoteric because the problems were greater than with the 5.25 DOS 360 fdds and at least equalled that with the Mac 400 k disks. Forget SS drives unless you want them for posterity or you want to attempt some hack.

Lawrence
 
Gadzooks !! From what I've been to glean from Google the Atari ST sites with the 3 part FAQ no longer exists nor even the later Quick ST FAQ.

A bloody infidel sacrilege !!

Not on the Atari.org site nor even on the Atari Archives site !!

Fortunately, to my credit as a packrat and servant to the gods of computing , I've found squirrelled away on a previous hard-drive not only the original FAQ, but also the "new" 3 part FAQ, the later ST Quick FAQ as well as the ST A to Z of computing, and my own collection of ST tips garnered from a decade on BBS's and the newsgroups.
The Atari Compendium is also even still online.

"Thanks C-Gods".

I even found an ST master program and it's DOS compliment to transfer files thru the serial ports.
AND how-tos to use a DOS fdd to replace a failed ST fdd.

Now the problem. To edit this all down to a usable file that could perhaps be used on such as atari.org.

No promises as my to-do cup runneth over, but possibly an fdd file to solve the problem of the dearth of the lousy Atari fdd . Some simple solutions ignoring Atarians fixation with HDDs when obviously hard-drives overcame those limitations, some that have to be translated from German,
(Germans were always the best with STs since Atari did the same in Germany as Apple did in US schools), others that required the Ajax chip and TOS v.2.06 to support 1.44 HDfds. Some solutions may be problemmatic because of the magnetic media difference between DD and HD. It ain't gonna happen soon so I would still advise Nathan and Ahn to get a DD fdd. or buy one cheap or even a whole working ST on e-Bay.

Again I would suggest that using FastCopy with the (free)STEEM emulator
could perhaps produce a useable SD disk. I haven't used STEEM so I can't say. But it might be possible.

Perhaps I could send some limited docs in a zip file to both of you on using a 1.44, preferably a rarer DD720 but no guarantees it will work.


Lawrence

Ha, Ha bloody message-gobbling forum board. I copied before I submitted with the mouse-click
 
Lotsa catching up to do as far as updates. I'll keep it short.

Ahm, try using a needle file the size of the fdd cable pin to gently clean the contacts. My guess is that the contacts have gotten oxidised and can't carry much of a signal any more. But be very gentle, in and out and no twisting, as they can bend pretyt easy. I plan on this myself.

I found plans online for a mouse using a bus mouse and building an adapter for it. The hardest part is finding a db-9 plug that doesn't have the screwholes on the sides. Most of them, if you cut them off it falls apart since they're held together with the metal parts inside the screwholes.

I found parts at mouser.com to make the busmouse adapter and a new fdd cable if needed. Not including the screw-less db-9 jack. Anybody know where to find these? I can always use a cannibalised part, but I'd rather not go that route if I don't have to.

Nathan

/EDIT Here are the mouser part numbers, cause navigating there isn't really easy:

161-2609
9-pin inline mini-din jack $1.09/10, $11.90

523-T3650-001
14-pin male din plug, $13.95 ea

523-T3653-000
14-pin socket female din, panel mount, $12.59 ea
 
Last edited:
NathanAllan said:
Ahm, try using a needle file the size of the fdd cable pin to gently clean the contacts.
Click to expand...
Sorry, what's that a response to?
It's hard for know without a quoted sentence or paragraph.
 
Sorry, I was going back to when we were talking about how our ST's would see a disk but nothing that was on it. I think that was a related thread, maybe not this one(but still relevant). Is it still doing that? Mine is. If the needle file does nothing I'm gonna look at the instides again and try to reseat any and all seated chips.
 
NathanAllan said:
Sorry, I was going back to when we were talking about how our ST's would see a disk but nothing that was on it.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure that was just your machine.
I can write and read floppies just fine on my single-sided drive.
If I boot a double-sided image I can still tell there's something there, just not what I expected.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top