Tatung Einstein..

[jonb]

£189, last one failed to sell not long ago.

Contact seller via eBay.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/usr/adamski10_0?_ ... 7675.l2559

Really needs the monitor, but the seller will advise.

[YuT666]

I'm still searching for a possibility to fit a 3.5" drive in the second bay ... heared about it, but i can't find some further infos.

[RobC]

Mine's packed away or I'd take some pictures but you just have to mount the 3.5" drive somehow. I made a bracket out of aluminium and then used a dremel to "modify" the front panel.

[YuT666]

Thanks. Does a simple common 3.5" drive work without technical modifications?

And i could mill a bracket at my work, 'cause i'm a cnc-engineer.

[RobC]

Does a simple common 3.5" drive work without technical modifications?

Thinking about it (it was a good few years ago) I think I followed these instructions - my 3.5" drive is drive 1 so pretty straightforward:
http://www.einstein.talktalk.net/idc.html

And i could mill a bracket at my work, 'cause i'm a cnc-engineer.

You'll certainly do a better job than my hack!

[YuT666]

Thanks again ...

You'll certainly do a better job than my hack!

I don't think so ... but maybe it's easier

[YuT666]

Ok, this will be my next project ... fitting a 3.5" floppy or a hxc into the second bay. Stay tuned ...

[Zarchos]

Ok, this will be my next project ... fitting a 3.5" floppy or a hxc into the second bay. Stay tuned ...

I'll be very interested to read your progress.
Thanks in advance,
Z.

[1024MAK]

I have moved the "Tatung Einstein TC-01 with TM-01 colour monitor fault" into a new thread.

Mark

[YuT666]

Modified the second bay for a 3.5" drive.

Well, i'm not pleased with the result of the internal look, but it works. The front looks ok. I'll show the finished mod soon.

[jonb]

That looks pretty OK to me - there aren't enough Einstein users to get upset about the "unoriginality" of it..

[YuT666]

I tried to use the 3.5 as the boot drive ... transfered some Tatung games with CPCDiskXP to disk and they work (Alice, River Bandits & Chuckie Egg).

I think i would use the original 3" drive as the second drive (with the different jumper configuration). Will show the result in the next days (i hope), 'cause i'll have to make a cable for both drives.

[sirmorris]

This is good stuff - any technical information would be appreciated!

[YuT666]

Well, after a hard week i had time to finish the Einstein disk drive project. My english skills aren't that good, so i've to apologise for that.

First i made a floppy cable, which i could use for both drives (3" and 3,5"). The original one had only one connector for the 3". I found an old cable and had to put another 3" connector to the cable, 'cause the gap between both drives and the connectors didn't fit.



I want to use the 3.5" as the main drive (boot drive 0), so i joined the lines 10 and 12 of the floppy cable like here:

http://www.einstein.talktalk.net/pdf/idc.pdf



After that i opened the original 3" drive to change the jumper settings.

Originally (so the 3" drive is 0):



Changed it to drive 1:



Now i'm quite happy with the results. I could easily swap the positions of the drives (the right one to the left and vice versa), so the main drive will be at the first position.

[RobC]

Excellent job - looks really good

[YuT666]

Thanks ...

[1024MAK]

@YuT666 - your English is fine

And some good work on the Einstien

Mark

[jgharston]

You can now start using a proper programming language.

[YuT666]

@1024MAK & jgharston:

Thanks ...

Thought about the following stuff.

An ABBA switch is a great thing ...

http://www.einstein.talktalk.net/abba.html

... but i'm 99% certain, that i'll use the 3.5" drive as the boot drive. So the ABBA would only be a funny gimick.

[YuT666]

A little addendum. De-yellowed the keys, so the whole things looks far better.

Before:

After:

[Commie_User]

Fantastic. Just imagine the kids' faces when this maintained machine is 50 years old.

Now the big question - Is the BBC better than the Einstein for games?

[YuT666]

I think, that there are much more regular games available for the Beeps.

But i like the Infocom versions for the Tatung and mostly the isometric Batman and Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. I like the Starquake version.

[jonb]

You can get Elite for the Tattie but it is just a port of Speccy Elite (no bad thing) without sound (shame!).

There's a funny thing, though. The Elite disk was copy protected and can only be bought (working) from that Tattie specialist. B & H Computers I think they are called. Seems odd given that the game is freely distributable on other platforms.

Keys look good, by the way. One day I will do mine... one day...

[jonb]

You can now start using a proper programming language.

Doesn't it already have BBC Basic, JG? I mean, it's one of the original disks supplied with the machine I thought.

[YuT666]

You can get Elite for the Tattie but it is just a port of Speccy Elite (no bad thing) without sound (shame!).

There's a funny thing, though. The Elite disk was copy protected and can only be bought (working) from that Tattie specialist. B & H Computers I think they are called. Seems odd given that the game is freely distributable on other platforms.

Keys look good, by the way. One day I will do mine... one day...

Yes, StarshipUK wrote a time ago:

Protected games only work when transferred back to original 3" Einstein disks. They do not load in MESS, using floppy drive emulators (like HxC) on the Einstein or SD Card devices on the Einstein.

These are the protected games:

http://www.tatungeinstein.co.uk/front/progress.htm

[jgharston]

You can now start using a proper programming language.

Doesn't it already have BBC Basic, JG? I mean, it's one of the original disks supplied with the machine I thought.

Some were supplied with BBC BASIC on disk, but I don't think it was originally a default option. I think it did become a default option later on in its lifetime. My Einstein did come with BBC BASIC, but it was a machine a tenant had left behind in my Grandma's flat, so I had no way of knowing if it came with the machine or not.

[Commie_User]

I'd be amazed if BBC BASIC on the Tatung was as good as it is on the real thing.

Having BBC BASIC on the obscure machines was an inspired idea, not least because you can still use them if you had a grounding on the Beeb at school. And in the 80s, if you could push your rival machine as like the BBC, maybe that's how a few boxes even got to leave the warehouse.

[Deleted User 9295]

I'd be amazed if BBC BASIC on the Tatung was as good as it is on the real thing.

It was my BBC BASIC (Z80), so effectively identical to what was in Acorn's Z80 Second Processor.

[Commie_User]

Ah, sorry. Perhaps I should have clarified that for us:

I'd be amazed if BBC BASIC on the Tatung was executed as well as it was on the real thing.

[simulant]

Hi everyone - I have a Tatung Einstein 256 and I could just do with a bit of help on MOS.

Basically I fitted a second drive as a Gotek just so I could keep my original machine's built in 3" drive original (as it is still in good working condition).

The problem is how do you boot DOS or anything else on drive 1: from MOS!!???

I don't think you actually can, as there doesn't seem to be a MOS command to change which drive is active, and the welcome screen when I turn on my machine says "insert disc in drive 0: and press Ctrl+Break"... It's only once you boot DOS from drive 0: you can then change the active drive and choose drive 1:

But I'd really like to keep my computer original with the 3" drive and just use the gotek external one to boot things up make copies of disks etc. It's not a big deal, I can take out the original drive and put the gotek in instead (and then use the original one as the external drive) BUT I thought another clever Tatung Einstein user may know a hack in MOS to change the active disc drive. As the Tatung 256 only has 1 drive bay, I thought a TC01 user may know if other 256 users perhaps don't...

Can the active or default disk drive just be changed in memory or poked in kinda thing with some MOS commands?? Any help is really appreciated