What's new Pussycat too?

My Atarimax Happy 1050 and APE Warp+ 32-in-1 OS upgrades arrived in the post today. I ordered the 1200XL kit version of the OS since it's the same price, but it comes with a free BASIC eprom along with the sockets, so I've some extras. I'm just waiting on the Pokeymax to arrive, supposedly anytime between today and the 10th, though I haven't checked tracking progress in a few days.

Apparently Atarimax has started sending along a free gift. I also got a 6-pack of 'Reboot' trading cards. I guess some kids show, but it must have come after I was a kid.

 

So I decided to buy this basket case off eBay, and now I know there is definitely a streak of masochism in my make up.


Talk about 'rescuing the perishing', I must be mad.

First task when I finally wake up from this nightmare, is to remove this mad attempt at welding!!!!!!!!! So much for a Happy 810 mod. LOL

 

"Talk about 'rescuing the perishing', I must be mad."

since website decided it'll not add a quote ..

There are two ways of looking at that .. YES you are what a Donut ...
NO it may take time but I'll learn a lot about the 810, and be happier for it!!
I'll go for the 2nd Option

 

My latest is a great deal I found on Ebay for 3 of the Syn-series programs; $24.95. usually selling for that much each! That's all the Atari spending I can afford for a while, I've been on a bit of a binge since my birthday...anything else will have to wait until Christmas, unless something urgent comes up like limited release Sophia 2 or something...that's four software packages and three hardware devices...

 

Nice haul there Matt

 

I meant to mention you will be expected to add a Blog or similar on your trials and tribulations!!

 

Yep Matt; Along with Richie gets my vote.

I've a little request to make as you keep your eyes down on AA. if there is any release information, on Sophia2 can you let me know, not sure if I'll get a message or not. Thanks Fella

 

So, sat down to work on the 810 circuit boards removing the 'Happy' upgrade. It was amazing that this ever worked, having touched several of the solder joints for them to fall apart.

I had a quick look at the drive mechanism only to find the drive band from the stepper motor missing. Had a quick look on ebay, and as units are Stateside, looks like this is going to stop where it is.

I'll test the chips that are socketed to make sure they're OK and box it up until I can hopefully get a cheap mechanism.

 

That's a shame I take it there is a spring steel band to move the heads, odd that someone would remove it unless broken or to repair another 810.
If it helps likely to be buying from BEST in the next week or so, just had email back from Bradley Koda, if Best do an 810 mech or spares could share cost of postage etc. ? just a thought.
Likewise if anyone on here from the UK needs anything thats available its often cheaper to deliver to one location and post internbally round the UK.
Let me know happy to help others

 

Hi Graham, thanks for the offer, let me know when you are ordering and I'll let you know if I'm going to buy one. It depends on how much further damage I find.

Regards Andy

 

No Problem Andy

If it helps I know they have all the boards available or they did have I should say. seem to think that they were fairly cheap like $20 for analogue $25 for digital but may warrant investigation email :-
bestelec@bestelec.digitalspacemail8.net
Happy to hang on for a bit as I'm in no great rush to pay my customs 'FINE' just yet.

 

Graham I am after a new Mylar for my 65XE and Best do a replacement...

CB101049 - Best Mitsumi XE Keyboard Mylar
CO25953 - Atari eMMU 130XE

Bradley said it wasn’t cost effective to order it on it’s own but I didn’t need anything else at the time, could you add that to your order? It won’t add much to the weight.

 

Richie
Yep !
Added on.
Andy I take it they couldn't help with anything else?

 

Hi Graham,

going to pass on getting a drive mechanism. I've tested all the ttl chips and they're fried. The Eprom is also dead so looks like a fault with the power supply board has taken them out, or the previous owner has replaced serviceable items with dead uns.

I'll keep looking for an 810 in the UK or EU that works.

Regards

Andy

 

Hi Andy
That's a shame , but thank's for letting me know.
I've a few more enquiries to make of Bradley as I need some power switches and a frame that sits up on the XEGS board as support. If they don't have them I'll design and build some soft switch unit that toggles power via a FET or similar.
The black switches Atari used for the console keys on the XEGS they want $6.95 each for, so may resort to an alternative and an adaptor board.
They have the joystick and keyboard ports though, just needed to look in the 2600 section and the 5200 section Atari clearly used what they had already !

 

I just got some Atari/Fuji metallic badge/labels in the mail I forgot I'd ordered from eBay. They are to add an Atari badge to custom cases I have made for devices without cases. Multiple pictures are an attempt to capture the chrome in the light...with limited success. I originally wanted to order genuine Atari badges like are on the 400/800/810, but MyAtari wants $10 each plus shipping these days which I found ludicrous, so I found these as an alternative, and 4 cost me the price of one badge from MyAtari.

 

Very nice and very reasonable, Matt. As you say, what's the point in throwing $30-40 at a couple of Atari badges when there are much more economical alternatives available. I got a sheet of adhesive Oric badges a short while ago which cost me about 10 euros for 10 and I just colour photocopy them, carefully cut them out (so saving the originals) and pritt stick them on to various Oric peripherals and they're fine... and will outlast me, most probably.

Anyone else got any thrifty recommendations? I remember Brenski used to produce some pretty nifty Atari 5.25" disk labels which were smart and stylish too.

 

So over the last few days I've decided to check all my floppy disk to ensure they boot and the programmes run, and good old Murphy decides to step in.

One of my drives decides to start playing up with loading the disks. OK, opened it up and cleaned the head, and it was filthy. I found the offending disk and that is now in the bin. The disk material was breaking up. Tried another disk and found the same problem.

So I decided to check the disk speed and it was reading 295 RPM.

So I've checked all my drives, including my XF551 and 3 of the 1050s required adjustment as the were on the high side.

Now to recheck the disks that wouldn't load and see how many are actually good.

 

@Vulcanman One of my 1050's started acting up with loading and saving and formatting, progressively worsened until now, were it powers on and the drive spins up and just stays spinning. I swapped a couple of chips in it, but then my 1200XL went down, so I hadn't bothered to fix it until I have a computer to use it with. I did just order an Atarimax Happy upgrade that arrived a couple of weeks ago, which I am hoping will resolve the problem, but we shall see. This is the same drive that the PSU circuit went out on a few years ago and I had a thread up on Atari Sector at the time about it. I replaced the large capacitors and the diodes in between at that point which repaired it.

But it will still wait until the 1200XL is repaired. I haven't felt like working on anything for a few months now, and didn't have much time anyway. But as winter approaches, with my seasonal business that's the time I have more time for my hobbies. And in fact, the business is slowing already (after a couple months of high activity after a slow down due to Covid earlier in the year) and I will be getting back to my 800 very soon, I'm in the mood again.

 

Glad you sorted out the drives speed, and better still ditched the naff Disc's always going to be a problem going forward as most are about 30 years old if not more.
I've tended to find that discs that don't work in say a BBC drive with 80 tracks will work at 40 and so on. the exception being the HD 51/4" disc's ment to staore when formatted 1.2MBytes on a PC, these don't seem to play ball with any lower capacity drives at all .

 

Hi Matt really pleased that your feeling a little more positive towards your Atari's. I'm sure that once the frustrations of them not working are behind you, We'll begin to see that Tracked Robotic vechicle start to take shape

 

Yes, indeed, as well as some threads on repairing and/or upgrading other peripherals that I also don't see a need to bother with until I have a computer to use them. I've got a huge backlog of things I want to use my computers for too, once I finally get the backlog of repairs and upgrades completed.

The first being setting up the OS/DOS/Partitions/memory/etc. on both machines to bootstrap the proper way for what I want to use them for. I'll be using my 1200XL system for different things than what I'll be using the 800 for, so they will be setup differently and will both have different "every day" OS's more suited to their purposes. Both will use SpartaDOS X though, with different batch files to set them up for the different uses upon bootstrapping.

The 1200XL will be more of a programming, DTP, WP and graphics computer, with it's superior keyboard, two printers and VBXE upgrade and the 800 my hardware project computer and business and personal finance computer (mainly just because it has the CX85 keypad). Both will be gaming computers, one NTSC (800) and one PAL (1200XL).

The 1200XL and 800 will be getting more and different upgrades and mods as well. For 1200XL Rapidus and VBXE, internal 3.5" floppy and more. The 800 will be getting, again different upgrades, such as the Pokeymax Quad + Covox and the Turbo Freezer 3 I recently ordered and is on the way (connected to the Incognito PBI and internally mounted). And the 800 will get extra PIA/SIA's in it.

Both will also be getting more and different port mods. The 1200XL will be a second SIO and port(s) partaining to the VBXE and disk drive. The 800 extra controller ports for the PIA/SIA upgrades, another SIO port and PBI. And of course direct-connect standard audio/video ports too, all out the back or underside in the back were the case has recesses. I intend to only have the PSU port utilized on the side of the machine regularly; the side SIO will be used only on occasion for dead-end peripherals while the new rear SIO will connect to Daisy-chainable peripherals. The side monitor port may never get used again, unless there is some reason I decide I need a second monitor hooked up.

I never liked SIO and monitor cables coming out the side of the 800. I think it's one of two aesthetic design flaws of the 400/800. The other is front controller ports. At least I understand the controller port placement since they are plugged and unplugged often, but there is no need for easy access to SIO and monitor ports regularly like for controllers, and it's not aesthetically pleasing having cables visible on the side. Just like I feel one of the aesthetic design flaws of the 600/800XL is a visible cartridge port on top, like a game console, and while the XE line hid it away again, it was put in a difficult to reach rear position. I love the 1200XL for it's I/O placement. Though the cartridge port needs DIY modification to fit all cartridges, I love that it's easily accessible on the side and recessed to hide the cartridge and even with piggy-back carts only sticks out one cartridge length. Rear I/O for most things and side controller ports on all XL/XE's was a good design change from the 400/800's front, IMHO, Still easily accessed, but not looking as untidy with cables coming out the front of the machines. Though I'll live with front controller ports on my 800.

 

Hi Matt
Just wanted to let you know that I'll have some Address decoder boards within the next few weeks, once I confirm they fit and work as expected I'll send several over for you, whilst I'm at it I noticed Mytek was looking to add a PAL clock built onto a daughter board to plug in under the GITA. ( I know dropcheck did something similar) quoted below .
"
The original 576NUC+ was going to be relegated to NTSC, since the additional circuitry for producing the PAL color burst was fairly involved density-wise, and I really was running up against the wall with finding space for things. However @tf_hh presented the idea of a GTIA piggyback board to provide this missing aspect. And so was born what I call the 'PALburst' board.
By plugging this into the GTIA socket, and then plugging GTIA on top of that, the missing PAL color burst circuit will be provided. Then all that's required is to use the appropriate PAL primary oscillator crystal and a PAL Antic and GTIA.
For those that are waiting for a Sophia2 to arrive, this board and GTIA will not be required, since the Sophia2 already provides what is needed for PAL or NTSC. Note: You'll still need the appropriate primary crystal and Antic to match up with either PAL or NTSC.
"

I'm waiting on a sophia2 but I may MOD my 1200XL to PAL before that, I've already got the circuit as part of the missing XEGS schematics so I may design a board similar as I don't think Mytek is releasing his design, or at least hasn't yet
I think the boards work out about 40P nee $0.50 each when I buy 10, seems a shame not to share them out
Let me know and I can send you over a few boards, although I expect the Adress decoders the most useful for you.

 

I seem to have got in the doldrums over my collection of Atari's, I don't really have room to set them up as I would like.

I have two main work benches in a spare bedroom, one setup, in the main as an electronics working area, but this has to double with any retro computers as well, as my preferred screen and PSU' all mounted there as well. On the other workbench, in the main it's setup as an electronics design suite, with a decent PC screen etc, plus devices to program all sorts of electronic items, design circuits, layout PCB designs etc etc. I guess I could try and make room for an Atari or so but would all need to be DVI out to make best use of the PC's screen. I'm thinking either the XEL or XLD.

I to need different Atari setup to work the way I would like, the XEL, XLD having all the MIDI stuff, and I guess I could use a wireless PS/2 keyboard with either of these.

The XEGS, and 800XL, 130XE all test beds for hardware (although the 800 will be used to test some stuff)

I've been working on a replacement circuit board that fits the XEGS case as well, and designing add-ons to fit for the future, but testing on the ones I have.

One thing I can vouch for is the mess it gets in

 

Are the address decoder boards you are referring to for PIA/SIA? This was something you told me about before right? Thank you, in advance for the address decoder boards

I'm good as far as PAL compatibility since I already have Dropcheck's board and Crystal, PAL ANTIC/GTIA in my 1200XL, and I too, will be getting a Sophia 2 board for my 800, though I probably won't use it for PAL stuff much anyway. But I also already have both PAL and NTSC 800 CPU boards too, as for a while I was planning on reverting the 1200XL to NTSC and make the 800 PAL (before I knew I was getting an Incognito and Sophia 2 for it), then changed my mind.