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Because on the other side I can’t use the hot plate anymore, I am not planning on doing it fully by hand one by one.

I'm not sure I see how soldering SMD components on two sides is any more difficult than just using one side. That BGA chip is the tricky one in my opinion.

NUC and an 800. The 800 is too a tight fit to use connectors to attack to the 90° header. It would be nice to be able to use a connector. I've not found any reason to use Quad POKEYs or any of the other goodies with the 800. If I want to run modern demos I can use my 1088XEL or NUC.

What is the prize Rog???

Thanks. The sophia2 is needed to generate the pal video circuitry. If I remove it to pop a pal gtia chip in there than I'll just get black and white and no colour, so afaik not going to be useful in the diagnosis. I guess I could swap out the system crystal for it's original ntsc one, pop ntsc gtia and antic chips back in and see if the overdriven display issue is there, as I'll have ntsc colour. Thinking about it, I have a feeling that I had checked the 2nd 600xl board with the din5 before I converted it to pal, and the overdrive was there. I am a little reluctant to pull the pal system clock crystal again to swap it out temporarily, etc, as I only have one for each 600xl, I don't wanna risk stressing the legs, as they are extremely hard to come by. With the colour pot as I say I am not expecting, when on dvi/sophia2 output, to turn the colour pot and see anything change on screen. But I was assuming that, when hooked up/switched to din5 composite out, the colour pot would be functioning to adjust the image for said composite output. Perhap this only happens whwen the original pal video passive components are in place, but given I thought sophia2 covered these, I assumed the pot would function in legacy video. Seems not(?)

The problem is really that TIA sucks with melodies (out of tune) and excels with percussions. Baby elephant walk is from 1961. So it has the same problem as Spanish flea.

Please don't do the board two-SMD-sided, will make home DIY soldering much more difficult (for me at least 😉).

Everyone says that this game will not fit the original lore without knowing much about the story of Yars Rising. I also don't know much but I still strongly disagree. The original story comes down to humans sending flies to space where they find superpowers to fight the mysterious Qotile enemy. Now, if you don't want another space shooter, the concept of a human infiltrating the Qotile base with the help of the Yars and their superpowers to hack and destroy e.g. their swirl (Qo)technology or whatever seems to be the only logical and fitting gameplay idea for a sequel you could think of! It just makes sense in every way.

I can't check soon, but I am rather sure that Sophia does not care about the POT input, note that the POT modded signal feeds directly into GTIA, not the post GTIA video processing circuitry. Why don't you stick a stock GTIA in there to see what happens?

Happy wife, happy wife. ... I'm going with it. Salmon swim upstream but many die. my 2 cents!

Defective Design and implementation, I'd say all these need to be returned to the manufacturer. That's the fix, there is no other unless you make your own guts and use a center pilot/pivot hole and pin.

It might be the zero track sensor. I literally had almost the same issue today and after replacing the sensor the drive is good as gold. Have you checked that? Easiest way to check is disconnected the connector from the 1050 motherboard and see if you get the same behaviour. If you do, then it's likely the sensor.

This project worked right out of the box as they say. 1. I copied CD.SYS to the my SYSTEM directory on the Book 8088. 2. I edited the config.sys on the Book 8088 to include device=c:\system\cd.sys 3. Rebooted the book 8088. 4. The card drive was assigned as drive E: (I use a USB stick as drive D:) My test was to insert the Portfolio File Manager card and read it. When typing the DIR command, the light on the card drive blinks and the contents of the card is displayed. I have not tried to write to a card at this point. This beautiful card drive came from a recent eBay purchase that was to include a "new in box" Atari Portfolio and PC card drive. I do believe the card drive was new in box. Unfortunately, the Portfolio has broken latches and it had corroded "Kirkland" (Costco) batteries inside, so I would imagine the batteries weren't nearly as old as the Portfolio. The Portfolio was inside what seemed to be a sealed original box. So far, the Portfolio does not boot. If the seller was honest, then they were "taken" by someone else. Fortunately, I have a couple of working Atari Portfolio computers in my collection. I'm happy because I got the working card drive, a 64k memory card, all the original beautiful boxes and manuals, and even a PBASE card and manual with this lot.

Speed category 8 is fine (7 will also work but costs more) SC is the variant I use. SA will probably work but I didn’t try it. Since I am using SC I do not use the ADC. See page 5/6 of this document for these details: https://www.mouser.com/datasheet/2/612/m10_overview-2401081.pdf I think M153 + 4 layer could be narrower, maybe. A different option is keeping this fpga, going to 4 layer and putting the resistors in the bottom. Do you have another case where the footprint is an issue or are you thinking of the NUC?

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I saw your post on Facebook. Thank you for sharing this here too. Will likely be easier to find again on these forums.

Yep that's what appears to have been the problem in this case as well. Nothing but a plastic bag, a piece of Styrofoam with the chips pressed in, and a couple layers of cellophane wrapping. No padding or bubble wrap. After i soldered it up, i soaked it in pure Acetone to remove all the flux but nothing what-so-ever came off the chip in the process. So quite genuine. The original price was $40 per chip. After getting a third one as a replacement and counting the fixed one, I'm now at approximately $26 a piece. So it's like going back in time a couple years.

Oh, good grief! I have Atari computers that can read the PC floppy disks! Sometimes I just don't think straight! I have uploaded the files that come with the Atari Portfolio PC Card drive. I'll add additional content to this post to update about this project. CD.SYS CFX.COM

Pinhead: 14,025 Played this one quite a bit back in the day. Fun one

Do prototypes count? I think Snow White or Save Mary would have a female lead. -Ben

Thanks for the feedback guys. So in the past when I've added sophia2 to stock pal 600xl machines the stock av is fine on composite. I was expecting to see more or less the same on a 600xl ntsc that has been converted to a pal machine, which is the case here with both 600XL's. Seems it only is the case with these two identically modded a8s that we have this overdrive, etc video output issue. I'll refer to it as overdrive for now. The component values are exactly those as you see in the annotated image above. And in fact are a mixture of new passive components, and for the harder to find one's, just ones taken from xe/xl donor boards. I was careful with the caps also, to orient them in the same way as they went in. I had a dead pal 600xl donor board also as a guide. I don't think with past 600xl stock pal machines which I had sophia2 in, that the pot stopped doing anything at all like is the case in both of these machines. This is pretty bad in both cases with these pal convertered ntsc machines. It's really noticeable on the ready prompt screens of both systems. I hadn't noticed it quite so much in side3 menus first time around, but had only looked quickly at the time. As you can see the yellow artifacting.It's and overdriven display is really bad. So I guess does anyone suggest any of those components in the annotated image above which might be the culprit and/or which I can switch out for a different value? BTW in fjc's video he is adding the din5 jack and supporting components to get it to work in an ntsc system. He is not then adding sophia2, pal sys crystal and pal antic like I am and his 600xl remains an ntsc. Both mine are - for all tense and purposes - now running as pal. 600XL's. Also, he mentions in the video he didn't have certain components to hand, so he used others in their place. For example, he didn't have a 3k ohm resistor, so used 3.3k. He also observes in the video that his composite output is acceptable, if a little dark. Incidentally, we have exactly the same LG lcd monitor. Any advice from anyone as to which components in the above annotated image might be causing this would be greatly appreciated. I've never seen it this bad on composite on any 600xl pal A8, and because it happens on two systems, presumably it the same component(s) causing it. FYI c109 cap has been removed in both cases to aid image sharpening. It's a known tweak and I've done it many times on 600XL's. BTW @tf_hh was kind enough to help me out with the first converted 600xl board with a fix to initial red vertical jailbar lines I was getting, which turned out to be the presence of the w2 on the board. Once cut out, the red lines disappeared. I did the same with the second of these 600XL's when I encountered it again. @flashjazzcat had also confirmed the removal of w2 would resolve that particular issue when I was subsequently in contact with him. Thanks to both of you. If either of you, (tf_hh or fjc), or anyone else have any suggestions as to fixing this identical issue as outlined in post one, which is affecting both of these converted ntsc to pal sophia2 equipt 600xl machines, I'd be most grateful. I am sure it'll turn out to be a quick fix for both, and will be the same thing causing it. Edit: @Rybags so maybe a non functioning pot is down to the sophia2 in both cases and is expected? @woj btw I am not expecting the pot to work when outputting on dvi, but I was expecting to see it work on composite. @woj thanks. I don't imagine I'd need to start removing any of the components added in the above annotated image as part of this process of adding the din5, just because sophia2 is present. I've not had to in the past for stock pal 600XL's with sophia2. However, I am open to suggestions. As you know the ntsc 600XL's don't have the majority of the pal video circuit passive components on the board, and I've not added them back in this case, as sophia2 covers them, including the pal colourburst functionality, (something I was not aware of with sophia2 until recently when tf_hh informed me, which is a nice bonus). Edit: incidentally, you may all be wondering why I have two 600xl boards and two sophia2's? Quite simply you can never have enough sophia2's, and when I experienced this composite output issue on the first converted 600xl, I happen to have another 600xl ntsc board and thought I'd try again. Having exactly the same issue on both after doing the same thing is a bit of a surprise, but also makes me think it is the same component(s) causing it. So I doing it on two boards it may have made it easier to diagnose. Again, here is a close up. It's pretty bad and like this on both systems: ... And again the av composite cable is not the issue here as mentioned in the first post. So we can rule that out.

Right there with you Beefy, although no cornhole for me. I’d rather skip that and just do the drinking part! I just had a Yuengling Flight for the first time this past weekend camping, not a bad beer for a low carb option. My wife’s family is from PA, so Yuengling is a must!

I just spent two hours failing to get a second enemy in. Everyone seems to want more enemies in Flying Hamburgers but every time I try to, I fail. So there's only one solution: Don't try any more. It's so frustrating. Why does programming have to be so mean and hard and STUPID? There will only be one enemy in the game at a time because I have to fail at everything and make nothing but crap games because I'm too stupid to make more complex games. My arm just started hurting in a peculiar spot and it's really painful. And annoying. And I don't know why. I'd say it was due to my arm resting on the desk typing, but it's not at that spot. It's down further. I keep going to sleep at midnight and waking up at 1 p.m. Whatever. I just don't really care any more.

My latest Atari 800: She needed some super glue thanks to poor packing in shipping and a Mitsumi mylar peal and reset, All perfect again.