Paranoid Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 So, I just picked up an Atarimax MyIDE+Flash cart and an Atari 800XL, and once I got the bugs worked out, I found myself wishing that maybe I should have gone this route first. The MyIDE cart is really effectively a bottomless multicart, at $40 about a third of the price (or less) of the console multicarts, and with a small IDE hard drive, capable of holding a GIGANTIC number of 8-bit titles (which there ARE a gigantic number of, too). As a bonus, the great majority of 5200 titles are available as 8-bit ATR/images, and a good number of these seem to work in the MyIDE cart. I saw where someone figured out the CC2 price per title if you loaded it up with every ROM image available, and it was somewhere like $.02 per title when you divided the number of titles available by the price of the CC2. If we're going to use that forumla here, the MyIDE cart must be like, $.0002 per title. If you want to talk about getting power for your dollar, the MyIDE cart is the most powerful multicart out there. I mean, the CC2 is effectively bottomless too, but, hey, there are only SO many 2600 and 7800 images out there and they're only so big... so a 32mb MMC card pretty much has you taken care of. With the Atari 8-bit line, there are 10 times the titles available. It isn't really a fair comparisson, of course, because the games are different, buy my point remains... the MyIDE cart is a shortcut to having a HUUUUUUUGE library of 8 bit titles available instantly... and far less expensively than any other multi-cart option available on any other console. But, the MyIDE cart isn't as smooth or polished as the console multicarts. You need to be a little more technically saavy. If you think the CC2 is difficult to set up, configure and maintain, you're not going to like the MyIDE cart at all. Even using it requires a little more technical experience than any of the console multis. I mean, Classics has made it fairly easy, and I wouldn't want to scare anyone off. You don't need to have an I.T. degree or understand advanced electronics engineering in order to use this cart, but, it'll help if you've got some PC experience. Those of you who won't install software on your PC for fear of destroying it should avoid this cart. But, once you get past the steeper learning curve, and the less polished, more user supported nature of the applications available for the MyIDE cart, the reward in the sheer number of titles available is a real golden egg. I've included an example list of how a drive might be configured with images for use with the MyIDE cart, to give you an idea of just how many titles are potentially available. Most people use a CF-to-IDE adapter with a smaller CF card and a more modest selection of titles... but if you want to go nuts and use a small hard drive, you certainly can. I've got to get going right now, but I'll have more to add to this "review" later. list.txt Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 The MyIDE+Flash cart is really a joy to use with one of these! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 The MyIDE+Flash cart is really a joy to use with one of these! I have found the myide Flash cart to be... ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted September 7, 2006 Share Posted September 7, 2006 (edited) With the IDE flashrams it appears to be the best added hardware upgrade for our Atari. Let me understand... with MyIDE+Flash with IDE FlashRAM, we could manage a lot of ATR images, XEX files, ROM or BIN cartridges in our Atari without aditional cables. It is true? (well, at start an aditional SIO2PC for copy images from PC library images) Edited September 7, 2006 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 7, 2006 Author Share Posted September 7, 2006 Allas... It is a LITTLE tricky on the MyIDE cart compared to an AtariMax 128-in-1 usb cart, for example. But yeah, if you've got the right kind of CF-to-IDE adapter, or one of the Transcend modules, you just plug it into the top of the IDE cart, and you've got up to 2gb (does the MyIDE cart support 4gb or larger CF cards?) of solid-state flash memory cart on your Atari. You *can*, actually do it all without a SIO2PC or Atari disk drive, including formatting Atari hard drives with DOS. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 I just ordered one! Wow this will be cool 128MB will be plenty for now. Can the 1GB and 2GB be adated to work? How do they get power, some kind of hack with pin 20??? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 (edited) I've had my eye on that MyIDE+ cart for some time now, and with the transcend modules available I think I'll just have to get one of these! Edited September 11, 2006 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kchu28 Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 I just ordered one! Wow this will be cool 128MB will be plenty for now. Can the 1GB and 2GB be adated to work? How do they get power, some kind of hack with pin 20??? Hi! I have the 1 gb Transcend card and it works fine. Just plug and play! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted September 9, 2006 Share Posted September 9, 2006 I just ordered one! Wow this will be cool 128MB will be plenty for now. Can the 1GB and 2GB be adated to work? How do they get power, some kind of hack with pin 20??? Yes. I've got one of the 2GB modules, and all I needed to do for power was open the MyIDE Flash cart and solder a single jumper so that the cart can provide power via the IDE connector. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 10, 2006 Author Share Posted September 10, 2006 The most recent carts have the pin 20 mod done already by Classics. Just plug and play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 The most recent carts have the pin 20 mod done already by Classics. Just plug and play. Phew.... wipes sweat off of brow. Thank you for saying that. I was beginning to sweat a little. I'm destructive with a soldering gun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted September 10, 2006 Share Posted September 10, 2006 These devices are very cool indeed, and one is probably in my future at some point. However, as great as this kind of device is, there's still nothing like physically inserting the real cart into the machine. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted September 11, 2006 Share Posted September 11, 2006 (edited) Not all games come on cart.... The MyIDE+Flash cart is really a joy to use with one of these! I'm just curious. Is there a way to "image" those transcend things? Like for backing up, etc. Say I get one set up the way I want it to be and than "image" it so I can restore it to that state if something happens? Edited September 11, 2006 by Shannon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 12, 2006 Author Share Posted September 12, 2006 It shouldn't matter *what* you use for media... you should be able to image the raw data on the drive with a utility like GHOST or some other sector level image application that doesn't really care about the physical format. So, the short answer would be, yes, you SHOULD be able to. I spent all day today configuring a 4gb IDE drive for my MyIDE multicart... which sounds insane... but... I've got two 16gb Partitions. The first partion, I created a 16gb ATR image file that is MyDos 4.5 bootable. Once I had that built, I copied over about 800 .xex images. Once that was done, I used MyIdeTool to copy the ATR image to Partition 1 on the drive. Now I can either boot drive 1 into My DOS and run executable programs from there, *or*, I can boot into the Flash menu of the MyIDE cartridge, and once there, I can use PicoDos to load any of the executable game files that reside on the Partition 1 space. But I didn't stop there. I also copied about 1300 .atr image files into the image space using Nacho Cientos'es ATR2MyIDE utility. Some titles are only in .ATR format... others are only in .XEX format... this way, I have all of them. I also have, obviously, a ton of duplicates... like... 4 copies in .xex format... 4 copies in .atr format... of this or that title... But to me, the amazing thing is that all of this should probably use up about 45 *megabytes* of space on this 4gb hard drive. The bummer about the 8 bit is there are *some* titles that just aren't available on the 8 bit that were on the 5200... there are also a lot of titles on the 8 bit that are either European precursors to the horrible hacked 16-bit era games of the ST and Amiga, or that are simply PC style games (not console games). FRPs, Text Adventures, and ODD titles that could only exist in the 8 bit computer realm. If you could match the 5200 library title for title, this would make an 800XL with the MyIDE cart the ULTIMATE console replacement solution in my mind. Far cheaper, far easier to maintain and support, and an avalanche of titles that is actually overwhelming. And right now, I've got this clunky solution with a ribbon cable coming out of the top of the MyIDE cart, running to an open external hd case with power supply with a drive in there... But, literally, there should be no problem configuring this same setup on a 1gb flash card... maybe even a 512mb or 256mb... which will draw the power right from the MyIde cart. I've got the CF to IDE adaptor that supports power over pin 20 on the way... the first CF to IDE adaptor I got has pin20 disabled so I can't run a CF card without external power, and that sounds too messy. I just think if you've got an 8bit Atari and you're a *gamer*, for $50 this is really the MOST bang-for-your-buck Multicart available. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 Most 5200 titles were ported over to the 8-bit by Glenn the 5200 man, and those that weren't were done anyways. If you go to atarimania you should be able to find them. I'll probably be doing something like you did. Copy over all my executables as loadables (most carts were dumped anyways) and then the rest (ATR's) over seperately. The atari 8-bits had far more titles than the 5200 and there was only a small handful of titles unique to the 5200 and the were all converted over anyways. Who needs a 5200 when you can have this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 12, 2006 Author Share Posted September 12, 2006 I've got the 5200 ports by Glenn. A couple of them don't work quite right, but most of them are great. The problem that I see between 5200 and 8bit ports, both ways, is that they're not always effective in how they implement control. Some titles, like Montezuma's Revenge... are radically different between the two platforms, as well. I think PitFall II is another one where unless you pay the 5200 version, you're missing something. (Although with Montezuma, the 8 bit version is the richer one). I guess it is a lot like the debate over the 2600 or a 7800. For someone just interested in games without a real nostaligic reason, an 8 bit computer with the multicart probably is the easiest way to go and achieve a collection mostly equal to and in some ways superior to a 5200 library... and it'll be a lot cheaper. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 I just think if you've got an 8bit Atari and you're a *gamer*, for $50 this is really the MOST bang-for-your-buck Multicart available. Agreed. It's pretty much irresistible if you want to use the real computer. Not all games come on cart.... True. Most of them don't. I do still like to have the original media wherever possible, in whatever format it might be. I really like carts, though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 The atari 8-bits had far more titles than the 5200 and there was only a small handful of titles unique to the 5200 and the were all converted over anyways. Who needs a 5200 when you can have this? My 5200 sees very little use just for that reason. That and the controllers blow Glenn the 5200 Man was one of my first videogame heroes! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allas Posted September 12, 2006 Share Posted September 12, 2006 (edited) MyIDE+Flash cart should be the new standard for Atari 8-bit line computers. Due to fast access data, projects like Yiear-Kung-fu could be done for MyIDE+Flash in a 64Kb/128Kb version. A new device for more complex projects. Edited September 12, 2006 by Allas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 12, 2006 Author Share Posted September 12, 2006 Well, I'll be honest here. My decision to buy an 8Bit Atari and a multicart was driven by my experience with the AtariMax 5200 USB multicart. Once I got the 5200 Multicart, I could see the range of titles, especially some of the 5200 conversions by Classics, that were available, but it also illustrated how the sticks were not suitable for a lot of ports. I considered a Redemption, but instead I made myself the PMP RSI 5200 digital stick. And it works pretty well, but there are some problems/challenges. They may be my own fault, or they may be related to the system itself... This uncertainty about the analog I/O of the 5200 is what got me off the fence. I've got Gold-dot sticks, I've got well-cleaned and refurbished regular sticks, I've got the RSI stick... and a couple of consoles... and, everything works different in every different combonation. So, the Gold Dot stick works differently on console 1 than it does on console 2, and the RSI stick works differently than the Gold Dot stick on each console... And this is just clearly a result of the I/O using analog tolerances as opposed to digital input. So, I realized the easiest way to achieve a 5200 type library of 5200 type titles with a reliable and consistent digital i/o method was to invest in an Atari 8 Bit PC. But, I don't think that this invalidates the reasons for owning a 5200. First off, the 5200 joysticks make some 5200 titles ONLY worthwhile on 5200 controllers. I *like* 5200 controllers... when they're a liability, it is almost ALWAYS the programming, not the sticks themselves. I guess there is no second off. Just first off. Heh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shannon Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 The 5200 trackball is pretty nice if you can get hold of it. I don't think Montezuma's was really "released" for the 8-bit. There is a prototype version floating around that is uncompletable (the one you are probably talking about). But the 5200 one is finishable, and also available today. Just go to Atarimania you'll find every 5200 title released in 8-bit form. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deathtrappomegranate Posted September 13, 2006 Share Posted September 13, 2006 Just go to Atarimania you'll find every 5200 title released in 8-bit form. Homesoft has done some great 5200 conversions for Atarimania. He and Glenn deserve a great deal of credit for their work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paranoid Posted September 14, 2006 Author Share Posted September 14, 2006 (edited) Speaking of which... Finding ATR and xex games is a simple enough process. Where would one look if one were trying to find productivity applications? Word Processors, terminal programs, and the like? The shame of emulation may well end up being that only GAMES get preserved over the long run. A quick pop over to Atarimania answered this question as well. They've got it all over there, for the 8-bit, don't they. Edited September 14, 2006 by Paranoid Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tjlazer Posted September 16, 2006 Share Posted September 16, 2006 Do you guys get error 169 when copying files in MyDOS on a real atari? Been trying to do it old skool and copy exe files from disk to the HD and I sometimes get error 169. When I try to copy to anther drive it works, hmmm. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Almost Rice Posted September 16, 2006 Share Posted September 16, 2006 Do you guys get error 169 when copying files in MyDOS on a real atari? Been trying to do it old skool and copy exe files from disk to the HD and I sometimes get error 169. When I try to copy to anther drive it works, hmmm. What OS version are you using? How many partitions and how large are the partitions? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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