Re: Trackstar Questions...

[st3b1@jetson.uh.edu (Fretz, David)]

In article <2im646$4ff@news.u.washington.edu>, cyanea@u.washington.edu (Bill Whitson) writes...
>Just got my Trackstart E after about a year of looking and
>now that it's time to hook things up I've got a few
>questions (hopefully there are people out there that have
>one.)
> 
>-The card only appears to have support for a 9-pin video
>connector.  Is there any way to hook it up to a VGA
>monitor (a simple adaptor perhaps)?

Nope VGA is Analog while EGA/CGA is digital.

> 
>-Is a Trackstar disk drive still usable by the PC or
>is hooked solely through the card?

It's a pass through arrangement.  The drive is used in both modes

> 
>-Can the Trackstar use prodos or is 3.3 it's standard?

Never tried Prodos but I guess it should be able if the ROM are any good.

> 
>-Were there ever any upgrades to the trackstar?  Hard drive
>support (yeah, I'm dreaming - but it would be really cool), 3.5"
>floppy, etc.?  Is the company that made these still around?
> 

Board E is the last of the Trackstars.  The ports on the card supported a real
Unidisk 5.25 for copy protected wares as well as using the MFM 5.25 as a GCR 
drive, serial port, joystick, graphics or mono support.  The latest disk I have
is v6.2.3.  Diamond Computers is still around making great affordable graphics
cards for PC and clones.  The same people that make the Viper graphics card.

>-Has anybody written programs for the trackstar to do things like
>format disks to larger capacities (given that it can use PC drives)?

I'm sure it possible. Haven't seen anything besides the utilities on the 
Trackstar disk.  Remember that one can hook up a unidisk and try some 
Apple II utility and see.  Better yet try it hooked up to the PC drive.

> 
>Thanks for any info. you can give me.
> 
>-Bill
> 
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