Wow, didn't you think we had a great meeting last month?
Nolan was there, and we learned that the Nolan's Nest & SPACE BBS is back up and on the Internet. Get online first, then telnet to spacebbs.no-ip.com. Not sure how to do that? Try opening this URL in your web browser: telnet://spacebbs.no-ip.com and see what happens.
The club also decided that, even if club members ourselves aren't using the BBS much, we would still like to use club funds to help support the operation of this BBS, because it's in the club's interest to see the continued operations of 8-bit Atari-based BBSs generally. I'm pleased the club has the funds available to do this!
We had a fine discussion about the Post Office box that the club has had for many years. Going into the discussion I had been thinking I was in favor of continuing the PO box, but in the discussion I was convinced otherwise. And we settled on Greg's home address as the new official club mailing address. I'm quite satisfied with this option. The club saves money, and Greg's address should be good as long as the club is around, so we should be set.
Lance provided an update on the ST CD-ROM project. Isn't this exciting? Stay tuned, the club may be releasing our first CD-ROMs for the Atari ST soon!
Finally we adjourned and held our auction. We went through another fine selection of Atari and Atari-related items. I know I went home excited with what I had purchased. I spent almost the entire rest of that weekend reading through the magazines I bought.
Other items still on the horizon include our huge collection of Dorsett Educational Tapes (Do we still want to try demoing these at a meeting?), and brainstorming any ideas for any extra special ways to celebrate SPACE's 20th birthday coming up this July. Finally, another reminder of my project to complete our collection of past SPACE newsletters. If you have any issues earlier than February 1986, please let me know, and consider contributing them back to the club so that we can complete our records of our own history.
Thanks, keep using that Atari, and come to your next SPACE meeting, Friday, February 8, 2002.
Our first SPACE meeting for the new year and if this is any indication on what this year will bring well just wait and see. Not only did most of our current members show up for the meeting, but we got other great news. Our BBS is back up, and the ST CD project is getting closer to completion. We are already discussing the layout on how we are going to present this CD, and we are going to try and make this a very attractive piece of software that any owner of an ST would want in his collection.
In addition of the good news above we also had a great auction in January and we cleared $93.00 to add to our Treasury. Thanks for all those who made the bidding lively and interesting. There were some really unbelievable purchases in this auction and if you weren't there you really missed out. Keep your eyes and ears open for the next SPACE auction which should take place in a few months.
Here is how the SPACE bank account looks after the January meeting.
Beginning balance as of January 1, 2002: 840.02 Receipts for January: Dom's 18.00 Memberships 30.00 Auction sales 93.00 Total Receipts for the January meeting: 141.00 Expenses for the January meeting: .00 Ending balance on January 31, 2002 981.02
What can I say but to thank you all for your continuing support of SPACE. How could you ever imagine that in the year 2002 here we are with a bank balance of almost $1,000.00 again. With your membership renewals and Dom sales along with the high hopes of a successful ST CD-ROM we can only expect a great future for this (our) club. Keep up the support and let's
have a wonderful Atari year.
Well, another year has come and gone and here we are still fourteen members strong. We are financially healthy facing 2002 and who knows for how many more years thereafter. Thanks to all the current and past members for another great year for SPACE.
I would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year and remind you that we kick off the new year with another auction. Please make the January meeting as we have more items for this auction than we have had in the past few auctions. If you are missing magazines this is the auction for you. There will also be some hardware items but mostly it will be software and mags.
Here is a look at the SPACE treasury for the period ended December 31, 2001.
Beginning balance on December 1, 2001 923.14 Receipts for the month of December: Membership renewals 15.00 Dom's 12.00 Total receipts: 27.00 Expenses for month of December: Room rental for the third quarter 75.00 Xmas party subs 35.12 Total expenses: 110.12 Ending balance for December 31, 2001 840.02
Thanks for a great Xmas party this year and also for your food contributions which made for a fulfilling meal. Hope to see you all at the January 2002 meeting.
Sadly due to the fact that my audio copy of the meeting got misplaced, I won't be able to report the minutes for the Janurary meeting until the March newsletter. I appologize for this inconvience.
Brian-Angel C. Little
SPACE Secretary
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--From: usenet-20020105@hias.horus.com (Matthias Reichl)
--Date: Sat, 05 Jan 2002 15:30:03 GMT
Hi!
I have uploaded a new tool to my homepage:
The basic purpose of WriteAtr is to dump a double density (180k) ATR-image to a 5.25" floppy disk in your PC, so that you can then put it in your Atari floppy drive and boot off it.
WriteAtr also supports the other direction: put a double density Atari floppy disk in your 5.25" PC disk drive and let WriteAtr convert it into an ATR-image.
However, there are several limitations to WriteAtr:
- First of all: double density.
(Note: double density means 720 sectors/256 bytes per sector disks) Since standard PC floppy controllers cannot access 128 bytes per sector Atari disks (eg single density/90k, enhanced density/130k), you need a true double density capable floppy drive on your Atari (for example a 1050 equipped with an US-Doubler/Happy/Speedy/Turbo modification).
The most important restriction to WriteAtr is, that it cannot be used with single/enhanced density ATRs and floppys, only with double density.
- WriteAtr can only be used in plain DOS.
Since WriteAtr has to reprogram the floppy controller, and therefore needs direct access to the hardware, it will _not_ run inside a Windows DOS-box!
Now that you have read so far, I will reward you with the URL :-) http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/writeatr-09beta.zip
Please note that WriteAtr is still beta! A detailed instruction on how to use WriteAtr is included in the zip-file (writeatr.doc).
It would be great if you could send me some feedback if WriteAtr works for you (indeed, even more interesting are the cases where WriteAtr does not work for you, so that I can fix it :)
so long & thanks for every response,
Hias
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--From: usenet-20020106@hias.horus.com (Matthias Reichl)
--Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 20:22:48 GMT
I've got several requests to support higher capacity disk drives, and therefore decided to upload a new preliminary version of WriteAtr (V0.91 beta) to my homepage.
The new version is designed to support the following formats:
- 360k DS/DD 5.25"
- 360k DS/DD 5.25", as used by the XF551 drive (reversed track order on side 2)
- 720k DS/DD 3.5"
- 1.44M DS/HD 3.5"
Have a look at the documentation included in the ZIP-file for more information.
Please note that I did not yet have the possibility to test the new code with real Atari disk drives, since I do not own a XF551 and currently don't have access to my 3.5" (HDI) drive. So, if possible, test it yourself, and email/post your experiences! (So far, I have only tested the code for 180k SS/DD 5.25" disks with my 1050 - and it seems to work)
If you are having troubles with V0.91 beta, please use the older version V0.9 beta.
You can download both versions from my homepage:
http://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/
so long,
Hias
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--From: "Steven J Tucker" <classics@atarimax.com>
--Date: Wed, 9 Jan 2002 18:20:41 -0500
A bugfix release for ATS (Atari Terminal Simulator) has been uploaded. This bug caused random hangs on some systems when trying to connect.
ATS is a full ATASCII telnet client with upload/download capability in Xmodem/Ymodem/Ymodem-Batch and F-Modem. ATS can also be used as a serial terminal if you want to use a real modem.
ATS also can playback ATASCII 'break movies'. A screensaver version of ATS is available as well. The download URL is:
http://www.atarimax.com/
* * Author of Imagic and APE - The Atari Peripheral Emulator! * *
* * * Turn your 8-bit Atari into a powerhouse with APE! * * *
* * * Ape Homepage: http://www.atarimax.com/ * * *
!! Request my *FOR SALE* LISTING OF CLASSIC VIDEO GAME STUFF -- 2000+ Items !!
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--From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
--Date: Wed, 23 Jan 2002 11:53:38 -0600 (CST)
The really neat game by Datamost is now finally available. It is a 16k game that is pretty close to the original floppy version, maybe just a little less color as you go thru the tunnel, otherwise it looks about the same. This game was always really fun for a early game, and I have been playing it on my 400, as well as my XE.
Thanks,
Lance
Video 61 & Atari Sales
22735 Congo ST NE
Stacy MN 55079
www.atarisales.com
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--From: Video61@webtv.net (Lance Ringquist)
--Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2002 18:29:37 -0600 (CST)
The original Parker Bros. cartridge release that never came is now finally available. We had some trouble with this one, but it is now working, and I have been playing it all day on my atari 400, and my XE. This is quite a game to be only 16k, and Atari should have released it, or pitfll II, or both with the XEGM, anyways it will work on any atari 16k or larger computer.
Thanks,
Lance
Video 61 & Atari Sales
22735 Congo ST NE
Stacy MN 55079
www.atarisales.com