Issue 12
Contents
Features
- | Foreword
- | Tip of the day
- | Mailbox
- | Up for it?
- | Ludwig: Bones for an Obscure Dog
- | Spot the hard drive competition
- | The Notator SL user-group
- | Black Box
- | Atari games on the move
Reviews
- | Jag-Wired
- | Mirage A/D convertor cartridge
News
M@ilbox The MyAtari team sort through more of your mails... Dear MyAtari mag, I would like to make a small comment about your new look. I must admit that I think it is much better than you old one... but I wish the cover picture was a bit larger (like it was). I know it took a bit longer to download, but I enjoyed seeing a new one every month. Apart from that, keep up the good work. BTW. Is there anything I can do to help? Dan E Thank you for letting us know what you think. We are constantly looking for ways to improve MyAtari and shall consider your suggestion. If you are interested in helping the magazine, a great way is to write an article or review for us. Without contributions from our readers, the mag would not exist. I realise how daunting it is and although you think you can't do it now, you'll be amazed how easy it is. As it happens MyAtari is currently seeking smart and enthusiastic Atari users to join our team of regular contributors to help us make MyAtari magazine even better than it already is. For further details visit our "Up for it?" article in this months issue. Go on, give it a try! --- Matthew Bacon MyAtari help! I'm not doing very well here. My old STE is dying slowly and I want to be able to keep working on my songs written in Notator 3.1 on my PC. Can I do it? At the moment I've downloaded the STEEM emulator but I can't even open my Atari disks? Please help if you can! Thank you, Peter This is the most frequent emulation-related question that is asked, I'll try to explain all the ins and outs. The basic problem is that most PCs cannot read most ST floppy disks, most PC FDCs (floppy disk controllers) don't allow a program to access as many tracks on the disk as the ST FDC did. This means that any ST disk that has been formatted to more than 80 tracks per side is unreadable. There is only one format of disk that is certain to be read by any PC and an ST, it is called a MS-DOS 720Kb format disk. The way emulators get round this annoying incompatibility is to use files on a PC drive that contain all the data that was on a floppy disk, these are called disk images. If the ST disk you want to access isn't readable by your PC then you will have to use your ST to create an image of it. This can be a tricky process, the first step is to create a transfer disk in MS-DOS 720Kb format. To do this insert a blank floppy disk (preferably double-density) in your PC floppy drive and right click on the floppy drive icon in My Computer. Select "Format" from the menu and a dialog will appear. For capacity select "720 Kb (3.5'')" and for format type choose "Full". Click "Start" to format the disk. There are many imaging programs available from many different web sites. The easiest to use is the one that comes with STeem itself, it is written to make the imaging process as simple as possible. Copy the file DISK_IMG.PRG to your transfer disk, run it on your ST and follow the on-screen instructions. It will probably take 2 trips with the transfer disk between your ST and PC to copy all the data (you could create 2 transfer disks if you prefer). When you have finished and run the diskjoin program on your PC you will have a new disk image with the extension STT that you can insert in a drive when running STeem. BTW, it would probably be best if you don't attempt to use Notator 3.1 on STeem, that is opening an altogether more complex can of worms! --- Russell Hayward Hello Mr Bacon, Was nice to know there is still an Atari following. Haven't seen or heard much since my local shop disappeared (16/32 systems Strood). Now that my PC decided to shut down for good I have given my trusty 520 ste a new lease of life. Using it mainly for musical applications. I would be interested to find out more info regarding software (I always wanted to obtain "notator" but where and how much these days), how easy it is to get my 520 connected to the web and what sort of spec can I get a 520 ste up to. I read about getting a connector to plug in my zip drive (lucky I got the scsi version!) but that was from an old web site. Any info for someone like me who still has a soft spot for the autumned device would be most welcome, Tim Long We have a second hand complete package of Notator SL, which we are selling for 149.00 GBP. To get on to the net you will need at least 2Mb RAM fitted - 4Mb recommended, a Hard Drive, CAB 2.7 software, MagiC v6 software (to make use of ICONNECT of CAB 2.7 for PPP connection) or you can use STinG or STiK for the connection, a compatible Modem and an Internet Service Provider. At the moment freeware like NEWSIE has to be used for e-mail - hopefully we will have ASH Emailer available soon. We also have stock of ICD Link adaptors, which can be connected to a SCSI Zip drive, although if the drive is the only one connected then it will need a power feed from the joystick port for the Link. If it is daisy chained to another drive with power termination set it will not require the feed from the joystick port. Then all that required is HD Driver to set up the drive. Regards El Atari Workshop "El Fernandes is a member of the MyAtari experts mailing list and is also our contact at Atari Workshop (www.atari-workshop.co.uk)." Second Opinion: For Music/ Midi software, you can go to my site. Tim's Atari Midi World http://sites.netscape.net/timconrardy/index.htm For Notator here: http://www.notator.org However, you will need a Notator dongle for any of the downloads to work. But by checking Ebay and the Atari newsgroups you might be able to find someone who is selling it. Tim C. Third Opinion: I'd say that a 520STE would be struggling at best with such a limited amount of memory. The first thing I'd do would be to upgrade the machine to its maximum 4MB. Luckily, the STE range are easily and cheaply upgradable with the aid of four 1MB SIMMs. Total cost shouldn't be more than a few pounds. Some of the memory could then be used as a RAM disk to act as a cache whilst using CAB (the recommended browser). Obviously this will be lost when the computer's switched off, so the longer term preferred solution would be a hard disk drive. Recommended software for browsing is CAB v2.8, a demo is available from http://www.application-systems.de/cab/download.html English resources are available from my web site http://www.cix.co.uk/~derryck/ in the DDP section. There's a choice of software with which to actually connect to the internet, notably STinG from http://sting.atari.org or STiK from http://www.netset.com/~baldrick/. Download the CAB overlay from that site, as the one supplied in the CAB package is for the IConnect stack. WenSuite and Draconis each use their own stack software but aren't really recommended (neither will connect to the internet in their demo forms). For e-mail and newgroups, NEWSie is a good program, from http://www.primenet.com/~rojewski/newsie.html It is also capable of downloading files using the ftp protocol and has a rudimentary text-only browser built-in. Regards Derryck Croker I would like to thank all our readers who have taken the time to e-mail us over the last few months, your support is greatly appreciated. I would also like to thank our team of experts for their support and enthusiasm! Send you suggestions, comments and questions to matthew@myatari.net or alternatively post them on our new forum. Please note We regret that due to the volume of letters and e-mails received by the magazine, personal correspondence cannot be guaranteed. All letters and e-mails received are assumed for publication unless stated otherwise.
MyAtari magazine - Feature #3, October 2001
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