Hi from Holland

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sandord
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Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

After discovering this forum and posting to it over a period of a few weeks, I finally discovered this topic :P

So, I'm Sandor Drieënhuizen, I'm 42 and I used to have an ST (and a Falcon after that) when I was a kid. My dad got me one when I was 11 because I already had a synthesizer with MIDI capabilities and he figured a computer running a MIDI sequencer would be a nice addition to it.

I already loved to write code, which I had been doing since 9 on my dad's Sharp MZ-800. So besides the MIDI stuff (which I liked a lot), I started coding in GFA Basic () and learned 68k assembly a few years later.

I used to be part of a two-person demo crew called Dawn Multimedia (I used the handles Fix, Vulture and finally Zeme), together with my best friend (Roberto De Vivo a.k.a. ManTra) who was/is a graphics artist. Both of us composed chip tunes and mods.

We did some intros but we never got to officially release our own mega demo. But at 16, we were asked to do guest screen for the Synergy Megademo. So we did and we called it Symbiosis. You can watch it here if you like:



Note that the music for the screen was done by Scavenger from Synergy (Joris de Man, he's a composer for a some renown game shops these days (he did the music for Killzone from Guerilla Games for example).

When I was around 17, I got a Falcon (after working a long summer). I was very excited about it but as you probably know, not much software as written that actually took advantage of the new features and PCs were getting more and more advanced. So, after 1.5 year or so I sold the Falcon and got myself a PC.

Many dark years followed until I bought myself an ST again :D That happened this year actually, 2018.

In the meantime, I became a software developer and for the last 10 year I've been doing freelance software development with great joy. I'm mainly doing back-end development, mostly involving RESTful APIs and administration UIs.

I'm so very happy to have revived my interest in the ST, I'm writing code on/for it again (if there's anything to share, look for a future post) and I've started doing simple repairs and modifications on the few machines I've bought. I recently got myself a SC1224, which I totally love. I never used to have one (I had a Commodore 1084S-P1) and I'm amazed of the picture quality. It's simply perfect!

Adding a Gotek to my main ST was also a very exciting thing to do. It works perfectly, it saves me from a lot of disk juggling (although I miss the drive sounds, even though the Gotek emulates them).

Well, that's it for now. I'll stick around on the forum, I love it a lot!
KyleB
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by KyleB »

You're lucky to find an SC1224 I never ever manged to find one in the last 10 years
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sandord
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

KyleB wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:04 pm You're lucky to find an SC1224 I never ever manged to find one in the last 10 years
Yeah, I know, I got really lucky. It was incredibly dirty when I got it but after cleaning it thoroughly, the screen AND the picture turned out to be spotless! The logo still had the original protective sticker on it so that looks brand new as well. Only the casing has taken some beating through time. I think I might replace the front part of the cover with one from a better looking SM124 one day.

Look at those scan lines!

IMG-20180823-WA0001.jpg
IMG-20180823-WA0001.jpg (200.36 KiB) Viewed 5461 times
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sandord
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

KyleB wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:04 pm You're lucky to find an SC1224 I never ever manged to find one in the last 10 years
There's actually another one for sale over here in Holland since august 15, on a site called Marktplaats.nl (the Dutch version of Craigslist or whatever it is called in your country) but the guy never responds to messages. In the end I'm glad because I got mine for 3 times less the price this guy asks.

Just keep looking, someday one will turn up from a garage or attic clean out somewhere.
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alienkidmj12
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by alienkidmj12 »

Welcome back.

Actually you may be able to assist. I also have also recently went back to stfm/ste/falcon.

I took a different path, I became a solaris sys admin supporting sparc hardware and OS.

I'd very much like to learn gfa basic and write some tools that have nice gui. Like kobold 3.5. Kobold is one of my favourite tools in falcon, the interface is real eye candy. I think papyrus also looked really good.

I just dunno where to start, what do I need to download, is it command line driven? Where do I go for examples, etc etc.

I'd also like to learn asm but one step at a time.

Thanks

Dave
KyleB
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by KyleB »

sandord wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:36 pm
KyleB wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:04 pm You're lucky to find an SC1224 I never ever manged to find one in the last 10 years
There's actually another one for sale over here in Holland since august 15, on a site called Marktplaats.nl (the Dutch version of Craigslist or whatever it is called in your country) but the guy never responds to messages. In the end I'm glad because I got mine for 3 times less the price this guy asks.

Just keep looking, someday one will turn up from a garage or attic clean out somewhere.
I've lived in the netherlands almost 2 years. In the town where I live a guy had a fully modded Mega, 28Mhz cpu with cache, 4mb ram, 1.44mb floppy mod, rom switcher etc... Never ever replied to me.

I hate marktplaats, it's full of idiots.

I bought mountain bike from there, I say "when can I pick it up? Where do you live?" He says "you can pick it up now if you like." I say "Sure, but what is your address?" guy doesn't reply for 12 hours then surprised when I say I'm not coming today anymore.

Or when I tried sell an old dell server for 50 euro or so, people come asking if me setting up their entire business' computer network is included in the price...
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sandord
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

KyleB wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 11:48 pm
sandord wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:36 pm

There's actually another one for sale over here in Holland since august 15, on a site called Marktplaats.nl (the Dutch version of Craigslist or whatever it is called in your country) but the guy never responds to messages. In the end I'm glad because I got mine for 3 times less the price this guy asks.

Just keep looking, someday one will turn up from a garage or attic clean out somewhere.
I've lived in the netherlands almost 2 years. In the town where I live a guy had a fully modded Mega, 28Mhz cpu with cache, 4mb ram, 1.44mb floppy mod, rom switcher etc... Never ever replied to me.

I hate marktplaats, it's full of idiots.

I bought mountain bike from there, I say "when can I pick it up? Where do you live?" He says "you can pick it up now if you like." I say "Sure, but what is your address?" guy doesn't reply for 12 hours then surprised when I say I'm not coming today anymore.

Or when I tried sell an old dell server for 50 euro or so, people come asking if me setting up their entire business' computer network is included in the price...
Yeah, I know what you mean. Sometimes people can be real a-holes on that site. But most of the times people turn out to be nice and decent from my experience. The guy who sold me the SC1224 for example (yes, on Marktplaats), was really kind and put a lot of effort in packaging the monitor safely before putting it on the mail. He was very considerate, asking if the box had arrived without damages etc. In the end, sites like that are a reflection of society, including a-holes and kind people as well.
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sandord
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

alienkidmj12 wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 11:26 pm Welcome back.

Actually you may be able to assist. I also have also recently went back to stfm/ste/falcon.

I took a different path, I became a solaris sys admin supporting sparc hardware and OS.

I'd very much like to learn gfa basic and write some tools that have nice gui. Like kobold 3.5. Kobold is one of my favourite tools in falcon, the interface is real eye candy. I think papyrus also looked really good.

I just dunno where to start, what do I need to download, is it command line driven? Where do I go for examples, etc etc.

I'd also like to learn asm but one step at a time.

Thanks

Dave

So, welcome back as well then :)

I haven't touched GFA Basic yet, I'm coding in C now, combined with ASM. If you want to start coding in GFA basic, I think the manual would be a good place to start. If you don't have it, take a look over here: http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=11523

I think there's plenty stuff to be found on the internet using your favourite search engine but you might need to search a little longer than usual because this kind information tends to be buried a little deeper ;-)

I had a quick look and this might be of interest to you, one you're up to it:

Apparently, there's an easier way of using GEM (which is the standard user interface library) in GFA: http://st-news.com/issues/st-news-volum ... nce-again/

Good luck :)
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sandord
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by sandord »

KyleB wrote: Sat Aug 25, 2018 8:04 pm You're lucky to find an SC1224 I never ever manged to find one in the last 10 years
You probably won't believe me but I just bought another one from Marktplaats, again for 25 euros. I've got a search notification set up at the site, that helps a lot.
KyleB
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Re: Hi from Holland

Post by KyleB »

nice... I found a Commodore 1084 in the electronics container at the dump. Mint condition. Even still with front control cover that always snaps off.
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