AspeQt is a cross-platform, free and open source Atari 8-bit serial peripheral emulator. The name is an acronym for Atari serial peripheral emulator for Qt, Qt being the cross-platform application development framework used by AspeQt.

AspeQt emulates various Atari 8-bit peripherals like disk drives and printers via an SIO-2-PC cable. If you are familiar with software like Sio2Pc, APE, Atari810, AtariSIO etc., you probably won’t have any problems getting used to AspeQt.

Even though AspeQt is not fully mature yet, it is easy to use and, despite its shortcomings, has many features that you may find useful, the highlights being:

• Up to 15 disk drive emulation.
• Up to 6x SIO speed (125,000bps)
• Support for ATR, XFD, PRO and ATX (preliminary) disk images.
• Mount folders as emulated disks.
• Disk image explorer.
• Directly boot Atari executables.
• Text only printer emulation with PC print, save, and ATASCII font support.
• Cassette image playback.
• Multilingual GUI (English, Polish, Slovak, German, Turkish and Russian)
• AspeQt client module (AspeCl) for Atari, communicates with the server and performs a variety of remote operations.

Changelog:

• Added an option (Options/Emulation menu) to selectively enable/disable filtering of underscore character from file names in Folder Images (Ray Ataergin)
• Fixed a problem where “Unmount All” menu item was only unmounting the first 8 images. (Marcin Sochacki)
• Updated Polish language translations (Marcin Sochacki – TheMontezuma)

Download:

• AspeQt v0.8.8 (Windows) (1041)
• AspeQt v0.8.8 Changelog (1022)
• AspeQt v0.8.5 Manual (English/German) (1592)

source: aspeqt.sourceforge.net

I have repaired an motherboard of a Commodore CBM 4008 for a friend. The computer at the start-up shows only a black screen

The components that have been replaced are:

• 1 x Video Ram 2114
• 2 x SN74LS244
• 1 x 6520

The computer after the repair works perfectly. You can see from the Photo.

Autopsy:

123►

from Wikipedia:

The Sinclair ZX80 is a home computer brought to market in 1980 by Science of Cambridge Ltd. (later to be better known as Sinclair Research). It is notable for being the first computer (unless one counts the MK14) available in the United Kingdom for less than a hundred pounds (£99.95). It was available in kit form, where purchasers had to assemble and solder it together and as a ready-built version at a slightly higher cost. The ZX80 was very popular straight away, and for some time there was a waiting list of several months for either version of the machine.

Internally, the machine was designed by Jim Westwood around a Z80 central processing unit with a clock speed of 3.25 MHz, and was equipped with 1 kB of static RAM and 4 kB of read-only memory (ROM). The ZX80 was designed around readily available TTL chips; the only proprietary technology was the firmware. While the successor ZX81 used a semi-custom chip (a ULA or Uncommitted Logic Array), this merely combined the functions of the earlier hardware onto a single chip — the hardware and system programs (except the BASIC versions) were very similar, with the only significant difference being the NMI-generator necessary for slow mode in the ZX81. (See ZX81 for technical details.) Both computers can be made by hobbyists using commercially available discrete logic chips or FPGAs.

The ROM contained the Sinclair BASIC programming language, editor, and operating system. BASIC commands were not entered by typing them out but were instead selected somewhat similarly to a scientific calculator – each key had a few different functions selected by both context and modes as well as with the shift key.

The machine was mounted in a tiny white plastic case, with a one-piece blue membrane keyboard on the front; it owed its distinctive appearance to industrial designer Rick Dickinson. There were problems with durability, reliability and overheating (despite appearances, the black stripes visible on the top rear of the case are merely cosmetic, and are not ventilation slots).

source: wikipedia

Autopsy:

123►

from Wikipedia:

The Enterprise is a Zilog Z80-based home computer first produced in 1985. It was developed by British company Intelligent Software and marketed by Enterprise Computers. Its two variants are the Enterprise 64, with 64 kilobytes (kB) of Random Access Memory (RAM), and the Enterprise 128, with 128 kB of RAM.

The Enterprise has a 4 megahertz (MHz) Z80 Central processing unit (CPU), 64 kB or 128 kB of RAM, and 32 kB of internal read-only memory (ROM) that contains the EXOS operating system and a screen editor / word processor. The BASIC programming language was supplied on a 16 kB ROM module.

Two application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) chips take some of the workload off of the central processor. They are named “Nick” and “Dave” after their designers, Nick Toop, who had previously worked on the Acorn Atom, and Dave Woodfield. “Nick” manages graphics, while “Dave” handles sound and memory paging (bank switching).

A bank switching scheme allows the memory to be expanded to a maximum of 4 megabytes (MB). The highest 2 address lines from the Z80 are used to select one of the four 8-bit Page Registers in Dave chip. The output from the selected register is used as the highest 8 bits of the 22-bit address bus, while the lowest 14 bits come directly from the Z80 address bus. Effectively, the 64 kB address space of the Z80 processor is divided into four 16k sections. Any 16k page from the 4 MB address space can be mapped to any of these sections. The lowest two pages (pages 0 and 1) of the 4 MB address space contain system ROM.

The next four pages (2 to 5) are reserved for a ROM cartridge (max 64 kB). The top four pages (pages 252 to 255, totaling 64 kB) are used as video RAM, but can be used for storage of program code and data as well. On the 128k model, the additional 64 kB of ram is mapped on pages 248 to 251. The remaining memory space can be used by external devices and memory modules connected to the expansion bus.

Loading a demo from Tape:

source: wikipedia ep128.hu

Homemade video connector for the computer Enterprise 64/128.

source: enterprise.iko.hu

I have repaired an Enterprise 64 (SixtyFour) for a friend. The defect via Composite or RF was a Black Screen but with the RGB output you could see a video signals without vertical sync.

The components that have been replaced are:

• 1 x BC337
• 1 x 74LS86 (HSync/VSync to Csync)
• 1 x 74LS32 (HSync/VSync to Csync)

The computer after the repair works perfectly. You can see from the Photo.

Download: Enterprise 64/128 Schematics (1083)

source: enterprise.iko.hu

Some new games (Cracked / Trained or Unrealeased) for Commodore 64 have been released from your favorites groups: INFERIOR Software International, Alakran, Laxity and Genesis Project.

Download:

• Asteroids Emulator (Build March 6, 2013) (957)
• Gold Quest 5 - Demo (926)
• Memotest [spanish] (939)
• Invasor +2 (957)
• Little Sara Sister Trilogy 101% [pal/ntsc] (1033)
• Little Sara Sister 2 (Sales Version) +8F [pal/ntsc] (898)
• All Games in One Archive (2350)

source: csdb.dk

Detailed photo:

I have used the CIF Power Clean and Sponge dishes, with the porous Bakelite (this keyboard) you can also use the rough side of the sponge without any problems. Don’t use the rough side with the plastic.

I have to thank Andrea for giving me this keyboard. The keyboard has replaced the wrong one of my 8296-D.

Autopsy:

The Crezar CRT is a portable B/W television with 12 Inches screen format.

The quality of the picture are good even with a non excellent black level stabilization feedback, however was very reliable and almost faultless. Crezar was a little Italian manufacturer of cheap television sets in the 70′s. Crezar was a combination of  “Crespi e Zaretti” from Milano.

Video:

Console Amstrad GX4000 Repaired.

The fault is was caused by a wrong power connection. It was ‘resting’ the power plug of 11v on the power plug of 5v (monitor input).

Replaced parts:

• 1 x Z80A
• 2 x RAM 41464P

The components have been recovered from the Amstrad 464+

TI-99/4A MBX Expansion System Repaired.

The interface MBX Expansion System was dead and the power voltage was in short-circuited. The failure was caused by the filter between the power supply and the 7805.

Video:

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Italian.

Stella release v3.8.1 for Linux, MacOS X and Windows is now available.

Changelog:

• Added support for TIA RSYNC writes, thanks to Omegamatrix of AtariAge. This allows the recently released “Extra Terrestrials” ROM to run, as well as improving emulation of “Fatal Run” and several other test ROMs.
• Fixed typo in TIA HMOVE writes, thanks to Thomas Jentzsch. This fixes the constant collision issues in “Kool-Aid Man”, and several other homebrew ROMs.
• Fixed sound issues on OSX PPC machines (all sound was in little-endian format, but PPC is big-endian).
• The OSX DMG archive now contains proper modification dates.

Download: Stella v3.81 (1207)

source: stella.sourceforge.net

Javatari is a multiplayer Atari 2600 emulator written in pure Java with no external libs.

Features:

• Unique Client-Server multiplayer mode. Runs great in low-latency networks such as LANs.
• Cheat and turn off Collisions. Finally discover the ending of River Raid!
• Complete Save State/Load State functions.
• Scanlines and TV screen emulation modes.
• Real Atari console user interface.

Changelog;

• Better compatibility in Linux and Mac OSX.
• AdAdded Joystick support (Windows and Linux):
  • Fully selectable axes with deadzone adjustment.
  • Paddles analog emulation with adjustable sensitivity and centering
  • Other console controls can be mapped to Joystick buttons

Download: Javatari JAR v3.10 (Needs Java 6) (821)

source: javatari.org