Lou Ottens, Father of Countless Mixtapes, Is Dead at 94

Just dropping in to register agreement--I had one of those back in the day with my 400. I'm not sure I agree with the "for those old machines" qualifier, though.

While looking for a picture just now I ran across a forum post from 2018 where someone created a daughterboard for the GT that would let you run CP/M on the disk drive's controller and use your Atari as a terminal.
You really don't need anything other than a RAM upgrade to run CP/M on them. I have three Indus GT, but one is in storage somewhere and I can't account for it :( I will always standby my notion that the Indus GT is the coolest looking (even sexy in an early 80s type of way) external floppy disk drive of the 8 bit era. Speaking of upgrading the Indus GT, I have ordered the 64KB RAM upgrades for both of mine. One will be used from time to time for CP/M stuff. One will be used in a really bastardized Atari 8 bit setup :) That machine will be running a Hitachi 6309 instead of a 6502, and will run the NitrOS 9 OS meant for the CoCo 3 :)

In any case...if someone happens to see this and has an Atari Indus GT (or Percom, or Amdek 3" floppy, or even a good working 1050) disk drive and wants to sell it, I am in the market for a few more (would like to have 8 Indus GT drives). As far as that goes, if anyone sees this and has any old 8 bit gear they want to sell, I am open to it :)
 
My Nakamichi 350 is grateful. Many classes I and my mother have recorded on our Nakamichi 350 in the 70s (I was starting the middle school and my mother was studding law for a complementary diploma). We used it as our dolby system connected to our Beosystem 1200 once at home.
It was something very new to have that quality and a battery. It needed an external mic to record. I used a Bayer Dynamic Microphone.
 
Over the years you forget about these things you used to do because you no longer do them. Thanks for reminding me :)

OK but when was the last time you saw miles & miles of cassette tape guts on the interstate?
I can probably say at-least 10 or more years since I saw that!

My first 'hack' was taping over the record protection hole to enable recording on crappy cassettes so I could record my favorite songs off the radio haha

I used to do this with VHS tapes all of the time!
My friend gave me a Sony MetalMaster cassette it has a removable record protection tab they can be replaced (if you don't loose it first) if you want to record over it again.

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OK but when was the last time you saw miles & miles of cassette tape guts on the interstate?
I can probably say at-least 10 or more years since I saw that!
Ha! Yep, its been a while! Mostly just random trash and the occasional mattress now days.
 
Ha! Yep, its been a while! Mostly just random trash and the occasional mattress now days.
Yuck a mattress damn some people have no shame!
It's even been a few years since I saw bits & pieces of CD's or CD-R's on the highways!
 
Yuck a mattress damn some people have no shame!
It's even been a few years since I saw bits & pieces of CD's or CD-R's on the highways!
Oh yeah, here in DFW you see all kinds of crap lying around on the side of the road, old mattresses, couches, shopping carts, trash in general, on a windy day its like driving through a snow globe. People are animals 'round here.
 
Oh yeah, here in DFW you see all kinds of crap lying around on the side of the road, old mattresses, couches, shopping carts, trash in general, on a windy day its like driving through a snow globe. People are animals 'round here.
Dallas Fort Worth Texas?
I used to live in a big city (Bridgeport, Connecticut) believe me I saw a lot of trash in the road and more stuff then Walmart has in store on the sides of the roads. So yes I can agree with the people are animals and pigs.
 
Oh yeah, here in DFW you see all kinds of crap lying around on the side of the road, old mattresses, couches, shopping carts, trash in general, on a windy day its like driving through a snow globe. People are animals 'round here.
You guys think that's bad. You're a riot. Try Florida. I have seen La-Z-Boys in the middle of I-95 in Fort Lauderdale in rush hour. I once saw a van in the breakdown lane in the middle of the road--again, on I-95--with a full- or maybe queen-size mattress wrapped around the front driver's side wheel. Yeah, the driver had run over it and I bet that was a fun deceleration. When I lived down there a guy landed a one-prop plane in the middle of a highway at lunchtime. To be fair to him I think his engine died right after takeoff and he didn't have much of an alternative.

Although a few months ago I was in Houston and I saw a car upside down leaning on the jersey barrier on one of the flyover ramps, and Houston is also where I saw my first, honest to god car on fire on the side of the road burning like a strawman argument.
 
Although a few months ago I was in Houston and I saw a car upside down leaning on the jersey barrier on one of the flyover ramps, and Houston is also where I saw my first, honest to god car on fire on the side of the road burning like a strawman argument.
Yep that's Houston for ya, the armpit of Texas.
 
You really don't need anything other than a RAM upgrade to run CP/M on them. I have three Indus GT, but one is in storage somewhere and I can't account for it :( I will always standby my notion that the Indus GT is the coolest looking (even sexy in an early 80s type of way) external floppy disk drive of the 8 bit era. Speaking of upgrading the Indus GT, I have ordered the 64KB RAM upgrades for both of mine. One will be used from time to time for CP/M stuff. One will be used in a really bastardized Atari 8 bit setup :) That machine will be running a Hitachi 6309 instead of a 6502, and will run the NitrOS 9 OS meant for the CoCo 3 :)

In any case...if someone happens to see this and has an Atari Indus GT (or Percom, or Amdek 3" floppy, or even a good working 1050) disk drive and wants to sell it, I am in the market for a few more (would like to have 8 Indus GT drives). As far as that goes, if anyone sees this and has any old 8 bit gear they want to sell, I am open to it :)
It has to be stated that with the IndusGT running in CP/M mode the A8 is really no more than a terminal over SIO.

Which is OK as the ISAI 8080 as well as the Altair 8800 both used terminals via RS232 as their front end machines.
 
True that! I never owned a C64 or C128 back in the day, but did have occasion to use one with a 1541. Good God, is it ever bad. Damned shame Commodore didn't spend the literal pennies per machine to rectify the shift register issue. It wouldn't have been a speed demon, but would have been much more pleasant to use. It certainly worked out for Epyx and the tens and tens of thousands of Fast Load cartridges they sold.
They couldn't. Once the device was released and software started being developed for the machine, the market was so volatile that to change any specification as important as the IEC serial connection would have meant that every early adopter of the 1541 was now isolated and could have spelt death for the platform as a whole. The 1541 was originally intended to have full high speed IEC, unfortunately, due to communication issues at the time, the traces were deleted off the PCB unknowingly to the engineer that developed the IEC implementation so the PCB could fit in the old VIC 1540 chassis.

Fortunately, the community took the poor IEC speeds as a challenge, and now it's just as fast, if not faster, than Atari's SIO protocol at the lowest achievable at the moment divisor with full software compatibility in my experience.

I own both a fully upgraded C64 complete with 1541 UII+ as well as a fully upgraded 600XL complete with U1MB and SIDE3 as well as 64k mod and FujiNet.
 
They couldn't. Once the device was released and software started being developed for the machine, the market was so volatile that to change any specification as important as the IEC serial connection would have meant that every early adopter of the 1541 was now isolated and could have spelt death for the platform as a whole. The 1541 was originally intended to have full high speed IEC, unfortunately, due to communication issues at the time, the traces were deleted off the PCB unknowingly to the engineer that developed the IEC implementation so the PCB could fit in the old VIC 1540 chassis.

Fortunately, the community took the poor IEC speeds as a challenge, and now it's just as fast, if not faster, than Atari's SIO protocol at the lowest achievable at the moment divisor with full software compatibility in my experience.

I own both a fully upgraded C64 complete with 1541 UII+ as well as a fully upgraded 600XL complete with U1MB and SIDE3 as well as 64k mod and FujiNet.
I'm aware of the whys and hows of the 1541 mess. I own ~ dozen C64/128 machines, but haven't messed about with any really high speed IEC stuff (just Epyx Fast Load). I have, however, played with divisor 0 over SIO a shit ton and love it. I always wanted a Black Box or the like to try out a high speed floppy over PBI, but never invested in one. The FujiNet is the bee's knees, for sure. It is time for me to buy another and play about with a game idea I had for it.

I have an Antonia and Sophia 2 sitting next to me that I think I will put in a 600XL. I have several 600s, including the original one I bought when they were released, but happened upon a deal on a new in open box one a few months ago. My plan for a good while has been to use a 1200XL for an upgrade laden machine, but I can't bring myself into hacking one up :(

When I get my dedicated retro room finished, the 1541 UII+ is definitely going to be bought. I put together a PI1541 last year (Pi Zero version), but still haven't used it.
 
I'm aware of the whys and hows of the 1541 mess. I own ~ dozen C64/128 machines, but haven't messed about with any really high speed IEC stuff (just Epyx Fast Load). I have, however, played with divisor 0 over SIO a shit ton and love it. I always wanted a Black Box or the like to try out a high speed floppy over PBI, but never invested in one. The FujiNet is the bee's knees, for sure. It is time for me to buy another and play about with a game idea I had for it.

I have an Antonia and Sophia 2 sitting next to me that I think I will put in a 600XL. I have several 600s, including the original one I bought when they were released, but happened upon a deal on a new in open box one a few months ago. My plan for a good while has been to use a 1200XL for an upgrade laden machine, but I can't bring myself into hacking one up :(

When I get my dedicated retro room finished, the 1541 UII+ is definitely going to be bought. I put together a PI1541 last year (Pi Zero version), but still haven't used it.
The 1541 UII+ is an awesome device. Not only do you get dual cycle accurate 1541's complete with the ability to add the rom's of your choosing, but you can also add up to 40k RAMBoards to each virtual 1541. You also get emulated dual SIDs with up to four channels each, and you can playback up to eight channel Amiga MOD files with perfect clarity. You also get hardware Ethernet with Swiftlink compatibility, a 16MB ram drive, a 16MB REU (awesome device), inbuilt JiffyDOS support with the ability to load any alternate DOS of your choosing without opening up the C64, DMA loading under any kernel (you can load software faster than the 6510 can execute the program) and Hyperspeed mode when running the Hyperspeed kernel that allows for up to 113,000 bits per second storage speeds including overheads. Full cartridge support is also handy and the device comes with almost every fastloader/freezer cart ever made for the C64.

There'll be even more features I missed, but basically it's the swiss army knife of C64 peripherals and totally worth it.

My next upgrade for the 600XL will probably be Sophia 2, although the output I'm getting after performing the chroma/luma mod via svideo is actually very impressive.
 
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The 1541 UII+ is an awesome device. Not only do you get dual cycle accurate 1541's complete with the ability to add the rom's of your choosing, but you can also add up to 40k RAMBoards to each virtual 1541. You also get emulated dual SIDs with up to four channels each, and you can playback up to eight channel Amiga MOD files with perfect clarity. You also get hardware Ethernet with Swiftlink compatibility, a 16MB ram drive, a 16MB REU (awesome device), inbuilt JiffyDOS support with the ability to load any alternate DOS of your choosing without opening up the C64, DMA loading under any kernel (you can load software faster than the 6510 can execute the program) and Hyperspeed mode when running the Hyperspeed kernel that allows for up to 113,000 bits per second storage speeds including overheads. Full cartridge support is also handy and the device comes with almost every fastloader/freezer cart ever made for the C64.

There'll be even more features I missed, but basically it's the swiss army knife of C64 peripherals and totally worth it.

My next upgrade for the 600XL will probably be Sophia 2, although the output I'm getting after performing the chroma/luma mod via svideo is actually very impressive.
Damn, that sounds like it is named appropriately! It appears that we've paid Uncle Sam too much $, so hopefully the UII+ will be back in stock soon :)

I've played about with a Sophia 2 equipped machine and the output is unbelievable. It isn't much different from Altirra on this laptop.
 
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