Help wanted with CSS Black Box

[welshleo]

A little while ago an 8-bit addict gave me his Black Box. He's one of a rare breed who prefers to use standard equipment (although most of his XL and XE systems are heavily upgraded). He bought the unit with floppy board and several drives a while back, tried it once, couldn't get it to work and promptly shoved it into a cupboard.

 

So anyway, earlier this year he dumped it on me (not that I'm complaining) along with a pile of ST stuff while making room at his place ... no doubt for more 8-bit stuff.

 

I've tried to get the BB to work but without any luck. The manual has a hand drawn image of the BB and all socketed ICs have been drawn in. This has suggested to me that the original owner messed around with it (perhaps trying to repair it himself). I've just opened it up again to take a closer look and there are a few anomalies ...

 

1. One of the diodes is clearly damaged with a missing leg. But on the underside, the remains of that leg seems to have been badly soldered in place and the solder is touching a pin from the neighbouring diode.

2. The logic ICs used on the board are not of the same family in that it's a mixture of LS, HCT and even a member of the ALS family. While in theory this shouldn't affect the workings of the unit I am wondering whether or not this person tried to replace older-series LS chips with faster switching ALS or HCT chips.

 

So what I'm really after at the moment is someone who has a working BB and who can either give me a diagram or a photograph of the two sides of the board for reference, or a list of standard ICs used on the board as shipped.

 

In case anyone has any idea what the problem might be, the fault is simply that upon pressing the menu button on the BB, nothing happens (the LED does not light up to show that the ROM is being read).

[Callipygous]

Are you aware that CSS is still in business? I am sure Bob Puff could answer some of your questions. Might be some docs on their site:

 

http://nleaudio.com/css/

[welshleo]

Unfortunately, while I received a response regarding a query I made a few days ago regarding the availability of the E-Burner, Bob doesn't seem to be so interested in responding to questions regarding faulty CSS products.

 

Having said that, I'd rather avoid having to ship the BB over the Atlantic to him if possible, especially if it's a simple problem (i.e. replacing a resistor or a standard 74xx logic chip) as it wouldn't be very cost effective.

[Callipygous]

Yeah, no point shipping the thing. Might try posting to the comp.sys.atari.8bit newsgroup. Some Black Box users there, I am sure. Don't have one myself.