exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Greets to my favorite Atari forum on the web! I'm fairly new to the Atari scene. I have only used emulators but am getting ready to purchase my first, a Mega STE. My primary interest is in MIDI sequencing.

I am in negotiation to purchase a well-cared-after machine from Slovakia, shipping to here in the US via UPS, and I am wondering if anyone who has purchased a machine from overseas can provide me with the DOs and DO NOTs to ensure that my new baby arrives without issue (and Exxos, if I am posting in the wrong forum for this, feel free to redirect me).

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Having just received a MegaSTE myself in excellent condition, albeit from inside the same country, I can say that it really needs to have the main unit and kbd wrapped spearately in lots of padding (Mine came in a ton of bubble wrap) and in a box within a box, also bubble wrapped, that gives loads of room around the outside so that the corners cannot shift and get crunched along the way.

As it's coming a long way, it really does need those layers of padding and cardboard so that it can't move around.

If it's well cared for, hopefully the seller will want to ensure that it arrives safely.

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Welcome on board.

Any idea which sequencer you are planning on using? And synths/samplers etc?

Some sequencers may only work on the Mega STE with the cache disabled (and possibly only at 8MHz).

I've not managed to acquire a Mega STE (yet) but would be interested to know what you find does/doesn't work with it.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 May 2020 10:10 Having just received a MegaSTE myself in excellent condition, albeit from inside the same country, I can say that it really needs to have the main unit and kbd wrapped spearately in lots of padding (Mine came in a ton of bubble wrap) and in a box within a box, also bubble wrapped, that gives loads of room around the outside so that the corners cannot shift and get crunched along the way.

Great suggestions, and I will ask about packing. One minor hurdle I have with this purchase is that the seller is in Slovakia, and only speaks Slovak, so we are communicating via layers of Google translator (the seller translates my messages into Slovak, and then types out his response in Slovak, then translates it back into English). :D However, I do have a friend who speaks Slovak who has offered to help, so I will take these suggestions and pass them on to him for a more effective translation.

One arrangement we are making is that because of Covid-19, the only option is UPS, and I am setting up the delivery myself (UPS will pick up at seller's residence). Are there any US-based folks on this board who have any advice for ensuring a smooth sail through customs?

wwinfrey wrote: 23 May 2020 00:12

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 May 2020 10:10 Having just received a MegaSTE myself in excellent condition, albeit from inside the same country, I can say that it really needs to have the main unit and kbd wrapped spearately in lots of padding (Mine came in a ton of bubble wrap) and in a box within a box, also bubble wrapped, that gives loads of room around the outside so that the corners cannot shift and get crunched along the way.

Great suggestions, and I will ask about packing. One minor hurdle I have with this purchase is that the seller is in Slovakia, and only speaks Slovak, so we are communicating via layers of Google translator (the seller translates my messages into Slovak, and then types out his response in Slovak, then translates it back into English). :D However, I do have a friend who speaks Slovak who has offered to help, so I will take these suggestions and pass them on to him for a more effective translation.

One arrangement we are making is that because of Covid-19, the only option is UPS, and I am setting up the delivery myself (UPS will pick up at seller's residence). Are there any US-based folks on this board who have any advice for ensuring a smooth sail through customs?

@wwinfrey , welcome to the forum. I'm on the east coast, RI to be more specific. UPS is overwhelmed here 130000 packages behind. lots of tractor trailers unopened at the facility with perishables and Medicine included according to the news. I would attempt to check if your UPS is in the same state. I'm making sure to avoid UPS here. Good luck with the new purchase. I have one and its a great machine. :)

JezC wrote: 21 May 2020 10:35 Any idea which sequencer you are planning on using? And synths/samplers etc?

Some sequencers may only work on the Mega STE with the cache disabled (and possibly only at 8MHz).

I've not managed to acquire a Mega STE (yet) but would be interested to know what you find does/doesn't work with it.

I recently purchased a package off of Ebay containing the C-Lab LOG-3, Unitor 2 & Emagic Export, with Notator SL 3.2 & Creator disks, so at least at first I guess I'll be starting with Notator/Creator 3.2. The reason I purchased this particular package is because -from what I've been able to ascertain- the LOG-3 is the dongle for Emagic Logic - if I can find the disk images, which have thus far eluded me, I'd like to give Logic a try. Also, the package needs to show up. It's coming from Poland, the purchase was completed on Monday, and it has yet to ship.

I've combed through https://notator.org and read about the suggestions re: cache and speed, but interestingly enough, I was reading through the comp.sys.atari.st archives, and found an almost 20-year-old thread entitled STe vs MegaSTe? and here, a user reports that the Mega STE will run Notator at 16 kHz, and apparently you can enable the cache with CPX after Notator is running. Hopefully I will soon be able to find out!

I also would like to try out Cubase 3.1, and Dr. T's KCS Omega II 5.0 (if I can ever find the disks & docs - I know that 4.0 and TigerCub are available at TAMW but I would like to try the final version so to speak). I also plan on running RealTime, Dr. Ambient & "M" (side note: I ran "M" 2.8 on OSX for years until 32-bit app support was dropped). TBH, I'm quite curious to try many of the algorithmic sequencers available at the TAMW archive. I'll probably start out sequencing soft synths & samplers, but I have a couple Akai hardware samplers on deck I intend to target with a port and channel.

This post is getting long, but ... my intention with all this is to explore & discover a world that I've really only known through emulation. I intend to document my experiences as thoroughly as possible, and am hoping that the end result will be a couple decent articles & maybe some accompanying videos reflecting on the use of the Atari in the modern home studio.

One my ideas is to measure, and compare, the MIDI accuracy on the Atari in a number of different scenarios: Cubase vs Notator would be the obvious comparison, but I'm also interested in seeing the variance in say, MIDI clock accuracy once you move from the on-board port to the RS-232 and the ports provided by say, the Unitor or a Midex. How does it change as you increase the load (by adding more devices) and move further away? Is there variance between say, Port B on the Emagic Export, and Port G on the C-LAB? Does the variance change as devices are added and removed?

I'll close this already-lengthy post by saying that although my interest started solely in wanting to try a legendary sequencer platform with a great reputation for tight MIDI, I am quickly becoming immersed in wanting to understand how the entire machine works. I think some of the appeal of "retro" comptuers like the ST in 2020 (at least for us newbs) has something to do with the fact that they are comprehensible as a complete system, and you don't, for example, need a microscope to disassemble & examine specific components.

Or maybe I've just been lurking on this forum for so long that I've become infected with the hardware obsession :-)

PaulJ wrote: 23 May 2020 00:56 @wwinfrey , welcome to the forum. I'm on the east coast, RI to be more specific. UPS is overwhelmed here 130000 packages behind. lots of tractor trailers unopened at the facility with perishables and Medicine included according to the news. I would attempt to check if your UPS is in the same state. I'm making sure to avoid UPS here. Good luck with the new purchase. I have one and its a great machine. :)

Hi @PaulJ ! Thank you! I know UPS has a distribution facility in Aurora, CO - about 40 miles away from where I live. Denver is the largest city west of the Mississippi River and east of Phoenix, so hopefully there will be less of an issue coming into this part of the country.

And while neither of these things is probative, but with orders I've done through the USPS, I've had a t-shirt I ordered from the UK sitting at the port of Los Angeles since last Wednesday, but I've also ordered records from the UK and had them arrive within a week.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLbMdtZcKTs

Welcome !

Easy one, but you must play this :lol: