SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for April 2013 **********************************************

President’s Corner by Michael Current April 2013 Things have been very quiet concerning the Atari, Inc. and Atari Interactive, Inc. bankruptcy proceedings. Perhaps news will be emerging soon. Last month I mentioned I was looking into the 1030 modem T: handler. Well, I ended up delving VERY deeply into the world of modem handlers for the Atari. I've tried to sort out all the many R: and T: handlers that were ever produced for the 850 interface, the R-Verter interface, the 835/1030/XM301, the SX212, and the MPP modems. I even found one for the Datatari interface, which seems to have been a U.K. variant of the R-Verter. No wonder it always seemed complicated to me, it really was! I even used the disk index to SPACE DOMs I got from Glen years ago to see what telecom utilities appeared on early SPACE DOMs. After spending a crazy amount of time on all this I just had to stop and take a breather.. but I'm pretty sure I got close to being done. One result: I have probably built the most complete collection of Atari modem handlers ever. It was necessary simply to sort them all out!

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner For March 2013 A very slow month for Atari news at the March SPACE meeting. We only had five members present and with nothing really happening the meeting lasted a very short duration. The biggest news is that Mike Schmidt agreed to send the monthly newsletter to Nolan each month and then Nolan will see to it that the members get a copy. We have most of our members emails on file and if we are misssing one we will get that corrected very soon. The months are going so fast it's hard to believe that our SPACE Birthday Party is only a few months away. Already I am hearing that everyone wants tacos again. We will have to see how that all pans out. We will all have to pitch in again to make it successful. Attend the meetings to get your two cents in. Here is how our Treasury looks for March 2013. Beginning balance as of March 1, 2013:

337.56

Receipts for the March meeting: DOMS

+ 9.00

SPACE Newsletter digitization update: Going back in time, month by month, I've made it back through October 1986 as of this writing. This is something of a milestone, as I have now completed the entire era of those mini issues with the color covers. The first of those was November 1986. Something I learned from today's scanning: Atari's CP/M software emulator for the ST, which they were promoting as an upcoming commercial release, was released to the public domain in about August/Sept 1986. I hadn't come across that fact anywhere else. An example of how scanning these newsletters actually contributes to the historical knowledge base. I also just verified that I've been at this (scanning SPACE newsletters) since 1996, yikes! More motivation to get on with getting this project done. Visit space.atari.org to bring back old memories!

Expenses for the March meeting: Newsletters for nine months Web-site for March 2013

58.64 10.00

Total expenses for March meeting

- 68.64

Ending balance as of March 31, 2013:

277.92

Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday April 12, 2013.

Please come to the April meeting to help us decide the direction we need to go to keep this Club alive for the future.

As you can see we are short the funds we need for this years room rental. On top of that we need another $10.00 per month for our web-site expense. If we get all our current members to renew we will have no problem meeting our needs. The bigger problem is what do we do for next year? Even with an auction here and there we will not collect enough to really make a big difference. I figure we should get around $180.00 from membership renewals and another $100.00 or so from Dom sales so I will let you do the math. An auction will help but will not be the end-all to getus where we need to be.

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Secretary's Report By Steve Peck For March 2013

Well, here I am with another Secretary's Report. Our meeting in March commenced at 7:46 PM. We had five members at the meeting. We discussed the web site and that nothing needs to be changed at this time on that. Again, another nice DOM demo by Glen and Lance pointed out we will have 3D glasses marketed with the next batch of BC3D movies coming out soon. The meeting adjourned at 8:15 PM, lasting approximately twenty-nine minutes. That concludes the Secretary's Report. As Stan Lee says, "EXCELSIOR!" ******************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Sunday, March 10, 2013 5:21 PM Subject: Atari800 version 3.0.0 Atari800 version 3.0.0 (released on 2013/03/03) New features: ------------* Option to automatically save configuration on exit * More settings saved in configuration: - currently attached tape file - cartridge settings, including currently attached cartridges - state of R-Time 8 - system settings, including Mosaic/Axlon RAM size * New Tape Management menu - can now create blank tape images, switch tape to read/write in order to save additional data at the end of the current tape image, rewind/fast forward the tape, and mark it as read-only. See DOC/USAGE for details. * Displaying tape position when "Show sector/block counter" is enabled. * Reworked Cartridge Management menu - now displays filename of the attached cartridge. * Option to disable restarting of the machine after cartridge change. * When attaching a cartridge from the command line, cartridge type can now be specified using the new -carttype and -cart2-type options. * New cartridge types supported: - OSS 8 KB cartridge - OSS two chip 16 KB cartridge (043M) - Blizzard 4 KB cartridge - AST 32 KB cartridge - Atrax SDX 64 KB cartridge - Atrax SDX 128 KB cartridge - Turbosoft 64 KB cartridge - Turbosoft 128 KB cartridge

- Ultracart 32 KB cartridge - Low bank 8 KB cartridge - SIC! 128 KB cartridge - SIC! 256 KB cartridge - SIC! 512 KB cartridge - Standard 2 KB cartridge - Standard 4 KB cartridge - Right slot 4 KB cartridge * The configure script can now auto-detect some of the available display and sound interfaces before compiling. * Option to enable XEP80 added to The Emulator Settings menu. * Emulation of the 1200XL, including console LEDs, no built-in BASIC, the F1-F4 keys (mapped to arrow keys in the SDL version) and the on-board J1 jumper. * Emulation of the XE Game System, including the built-in game and detachable keyboard. * Revamped the Select System menu (now called System Settings). Can now select many system settings, including RAM expansions, OS and BASIC revision, and more. * System ROM settings moved to a separate menu. Now it stores paths to all known official revisions of the Atari OS, the 5200 BIOS, all BASIC revisions, and the XEGS builtin game. The OS revision to use is chosen automatically when selecting a machine type (for example, the 400/800 OS PAL or NTSC version is chosen depending on the selected TV system). * 400/800: Emulation of all RAM sizes achievable with different combinations of the CX852 and CX853 modules - from 8 to 48 KB. * Emulation of 32/48KB memory sizes in the XL/XE mode, compatible with memory expansions for the 600XL manufactured by RC Systems. * Emulation of the MapRAM hardware hack. * Display settings: "Hue" renamed to "Tint". Tint now configurable also in PAL mode. New Android port features: -------------------------* Renamed Atari800 Android port to "Colleen" * Implemented extended key remapping * Implemented the B: device (8-bit games can reach the web now) * Support for Xperia play keycodes added * Remapped dpad enter to break * Added paddle emulation * Optimized file selector, allow roaming outside of ext. storage dir * Added an exclusion border for paddle mode * Implemented state saving * Implemented Planetary Defense mode, a Koala Pad clickwhere-I-point mode * Natively supported UI on post-Honeycomb devices * Fixes for Jelly Bean (audio stuttering, keypad dialogs, soft keyboard) * Added new dialog for cartridge type selection * UI fine tuning General Fixes: -------------* Bugfixes in cassette emulation - works reliably even for

tape images with long (> 4096 B) blocks. * Fixes in save states - loading of save states works correctly even with an attached bank-switched cartridge or with an Axlon/Mosaic RAM expansion. Note 1: Format of the state files has changed. Old save states can still be opened, but newly-created ones cannot be opened in older versions of Atari800. Note 2: Tape position is not restored on loading of save states. Do not save state during tape loading/saving - it won't work as expected. * "Disable BASIC when booting Atari" no longer emulates pressing of the Option key when in the 400/800 mode. * Fixed a bug with BASIC sometimes disabling itself when switching system type to 400/800 * Minor bugfixes in file selector * Fixed emulation of SpartaDOS X piggyback cartridge functionality * "Save Screenshot" fixed - it saved an interlaced screenshot instead of a normal one. * SDL version: Swapped mapping of right and middle mouse buttons, to make it identical to the X11 and Win32 ports. * Monitor: fixed displaying/disassembling of memory area $D000-$D7FF - with the new supported cartridge types, code may reside on page $D5, and now it can be debugged. * SDL version: fixed a blue border when in OpenGL BGRA32 mode. * Minor fixes in parsing of command-line options. * Rewritten XEP80 emulation - now more accurate and supports switching between NTSC/PAL modes with correct aspect ratio. XEP80 emulation now requires a charset ROM image, path to which should be set in the XEP80_CHARSET line in the config file. * Fixed operating system patches not working with all official revisions of the OS. * Fixed emulation of separate ANTIC/CPU access to XE RAM when Self-Test is enabled. * Fixed the emulator menu sometimes being displayed incorrectly (missing font) when running without an OS ROM image. * Improved accuracy of generated colours in PAL mode. * Fixed emulation of the H: read operation - Turbo Basic's BLOAD now works on H: devices. http://atari800.sourceforge.net/ ******************************************** From: Michael Current <michael@mcurrent.name> Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2013 10:00 PM Subject: Atari++ Easter Release Atari++ Easter Release Posted Fri Mar 29, 2013 9:50 AM Happy Easter, A new release of Atari++, the portable atari emulator for Linux and windows has been released here in the download section - as usual, you find there the Linux sources and a compiled version for 32-bit Windows. Release 1.72 fixes a couple of nasty little bugs that were overlooked, but the main new feature is the support of ATX images,

plus many small changes to Os++, the included operating system for the 8-bits. *The binary file loader automatically generated when inserting a COM or EXE into the disk drive and booting from it is now much shorter and requires a lot less RAM. It requires now, however, an additional ESCape code and hence emulator support. This will now also load binary files that require RAM from 0x800 and up. *This release adds support for ATX files and includes an emulation of the disk drive timing, handling of bad and duplicate sectors and a more precise emulation of the SIO timing. *An additional type of watch point was added: The default watch point now only reacts on memory writes, whereas the new watch point continues to react on reads and writes. *Experimented a lot with the timing of the GTIA Prior writing and found that the currently implemented logic is actually very close to the real system, additional delay cycles make results only worse, not better. Thus, leaving it as it is right now. *The SDL StringGadget now reacts on Ctrl+Backspace and Ctrl+Delete and erases its contents on this keyboard command. *Added emulation for "stuck" Player/Missile shift registers when switching from 4x or 2x expansion to the size register "2" value, which is almost, but not quite 1x expansion. *The built-in Os blocks NMIs now early in the reset cycle and by that tries to work around bad display lists left over by buggy programs. *Minor modification in the built-in FMS (Dos 2.++): CONFIG.SYS can now change the position of the FMS buffers by poking into DiskBufferBase $710,$711 and relocate them. *Minor modification of the short VBI: GPrior, ColBK and Col1 are now only reloaded if the graphics mode really requires it. This applies to fine scrolling text modes, and the text window modes with the GTIA modes (modes 9+64,10+64 and 11+64). This fixes compatibility issues with Atari Tennis and some Lucasfilms intros. *Minor modifications in the FMS: Rename with wildcard was broken, and the FMS no longer tries to load non-valid VTOCs. *The DUP COPY command avoids now trying to overwrite BASIC program memory or other user memory protected correctly by setting APPMEMHI. Some cartridges do not set this Os pointer correctly, though. Mac/65 does not. The new DUP command NEW will erase user memory and make it available for COPY. *Fixed a long standing bug of all Dos 2.XX compatible FMS'es: Directory reading mode did not cooperate with any other operations that would access the directory, and would invalidate the directory access channel. This is no longer the case now. Additionally, reading the directory sets now the EOF warning flag (Y = 3) correctly right before the EOF. *The STATUS command, as specified by DOS 2.0S and DOS 2.5, was actually quite unuseful as it required a file specification which was never supplied by BASIC. The new implementation returns the status of the last CIO command on the same channel if the channel is open, allowing BASIC for example to access the near-EOF warning return code. Anti-News: (or, what does not yet work): *Antic DMACtrl in-line adjustment tricks are not supported, neither any HScroll adjustments to disable the DMA-stop. *Bus noise picked up by GTIA if GRACTL is enabled but DMACTL is disabled is currently not emulated correctly. *Bus noise picked up by ANTIC on the right side of wide playfield screens is currently not emulated at all (and neither visible if it would). *The POKEY soft-reset cylce is currently not emulated completely. *Bit-banging serial output is currently not emulated at all. http://www.xl-project.com/

******************************************** From: Michael Current <michael@mcurrent.name> Sent: Sunday, March 31, 2013 2:25 PM Subject: New STe demo from BlaBLa New STe demo from BlaBLa

March 31st, 2013

An Atari STe demo at Revision? Really? Yep, Cyg of BlaBLa entered the Revision oldskool competition with a demo called Circus back²STage. The demo needs an Atari STe with 4 MB to work. So far the released demo is a party version, and a final is expected later. » Download Circus back²STage party version http://files.dhs.nu/files_demo/CircusBackSTage_Revision_par ty_version.zip ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** ******************************************** *************************************************

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