How to be useless

[Petari]

Chaos it is
Really ? It seems that it gets dumber and dumber.  It was pretty much clear what thread starter asked, despite not so good English - but smartheads must to ask about using my hard disk adapt - while thread starter talked about floppy images .
All what they can to do is:
General answer, prejudices.
Or in case of pirate to recommend own old cracks. Because what they did is surely the best, flawless ...

And it is year 2022. And Atari ST machines are very old. And SW, game's code is not perfect.
I had some talk with JY about not starting, freezing problem by some games. It is present in many, count can be about 50. In some cases it happens when moving mouse, pressing some key, joystick in intro stage (may be with music, some animation) - so there are advice to wait until it ends.  But by some it just happens sometimes. 
The reason is not so good IKBD, MFP code (intelligent keyboard (what reads mouse and joystick too), (multi function peripheral - special Motorola chip for computers with 68000) - in some cases it just becomes unresponsive on input devices. And culprit for bad code is partially Atari self - they never made good and detailed enough documentation for how to do code for it.
And age of Ataris helps not, so I'm sure that there will be more and more problems like this.
But will those at AF be aware about that factor ? Why should ? It is easier to write how PPs 'cracks' destroy data on hard disks and like.  Morons. They did not learn anything in last 15 years.
Usage of some Atari ST is now different than in floppy era, by 90 % of current users. Floppies are too unreliable, including drives. But not only drives, machines becoming less reliable. There will be more and more problems - like computer works, but some SW, games not, or with problems.
And I did not say anything new. This is known problem of electronic. Actually, Atari STs are better in it than average.
Not liking to spread bad news, but: this may be last decade of massive usage of old Atari ST and compatibles. There will be more and more problems, failures, needs for repair, components. Ah, and money for all it. Solutions are already here. 
And for those wanting all it in same way as was in 80-es: possible. Just will cost a lot. Nothing new. It is so with old cars and many other things.

[Petari]

https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=39539
About 15 replies, and in many cases answers were not strict, there was mentioning of diverse SW, but without knowing it's really capabilities.
Then, there was someone talking about having 500 GB drives, so partitions sizes of 512 MB, 2 GB are not good for him - and all it with Atari ST, TT ... 
Well, what he wants to store and run from those disks, on Ataris old 30+ years ?  Some movie player, and like 5 GB long MKV video files ?  Surely, then FAT32 is what is needed.  Not really - only EFAT32 can deal with files over 4 GB. Someone mentioned NTFS ?

What I can say is that 32 GB is certainly enough for some old Atari. And we are about that can not find easy smaller capacity new Flash cards.  Prices are low. Using classic hard disk with old Atari ? Well, only if you have it all already, and it works well.
I remember that tried my 160 GB IDE driver with Mint some 10-12 years ago, and there were problems with FAT32 partitions of larger sizes (what would be today smaller ones) . Don't know about how is with newer versions.  In any case, ST, STE and even Falcon is just too slow and limited with RAM too for FAT32 .
So, even with OS capable to work with FAT32 it will be just too slow.
Not to mention that Atari ST SW is not needing FAT32, and LFN will make extra problems.
All it is known well, but great AF and AA like silly discussions - where no one with some better knowledge participates, and with good reason - idiot admins don't care about knowledge, wasting time .
I will not go there next some 6 months . Curiosity kills the mood 

[Petari]

And more:
https://forums.atariage.com/topic/348830-archiving-st-copy-protected-st-disks-w-greeseweasle/
No reply yet. Nobody from people active there bought/built such ? Or it is really not so good for ST floppies ?
What I can say is about writing images to floppies - Greeseweasle should be able to do it, and all usual image formats - ST - what is just raw floppy sector content image, maybe MSA (but can convert to ST format easily) and some flux formats. Matter of firmware and SW .
And of course if have floppy drives with older PC possible too. But needs SW. I made such for Windows, and it is known. But of course those at atariage will not do it, because I'm a monster - said 'shallow' to some there. And that matters, not helping. Yeah, forums are for ego, not to share experience, knowledge.
And all it is really not complicated. Best is to do write with real Ataris, but that needs solving transfer of image files from PC to Atari - some Flash card adapter is good and not expensive way - to work as hard disk and for easy transfers using  USB reader.
Anyone can write here little about his experiences with Greeseweasle ?

[Petari]

MugUK never disappoints:
In thread at AF 'games on a hard drive' he answered: "If you've got an SD card solution (i.e. UltraSatan or a SCSI-SD adapter if you have a MegaSTE) or an IDE-CF adapter (Falcon and above) then it's as simple as downloading the patched games and running them from the hard-drive partition that you've copied them to from a PC or a Mac."
What to say ? Complete moron, and his answer missing important details. Not to mention that some people still using classic hard disks and there are other solutions for mass storage with Atari ST family. Then IDE-CF can work with some ST, STE, TT ... Ah, maybe he thinks that they are above Falcon :-))
Then, saying 'patched games' - there are patched games for: work on all TOS versions, patched some game bugs ...
Point is not in 'patch' but in making game to be able to run from hard disk/Flash card (but in hard disk compatible mode, using TOS-es FAT16 filesystem handler) . Some may just try some ST images with hard drive :-)
What btw. even can work in smaller %-age of case, but not with any hard disk driver :-)

[Petari]

And useless replies with false claims just go on ...
"As it is writing to the disk that corrupts the data, the change needs to done to the hard disk driver. (TOS 2.06 has a DMAwrite routine in ROM, that would require changing, too; but it's almost never used.)" . Written by czietz - interesting care about rutine in ROM timing, but what about support for drives/Flash cards over 1 GB capacity ?
" can imagine that you're observing an entirely unrelated problem that also manifests itself in data corruption. For example, I've seen an Ultrasatan that repeatedly corrupted the data on the SD card regardless of the machine. (Also on STFs and a TT.)" - also from czietz .
Data corruption happens in 99% cases because of SD card not good for Ultrasatan. And UltraSatan can be problem too ..
Using long writes to DMA chip is usual way, and yes, it is present in TOS too. It is actually not long write, only instruction is it. That's splitted in 2 parts, and writes to 2 HW registers (in fact only 1-1 byte). Surely not possible at once with 16 bit data bus . Same on TT. And if you look DMA chip pins - it has only 8 bit data.
All it is visible in HW DOCs . Now, doing it with splitted commands so using 2 write commands instead 1 long will have little more pause between 2 writes to DMA registers, because second opcode fetch time. That should not affect timing of signals self. Well, there may be need for some delay between two writes in some cases . More in cases of preparing DMA write than DMA read ? As I remember bad DMA in STE had errors in reading too - not my experience, I never had STE 'bad DMA' chip at me.
My experience is fine with long writes on all Ataris and DMA chip versions. Not sure how it is in TOS 3.06 , but it is very similar to 2.06 so ... Well, actually even saying long writes is wrong - it is just command what uses long data, in fact it's 2 writes in row.

Other thread: AF - Atari falldown
There is my page about how to do it:  Atari properly
Of course, they at AF will not link it. They like mess, lies and not really helping people.
And it seems that it just getting worse ...

[Petari]

 And for change little from AA:   "The MV16, produced by the ST adoring French, is the single most important cartridge for the ST ever released. Coming in at approximately £10-15 to improve the YM2149 horrible sound chip for a Macintosh killing 1986 520STM 16bit home computer it shows how clueless Atari were to not do exactly the same thing before 1 million Amigas had been sold (1989?) to stay in the fight. It's a simple case of a publisher improving of the substandard audio hardware that ultimately killed sales of the STFM. "
This is in thread 'What do you use your cartridge port for?' .
 Well, really 'objective' and 'surely' based on 'extensive research', 'known facts' ...
MV16 was included with game BAT, partially as better sound generator HW, partially for copy protection.
 I did not hear some large improvement in sound quality. Well, maybe my ears, equipment is not that good, but it stay for most of Atari ST users. Just because some are obsessed with sound, and expect some specific tone they can not come with silly talk: like that YM killed sales of Atari ST :-) I'm sure that until 1989 more than million Amigas were sold. And when we are at 1989 and sound - that's when Atari STE is released. With DMA sound (ala Amiga), and what happened - it was barely used in SW, games. Even worse is case of Falcon and it's DSP - good for sound on high level. Sales were pretty low. So, it is clear that only small % of Atari ST family users was interested for sound in first place. Or MIDI, to add.
 Will write it again, and it is well known thing: Atari ST was designed as multi purpose computer, with low price for what it offers. There are diverse compromises - for instance YM chip is used for some floppy lines control too.  I still see ST HW design as very good for it's time. And think that SW design (TOS) was not on that level.

[Petari]

And another thread, where people rather blaming TOS than the real problem - using PC floppy drives on Atari ST without needed mod:  https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=42641
Yes, it happens when they ignore pages done ... hmm 17 years ago : PC floppy drive fix for Atari ST