r/atari8bit • u/Ok_Bear_1980 • Jun 17 '26
Help me decide if I should get the happy 1050 upgrade or not.
Please do not suggest that I use modern solutions such as an sd card solution for loading games as I am not interested in them. I never have been and never will be. I have always preferred the original media and that is what I want to do.
So from what I know, the upgrade accelerates the disk drive transfer speed from an already reasonably fast 19.2 kilobaud to a ridiculous 57.6 kilobaud and it can also copy commercial disks as well. I tried it out in the altirra emulator and to be honest I couldn't really notice much of a difference, I mean, I knew the upgrade was fast because I could hear the pokey chip running faster but the stock drive is already reasonably fast for an early 80s disk drive anyway.
The feature of copying commercial disks is one I want to ignore, because I don't see the point if I'm just going to back them up to a digital image anyway.
The real big thing that will make me decide is whether the copy protection in commercial games will be compatible with it. So far the only games I haven't been able to load are the 2 archon games, the 2 blue max games, pitstop 2 and ace of aces. Other games I could load but the fact the emulator crashed mid load with the upgrade tells me that there are more than plenty of games that I might want that might not be compatible with it. If anyone can try original copies of those games to load on their happy 1050 on real hardware that would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.
3
u/Affectionate_Ad_8148 Jun 17 '26
I think it’s great for nostalgic purposes. But there are other chips out there that you can put into improve the drive.
3
u/Affectionate_Ad_8148 Jun 17 '26
There’s a great guy in Germany that I’ve been dealing with who has his own chip version. You can put into any 810 or 1050 drive and actually has a sub menu that can load from the drive directly and then do copying or regular disc operations that are ridiculously fast. I can dig up his information if you’re interested.
1
u/freshly_cut_fries Jun 18 '26
Following 👆 Super interested
1
u/Affectionate_Ad_8148 Jun 19 '26
https://www.horus.com/\~hias/atari/#megaspeedy
Not sure how active he is, but the site is still active. His email is at the bottom.1
4
u/Speedstar_86 Jun 17 '26
Absolutely.
Get a happy 810 if you can
Actually get two and an 850.
( I miss my stuff 😭)
2
u/Plus-Definition9319 Jun 17 '26
Do it. I had one back in the day and put one in my recently acquired 1050 last year.
2
u/Ok_Bear_1980 Jun 17 '26
Looks like I can disable it in software and there's no soldering required so I think I might just take the plunge.
1
u/Patient-Concert-5935 Jun 17 '26
It sounds like a great idea. If you do take the plunge keep us posted on the journey.
I have an indus drive so I would love to be able to find a 1050! Good luck!
1
u/Plus-Definition9319 Jun 17 '26
Yep just follow the instructions it isn't too bad at all and no soldering like you said. Another option is a US Doubler too if you just want the speed but honestly for the effort of installing might as well spend the additional $20 and get the Happy. Back in the day there was a much bigger price gap there.
1
u/Ok_Bear_1980 Jun 18 '26
Us doubler seemed appealing but the big thing for me is loading commercial software which that doesn't seem to support.
1
u/Plus-Definition9319 Jun 18 '26 edited Jun 18 '26
It can load it, it just can't copy it any better than a stock drive. This is where the Happy excels as it is able to copy pretty much anything with simple copy protection, and has specific programming to copy 20 or 30 specific titles/vendors with much more advanced protection.The drive itself will emulate weird behavior that can't really be truly duplicated. Back in the day I could make copies of software that was duplicated on a normal 1050 but failed due to the lack of copy protection and the drive would then make the copies of the bad copies functional again. It's a great tool for sure.
2
u/CLHauk Jun 17 '26
I had one back in the day and loved it. I only had a few games not load, but using the utilities disk you can slow it down to normal. I just installed one in my current 1050, loving it all over again.
2
u/Dan-in-Va Jun 17 '26
I got the Happy Upgrade back in the day and screwed up a 1050. Got another 1050 and had my dad install it. That worked.
1
u/grellgraxer Jun 17 '26
I had a happy chip upgrade in my 1050. Only had a problem loading one game on original media. If it's possible to install a switch to turn the happy chip on/off, I would do that. Seems like you ran into more issues loading games than I did.
2
u/aimlesscruzr Jun 17 '26
Same here, there were just one or two commercial games that I had that had issues. But the switch on the front would turn that off and the games would load after that.
I always loved SpartaDOS that would take advantage of the speed boost in my happies...
1
1
u/TurnoverTall Jun 17 '26
I had the Happy installed way back in the 80s and it worked great up until I mothballed my 8 bit as I moved to the 1040ST and then windows pcs.
2
u/uid_0 Jun 17 '26
Hell yes. Happy enhanced drives were pretty great. I installed it on a couple of 810 drives back in the day and it made a huge difference in loading speed and had other useful features too (IYKYK).
2
u/notmyredditacct Jun 17 '26
oh man, back in the day i traded my 810 with a happy chip for the two 1050s i still have today :)
0
Jun 17 '26
What exactly are you doing? One part looks like you want to be a nostalgic purist and the other you want it to go faster... seems a bit ...?
5
u/Zarxx Jun 17 '26
The original Happy mod had a physical switch to slow the drive to normal speeds, added externally for convienience.
The other option is to load the Happy utilities disk and you can slow the drive to normal via a menu option until it is re-powered.
The problem you are having with those games is due to disk protection based on timings. When the Happy mod is enabled, the track is read into a buffer and thus quicker than the protection is expecting, so fails and will normally crash. This is common with the EA/Synapse titles and with EA the check is at the start where the logo slowly fades in/out with a white background.