Atari 800XL Memory Faulty

[Vyper68]

 

Thanks for this Vyper68. I have gone ahead and ordered 10 (8 plus 2 spareTI 4164's and will try them out. I'll report back when they've arrived and been fitted.

 

I have used him quite a lot for spares ( Cap kits, Heatsinks & Chips ) he also makes a pretty mean little SD Card interface for the Sinclair Spectrum but only in very small batches.

[Tezz]

I've used Retroleum often over the years, Phil's a decent guy.

 

Last year I decided out of interest to see if entirely rebuilding an orignal rubber key Spectrum board with all of the available modern replacements would work together. I went for the latest board Sinclair made for that model, the revision 6 which had many of the original logic chips then reduced into single ICs.

 

The ULA was replaced with one of Phils FPGA Nebula boards, both the upper and lower RAM were replaced with modern replacement modules, the Z80 was replaced with a later lower powered CMOS PEC type. The ROM was replaced with an EPROM. The old inefficient 7805 regulator was replaced with a modern Tracopower DC/DC converter so the old heatsink was no longer required. The DC socket was replaced with a new one as they were heavily used with the original Spectrum not having a power switch. The original axial capacitors were replaced and then finally the modulator was modified to provide composite video output which is a common MOD for the Spectrum. The modern replacements did all function correctly together and the system was stable and drawing a lot less power.

 

When Ben Versteeg first announced the Pi Zero based HDMI interface I quickly bought one of the first ones produced. I wanted to use it with the original standard 3b Spectrum I have setup which also has a ZX printer and another interface but that would have been drawing too much from the Spectrum so that was another reason for the issue 6 build.

 

OK, back to Atari and on topic

[Irata 008]

As a follow up, Retroleum shipped the RAM and other goodies I ordered in record time, I swapped out the suspected dodgy hungarian ram with the units supplied by Retroleum and no more Memory test errors (ran it for 4 hours with no faults).

 

I also ordered a number of IC sockets & pin cutters and was impressed with the quality. The IC sockets in particular appear to be of a better quality than a few I purchased recently from an Auckland NZ retailer - Suplustronics.

 

Another bonus was that not only does Retroleum set fair P&P prices for shipping from the UK (unlike many other retailers), Retroleum combined my two separate orders and refunded a fair chunk of the total P&P charges I had paid. Retroleum gets my vote as a top hobbyist supplier!!

 

Now I've just got to get my MMU and OS ship desoldered and socketed so I can proceed with installing Lotharek's U1MB! (a local AtariAge member has already offered to assist with his desoldering gun, so membership definitely has its benefits - probably helps a little that the same guy also sold me my Atari 800XL & also my ST).

 

Once thats sorted, I'm looking forward to pimping my recently acquired real 16 bit Atari - an Amiga 500. (My recently acquired ST at least has a Gotek type FDD emulator, but after playing with that for a day or so, I remembered why - back in the late 80s - I took my original ST back to the computer store after a few days to swap for an Amiga).

 

Thanks for all the great help here guys & gals.