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yeah, given that i have zero clue about hardware, you might be correct that my judgement of being-not-tinkered-with is totally wrong. it was really just a feeling, because it seemed like nothing has been changed, everything was soldered on the board etc. but i found an image of the board, maybe this helps? (it seems that you have a typo and wrote "later PAL 65XEs" instead of earlier?)

Anyone have the SimCity Data disk? (Labeled "The companion disk to the SimCity Planning Commission Handbook") My original disk is bad. It has extra cities on it. Here is what is on the disk, the files selected on mine are bad. The rest are good.

I was away for a few days. Good news: sio works break works! Bad news: Think my bga soldering was not quite good. So one keyboard line was stuck low. This was also the cause of sio not working. Anyway I took off the chip and cleaned it up. I’ll put another one on and add that chip to my ‘to reball’ pile (not tried yet but looks doable!)

BTW, if you ever subscribe to HP's Instant Ink program, reports are that the printer firmware is irrevocably modified and you can never unsubscribe the printer. As well, if you have any of the subbed ink in reserve and cancel your subscription, all of that unused ink becomes invalid. Never let your printer have access to the Internet, unless your really neeeeeed that functionality. I have my printers on a VLAN, and they are blocked at the firewall.

Right you are, totally missed it, my bad!

Has anyone tried adding .chd games like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace and Mach 3?

I think all your work is really well thought out @big_guitar. I notice contributors don't get much feedback by way of appreciation, but I'm sure I'm not the only one who appreciates you taking the lead on helping everyone build their dream system. I hope I didn't offend by suggesting the flat-file games.ini route. It's just that presumably since many of us have been using that method since @Brad_from_the_80s originally came out with his amazing upgrade, I would assume it's what most users have gotten used to doing. One variable to consider - like me, I'm sure many gamers have already built out their favorite Atari and Arcade games utilizing games.ini complete with artwork and descriptions for the game play and control fields. So also presumably, since many of the CV and INTV games are the same titles, much of the data and artwork is already complete and ready for an easy copy-and-paste into the about="" and controls="" fields of any new CV or INTV games.ini entry. Might I suggest a standard folder arrangement like this to keep things uniform: timer=/data/Games/Coleco_Games/ColecoVision/ timer=/data/Games/Coleco_Games/ADAM/ timer=/data/Games/Mattel_Games/Intellivision/ Note: the sdcard/ prefix doesn't seem to be needed in games.ini Since the supporting cores and other files are in set folder locations, any new games.ini game entry for CV and INTV would end up being pretty standard, wouldn't it?

Woah. Those look awesome. I'll see what I can do to help out modern neo geo devs fund new projects. I was hoping there was a big homebrew/indie scene for this console. Side note, but I mentioned an adapter for a power supply. I found the plug on eBay. Actually convinced a seller to chop off the cable to reduce shipping and lower costs. I had some barrel jacks from other projects. I keep them on hand. I created a small circuit board using perf board, added the jacks and color coded my jacks. 5v is yellow so I don't get them mixed up. Good news is apparently it causes no issues if 5/10 are mixed. It just won't work. I have 10v 1.25a and 5v 3a PSUs that I use. They work like a champ. Here's my adapter. Total cost was less than $15.

How well can it perform smooth horizontal scrolling?

As I know, there´s no other difference between both ANTIC versions except the amount of refresh cycles. Later DRAM chips require 256 cycles, so Atari reacted with a new ANTIC. When you have 128 cycle DRAM chips installed or use any kind of substition using SRAM, then there´s no disadvantage to use the older ANTIC. The only problem occurs when using the older ANTIC and DRAM requiring 256 cycles refresh rate. This is a nasty issues, then the system mostly will start normal and some programs run fine. As long the display list is long enough (for example, a standard Graphics 0 screen), there are enough refresh cycles. But for example, some copy programs using less screen content and ANTIC mode 1 or 2 will cause RAM content corruption due to missing refresh cycles. See Altirra HW manual for detailed info.

I replaced the OS chip from a known good 800XL. Didn't change anything. I reflowed the socket for the OS, BIOS, MMU, No change. Is there something that would cause the BIOS to not boot? Some signal that's held high that a cart or the OPTION button bypasses? I can check if that magic signal is on. (e.g. signal to force boot a floppy or something like that?)

Thanks for this report 🙂 - Well, power issues are quite often IMHO, specially with these mini wall warts. The load is not the problem here, a stock Atari 800XL draws 650-850 mA (the differences are based on different manufacturer of the major chips as 74LS logic chips also), Sys-check takes about 170 mA when operating, so using a 2.1A power supply is more than enough. But I´ve also made several bad experiences with smart phone or tablet PSUs. Since some years I used only genuine Raspberry Pi PSUs for my Ataris. Never was disappointed so far.

If you had Sys-Check or AVG, you could try and run your system with externally substituted OS. Maybe the OS chip is simply faulty? (if it's not a problem with traces/vias/joints on the motherboard).

Well two of my new ink cartridges would not be accepted by the 8710, but I went to this site and tried the solution they recommended and it worked. Downgraded my printer firmware. https://www.themakersphere.com/non-hp-chip-detected-fix/ May help some of you.

Also, holding the option button during boot, does show the blue screen for a second and then the test menu. So there's something that doesn't allow the system to just boot into BIOS.

More or less—I have in mind to make some sort of comparison with TI Basic’s PRNG, which is discussed here, and TI Forth and fbForth’s PRNGs. As to the Geneve ABasic’s PRNG, it is virtually identical to XB, with GPL code converted to ALC. I understand per @InsaneMultitasker that Myarc Basic II was the source for Abasic, in which case the PRNG is certainly the same. I would need that source code to be sure. That is, currently, the extent of my comparison plans. ...lee

Appreciate the encouragement!

😢 A hug. Condolences to the whole family. Lapo.

Did I ask this? I was meaning to. Say you want to change the colors for text or whatever, but you don't want to change it in the character set, but rather on the screen itself. Is there a span of addresses for this? Say, you printed something on the top row, but you wanted it red (indicating a mistake by the player) rather than its default white and grey color. Can you do that? How would you do that? It'd be really helpful to know this for color strobing and the like.

It's a dual row header, but I suppose you could just point them opposite directions and use two connectors, but if there's enough vertical space then a single connector is better. I've purchased assortment kits, so I'm sure I've plenty. Still not sure about attempting to build one of these, but what the heck, should be interesting. I'll certainly order multiple of each component. I wonder how foft's build and testing is going.

I have another working 800XL here. I swapped the following chips between them with no effect: - GTIA, ANTIC, Sally, Pokey, OS ROM and MMU. No change. One system boots to blue screen BIOS, the other one remains black screen. But when I put in a cart, like the AtariMAX, it boots fine into that and plays games with no issues. Suggestion on software I can run on the AtariMAX that will allow me to narrow down which IC has failed? I did pull the RAM and test it in a DRAM tester. It's all good.

would check the 138's and the 259's as they have to do with decoding address space and cru bits, just to be sure.

Did you test the 74LS244 Ic's, to be sure their functioning correctly. Maybe change them with the other 4000 and see if it fixes this one and makes that one behave as this one is?

Don't forget stunt cycle.

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