68 replies to this topic

[SIO99]

I'm just having breakfast. Before I started making coffee I switched on my Atari 65XE, which I only bought 2 months ago, the familiar READY prompt came up, then when I tried to change the screen colours, I found that the keyboard wasn't working at all! On further investigation I noticed that the power light doesn't come on either. I've tested it with 2 games cartridges, which both work, and the joystick also works. The Reset and Start keys work as well. The self test mode first of all gave several beeps before exiting the keyboard test, then on further attempts it gave a single beep and froze.

I hope this is enough information for someone on here to identify the fault. Perhaps it's a simple repair I could do myself. Can anyone recommend an Atari repair service, preferably not far from London, instead of halfway round the World? I never owned an Atari until 2 months ago. I was encouraged to buy a retro computer by features in the TV series BBC Click, about how computers today  are being used just as communications devices, not for computing, as well as the fact that an Atari 8 bit was nearly my first computer, but I ended up with a shitty Commodore 64 instead, complete with its 1977 PET style BASIC with no commands for colour, graphics, or sound!

AFAIK, I last used my Atari 65XE yesterday, when I was running the ALPA Assembler which I typed in from the book "Atari 130XE Machine Language for the Absolute Beginner". I typed in, ran and debugged this program, then typed in and tried to assemble the first example from the book, which prints the letter A in the top left hand corner of the screen. It wouldn't assemble the program, though. I doubt if any data from any of my programs would have damaged any chips or been held in RAM while the power was off, or after a reset.

Edited by SIO99, Sun Jul 8, 2012 5:49 AM.

[sloopy]

Check the KB connector is not loose, although unusual for it to come out just sitting there, its the most likely thing to make the KB and the power LED non-functional...

as for recommended repair, Flashjazzcat would be 'local', as he is in the the UK...

sloopy.

[SIO99]

sloopy, on Sun Jul 8, 2012 9:56 AM, said:

Check the KB connector is not loose, although unusual for it to come out just sitting there, its the most likely thing to make the KB and the power LED non-functional...

as for recommended repair, Flashjazzcat would be 'local', as he is in the the UK...

sloopy.

OK fine. Unfortunately I need to ask you how to do that. I may not even have the right type of screwdriver to open the case. I should probably avoid touching some parts. I had an accident a few days ago, when I managed to knock the TV onto the floor and it may have hit the Atari on the way down, although it was working after that.

Edited by SIO99, Sun Jul 8, 2012 10:22 AM.

[sloopy]

its a standard phillips ( X ) screw driver,

just remove the 4 screws on the bottom
hold it together while you turn it over
lift the top cover off
lift the keyboard from the top where the function keys are, and look behind it
you will see the KB ribbon on the front right, pull the ribbon out by holding it on both sides a close to the connector as possible, and slowly and firmly pulling up in a side-side rocking motion...
clean the contacts (pencil eraser, then 90% alky if you have it)
insertion is same as removal, but make 100% SURE you hold the ribbon as close to the contacts as possible when inserting it...
put the top on, flip over, install screws...

and the fact that the LED isnt on makes it more likely the ribbon cable has issues as opposed to the 4051's or POKEY... but dont rule them out, its jut the conn is more likely...

sloopy.

[SIO99]

OK, i've done all that. I cleaned the contacts with a pencil rubber and wiped them with a cleansing wipe impregnated with lots of chemicals, then dried it off with a tissue. After all this, the end result is that after the READY prompt comes up, the Atari starts printing a whole load of space characters on the screen without me touching it, but pressing the Break key causes the cursor to go down one line. The power light still doesn't come on and the keyboard self test now gives a long continuous sound instead of a short beep or a series of beeps. I haven't used the keyboard self test many times, because I've only had an Atari for 2 months instead of years, but there's a row of characters on the screen which may have been there before, but don't seem to correspond to any keys, below the heading KEYBOARD TEST and above the row of keys marked Esc, the number keys and ending in Break. These may represent the Help, Start, Select, Option and Reset keys, but may be an error message. It reads on the left hand side R, followed by several spaces, then S S 0 1 2 3 4 H A B. These characters are all printed in inverse. Does this mean anything? What should I do next?

Edited by SIO99, Mon Jul 9, 2012 8:57 AM.

[SIO99]

Newsflash! I thought that perhaps I'd screwed the screws in more tightly than they were screwed in before. I unscrewed them, unplugged the keyboard, plugged it in again, closed the case, screwed the screws in again, plugged it in, turned it on and found that the screen wasn't having any more space characters printed to it. I was able to change the background colour using SETCOLOR 2,0,0. The keyboard self test didn't crash and detected various keys I pressed. What I thought may be an error code (R S S 0 1 2 3 4 H A B)  was still on the screen, and some of it corresponds to some of the function keys, but I don't understand what H A B refers to. Unfortunately, I then booted into BASIC again and found out that some of the keys didn't work! I noticed I couldn't type "?", "(", or ")", because the SHIFT keys don't work. I then had the idea of giving the case a little squeeze at the end by the space bar. This caused it to start filling the screen with space characters again! I think there's a problem with the way the keyboard is connected. Should I push the connector all the way down into the socket, like it is now, or only part of the way down? Trying it not fully inserted has now resulted in the SHIFT keys still not working and then a repeat of the screen filling up with space characters.

Edited by SIO99, Mon Jul 9, 2012 9:33 AM.

[sloopy]

S S 0 1 2 3 4 H A B
Start Select Option F1 F2 F3 F4 Help Atari Break ( no A8 except the 1200XL has the Fx keys...)

Pushing it in all the way or partway in shouldnt matter.

sounds like there is issues with the mylar, you can go ahead and mess with it some more and try cleaning it internally (a tedious and not always successful task), or just grab a brand new KB from B&C for $25...

sloopy.

[SIO99]

I didn't understand the term mylar, so I did a few searches and found out that this seems to be a membrane sandwiched inside the keyboard itself. Is that right? Does it include the ribbon connector? It seems some people can repair the mylar, but I don't think I've got skill to do that. The ribbon connector looks bent in one or two places. Looking at the Best Electronics site (is that B&C?) it seems they have both replacement mylar, as well as replacement full keyboards, but it's hard to tell which is which. Perhaps you can post a link or two to some replacement full  keyboards. Does anyone know how long it would take the item to arrive in London or if I'd have to pay customs duty on it? I only know that a home brewing kit took 12 days to arrive from Alaska and there was no customs duty on it.

[mimo]

Best Electronics=Best electronics- Bradley Koda, Great bloke to deal with, ships really quickly. You will have delivery to the UK in 7-10 days.
B+C=myatari.com. Bruce and Cathy. Again, great to deal with, but a bit slower on the postage.
As for her majesty's customs boys, that is hit and miss. Some you win, some you lose.
Yes it is a sandwich, yes it includes the ribbon connector.
I suggest that before you spend $ on replacement gear, strip down your existing keyboard, maybe something moved when you whacked it with the TV.
It's very easy to check and rebuild the keyboard, remove all the tiny screws from the back of the keyboard, ease the back off. This will reveal the mylar and a load of silicone cups. Give the mylar a quick clean and make sure all the cups are iin place. replace the back and screw everything tight.
If the ribbon connector is causing problems, you can trim a bit off.

[SIO99]

I've just trimmed a bit of the ribbon connector off and put it back together again. At the moment, the 65XE isn't filling the screen up with SPACE characters, but a few keys don't work. These are the Ctrl and SHIFT keys. Pressing the Ctrl key prints a graphics character, but the SHIFT keys don't work at all. The power light doesn't come on either. I can't be sure that the TV hit it at all. As for the cups you're talking about, I don't really understand what these are, or how to make sure they're in place. I watched a video earlier today about fixing a 1200XL keyboard, but I don't know how similar this is to the 65XE. As the shipping on a replacement keyboard unit costs more than the keyboard itself and I don't even know if there would be any customs fees, I've decided not to buy one at the moment. I'd be more likely to buy an 800XL to tide me over. I think I'll try and attempt a repair, including buying a new soldering iron and multimeter, after some years of being without these items, then move on to building some cheap electronics projects, hopefully leading to me building an SIO2SD.

[SIO99]

I'm having breakfast again. Some tests on my 65XE a few minutes ago gave the following results. In BASIC there was no sign of any SPACE characters being printed by themselves, but the SHIFT and Ctrl keys didn't work. In keyboard self test mode, the results were that Ctrl is now Ctrl J, while pressing SHIFT exits the keyboard self test, so that seems like SHIFT is now mapped as HELP. I had problems using SELECT to get into the keyboard self test, as well as during the keyboard self test itself, so I can say that SELECT doesn't work most of the time. Eventually, I squeezed the case at the front, by the space bar, then my 65XE turned itself off and now I can't turn it on again! I'll unscrew the case again, unplug the keyboard and see what happens. I hope to take the keyboard apart altogether, as suggested above, but that's more complicated.

[SIO99]

I've tried to find full details online of how I might be able to repair this keyboard, but I couldn't find anything for an Atari XE keyboard repair. Here's some links below, which  are about Atari 1200XL and 800XL keyboard repair, as well as Tandy CoCo keyboard repair. Obviously, I need to know what's different about the XE keyboard compared to these three keyboards.

http://www.retrobits.../keyboard.shtml

https://groups.googl...df94b021e?hl=en

Edited by SIO99, Tue Jul 10, 2012 4:17 AM.

[SIO99]

Update. The 65XE is now working again, after me unscrewing the case again, removing, then reinserting the keyboard ribbon, then screwing the case together again. Unfortunately, it started printing space characters again, but this time it stopped when I hit the Break key. The Shift and Ctrl keys still don't work, though.

[flashjazzcat]

Send me a PM if you want to send it up so I can take a look at it. Sounds like there are broken traces on the mylar... if the keyboard is the "rubber cup" type, I probably have a spare mylar anyway, even if I can't fix the existing one.

[SIO99]

Update. Thanks to flashjazzcat giving me some advice in a PM, I've just managed to disassemble the keyboard! I can tell you there are 10 of some little holes he described, and the keys have green rubber cups. The rubber cups themselves look quite clean, but some of the silver tracks on the mylar membrane, near the Shift keys and the Space bar, look damaged or worn away, so I suppose that's where the problem lies. What kind of pen do I need to paint over these and where should I get it? The red power light has now fallen off as well. Unfortunately, I've just found out that my camera battery has run down, so I'm charging it now and some pics will follow soon.

[sloopy]

something like this:
http://uk.farnell.co...-pen/dp/1663187

should be able to find one cheaper tho...

sloopy.

[SIO99]

sloopy, on Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:00 AM, said:

something like this:
http://uk.farnell.co...-pen/dp/1663187

should be able to find one cheaper tho...

sloopy.

That's great! At least it doesn't have to be silver paint.   I was beginning to think I couldn't afford one. Another problem may be that when I trimmed the ribbon cable, the edge didn't end up straight, so now I've marked it and tried to cut it along the line I drew, but it may be even more uneven now. Does this matter?

Edited by SIO99, Wed Jul 11, 2012 10:34 AM.

[SIO99]

I checked and found out that the price quoted on the Farnell site had extras only applied at the checkout (VAT+P&P) which I tnink totalled £22.20, but that on eBay the cheapest pen of the same model is £13.56 total. Does anyone know if there are any elsewhere which are cheaper? I think I'll reassemble the keyboard and refit it to my Atari 65XE to check whether or not it works before making a final decision.

Edited by SIO99, Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:45 PM.

[sloopy]

SIO99, on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:44 PM, said:

I checked and found out that the price quoted on the Farnell site had extras only applied at the checkout (VAT+P&P) which I tnink totalled £22.20, but that on eBay the cheapest pen of the same model is £13.56 total. Does anyone know if there are any elsewhere which are cheaper? I think I'll reassemble the keyboard and refit it to my Atari 65XE to check whether or not it works before making a final decision.

wow...

sloopy.

[Rybags]

The silver conductive pens tend to be around the 20 buck mark, so 13 Quid or so sounds about right.

[bob1200xl]

How much is a new keyboard? If your k/b was damaged, it is much less likely that you will be able to fix it than if it is just showing its age.

Bob

SIO99, on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:44 PM, said:

I checked and found out that the price quoted on the Farnell site had extras only applied at the checkout (VAT+P&P) which I tnink totalled £22.20, but that on eBay the cheapest pen of the same model is £13.56 total. Does anyone know if there are any elsewhere which are cheaper? I think I'll reassemble the keyboard and refit it to my Atari 65XE to check whether or not it works before making a final decision.

[SIO99]

bob1200xl, on Wed Jul 11, 2012 5:25 PM, said:

How much is a new keyboard? If your k/b was damaged, it is much less likely that you will be able to fix it than if it is just showing its age.

Bob

SIO99, on Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:44 PM, said:

I checked and found out that the price quoted on the Farnell site had extras only applied at the checkout (VAT+P&P) which I tnink totalled £22.20, but that on eBay the cheapest pen of the same model is £13.56 total. Does anyone know if there are any elsewhere which are cheaper? I think I'll reassemble the keyboard and refit it to my Atari 65XE to check whether or not it works before making a final decision.

There's a new keyboard here http://www.ebay.co.u...=item20c823e674 from  Atari Sales & Service, B&C, Bruce and Cathy. The keyboard costs £16.07, plus £28.18 postage, totalling £44.25, and I don't even know if I'd have to pay any customs fees for it.   Someone has also sent me a PM about a keyboard available within the UK for £20, but I'm not sure if that's the total including postage.    At the moment, I plan to reassemble and refit my keyboard, then buy a conductive paint pen if it still doesn't work. If I succeed, then I've taken more control over my life and can also buy up Ataris for spares or repairs, then sell them at a profit, as well as helping to keep the A8 computer scene going!

Edited by SIO99, Thu Jul 12, 2012 4:16 AM.

[SIO99]

After now having reassembled the keyboard and fitted it back to the computer, I now just get a dark red screen! Turning on the computer  with the Option key held down has no effect. The Reset key doesn't do anything either. I've just done a Google search for a possible solution to this, but I can't find one. The last thing I did with the 65XE before this happened was to plug in a cartridge that only arrived today (Realsports Football), while the keyboard was still detached and it started up OK. Unfortunately, during this test there was a problem with the PSU, because the 65XE turned itself off. The PSU is a large black brick type with nothing printed on it and no label, although there's a square indented area on the top where a label may once have been. I hope someone can advise me what to do next.

Of course, I've now tried removing the keyboard and the 65XE gives me the READY prompt, so that should narrow things down a bit.

Edited by SIO99, Thu Jul 12, 2012 7:46 AM.

[bob1200xl]

Are new mylars available? They should be much cheaper to ship that the whole k/b. Worst case Priority Mail is $16.95. First Class is $8.95. If the rest of the k/b is OK, you just need the mylar.

Sounds like serious internal shorts on the RESET net...

Bob

[orpheuswaking]

Does the PSU look like the one in the top middle of this picture?

http://www.myatari.com/ebay/psxl.jpg

These have a habit of failing in a catastrophic manner, taking out in a best case scenario just the memory, but more often than not main chips too.

If you have a Voltmeter I would check to see if there is a solid +5vdc on the PSU or if it is fluctuating. If it is pitch it and quit messing with the XE and get it to Flashjazzcat or someone else in the UK before you fry anything else

http://www.myatari.com/ebay/psxl.jpg