15 replies to this topic

[Charles Bacon]

I just picked up a 130 XE. I open it and this is what I find inside.

Any ideas?

https://www.facebook...&type=3

https://www.facebook...&type=3

https://www.facebook...&type=3

he toggle switch is not connected but the red button is.

Edited by Charles Bacon, Wed May 2, 2012 3:24 PM.

[MEtalGuy66]

A very poorly done home-brew 320k ram upgrade. Button most likely either causes a cold boot, or clears the extended banks..

Need better photos to be sure.. But 2 additional PIA PORTB bits = 320k..

Edited by MEtalGuy66, Wed May 2, 2012 4:13 PM.

[Gunstar]

Yikes! They should have left that rat nest on the the tester's breadboard and just shoved the whole thing in there if your going to be that careless with upgrades! But I guess if it works...if it ain't broken, don't fix it (if you don't know what your are doing that is, I'd re-do it myself). Below is a pic of my 1200XL memory upgrade and I consider it a sub-par job, I strive to be cleaner and neater the next time (like running the wires on the bottom side of the board in a neater and more secure fashion).

Attached Thumbnails

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Edited by Gunstar, Wed May 2, 2012 5:15 PM.

[atari8warez]

Charles Bacon, on Wed May 2, 2012 3:24 PM, said:

I just picked up a 130 XE. I open it and this is what I find inside.

Any ideas?

https://www.facebook...&type=3

https://www.facebook...&type=3

https://www.facebook...&type=3

he toggle switch is not connected but the red button is.

Looks like one of the Peterson RAM upgrades but we can't see the RAM banks so, it's just a guess...

Edited by atari8warez, Wed May 2, 2012 6:41 PM.

[Charles Bacon]

https://www.facebook...&type=3

here is the ram.  How do I test it?

[Stephen]

Run this program with BASIC disabled.

Attached Files

•  XRAM 0.21.0.xex   2.38K   35 downloads

[Faicuai]

Charles Bacon, on Wed May 2, 2012 3:24 PM, said:

I just picked up a 130 XE. I open it and this is what I find inside.

Any ideas?

(...)

Of course: that's just a ghetto'd machine... which is what probably was in the mind of its original owner, to begin with...

[Charles Bacon]

Does anyone have a picture of what it is supposed to look like?

Is everyone pretty sure it's a ram upgrade?

[MEtalGuy66]

Yes. Its definitely a petersen 320k.. Plus something else.. Remove the electrical tape so we can see.. My guess is a Bob Woolley style cold-reset "freezer" button..

Edited by MEtalGuy66, Thu May 3, 2012 2:19 PM.

[Charles Bacon]

https://www.facebook...59903901&type=3

https://www.facebook...59903901&type=3

[Charles Bacon]

So how can I tell how much total ram I have? I tried xram and it says

[Charles Bacon]

Also when I run the program the screen starts jumping.

[sloopy]

do you have TDLINE running in a Sparta type DOS?  this will make it roll for me...

if the machine is 'seen' as stock, then it will show 4 circles, if its seen as a peterson 320k machine there will be 16 circles.

sloopy.

[MEtalGuy66]

The reason the screen starts jumping is that XRAM is using an extended display list, and whatever you are using for  amonitor cant handle the extra vertical scan.. Whn it starts jumping like that, fine tune the v-hold until it stops jumping and then decrease the v-size until the top and bottom lines of text are not so close to the edge of the screen.

The expansion in your machine is a 320k expansion.. We know this because 2 of the PORTB lines on the PIA chip are wired into the expansion..  If it is working, XRAM should show 16 extended banks...

[MEtalGuy66]

What you have there is a Scott Petersen 320k upgrade..  and a "Freezer" upgrade, (published by  Bob Woolley back in the 80s in various Atari club newsletters)..

The 320k upgrade gives you 16 banks of 16k extended ram for a total of 64k base ram plus 256k extended ram (total of 320k)..  A stock 130xe has only 4 banks of 16k extended ram for a total of 64k base ram plus 64k extended ram (total of 128k)..

The "freezer" upgrade (if you turn that chip thats mounted like a "dead roach" over, it will say 74HC86 or 74LS86 on it)..  What this does is "freeze" a warm-boot down to a cold boot..  If you hold that pushbutton on the back of the machine, and press reset, you will get a cold boot, instead of a warm boot..  This is useful because it actually causes the machine to restart, without cutting power (and thus not killing the contents of the ramdisk).. Once you reboot in this manner, you can run a special ramdisk handler that remounts the ramdisk without clearing its contents..   If you are using you extended ram for a fast temporary storage medium, while working with data, its nice to be able to reboot without having to save all the contents to disk first.. Get it?

How sure am i of this? I'm certain.. These are both very common upgrades (or used to be back in the 80s & 90s anywayze.)

Edited by MEtalGuy66, Fri May 4, 2012 7:58 PM.

[Charles Bacon]

Thank you everyone for your help!!