One of the nice things about being into retro gaming and computing these days is that there are a lot of very convenient things you can use that simply weren’t a thing Back In The Day for one reason or another. And while I’m not a huge fan of doing major modifications to classic hardware that effectively rips out the original “soul” of the machine, I do want to share a few things that just make life a little bit easier for various use cases.
SDrive-MAX (Atari 8-bit)
One of the most common points of failure on classic hardware is old media — both in terms of the media itself, and the hardware required to read it. I have several disk drives for my Atari 8-bit computers, and none of them quite work properly. One of the 1050s can be coaxed back into behaving itself by taking it apart, giving it a poke and putting it back together again, but that’s a bit of a pain and I’m always wary of doing so.
So what’s the alternative? Well, enter the SDrive-MAX, a little gizmo that plugs into the Atari 8-bit’s SIO port (precursor to USB, fact fans) and effectively acts as a virtual disk drive. Like most convenient add-on gizmos these days, it’s based around a little Arduino mini computer that basically pretends to be an Atari disk drive. Set it up with the default gubbins and it automatically boots to a convenient menu screen — using the Atari’s own OS, not anything you’ve “bolted on” to it — where you can choose from disk images and executable files you’ve put on an SD card. You can even create new disk images to save things — such as documents in productivity software and saved games in games — and mount multiple disk images simultaneously for easy swapping between.
It’s a lovely little thing, and has effectively removed most of the need I might have for a classic Atari disk drive. There are some old files and documents trapped on old Atari floppies that I’d like to find a solution to preserve at some point, but if I just want to play a game or something on real Atari 8-bit hardware, the SDrive-MAX is all I need.
UltraSatan (Atari ST)
A similar sort of thing for Atari ST is the UltraSatan. This, once again, is a little gizmo you plug into a port on the base spec micro without having to make any modifications, and it allows you to load things from SD card rather than having to rely on floppy disks. There are ways to make it boot floppy disk images, but by far the most convenient thing to do is set it up as a virtual hard drive and boot everything from there.
One of the most popular things to do in this regard is contact a slightly intimidating member of the Atari enthusiast community who has diligently worked to convert a massive selection of Atari ST games to run from hard drive. Not only that, but he’s set a lot of them up to support save states and quick quitting back to the desktop without having to reboot the machine — and he’s also put in the work to ensure that the vast majority of things work on all variants of the ST’s operating system, thereby completely eliminating one of my biggest bugbears with the ST: the fact that some games will only work on certain models of ST.
Like the SDrive-MAX, the UltraSatan fitted with the “PeraPutnik” driver and hard drive image turns the ST into a ready-to-go gaming battlestation, loaded up with every game you might possibly want to play (and some you’ll never want to touch). And because using it doesn’t involve faffing around with anything inside the ST — it plugs into the hard drive port that already exists on most STs — you can still use your old floppies, too.
MemCard Pro 2 (PlayStation/PlayStation 2)
One thing PlayStation enthusiasts have almost certainly run into at some point is the challenge of remembering which memory card has what saved games on it. If you have a large PlayStation and PlayStation 2 collection, it can be easy to lose track of what is saved where, unless you’re diligent about labelling and cataloguing your cards, which I’m willing to bet most people are not.
Enter the MemCard Pro 2, another little gizmo built on a tiny computer. This time, it’s not for booting game images; it’s for creating virtual memory cards on an SD card. This means you can easily organise and catalogue your saved games without having to constantly swap cards; changing memory cards is a matter of pressing a button on the device, or using the Web-based interface from your mobile phone to select a “card” directly.
It supports both PlayStation 2 and PlayStation memory cards, and the only limit to how many virtual cards you can have is the size of the SD card you put in it. And with PS2 memory cards being 8MB (and PS1 being 192KB!) you can fit a lot on even a small SD card.
Even better, if you’re just getting into PlayStation collecting and you start a game for the first time, the MemCard Pro 2 can automatically detect and create a memory card specifically for that game. If you use this feature, you basically never have to switch anything ever again — though if you have existing saves on old memory cards, you’ll probably want to spend some time copying them across to the MemCard Pro 2 at some point.
8bitdo Retro Receiver (PlayStation/PlayStation 2)
Finally, you can easily upgrade your PlayStation or PlayStation 2 to modern wireless controls with this lovely little thing. You can pair it with all manner of devices, including Sony’s own DualShock 4 controllers to keep the authentic PlayStation feel, and finally bin all those old DualShock 2s that have been making weird rattling noises for years. Lovely stuff.
I’m looking forward to adding the Dreamcast GDEMU (and I also ordered an EverDrive for the N64) to this mix. Modernised retro consoles ahoy!
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
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