More old school computing

 You might remember my first computer well my second computer was an Atari 130XE. It was the last of the 8 bit Atari computers. I got it for Christmas 1987 or '88, I don't remember which. This was fairly late in the lifespan of the Atari 8bit, the 130XE was released in '85 and discontinued in '92, quite a long life for an 8 bit machine.

Anyway in 1985 Atari also released it's first 16bit computer, the Atari ST. ST stands for "Sixteen/Thirty two" to reflect that the Motorola 68000 processor in the machine was 32bit internally but 16bit on the outside. The ST machines were a LOT more expensive than the 8bit and my friend Nate had an Atari 800XL so I wanted something where we could share games so I got the 130XE.

For 30+ years the ST has bugged me so this year, for reasons even I don't really understand, I went looking for an ST.

Locally I found a few 520ST models but with only half a megabyte of RAM I wasn't super excited by them. RAM upgrades are possible but challenging. The prices were also more than I wanted to pay. Eventually I opted for a 1040STf from The Brewing Academy. I opted to pay a little more for one that had been tested.

Apparently these came out of some educational environment which is reflected on the box.

The next job was to figure out how to hook it up. One nice thing about the 1040 is that it has it's power supply built in so only a normal power cable was required. 

The Atari ST's use a weird 13 pin DIN connector for the monitor. I found that the connectors were cheap on eBay and, not knowing if anything else about the machine would work out I decided to start by making my own cable.

Warning, these cables are very janky.

I found the pinouts on the internet.

My cables started life as a VGA cable that I then cut in half and soldered a DIN 13 end on to. The Atari ST has 3 graphics modes, 2 color and one monochrome. The 2 color modes synch at 15Khz which is out of range for most modern monitors. The first cable is my color cable, it wasn't too hard to make but I quickly discovered that I don't own anything it can sync to. The second cable is monochrome which was MUCH harder to make, many of the VGA pins have to tie together. A better way to do this would be to attach short leads to the DIN connector and the solder those to the ends on the VGA cable. I did manage to get the monochrome cable working though:

Notice the power light at the bottom left and the floppy drive light in the upper right.

A cool feature of the ST machines is "TOS in ROM" TOS is "The Operating System" (very clever Atari) and it lives in read-only memory (ROM) on the computer, meaning you don't need a disk to boot the machine.

The TOS desktop is similar to the Macintosh desktop of the period but with a lot more real estate. Macs of the period only had a 9" screen.

At this point I knew we had a runner so I ordered an Atari to VGA adapter.

The adapter cost as much as 10 of the DIN connectors I bought before but it also includes audio capability and with the push of a button can support both color and monochrome modes.

The setup every nerd in 1985 wished he could have had...

So, next steps: I need to get a working mouse. I was POSITIVE I had a PS2 mouse at home but I've looked all around and can't find one. I'm pretty sure I've got several at the office, I need to go there next week anyway. I did pick up a PS2 to Atari adapter, the Atari uses a 9 pin port, same as an Atari joystick port for the mouse. I might even spring for a wireless mouse, apparently the Atari serial port will supply enough power to run a wireless adapter but probably not enough for a USB mouse.

Then I need a way to get software to the Atari. Fortunately the ST will read PC floppy disks, unfortunately I don't have any floppy disk drives around anymore. I *might* have one in the office and I think Angie's office computer has one. Her office machine is due for replacement anyway so this might be the push to finally get that done. I don't really want a big tower machine here anymore but I wouldn't need it that long.

Eventually I play to get an Ultrasatan for this, it's an Atari ST to SD card adapter that can emulate floppy disks or hard drives. It'd be the easiest way to get software onto the machine. I'm also thinking it'd be good to get an Ethernet adapter and setup some kind of FTP server to move files. We'll see.

Finally I need to work out a monitor that can display a 15Khz signal. This shouldn't be too hard. I'm reasonably sure I recently e-wasted a bunch of them from the office. I'm hoping there is one left that I can haul home. Otherwise I'll probably buy a signal converter so I can use the little monitor in the picture above. I like the size of the monitor, it'd make a handy little setup. It has a composite port too so I can hook up my 8bit machines to it as well.

20 years

20 years ago at the end of September I married my best friend...

Gag. I mean it's true, but, so sappy.

We took last weekend as an anniversary get away.

We stayed at the Nutmeg Inn B&B in Meredith, NH. 

A nice little B&B, the building has been there since 1763. We stayed in the "Sugar Shack" which is next door to the inn. It's small, maybe 16x20, with a spiral staircase to the second floor.

The bed was comfortable, breakfast was good, what else could you ask for. Oh, it was charming, B&Bs are supposed to be charming. I don't get paid anything if you click the link. If you do end up going there maybe mention you read about it here. They're nice folks. The location is fantastic, easy access to both Meredith and Weirs Beach, not too far from Laconia.

We spent the day at the Funspot, "the worlds largest arcade". 

If you like arcades you owe it to yourself to go to the Funspot. Theres something like 600 arcade games, bowling, skee ball, and all the ticket barfing amusement you could want. The food is actually pretty good too, all things considered. We spent a HUGE amount of time there, like more time than I've ever spent in an arcade in one chunk. I discovered that my bride likes arcades as much as I do which was surprising to discover considering how long we've been together.

One game I really wanted to play was "Firetruck" 

This is one of the first games I remember from my childhood. It's a cool idea too, you collaborate to drive the firetruck with one driver in the front and one in the rear. Sadly this one didn't seem to be working for the rear driver, it was still kind of hilarious to try though.

Qbert is the first arcade game I ever remember playing. It was on the pier at Old Orchard beach back in the day when the last thing out on the pier was an arcade. That arcade closed over 30 years ago but I still remember being able to see through the boards in the floor down to the water.

Angie turns out to really like pinball and this is her favorite "Jokerz". It's a fairly advanced one which includes digitized speech.

Computer space is the first "video arcade game" as we know it today. This one wasn't working right but I'm given to understand it's quite a hard game anyway because the physics are realistic and, well reality is boring...

Dinner was on the "turkey train" put on by the Winnipesaukee Scenic Railroad. The turkey was from Hart's Turkey Farm which is just up the road.

We went all out, you really ought to dress up for these things. Many of our fellow diners looked like they had just rolled out of bed. I can't imagine going out to dinner in sweat pants.

Turkey dinner with all the fixings carved to order while trundling along in a 100 year old rail car. Pretty fun.

The railroad has an interesting story, it was bought by the state of New Hampshire after the old Boston and Maine gave it up and was eventually sold to a private investor who ran it until his death when his kids took it over. The "kids" are about my age but were only in their early 20s when they started running the thing. 

The whole trip takes 2 hours and covers maybe 8 or 9 miles. At one point we traveled beside the road where there was one of those speed tracker signs that listed us at 14mph.

We slept well that night, it had been a long, full day...

Solar logging

When you've got a camp in the woods you need to gather firewood. Conventional chainsaws are noisy and heavy and need gasoline. What about an electric? It wasn't so long ago I scoffed at the idea but advances in battery technology and brushless DC motors have made battery powered tools way more useful than ever before. It was more than a year ago now that dad bought a Bauer battery powered chainsaw from Harbor Freight.

This thing has surprised the heck out of me, it's a cheap saw, I think he paid $70 plus that much again for a battery and charger but it cuts wood pretty well. It's not a replacement for a big saw but it is super handy for cutting limbs or trimming trees. That said it'll cut some bigger wood. I've been using it to knock down some white birch we need out of the way and make some firewood as a side effect.

Pictured is the result of 2 batteries worth of work. The first battery took the trees down and bucked them to a length that would fit in the tractor bucket. The second battery cut to length. Most of this is small enough that it really doesn't need splitting but, as it's easy to do, I split most of it anyway. White birch holds water and will rot from the inside out if you let it.

The wood stove at camp is pretty small so I use this old axe handle as a measuring stick to ensure the wood is small enough to fit the firebox. The electric saw excels at shortening pieces that are too small, it's easy to handle and doesn't jump around a whole lot.

I've been charging the saw off of the solar power system in the camp so this is truly solar powered logging, well other than a little diesel for the tractor.

Makita makes a 36v (2x 18v batteries) saw that is said to rival gas powered units, I'm seriously thinking about getting one. It'd be handy to have in the groomer...