Atari 800, SIO2PC...a dream come true?

[zektor]

Amazing. I have been contemplating the purchase of an Atari 800 for quite some time (about 2 years), but either lost ebay auctions, or decided against it for one reason or another.

Well, I made the plunge, in a BIG way. I currently have an Atari 800XL, two 800's, one 400, two 810 drives, one 1050 Happy drive and a slew of disks and carts on their way to me. I did my research, read (and printed) the FAQ, and evetually found my way to the SIO2PC interface.

For those not aware, basically what this device does is to allow you to hook the Atari computer to your PC, and use it as a virtual disk drive (amongst other things). One simple example of what you can do here is use a program (APE) to mount a downloaded disk image and boot it up on the actual Atari computer.

What does this mean? AWESOME! I have hundreds of images sitting here on the HD that I have been playing for years through emulators. Imagine, I can boot them up right on the actual system...the way they were meant to be. If I acquired disks, I can re-create them. I can also take my current disks and dump them to images on the PC.

Probably old news for most, but this is just truly amazing to me. It's gotta take a whole lot of love for the good old Atari 8-bit for people to STILL invest time into it and create neat stuff like this. I have a feeling I am really going to like playing with this baby.

[Griking]

I'd love to find a easy to undertand faq explaining how I can do this for my Apple II. I've been dying to burn Apple II disk images to actual floppies for ages.

Can this kind of cable be purchased somewheres?

[blue lander]

SIO2PC works great, but it's a little cranky about what OS it will work with and what kind of parrallel card you use. Making the little hardware transceiver is pretty simple if you know any electronics, but it'd probably daunting to somebody who isn't (I assume you can buy them pre-made somewhere)? You also have to butcher a perfectly good SIO cable to get the connector unless you can find a place that sells 'em. Other than that, it's a terrific program.

As for the Apple ][, there's several ways to hook it up to your PC. The way I used was a simple cable that connects the joystick port of your Apple ][ to the parrallel port on your PC. As I recall it's a simple cable with no electronics or weird parts in it, all stuff you can get from Radio Shack. After you've made the cable and hook it up, you've got to manually type in a rather long assembly program into your Apple to download the initial program, but you only have to do that once.

I don't remember where I found the instructions (this was probably about 8 years ago that I did it), but it's simple and works with any Apple ][ that has the internal joystick port. There's other more elegant methods if you have a serial or parralel card.

[Nature Boy]

The Atari 8-bits are my *favourite* machines for retro gaming, bar none. It's easily the PC & PSP emulator I play with most often.

The SIO2PC cable gets me absolutely *giddy* every time I think about it. The best part about it is that you no longer have to worry about the belts on your disk drives failing, although being able to organize a massive collection using directories and whatever naming convention you choose is also a huge plus.

I'm also a big fan of the "AtariMax" carts - an 8MB cart holds something like 40-50 exes on it, which is handy when you don't want your PC connected for a quick game, plus I normally play the same 50 or so games all the time anyway, so I really only need the PC when I want to be adventuresome :)

There are a lot of really great things out there for us. Even the emulators are a boon, as you can manipulate disks and stuff much faster than with the real hardware (I save using the real hardware for gaming :) ).

[zektor]

Yep, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing honestly. I do have a few hundred disks coming to me, and if they are originals that are not archived...well then I have a new project. I have a 1050 with a Happy mod coming too, so now I have the arsenal (or I believe I do?) to do some serious archiving. I would definitely want to use the equipment I acquired to help preserve these floppy based programs and games. What a great thing just to think that I may be able to help keep these programs alive for eternity :)

[boatofcar]

My ultimate retro gaming dream is to have a SIO2PC setup. Right now, I'm just limited by space constraints. You know about this site, right?

http://vjetnam.hopto.org/


So, so many games.... :)

[Goblin]

Welcome to the club zektor. I had the same feeling when I discovered in some years back.



My ultimate retro gaming dream is to have a SIO2PC setup. Right now, I'm just limited by space constraints.

Depending on which 8-bit system you choose, space shouldn't be an issue. I built one directly into a 130XE a few years ago so I didn't need to worry about locating an SIO cable. I have a DB-9 carefully built into the back so I just need to connect it to the PC to be off an playing.

Last year when I managed to locate a few SIO cables I made a second interface so I could play with my 800 and my XE GS. SIO2PC is fantastic for anyone who grew up with an 8-bit. I had tons of games, mostly copies back in the day and when I fire this up I get the sense of nostalgia. I love being able to play the real games on the real hardware.

I also own an atarimax cart and agree that they are great too. I keep meaning to buy a few of the 8Mb carts, but keep holding off hoping that he will make a USB cartridge like he did for the 5200.

[boatofcar]

The problem for me is just having the space to keep another computer hooked up. I can't play my 1200XL hooked up to a TV, it just doesn't feel right!

[zektor]

Talk about bumping an old thread! Steven Tucker over at AtariMax has recently released something that I wanted way back in 2006...an SIO2PC USB interface. I ordered one of these and can't wait until it arrives. Atari 800 still kickin! Maybe it's time to set up a BBS :)

I still wish I could find just as easy of a way to do this with the Amiga. Does anybody know anything about that?

[oesiii]

All of Atarimax's products are top of the line. He has some neat 32in1 OS upgrades that really help with game compatibility issues. I've had a sio2usb solution for my Macs for a few years now but it's a little rigged. Sio2osX is the software and you use the same serial sio2pc cable but with a Mac serial to usb adapter. I wonder if that would have worked on a PC, but you don't have to worry about that now. http://www.atarimac.com/sio2osx.php

I haven't run into a sio2pc solution for the Amiga. That community has always been focused on getting the games to be stored and loaded from Amiga hard drives. There's probably also some technical issues with the Amiga floppy format as usual. The C64 does have sio2pc-type software with the 64HDD software and a xe1541 cable. I haven't used my C64 setup in years but I have all that hardware too.

[icbrkr]

I'd love to find a easy to undertand faq explaining how I can do this for my Apple II. I've been dying to burn Apple II disk images to actual floppies for ages.

Can this kind of cable be purchased somewheres?

There's a couple of hardware solutions (CF adapters) but if you want to do it via stuff you have lying around you can...

1. Get an old 68xxx or PowerPC based Mac (before G3).
2. Get an Apple IIgs
3. Get a localtalk cable and run between the two. You can then use the networking capabilities of the AppleIIgs to mount the Mac's drive on you desktop. Using I think Aladdin (it's been awhile since I did any of this) you can make the images on your IIgs.

For the Amiga side of things, you can use Cloantro's Amiga Explorer over nullmodem cable, if you have an A1200 w/4MB of RAM you can use a PCMCIA based NIC and FTP the stuff across, and on any big-box Amiga with 4MB or more you can get an Xsurf or such to move files across. Come to think of it, you can also use a Laplink cable between the miggy and a PC away... it's kind of flakey, but I did this until I could get a real NIC.