This year I've really gotten into improving video graphics on older systems. It started by adding an RGB/SCART connection to a north american Sony Trinitron Television. I first used this with an Apple IIgs, here is a video comparing Composite VS RGB: https://www.jeffquast.com/IMG_7674.mov

I then decided CRT was better than HDMI, and acquired a 13" television, replaced the logic board with one from Aliexpress, and used it for my Apple ][e instead of the cheap AV2HDMI adapter I had used previously: https://www.jeffquast.com/hdmi_vs_composite.png

And then I acquired a Sega Genesis, something nice about the Genesis (and the Master System before it), is that they offer RGB output natively, here is a comparison against composite in Sonic: https://www.jeffquast.com/CompositeVsRGB.mp4

I then modified an original front-loader Nintendo for RGB output, first with a 3rd party Power board that removes some noise, then with the famous NESRGB 4.1 mod, 4 stages of upgrades compared here: https://www.jeffquast.com/NESRGB_Compared.png

I acquired an Atari 1200XL for a meager $40, and not to be outshined by the Nintendo, I performed the "Super Video 2.1XL Mod" described in "The 8-bit Alchemist", Atari Classics Vol. 2 No. 6 December 1993, it was just a matter of changing/adding a few resistors, I guess Atari really rushed it to production because this was a very simple mod that cost just pennies https://www.jeffquast.com/Atari1200XL_SuperVIdeo2.1XL_Before_and_After.png

Same for the VIC-20, although the AV Connector and the "VIC" chip both supported seperate Chroma/Luma (S-Video) connection, it just wasn't wired, there is a simple circuit modification but I opted to use a 3rd party "ClearVideo for VIC-20" (from JaystoniansRetroShop, etsy) for $30 which bypasses the RF circuit entirely, further reducing interference, the results: https://www.jeffquast.com/VIC20_ClearVideo_Mod_Before_and_After.png

Finally, I modified my Atari 7800 with a UAV "Ultimate Atari Video" board, instead of RF output it now has Composite and S-Video, though I have not yet tested S-Video it is still half-open awaiting the S-Video jack, the RF vs. composite is already very stunning: https://www.jeffquast.com/Atari7800UAVRFvsComposite.mp4

Another "mod" I performed on the Sega Genesis is to add a switch to make it 10Mhz. In 2-player Sonic my nephew commented, "Why is it so slow!" and I promised him I could fix it, and fix it I did, see the evidence! https://www.jeffquast.com/GenesisOverclocked10Mhz.mp4

Anyway, that's been my summer adventures in improving old retro computer and video game systems. I highly recommend some of these, they are very cost effective. The NESRGB4.1 + NES Power "Companion" module was close to $160 and I wouldn't really recommend spending so much for the NES unless you really, really like the NES! But most other mods can be done for under $30, even just a few pennies, for those I highly recommend it! And I also suggest surfing your local markets for 4:3 CRT's, especially those that can be modified for RGB/SCART input! We really missed out on high quality graphics in North America, the Europeans really had it good with SCART connectors.

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

This year I've really gotten into improving video graphics on older systems. It started by adding an RGB/SCART connection to a north
american Sony Trinitron Television. I first used this with an Apple
IIgs, here is a video comparing Composite VS RGB:

I'm into this as well to a much lesser degree. I have a lot of consoles which I have modded to be able to use component cables. I have a pretty excellent decent size CRT TV for the consoles and the difference between component and composite is stunning.

I haven't done RGB mods. I was reading a lot that said component will basically get me there, but I'm skeptical. My TV doesn't have any SCART inputs (at least, I don't think so, I should check lol).

Do you think it's possible to increase the quality beyond component?

My Apple IIGS has a native Apple monitor and it looks amazing. I have modded the hell out of that computer...custom PSU, accelerator, ethernet, floppy emu, hdd emu, sound card...it's a trip. Really love playing Oregon Trail on that one hehe.

I just picked up an actual Apple CD-ROM intended as an addon for the IIGS. Has the same case style and color. Looks super cool.

I then decided CRT was better than HDMI, and acquired a 13" television, replaced the logic board with one from Aliexpress, and used it for my Apple ][e instead of the cheap AV2HDMI adapter I had used previously:

Which logic board and TV did you use?

I'd really like to find a decent size Sony PVM or similar for my retro gaming. I have an auto-switch for my component cables and it's nice having everything going into a single TV set.

I then modified an original front-loader Nintendo for RGB output, first

I'm in the process of building an NES from scratch using one of the slightly updated mainboards that have been designed by the community. This is taking some time though, there are a ton of parts. The only thing I needed to cannibalize from an OG NES was the APU if I remember correctly.

Another "mod" I performed on the Sega Genesis is to add a switch to make it 10Mhz. In 2-player Sonic my nephew commented, "Why is it so slow!"
and I promised him I could fix it, and fix it I did, see the evidence!

Can you switch this in game or is it something that needs to be done before turning it on?

Something I'd like to do is the Sega Neptune thing - basically a project to combine the Genesis and 32X in a single console. There are some modders that have pulled this off and it's doable now and looks very slick.

I also picked up an adapter to allow me to use flashcarts to play all Genesis/Megadrive games, 32x games, CD games, and 32x+CD games. It is a real pain in the ass though because the adapter to allow you to do this, which plugs into the CD connector port thingie, was only made as a one-off run and they're super rare and expensive and frankly look like shit. Oh well.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

on 14 Sep 2024, dingo said...

This year I've really gotten into improving video graphics on older systems.

Man, that's quite an impressive list. That was ALL this year?!

The only similar thing I've done recently was install an "RGBtoHDMI" in one of my Amiga 500s. Man, what a fantastic piece of kit that is. Regardless of the fact that sticking a Pi 0 strictly for video conversion into a machine far, far less powerful than feels hilariously silly, the picture quality is incredible. I had been playing with a SCART to VGA via an OSSC and RGB to VGA using a GBS-8200 (sans GBS-Control) which were both... fine, but this is next level. It's a pity its not available for AGA Amigas.

That said, I still vastly prefer the picture of old microcomputers when used with more or less period correct displays. I've got a Commodore 2002/1080 that I use for my Amigas via RGB, and a nice 17" CRT I use for my retro PCs. If I hadn't sold off all of my older consoles years back, I'm sure I'd still have a CRT TV as well, but if I did, perhaps I'd be searching for similar mods to improve picture quality on them.

Oh, a little less retro, but I forgot I recently acquired an ElectronXout (Xbox2HDMI) for my original Xbox. I've not even tested it yet, though. Honestly, my old HD Link cable by Pound is pretty decent as it is, but this is supposedly better in every way, particularly for the price point.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

On Saturday, September 14th esc said...

I haven't done RGB mods. I was reading a lot that said component will basically get me there, but I'm skeptical. My TV doesn't have any SCART inputs (at least, I don't think so, I should check lol).

Only if you are in Europe. They never happened in north america. Check your TV's in sunthar's database if you're interested, https://sector.sunthar.com/guides/crt-rgb-mod/moddable.html that's basically how I shop for TV's now.

Do you think it's possible to increase the quality beyond component?

from a score of 0 to 10, 0 being RF and 10 being RGB, Composite is a 2 and component is an 8. RGB is better but only slightly. Just going beyond RF or Composite is good enough for me, especially for 8-bit consoles. I just happened to RGB mod a Sony TV so I match that. S-Video is good enough for me in most cases, my eyesight isn't so great.


On Saturday, September 14th esc muttered...

My Apple IIGS has a native Apple monitor and it looks amazing. I have modded the hell out of that computer...custom PSU, accelerator, ethernet, floppy emu, hdd emu, sound card...it's a trip. Really love playing Oregon Trail on that one hehe.

My IIgs isn't that well modified, I use a ReActiveMicro Drive, Garret's RAM2GS, and share the floppyemu with my other apples. It really is too bad the platform was nerfed for its time. Something to be said about maintaining backwards compatability--most publishers chose to make traditional 8-bit Apple 2 software for higher sales of more users rather than make 16-bit exclusive titles. The Amiga and IBM-PC really whooped its butt, but its a fine system that should have gotten more attention. I had read that the IIGS was intentionally nerfed so as to not outclass the Macintosh, and started to believe it, a good video went into depth about it lately as a myth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDUQEKxfGEw

It has the same CPU as Super Nintendo, if it had more graphics-specific hardware and a higher clockspeed we could have taken a share of the accolades that SNES had.


On Saturday, September 14th esc was heard saying...

acquired a 13" television,

replaced the logic board with one from Aliexpress

Which logic board and TV did you use?

Just search "CRT TV Board" on Aliexpress, just match the number of pins on the back of the CRT tube and the screen size, I followed Adrian's Digital Basement's guide for modifying 220->110, just replace one large cap with two smaller ones, and some of the sellers will do that for you, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoqflFfvkR0
https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-CRT-TV-Board.html

On Saturday, September 14th esc was heard saying...

Another "mod" I performed on the Sega Genesis is to add a switch
to make it 10Mhz.

Can you switch this in game or is it something that needs to be done before turning it on?

So, I added a HALT switch, which grounds the clock signal, in theory you can enable HALT, change the clockspeed, then disable HALT to change the clockspeed while the game is running. In practice it only works 10% of the time, the game doesn't usually un-HALT, but maybe I mis-wired it? Hard to say there isn't a lot of detailed guides/schematics on that mod. Anyway it works fine turning on the system at the overclocked 10Mhz so I just do that. Haven't had any problems with any games so far, that's why I chose 10Mhz it appears to be good enough to remove delays in games like Sonic but not too fast to cause some games to crash.


Twas Saturday, September 14th when esc said...

I also picked up an adapter to allow me to use flashcarts to play all Genesis/Megadrive games, 32x games, CD games, and 32x+CD games. It is a real pain in the ass though because the adapter to allow you to do this, which plugs into the CD connector port thingie, was only made as a one-off run and they're super rare and expensive and frankly look like shit. Oh well.

I considered krikzz.com everdrives, but they're too god damned expensive. I had a Sega CD as a kid, somebody sold me theirs not long after release for a meager $20, and the titles were shit! I don't miss any of them. Never had a 32x (or even knew it existed) but there were only 40 tiles in total and I looked them up and they didn't seem anything spectacular. I went with aliexpress megadrive clone for about $35.

I've only put a total of $65 into my Sega and I'm happy with it, and I got another Sega model 1 for free that was broken, just replaced all the capacitors, about 40, a lot of work, but it fixed it. I'd have been real sad if it didn't, but that's why I like these older consoles, I'm not an electronics engineer by training but these old systems are easy to repair. I buy them "FOR PARTS" or "UNTESTED" for cheap and can usually repair them, though most of the time they work perfectly fine they just didn't have the cables to test them with.

My nephew is really into this stuff, I got a broken game gear for free. They are *all* broken right now, the capacitors used were very leaky and few of them lasted more than 10 years. I was going to repair it myself but I didn't want to permenently damage it, the components are very tiny and I haven't got the premium equipment, "hot tweezers" and digital magnifiers and the like, so I sent it to retrosix.co.uk instead. But its costing me close to $150 just for the capacitor repair and another $150 for rechargable USB, new case lens etc. Kind of regretting spending so much, I had one of those as a kid and they're not very good, but my nephew is really excited for it, I hope his excitement remains for the ~9 weeks it takes to get repaired!

We took my nephew to Vintage Computer Festival Midwest last weekend, he had a blast, and I bought an Amiga 500 something I've wanted for a long time. He got a bunch of old tablets from the "Free Pile", he's even happier about that.

--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

Only if you are in Europe. They never happened in north america. Check your TV's in sunthar's database if you're interested, https://sector.sunthar.com/guides/crt-rgb-mod/moddable.html that's basically how I shop for TV's now.

Yeah that's what I figured. Or the Japanese SCART that isn't SCART thing.

I can't remember which TV I have but I recall it was rather sought after, and I found a guy trying to get rid of it like 20 minutes away. It's in pristine condition and even has the original swivel base. I hit the jackpot.

from a score of 0 to 10, 0 being RF and 10 being RGB, Composite is a 2
and component is an 8. RGB is better but only slightly. Just going
beyond RF or Composite is good enough for me, especially for 8-bit consoles. I just happened to RGB mod a Sony TV so I match that. S-Video
is good enough for me in most cases, my eyesight isn't so great.

Ok cool, this is good enough for me. I really don't want to risk screwing up this TV, and the games all look amazing.

One weird thing is my OG XBox's output goes off screen a bit on the top and bottom. No idea how to fix that, and I don't want to adjust my screen resolution for every single console every time I fire it up. So I just deal with it.

However, my XBox is dope, has a ton done to it :)

Just search "CRT TV Board" on Aliexpress, just match the number of pins
on the back of the CRT tube and the screen size, I followed Adrian's Digital Basement's guide for modifying 220->110, just replace one large cap with two smaller ones, and some of the sellers will do that for you, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoqflFfvkR0 https://www.aliexpress.us/w/wholesale-CRT-TV-Board.html

Wow, this is fascinating. Rabbit hole, here I come...

Anyway it works fine turning on the system at the overclocked 10Mhz so I just do that. Haven't had any problems with any games so far, that's why
I chose 10Mhz it appears to be good enough to remove delays in games
like Sonic but not too fast to cause some games to crash.

Gotcha. Ok. So yeah, looks like it'd be cool for me to do the OC mod with an external switch that I only use when the console is off.
I'll have to research this.

I considered krikzz.com everdrives, but they're too god damned
expensive. I had a Sega CD as a kid, somebody sold me theirs not long after release for a meager $20, and the titles were shit! I don't miss
any of them. Never had a 32x (or even knew it existed) but there were
only 40 tiles in total and I looked them up and they didn't seem
anything spectacular. I went with aliexpress megadrive clone for about $35.

Yeah everdrives are super costly. I justify it by saying I'll never need another cart for that system. *shrug*

The 32X had some cool titles. There was a Sonic one IIRC. And the CD had some neat FMV centric games, since at the time everyone thought FMV gaming was the future. Nevertheless I enjoy 'em.

I've only put a total of $65 into my Sega and I'm happy with it, and I
got another Sega model 1 for free that was broken, just replaced all the capacitors, about 40, a lot of work, but it fixed it. I'd have been real sad if it didn't, but that's why I like these older consoles, I'm not an electronics engineer by training but these old systems are easy to
repair. I buy them "FOR PARTS" or "UNTESTED" for cheap and can usually repair them, though most of the time they work perfectly fine they just didn't have the cables to test them with.

I've done the same. In fact I bought an "Apple Pippin" console which didn't work, gave it a recap, et voila, it works! But it's a total piece of crap :P

My nephew is really into this stuff, I got a broken game gear for free. They are *all* broken right now, the capacitors used were very leaky and few of them lasted more than 10 years. I was going to repair it myself
but I didn't want to permenently damage it, the components are very tiny and I haven't got the premium equipment, "hot tweezers" and digital magnifiers and the like, so I sent it to retrosix.co.uk instead. But its costing me close to $150 just for the capacitor repair and another $150 for rechargable USB, new case lens etc. Kind of regretting spending so much, I had one of those as a kid and they're not very good, but my
nephew is really excited for it, I hope his excitement remains for the
~9 weeks it takes to get repaired!

I /love/ retrosix. That guy does amazing work. I've built a handful of game gears myself recently. In fact, there's a guy that makes an entirely new PCB for it and I have one. I just have to source one original chip from a real game gear to make it work. I haven't been able to figure this out yet. I burned two game gears in the process. I think my hot air gun must be running too hot and frying the chip or something. It's a delicate operation...

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

On Sunday, September 15th esc said...

One weird thing is my OG XBox's output goes off screen a bit on the top and bottom. No idea how to fix that, and I don't want to adjust my screen resolution for every single console every time I fire it up. So I just deal with it.

Most television have a "service mode", a combination of buttons that you press on a TV remote, its just a menu that lets you adjust the advanced settings like vertical size, position, offset, that would let you fix that. Just search for your TV model with phrase "service mode" and you should find it. There are plenty of adjustments to make.

I played an RPG title, "Phantasy Star" and noticed a strange warp effect, some tiles at the top and bottom were larger than the center, sort of felt like moving through a convex sphere or something, but I was able to fix that with the "service menu"

There is also the very popular "240p test suite" and that helps make adjustments. The most difficult adjustment is "convergence", I've spent well over an hour on that while adjusting the sliders along the tube to try to get the "whitest whites" of pixels. I learned to just focus on the center of the tube, and that there will be some warping along the edges, and to ignore that.

I also brought my custom aliexpress TV to "Southeast Michigan Vintage Computer Festival", along with an "Oscilloscope Music" display that was featured at the beginning of their "Recap" video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26EJmSwxLTc but I also learned that I should have applied a few dabs of hot glue on those sliders because they must have vibrated off calibration in the drive!

I got way too deep into CRT's and retro video game systems this year :) I have about 15 CRT's in the house, now. I need to get rid of the largest ones!




--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

Twas Sunday, September 15th when jack phlash said...

Man, that's quite an impressive list. That was ALL this year?!

Yes.. I'm not employed so I had plenty of time :) something to stay busy

The only similar thing I've done recently was install an "RGBtoHDMI" in one of my Amiga 500s. Man, what a fantastic piece of kit that is. Regardless of the fact that sticking a Pi 0 strictly for video conversion into a machine far, far less powerful than feels hilariously silly, the picture quality is incredible. I had been playing with a SCART to VGA via an OSSC and RGB to VGA using a GBS-8200 (sans GBS-Control) which were both... fine, but this is next level. It's a pity its not available for AGA Amigas.

I just picked up my first Amiga, a 500, I'm pretty excited for it, I've wanted one for ~20 years and they always get more expensive all the time, but considering inflation-adjusted prices they've finally levelled off and accelerators have gotten cheap. I went with a PiStorm accelerator which, like you said, seems ridiculous putting a raspberry pi inside of a retro computer, but it gives me a hard disk, cpu acceleration, wifi, hdmi, kickstart selection... all that would cost 5x the price with traditional addons, its nice to get all this under $100.

I guess the HDMI output is only for RTG graphics, so I guess only some games(?) would output to HDMI, but they are working on a way to extract native video and feed it into the camera i2c of the pi to carry out of its HDMI port..

Not sure what I will do in the meantime, I do have the one RGB/SCART television I'm sharing with sega, snes, nintendo, IIgs.. I think I will just get an SCART cable, and it's probably about time to get an SCART switcher, I'm getting tired of swapping cables!

I do have some Sony Trinitron CRT's, but the cost of flickerfixer/scandoublers are so great, its probably cheaper (and just as good?) to use RGB2HDMI, and then an HDMI2VGA adapter? I don't know... Amiga's are difficult because everything is from europe, and there is certainly a lot of jargon to learn, I just want to play some games!! :)

Anyway just in time for the winter, i'm at the 45th parallel and leaves just started falling this week, so I'll be happy to have something to busy myself with all winter


--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

on 17 Sep 2024, dingo said...

I just picked up my first Amiga, a 500, I'm pretty excited for it, I've wanted one for ~20 years and they always get more expensive all the
time, but considering inflation-adjusted prices they've finally levelled off and accelerators have gotten cheap. I went with a PiStorm
accelerator which, like you said, seems ridiculous putting a raspberry
pi inside of a retro computer, but it gives me a hard disk, cpu acceleration, wifi, hdmi, kickstart selection... all that would cost 5x the price with traditional addons, its nice to get all this under $100.

I was in a similar boat. I'd always been into Amiga stuff but never actually owned one myself until ~2019. Now I own 5 of them damn things. :P I still have a lot to learn and explore on them, but they really are awesome machines.

Oh yeah, the PiStorm is awesome, and a great value to boot. I personally prefer purpose built stuff, largely because I don't have any real desire to push the CPU to insane limits or otherwise absolutely annihilate the original performance specs, but that's just personal preference, of course. I'm using an Individual Computers ACA500Plus on my main 500, which I absolutely love - let's me crank its 68HC000 up as high as 42mhz which is a huge performance jump for a 500. I'm also going to put together a new 1200 build soon (tm) which will have a legit rev6 50mhz 68060 in it, and that's probably about as crazy as I'm going to get.

I guess the HDMI output is only for RTG graphics, so I guess only some games(?) would output to HDMI, but they are working on a way to extract native video and feed it into the camera i2c of the pi to carry out of
its HDMI port..

Not really any Amiga games, just ports of games that work better on DOS or Window, for the most part. :/ Esc can talk more about that though - he's much more into the even more fringe, higher performance side of Amiga than I am and I'm sure has played way too much Quake II on an Amiga for his own good. ;)

But yeah, I know those Vampire cards had a similar limitation for the longest time, they had the incredibly kludgey solution of using two separate video outs, but they relatively recently figured out how to make it all work in one.

I do have some Sony Trinitron CRT's, but the cost of flickerfixer/scandoublers are so great, its probably cheaper (and just
as good?) to use RGB2HDMI, and then an HDMI2VGA adapter? I don't know... Amiga's are difficult because everything is from europe, and there is certainly a lot of jargon to learn, I just want to play some games!! :)

Yeah, that's a definitely a concern, as is finding one that's actually good. I'd highly recommend the RGBtoHDMI - it's cheap, easy to install (and without any real modifications) and I *believe* I've read that they can be used alongside a PiStorm but... you'll probably need to confirm that. You might at least need to use a different shaped locater to get them both to fix at once.

Anyway just in time for the winter, i'm at the 45th parallel and leaves just started falling this week, so I'll be happy to have something to
busy myself with all winter

Nice!

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

I just picked up my first Amiga, a 500, I'm pretty excited for it

I went with a PiStorm accelerator which, like you said, seems ridiculous di> putting a raspberry pi inside of a retro computer, but it gives me a hard di> disk, cpu acceleration, wifi, hdmi, kickstart selection...

I guess the HDMI output is only for RTG graphics

Not sure what I will do in the meantime, I do have the one RGB/SCART television I'm sharing with sega, snes, nintendo, IIgs..

I do have some Sony Trinitron CRT's, but the cost of flickerfixer/scandoublers are so great, its probably cheaper (and just
as good?) to use RGB2HDMI, and then an HDMI2VGA adapter? I don't know...

Kudos for your find - I *like* using current-day solutions to old issues, like the Pi-Storm and all the other 'things'... I try to hold on to legacy hardware/add-ons, but I'm all for using current tech to make our retro easier to use and stronger.

Let us know what you get into w/ your 500 - I hope to dive into [true hardware] Amiga sometime soon... for now, I love my PiMiga. :P



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

I was in a similar boat. I'd always been into Amiga stuff but never actually owned one myself until ~2019. Now I own 5 of them damn things.
:P I still have a lot to learn and explore on them, but they really are awesome machines.

Ok buddy - I think you can let one go down to Portland for some paulie420 fun!! :P

Oh yeah, the PiStorm is awesome, and a great value to boot. I personally prefer purpose built stuff, largely because I don't have any real desire to push the CPU to insane limits or otherwise absolutely annihilate the original performance specs, but that's just personal preference, of course.

I can appreciate that, but as I mentioned to dingo I like to use all the current-day stuff to make life easier. I archive and KEEP old hardware - and even have some great legacy accelerator cards for my Apple IIe hardware - but I'm not scared to use the new stuffs.

I'd highly recommend the RGBtoHDMI - it's cheap, easy to install (and jp> without any real modifications) and I *believe* I've read that they can jp> be used alongside a PiStorm but...

I have a couple systems that use RGBtoHDMI - again w/ the Apple IIe... on another Atari joint I went w/ the cheaper SCART option - but needed to get adapters to break out to my U.S.A. spec.



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

on 17 Sep 2024, paulie420 said...

Ok buddy - I think you can let one go down to Portland for some
paulie420 fun!! :P

I've been thinking about letting one of my A500s go. If I decide to, I'll think of you first. :)

I can appreciate that, but as I mentioned to dingo I like to use all the current-day stuff to make life easier. I archive and KEEP old hardware - and even have some great legacy accelerator cards for my Apple IIe hardware - but I'm not scared to use the new stuffs.

Yep, I'm with you, though I should say that the card I mentioned is, in fact, current-day. It simply isn't trying to break the record for the world's fastest 680x0 Amiga or something, unlike projects like the Vampire or the Buffee. I'm also definitely throwing the PiStorm/Emu68 into that category, but I don't really know if having insane performance was one of the goals of that project, or just a happy coincidence.

Anyway, my preference here doesn't have anything to do with a reluctance to use new stuff. The RGBtoHDMI I mentioned is "new stuff." The ACA500Plus is "new stuff." The TF1260 my 68060 is in is "new stuff." The Parceiro II+ I just tested with my Amiga 1000 on Sunday night is "new stuff". It's just a personal choice to draw a line to prevent drifting too ridiculously far outside of classic specs of these machines.

That is, to me, part of the fun of playing with an Amiga 500, for instance, is to... play with an Amiga 500. If I stick something in it to make it run faster than literally any 680x0 processor *ever* made in it, it's badass, it's cool, it's a fun project, it might be much more convenient to not have to wait as long on compiles or renders or whatever, but I'm not so sure I'm getting anything close to a genuine experience. Even with the machine I'm running the 68060 in, while that's a relatively crazy setup, it's still something someone who took their hobby *way* too seriously could have run in the 90s.

Of course, where to draw that line is totally subjective - I don't stray away from modern conveniences. I use GoTeks for floppy emulation (in addition to real floppies, on occasion) and solid state hard disks and/or transfer disks in all of my Amigas too.

I totally (well, mostly) get the drive to want to make old hardware do ridiculous shit that its designers never dreamed of too. Esc and I have talked about this a lot, and he leans more in that direction, but I'm just trying to upgrade my stuff to a reasonable degree, add some modern conveniences, and call it a day. :)

I have a couple systems that use RGBtoHDMI - again w/ the Apple IIe... on another Atari joint I went w/ the cheaper SCART option - but needed to
get adapters to break out to my U.S.A. spec.

I know people use them with various other systems (I believe before the Amiga, even) but hadn't heard much about how they do - what do you think of it?

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

I got way too deep into CRT's and retro video game systems this year :)
I have about 15 CRT's in the house, now. I need to get rid of the
largest ones!

If you ever find one that can do 15khz, 24khz, 31khz, let me know. I need all three for my Sharp X68000 :)

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

Ok buddy - I think you can let one go down to Portland for some
paulie420 fun!! :P

I have two A1200s but only need one. However neither are stock and thus are costly :P but let me know if you're interested in one.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

I've been thinking about letting one of my A500s go. If I decide to,
I'll think of you first. :)

Ahhhh - please do. While I prefer finding an a1200 or a600, it would be awesome to get hands on the earlier Amiga's too. :P

That is, to me, part of the fun of playing with an Amiga 500, for instance, is to... play with an Amiga 500. If I stick something in it to make it run faster than literally any 680x0 processor *ever* made in it, it's badass, it's cool, it's a fun project

I agree. I like to both have a working legacy example, but then using all the ammunition of current-day solutions to make life easier. I like to get the legacy hardware working, then pull it out and store it - and use the current-day stuff for day-to-day use.

Thanks for sharing all the stuff you're playing w/ on your Amiga hardware!



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

Ok buddy - I think you can let one go down to Portland for some paulie420 fun!! :P

I have two A1200s but only need one. However neither are stock and thus are costly :P but let me know if you're interested in one.

Damn - I *do* have interest, but have been struggling lately. Shoot me a msg on Discord and lemme know what one compromises of and what the damage might be.

I understand - as I have a bunch of retro's that I've poured $$ into getting them up to date. I have trade stuff, too, but know that we all like exactly what we like.

I'll remember to reach out - as an a1200 is exactly where I'd love to jump into!



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

on 18 Sep 2024, paulie420 said...

Ahhhh - please do. While I prefer finding an a1200 or a600, it would be awesome to get hands on the earlier Amiga's too. :P

Yeah, I think the a1200 is the best of all worlds. Even stock, it's a lot faster and otherwise more capable than the OCS machines like the 1000 and 500, and there's a lot of great expansion options for it to really go crazy with, all in a relatively small form factor. They can run newer AGA games and while they run newer OS versions that might not be compatible with many of the classic Amiga games, they can also run WHDLoad which more or less solves that issue.

Unfortunately 1200s seem to be semi-rare in the US. Most of the ones floating around are PAL, which isn't really a bad thing in Amiga land, but still. If you ever end up wanting to shell out the cash for one, I see them pop up on eBay fully loaded with mods and whatnot for a decent (not cheap, but not insane) price fairly often. I think people might be buying them cheap from Europe, cleaning them up, chucking a few simple mods in them (like the popular TF1230, for instance) and then reselling them for a profit... but then again, maybe they're just various peoples' retro projects for a few months before they move on to something new. Who knows.

I agree. I like to both have a working legacy example, but then using
all the ammunition of current-day solutions to make life easier. I like
to get the legacy hardware working, then pull it out and store it - and use the current-day stuff for day-to-day use.

I think that's a good strategy, actually. Keep one more or less original (or with non-destructive mods/expansions) and go crazy with the second one.

Thanks for sharing all the stuff you're playing w/ on your Amiga
hardware!

One of my A500s (the one with the aforementioned ACA500Plus and RGBtoHDMI) is sort of my "daily driver" Amiga but I think that'll change once I get some more time into setting up this A1200. I also recently acquired an A1000 as mentioned, but I intend to keep that thing totally stock and not really actively use it - it's just a total classic. I also have a 2nd A500 which I intend to keep as I bought it - its a cool setup with a vintage GVP Impact A500-HD side expansion which is pretty rare and kind of cool IMO.

Anyway, I started documenting this stuff on my blog years ago (you might have read it) but I'm waaaaaaaaay behind. I'll put some more updates to catch back up eventually - I have a lot of half written articles and pictures to throw up sooner or later and will mention it here whenever I do.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

Yeah, I think the a1200 is the best of all worlds.

Unfortunately 1200s seem to be semi-rare in the US. Most of the ones floating around are PAL, which isn't really a bad thing in Amiga land,
but still.

My brother had an a600 when we were younger - I don't really know where, or how, he came across it - but I remember being young and watching him copy diskettes with friends... I had the machine some years ago, but it wasn't in working condition and somehow or another I DON'T have it now.

One of my A500s (the one with the aforementioned ACA500Plus and
RGBtoHDMI) is sort of my "daily driver" Amiga but I think that'll change once I get some more time into setting up this A1200. I also recently acquired an A1000 as mentioned, but I intend to keep that thing totally stock and not really actively use it - it's just a total classic.

I'm not so interested in the a1000 - super cool computer, but for Amiga's I think I would like to stick to the pizza-box systems as they were what the scene kids were on. Unless I found a killer a4000 - but... yea right. :P

Anyway, I started documenting this stuff on my blog years ago (you might have read it) but I'm waaaaaaaaay behind. I'll put some more updates to catch back up eventually - I have a lot of half written articles and pictures to throw up sooner or later and will mention it here whenever I do.

I will; again, thanks for sharing - such a fun time to be into retro computing. :P



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

paulie420 wrote to jack phlash <=-

I'm not so interested in the a1000 - super cool computer, but for
Amiga's I think I would like to stick to the pizza-box systems as they were what the scene kids were on. Unless I found a killer a4000 -
but... yea right. :P

I thought the Amiga 1000 was the first pizzabox system? I always liked
that look, had a SUN Sparc II at work for years. Big CRT, and that
wonderful SUN keyboard. Mechanical mouse, not that optical one.

We had a Sparc 5 acting as a mail bastion host feeding mail to an old
Microsoft Exchange system, so I justified getting a SUN on my desk by
needing a backup system "just in case". :)


--- MultiMail/Win v0.52

on 18 Sep 2024, paulie420 said...

My brother had an a600 when we were younger - I don't really know where, or how, he came across it - but I remember being young and watching him copy diskettes with friends... I had the machine some years ago, but it wasn't in working condition and somehow or another I DON'T have it now.

Ahh, WTF?! That's a shame. Any clue where it ended up? I was just telling Esc literally the other day that I've almost bought an A600 like 3 times now, even though I have zero legitimate need for one given the rest of my machines, but there's something about them I just love. I mean, I don't have an ECS machine, so that's semi-decent excuse, I guess... ;)

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

on 19 Sep 2024, poindexter FORTRAN said...

I thought the Amiga 1000 was the first pizzabox system? I always liked that look, had a SUN Sparc II at work for years. Big CRT, and that wonderful SUN keyboard. Mechanical mouse, not that optical one.

Yeah, the A1000 was indeed a pizza box (not sure if it was the first, but maybe it was?) I think he meant wedge, and given that my fist PC was a Vic20 and I lusted after the A500 as a kid, I have an affinity for them too.

I like the pizza box look *a lot* too though - a lot of the Sun ones are quite nice. I was at Re-PC the other day and they had a beautiful looking SparcStation 5 on the shelf, and for a decent price too. One of my friends is really into Sparcs - had to snap him a picture in case he wanted it. He's really after a nice Sun monitor right now though, and I can't imagine I'll see one of those pop up any time soon.

They were quite plain, but I always liked the look of Apple's pizza box models too.

We had a Sparc 5 acting as a mail bastion host feeding mail to an old Microsoft Exchange system, so I justified getting a SUN on my desk by needing a backup system "just in case". :)

Nice! I've not really played with much Sun stuff, other than a brief couple of months in my life, right after college and struggling to find a "real" job, I worked at a terrible call center and the entire place was a Sun shop, surprisingly. I can still see their terrible customized Solaris desktop if I close my eyes. Man, I hated that job. :P

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

Ahh, WTF?! That's a shame. Any clue where it ended up? I was just
telling Esc literally the other day that I've almost bought an A600 like
3 times now, even though I have zero legitimate need for one given the rest of my machines, but there's something about them I just love. I
mean, I don't have an ECS machine, so that's semi-decent excuse, I guess... ;)

It was broken some 20 years ago when neither of us knew anything about repair. :/

Just another nothing burger that would have been silver today. :P



|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

jack phlash wrote to poindexter FORTRAN <=-

I like the pizza box look *a lot* too though - a lot of the Sun ones
are quite nice. I was at Re-PC the other day and they had a beautiful looking SparcStation 5 on the shelf, and for a decent price too. One of
my friends is really into Sparcs - had to snap him a picture in case he wanted it. He's really after a nice Sun monitor right now though, and I can't imagine I'll see one of those pop up any time soon.

Sun Sparcs were part of a "golden age" for me - when companies made
unique hardware that felt like they were a level above the beige intel
box standard. I think of IBM RS/6000s, Sun Sparcs, SGI boxes - all had
really amazing hardware and OSes that ran circles around Windows 95/98.

They were quite plain, but I always liked the look of Apple's pizza box models too.

I had a Mac IIci that I loved back then, but replaced it with a Quadra
610 in that new pizza box form factor and didn't look back.

That was an interesting time - mid to late '94. the 486 and the
Motorola 680x0 were at their peak and pretty damn good for the day. I
saw a Pentium/66 test system and one of the first "Power Macintosh"
computers around the same time, and it felt like things had changed drastically. They left the current state-of-the-art in the dust.

a "real" job, I worked at a terrible call center and the entire place
was a Sun shop, surprisingly. I can still see their terrible customized Solaris desktop if I close my eyes. Man, I hated that job. :P

You mean CDE, the Solaris window manager? Or did your shop make their
own desktop?



--- MultiMail/Win v0.52

Sun Sparcs were part of a "golden age" for me - when companies made
unique hardware that felt like they were a level above the beige intel
box standard. I think of IBM RS/6000s, Sun Sparcs, SGI boxes - all had really amazing hardware and OSes that ran circles around Windows 95/98.

I missed the bus on these. All I was ever exposed to back in the day was Apple and PC hardware. Nowadays I get curious about these machines you mention and the prices are outrageous. I'd love to mess with them but I'm unsure what I'd actually do with them. With Amigas, Ataris, Apple II, etc., the focus can easily be gaming which makes it easy for me to wrap my head around. I'd love to know what types of things can be done on all of the hardware you mention that's unique today, if anything.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

on 19 Sep 2024, paulie420 said...

It was broken some 20 years ago when neither of us knew anything about repair. :/

Just another nothing burger that would have been silver today. :P

Ah, I'm guilty of that too. I bet my original Vic20 plus a Commodore Plus4 I had as a kid, both long dead, are still floating around in my parent's house somewhere. Who knows what shape they're in - I doubt either are worth saving, but I'm guessing that would both be trivial for me to fix these days. Probably just had a bad cap or something simple that was beyond me back then. :/

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

on 20 Sep 2024, poindexter FORTRAN said...

Sun Sparcs were part of a "golden age" for me - when companies made
unique hardware that felt like they were a level above the beige intel
box standard. I think of IBM RS/6000s, Sun Sparcs, SGI boxes - all had really amazing hardware and OSes that ran circles around Windows 95/98.

Definitely!

I had a Mac IIci that I loved back then, but replaced it with a Quadra
610 in that new pizza box form factor and didn't look back.

That was an interesting time - mid to late '94. the 486 and the
Motorola 680x0 were at their peak and pretty damn good for the day. I
saw a Pentium/66 test system and one of the first "Power Macintosh" computers around the same time, and it felt like things had changed drastically. They left the current state-of-the-art in the dust.

Yep, that was *my* golden age. I just wish I'd had the knowledge (and money) to be more involved in it than I was.

You mean CDE, the Solaris window manager? Or did your shop make their
own desktop?

I had zero involvement in anything IT related there, and they had it quite locked down to boot, but I'm 99% sure it was CDE, seemingly highly customized, as you might expect if you're having literally hundreds (thousands?) of low skill workers use it for 8 hours a day. :P

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

on 20 Sep 2024, esc said...

I missed the bus on these. All I was ever exposed to back in the day was Apple and PC hardware. Nowadays I get curious about these machines you mention and the prices are outrageous. I'd love to mess with them but
I'm unsure what I'd actually do with them. With Amigas, Ataris, Apple
II, etc., the focus can easily be gaming which makes it easy for me to wrap my head around. I'd love to know what types of things can be done
on all of the hardware you mention that's unique today, if anything.

I've considered getting into a lot of these other systems, but one of my goals when getting into Amiga was to try to learn as much as I could about being an *actual* user of these devices - rather than playing games like its some kind of glorified console, I wanted to *actually* use the OS, do some coding, use productivity apps, etc. Years later, while I know a ton more about Amiga hardware, I still feel like I have a long way to go on that front. If I add too many different, unique types of computers to my collection, I don't think I'd be able to give them much attention (given how little attention they already get) so I've kind of drawn the line for now, with the exception of hopefully getting into the 16-bit Ataris at some point.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

Re: Re: Video mods
By: esc to poindexter FORTRAN on Fri Sep 20 2024 08:34 am

around. I'd love to know what types of things can be done on all of the hardware you mention that's unique today, if anything.

You could run a tilde just fine on one of those for a handful of users. They're equivalent in power to an Intel system of the day, but the OS is fully multitasking and can handle a load well, compared to old Windows PCs.

If you're a command line junkie, they're great. Run CDE to load a browser, or open up a handful of terminals for irc, mail, news and so on.

I wonder if there's an office suite for old Solaris?

On 18.09.2024 22:01, Paulie420 wrote to Jack Phlash:

@TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A48
@MSGID: 911:1503/0 b49c535a
@REPLY: 911:1423/0 fdea0417
@TZUTC: -0700

Yeah, I think the a1200 is the best of all worlds.

Unfortunately 1200s seem to be semi-rare in the US. Most of the ones floating around are PAL, which isn't really a bad thing in Amiga land, but still.

My brother had an a600 when we were younger - I don't really know where, or how, he came across it - but I remember being young and watching him copy diskettes with friends... I had the machine some years ago, but it wasn't in working condition and somehow or another I DON'T have it now.

One of my A500s (the one with the aforementioned ACA500Plus and RGBtoHDMI) is sort of my "daily driver" Amiga but I think that'll change
once I get some more time into setting up this A1200. I also recently acquired an A1000 as mentioned, but I intend to keep that thing totally stock and not really actively use it - it's just a total classic.

I'm not so interested in the a1000 - super cool computer, but for Amiga's I think I would like to stick to the pizza-box systems as they were what the scene kids were on. Unless I found a killer a4000 - but... yea right. :P

Anyway, I started documenting this stuff on my blog years ago (you might
have read it) but I'm waaaaaaaaay behind. I'll put some more updates to catch back up eventually - I have a lot of half written articles and pictures to throw up sooner or later and will mention it here whenever I
do.

I will; again, thanks for sharing - such a fun time to be into retro computing.
:P

|07p|15AULIE|1142|07o
|08.........

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 (Linux/64)
* Origin: 2o fOr beeRS>>>20ForBeers.com:1337 (911:1503/0)

I used a A2000/68040 33 Mhz in the first half of the 90's for my BBS. I bought about 10/15 years later a A4000/68060... but sold him years later again, because don't used him really. Today I thought... was an error. But anyway. Today I have two A2000/68030 here, waiting for configuration. Both with Net cards. I love my Amiga's, cause they remember me at the "golden times" of playing and bbs'ing. So maybe in the 2nd half of 2025 I put one online with AmiExpress or C-Net..

We will see!

Mike


--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: Global Chaos BBS - The rising star of Bavaria, German (911:4982/0)

on 20 Sep 2024, Mike said...

I used a A2000/68040 33 Mhz in the first half of the 90's for my BBS. I bought about 10/15 years later a A4000/68060... but sold him years later again, because don't used him really. Today I thought... was an error.
But anyway. Today I have two A2000/68030 here, waiting for
configuration. Both with Net cards. I love my Amiga's, cause they
remember me at the "golden times" of playing and bbs'ing. So maybe in
the 2nd half of 2025 I put one online with AmiExpress or C-Net..

Yes, I'm sure you regret selling that 68060 A4000. :P That said, it's really difficult to predict the future value of these things, monetarily to collectors, and even emotionally to yourself.

I can't really beat myself up too badly about decisions like that. I mean, it's funny looking around today seeing fairly budget spec CRT monitors going for $100+ when I worked at companies where we recycled hundreds of really nice Trinitron CRTs when everyone just *had* to have an LCD. We were literally giving them away. In fact, the monitor I use for my old PCs is one of the ones I saved from the scrap heap back then.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

I've considered getting into a lot of these other systems, but one of my goals when getting into Amiga was to try to learn as much as I could
about being an *actual* user of these devices - rather than playing
games like its some kind of glorified console, I wanted to *actually*
use the OS, do some coding, use productivity apps, etc. Years later,

Hey! Think you're better than me?!

while I know a ton more about Amiga hardware, I still feel like I have a long way to go on that front. If I add too many different, unique types
of computers to my collection, I don't think I'd be able to give them
much attention (given how little attention they already get) so I've
kind of drawn the line for now, with the exception of hopefully getting into the 16-bit Ataris at some point.

I still have that Atari 1040STFM with your name on it. Along with a legit Atari monitor.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

On 20.09.2024 14:14, Jack Phlash wrote to Mike:

@TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A47
@MSGID: 911:1423/0 f4ff1c0b
@TZUTC: -0700
on 20 Sep 2024, Mike said...

I used a A2000/68040 33 Mhz in the first half of the 90's for my BBS. I bought about 10/15 years later a A4000/68060... but sold him years later
again, because don't used him really. Today I thought... was an error. But anyway. Today I have two A2000/68030 here, waiting for configuration. Both with Net cards. I love my Amiga's, cause they remember me at the "golden times" of playing and bbs'ing. So maybe in the 2nd half of 2025 I put one online with AmiExpress or C-Net..

Yes, I'm sure you regret selling that 68060 A4000. :P That said, it's really difficult to predict the future value of these things, monetarily to collectors, and even emotionally to yourself.

I can't really beat myself up too badly about decisions like that. I mean, it's
funny looking around today seeing fairly budget spec CRT monitors going for $100+ when I worked at companies where we recycled hundreds of really nice Trinitron CRTs when everyone just *had* to have an LCD. We were literally giving them away. In fact, the monitor I use for my old PCs is one of the ones
I saved from the scrap heap back then.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

Hi Jack

Yup.. Have some CRT's from this time here, too. 2 x 24", 1 x 19"
(from premium manufactors from this time). Really heavy things the 24"!

After I finally and officially retire at the end of this year and hopefully one day my
regular BBS and my forum will be the way I want it, the first thing I would like to
do is put my Amigas online here, and when the Amigas are set up the way I want them to be, then I'll take care of my Atari Mega ST 4 (as BBS) and Atari 1040ST.

A lot to do and also a lot to learn. But makes fun! So it's ok for me!

Mike



--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: Global Chaos BBS - The rising star of Bavaria, German (911:4982/0)

jack phlash wrote to Mike <=-

Yes, I'm sure you regret selling that 68060 A4000. :P That said, it's really difficult to predict the future value of these things,
monetarily to collectors, and even emotionally to yourself.

That's Peak Motorola. The 4000 must have been one hell of a system.




--- MultiMail/Win v0.52

on 21 Sep 2024, esc said...

Hey! Think you're better than me?!

Ha! Nah, it was just a personal goal. When getting into old game consoles, there's not much to learn outside of what accessories there were, what modding you can these days, and what the game library is like, but with these older microcomputer there's a whole ecosystem and, often times, subculture around them (which is especially the case with Amiga's popularity in Europe.) It just feels a lot broader AND deeper, and therefore, more interesting.

I still have that Atari 1040STFM with your name on it. Along with a
legit Atari monitor.

And I still want them... :P

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

on 21 Sep 2024, Mike said...

A lot to do and also a lot to learn. But makes fun! So it's ok for me!

Yep, I think that's a huge part of retro computing for most of us, on some level. It's fun learning about this stuff, chasing down upgrades, components, and accessories, fun doing repairs and builds, and of course, fun using/playing the things.

I don't plan on doing anything significant, BBS-related, with any of my old machines, personally, but who knows.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

On Friday, September 20th poindexter FORTRAN was heard saying...

Sun Sparcs were part of a "golden age" for me - when companies made unique hardware that felt like they were a level above the beige intel box standard. I think of IBM RS/6000s, Sun Sparcs, SGI boxes - all had really amazing hardware and OSes that ran circles around Windows 95/98.

It really was an amazing time, I collected sun sparcs, hp-risc workstations and the like for a little while just to experience the things I had only heard about in magazines. But the 90's were definitely the golden age of diversity in computing, everyone knew multiprocessor and multi-tasking operating systems with a GUI was *it*, and all of the big companies and a few small ones like BeOS, and Linux/BSD had a few novel X11 window managers with a new one each year. I learned to use afterstep and later windowmaker and that was my preferred manager so I always lusted for a NeXTSTEP... I've been restoring MacOS 8.5 onto a Powermac 7500 this week, I didn't own any macs at all in the 90's but the GUI is so very good.

MacOS was the only one without any kind of REPL/CLI. They used them internally to develop on the OS, but they didn't release any until OSX in the 2000's. The GUI's have changed a lot, about the only thing that has remained is you will have windows with close and resize buttons, but the REPL of the other systems, mostly bash and terminal, haven't changed at all. And that's kind of nice :)

But using the 90's systems and developing for them is a nightmare. You really must be confined to the compiler of the time. It's so difficult to get a good working developer environment.





--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

On 21.09.2024 13:42, Jack Phlash wrote to Mike:

@TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A47
@MSGID: 911:1423/0 46e60f55
@TZUTC: -0700
on 21 Sep 2024, Mike said...

A lot to do and also a lot to learn. But makes fun! So it's ok for me!

Yep, I think that's a huge part of retro computing for most of us, on some level. It's fun learning about this stuff, chasing down upgrades, components,
and accessories, fun doing repairs and builds, and of course, fun using/playing
the things.

I don't plan on doing anything significant, BBS-related, with any of my old machines, personally, but who knows.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

It's just a hobby Jack. But for me.. there is a long way with my BBS and Forum...
So who knows, when I can do this with the Amiga and Atari...
But still on my long todo list!

Mike


--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: Global Chaos BBS - The rising star of Bavaria, German (911:4982/0)

On Friday, September 20th poindexter FORTRAN muttered...

If you're a command line junkie, they're great. Run CDE to load a browser, or open up a handful of terminals for irc, mail, news and so on.

I wonder if there's an office suite for old Solaris?

yes of course, StarOffice, its on archive.org (bless them). I used CDE on Solaris 8 in College, it was really shit to be honest, ugly and there were very little preferences that could be set. Very little to do, really, I was very bored in class and looking, haha! They switched their unix program to be more Linux focused partway through my attending it and I lost interest, I had that at home!

But I got to experience original Solaris quite a bit, ran a few suns at home but mostly running OpenBSD. I could play openttd or exult (Ultima 7) on a Sparc :) I also used a hybrid Solaris 10 sparc and x86 server environment of about 30 sparcs, mostly legacy but a few UltraSPARC T1's which could comfortably unzip thousands of zip files in parallel without bogging down too much. I really enjoyed Solaris at that time, and made really great use of ZFS and "zones", their virtual machines, the sort of things that save a lot of time and frankly I think their "Service Management Facility" (SMF) is way better than systemd. I think zones are better than docker, like that they used the host OS's /lib /bin etc on a read-only filesystem, and that the host and guest machines are updated together. We still don't have an upgrade path for docker, just a "try rebuilding it again" approach to security patches.

Anyway, I can't hardly stand to use the open source solaris forks now. They're very finicky, very few things work. I submitted fixes for upstream packages like python but they would be ignored because its hardly worth maintaining for anyone. We get ZFS now on Linux and FreeBSD, I used it a great deal for Telemetry data years ago when I had a small budget, so I'm grateful at least for that. I had lots of hard drive failures yet never lost any data. I can't say that for the Linux RAID's and stuff I ran before! The ability to do "resilvering" and aggressive checksum techniques is the only way to prevent bitrot. Also great is deduplication and transparent compression. Both are really great at holding lots of logfiles that are naturally uncompressed so you can just naturally use "grep" and other tools without complex gzip stream compression stuff.

I guess you could say, I really do like Solaris, it was good. It is nice to have the entire hardware+software stack provided by a single company. The bad parts? It was closed source for 24 of its 29 years, gnu was like an "add-on" and you either compiled something natively or gnu but you could never mix, making a clear "gnu land" vs. native division in your software, and you often had to download binary pre-built packages of things from some website where a single volunteer was kind enough to occasionally compile apache or vim for you.


--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

I don't plan on doing anything significant, BBS-related, with any of my old machines, personally, but who knows.

I'm touch and go on running an Amiga, Apple, and Atari BBS. They'd all just be small scale versions of BBSes accessible only from within my main BBS, sort of as museum pieces with some mods/games/etc. No messages or files or anything substantial, but fun nevertheless.

The main thing stopping me is that I run everything on VPSes and am running out of resources fast...and emulation takes a lot of resources!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

always lusted for a NeXTSTEP... I've been restoring MacOS 8.5 onto a Powermac 7500 this week, I didn't own any macs at all in the 90's but
the GUI is so very good.

I love vintage Apple! I have an Apple IIGS and run GS/OS on it. If you want to see the earliest incarnation of the Apple GUI, give it a try.

I also have a decent 68k mac and a couple of PPC macs. If you want to really putz around and have some fun, pick up a G4 mac mini for next to nothing on eBay and put OS9 on it (doable if you check out the MacOS9Lives forums).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

on 23 Sep 2024, esc said...

I also have a decent 68k mac and a couple of PPC macs. If you want to really putz around and have some fun, pick up a G4 mac mini for next to nothing on eBay and put OS9 on it (doable if you check out the
MacOS9Lives forums).

I'd actually considered picking up an old iMac or something for OS9. I have a lot of nostalgia for it - I was never an Apple owner until OSX, but used them heavily in high school in the 90s. I'd also love to play some the more interesting exclusive games and ports from around that time - as a long time Halo fan, I've yet to play a single Marathon game, for instance.

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

I'd actually considered picking up an old iMac or something for OS9. I have a lot of nostalgia for it - I was never an Apple owner until OSX,
but used them heavily in high school in the 90s. I'd also love to play some the more interesting exclusive games and ports from around that
time - as a long time Halo fan, I've yet to play a single Marathon game, for instance.

I'd skip an older iMac, you'll have more problems with the added hardware. The Mac Mini g4 can run at 1.5GHz, way more than OS9 will ever need. And the Radeon is well supported IIRC. Plus, DVI-D and USB for keyboard/mouse/etc means KVM! Less crap on the desktop hehe

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

on 24 Sep 2024, esc said...

I'd skip an older iMac, you'll have more problems with the added
hardware. The Mac Mini g4 can run at 1.5GHz, way more than OS9 will ever need. And the Radeon is well supported IIRC. Plus, DVI-D and USB for keyboard/mouse/etc means KVM! Less crap on the desktop hehe

That's a good shout! Maybe I'll pick one of those little fellas up. I didn't realize those things supported booting OS9 still, but my old Powerbook G4 667 did, so... *shrug*

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

That's a good shout! Maybe I'll pick one of those little fellas up. I didn't realize those things supported booting OS9 still, but my old Powerbook G4 667 did, so... *shrug*

So whereas it's not /technically/ supported by Apple, the community has gotten it to work and frankly it works super well. I have a G4 tower and the Mac Mini runs almost as well as that does!

For context on os9 running on unsupported hardware, check out https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=127.0

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

On 23.09.2024 04:43, Esc wrote to Jack Phlash:

@TID: Mystic BBS 1.12 A49
@MSGID: 911:1719/0 16112306
@REPLY: 911:1423/0 46e60f55
@TZUTC: -0700

I don't plan on doing anything significant, BBS-related, with any of my old machines, personally, but who knows.

I'm touch and go on running an Amiga, Apple, and Atari BBS. They'd all just be
small scale versions of BBSes accessible only from within my main BBS, sort of
as museum pieces with some mods/games/etc. No messages or files or anything substantial, but fun nevertheless.

The main thing stopping me is that I run everything on VPSes and am running out
of resources fast...and emulation takes a lot of resources!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

Hi ESC

I agree with that. But on the other way.... if you would run it with the original Hardware, you are the best friend of the electricity company! hahahaha

In my case... my main bbs server is at home.. it's about 600 - 700 bucks each year for
my electricity company. So if I get Project 1 and 2 running, project 3 the next 24/7 computer is running.

So.. one day a really cost question.

Mike

--- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v7.0
* Origin: Global Chaos BBS - The rising star of Bavaria, German (911:4982/0)

on 24 Sep 2024, esc said...

So whereas it's not /technically/ supported by Apple, the community has gotten it to work and frankly it works super well. I have a G4 tower and the Mac Mini runs almost as well as that does!

For context on os9 running on unsupported hardware, check out https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=127.0

Yep, I'm definitely intrigued by this - I think I'll pick one up, but it looks like there are plenty of people still selling these things pre-upgraded for decent prices so I'll hold off for a bit. I'll just have to find a decent Apple keyboard and mouse to go with it, not that I need them, but just to complete the set.

I was looking at exclusive or otherwise unique games and it seems like most of what is out there are just straight ports of PC games. Not very exciting. I really want to play all 3 Marathon games sooner or later, and it would be fun to play with some productivity software too, so that might be worth it by itself. Unfortunately it seems like most of the more unique ports were from the 68k days (I used to drool over that Wolfenstein 3D port as a kid!) I'm all ears for any recommendations, though!

|07j |15A C K |07p |15H L A S H |07!
|08[https://jackphla.sh]

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 2021/12/25 (Windows/32)
* Origin: d i s t o r t i o n // d1st.org (911:1423/0)

On Monday, September 23rd esc said...

I love vintage Apple! I have an Apple IIGS and run GS/OS on it. If you want to see the earliest incarnation of the Apple GUI, give it a try.

I also use GS/OS. But I think https://www.a2desktop.com/ predates GS/OS, read the "history" there, it was authored by an independant company to bring Macintosh-like interface to the Apple ][ in 1985 and Apple bought and re-licensed it, it was the initial GUI for the IIgs, but its an 8-bit OS and was replaced by a 16-bit re-write as GS/OS, they're very similar.

GS/OS is actually pretty good though, its my primary boot environment for my IIGS, whereas I prefer the ][e boot into ProDOS/Bitsy Bye.



--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

On Monday, September 23rd esc said...

I also have a decent 68k mac and a couple of PPC macs. If you want to really putz around and have some fun, pick up a G4 mac mini for next to nothing on eBay and put OS9 on it

I used PowerPC g3 and g4's in the early 2000's mostly running Linux and OpenBSD but I did occasionally try/dualboot the latest OSX. It was OSX and its X11 integration that allowed me to ssh onto a linux machine and run Linux GUI apps natively on OSX that first attracted me. I was all-in, with dual-CPU cards and so on.

But anyway I mostly skipped past OS9, but I'm re-appreciating what I missed out on. It is a pretty steller OS. I miss when everything that was clickable *appeared* clickable, when window titles were totally free and uncluttered from distracting icons and drawers (looking at you, explorer.exe), and damn if it doesn't feel more snappy and clean than my Mac M1/OSX or Intel NUC/Win10.

I actually *prefer* single-tasking operating systems. I like to know that the program I'm running is the only one running. No distractions. No hidden delays or resource hogs. It's so peaceful!


--- ENiGMA 1/2 v0.0.14-beta (linux; x64; 18.18.2)
* Origin: Xibalba -+- xibalba.l33t.codes:44510 (911:1801/0)

I was looking at exclusive or otherwise unique games and it seems like most of what is out there are just straight ports of PC games. Not very exciting. I really want to play all 3 Marathon games sooner or later,
and it would be fun to play with some productivity software too, so that might be worth it by itself. Unfortunately it seems like most of the
more unique ports were from the 68k days (I used to drool over that Wolfenstein 3D port as a kid!) I'm all ears for any recommendations, though!

Use it as a DAW. It's incredible. OS9 was way ahead of its time. I mean, all the classic NiN records were written using classic MacOS and protools (I think?). That forum I linked has a ton of info about OS9 DAW stuff. Really neat.

Also you can run a Hermes II BBS :P

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)

I also use GS/OS. But I think https://www.a2desktop.com/ predates GS/OS, read the "history" there, it was authored by an independant company to bring Macintosh-like interface to the Apple ][ in 1985 and Apple bought and re-licensed it, it was the initial GUI for the IIgs, but its an
8-bit OS and was replaced by a 16-bit re-write as GS/OS, they're very similar.

Oh interesting. Thanks for the link. Gonna give this a read now.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A49 2023/02/26 (Linux/64)
* Origin: m O N T E R E Y b B S . c O M (911:1719/0)