XEGS Memory Upgrade

[gilsaluki]

Wanna upgrade the memoryRAM of a XE Game System. I know they are more difficult than the others, but still would like it to run 130XE programs. Only B&C (MyAtari.com) seems to have the Innovative Concepts kits, Best is out of them. Has anyone done this upgrade. Pictures, lessons learned, would be grand. If not, I will try it and document the step-by-step. I have two XEGS, so I am willing to risk it. I have heard of the Ultimate 1MB upgrade, but again, no detailed instructions or pics are available.

[Rybags]

Ultimate 1 Meg http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=67

"Almost solderless" but that relies on certain chips being socketed which usually isn't the case on XEs.

 

or even VBXE for not much more http://lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=82

VBXE can operate in Rambo mode which shares the top 256K of it's 512K to act as extended RAM.

 

Of all the upgrades around I'd say U1Meg probably the least intrusive (disregarding those that plug into PBI but XEGS you have no PBI anyway).

[jaybird3rd]

Wanna upgrade the memoryRAM of a XE Game System. I know they are more difficult than the others, but still would like it to run 130XE programs. Only B&C (MyAtari.com) seems to have the Innovative Concepts kits, Best is out of them. Has anyone done this upgrade. Pictures, lessons learned, would be grand. If not, I will try it and document the step-by-step. I have two XEGS, so I am willing to risk it. I have heard of the Ultimate 1MB upgrade, but again, no detailed instructions or pics are available.

I installed the Innovative Concepts upgrade kit in my XEGS a few years ago. I posted scans of the original documentation, and I converted them to text format as well. With the exception of the CO25953 IC, all the components in the kit are standard off-the-shelf parts that aren't too hard to find.

[gilsaluki]

Thanks. I have seen the scans of the docs, still would like to see the pictures of the finished product (on either mod). Looks like a heck of a lot of desoldering/soldering. None of the XEGS's chips are socketed.

[jaybird3rd]

Thanks. I have seen the scans of the docs, still would like to see the pictures of the finished product (on either mod). Looks like a heck of a lot of desoldering/soldering. None of the XEGS's chips are socketed.

I posted pictures of my installed kit here.

[gilsaluki]

Sweet! Thanks bunches. Pics to help, nice job. What, was the hardest part, the four resistors on the bottom, stacking/soldering the RAM chips?

[jaybird3rd]

None of it was especially hard, but surely the most time-consuming part is desoldering and socketing the RAM and other chips. Most of my chips were already socketed, either because they came that way from the factory or because I had to replace them years earlier (the Freddie and Antic chips were two that I remember having to replace). You could probably get by without having to socket any of the big chips, but you will need to socket the RAM. Fortunately, that type of RAM is still fairly easy to find, so the old chips can be replaced if they are damaged during extraction.

 

I don't have any personal experience with them, but the 1MB upgrades might be the better option these days: they're probably easier to install, and of course they'll give you more RAM.

[gilsaluki]

You were absolutely correct about the most time-consuming part of this upgrade was the desoldering of the existing RAM chips to enable the installation of the sockets. I finally took Bruce's advice (B&C Computervisions) and cut the old chip out. That made removal of the chip legs and cleaning of the through holes much easier. NOT an easy upgrade, at least for me. Lifting the two pins from the FREDDIE Chip was not easy either; I broke one of the pins doing so, but I recovered. I am complete now and it works, about 8 hours expended on this. I would not recommend this upgrade to those that do not have sufficient soldering/desoldering experience. Thanks again for the instructions and the pictures. They were essential.

[kogden]

If I were going to go through the effort on an XEGS I'd probably go ahead and go the Ultimate 1MB route.

 

If you don't mind swapping the OS ROM for a custom one (800XL OS and REV C BASIC), and going through a couple extra steps, this 512K upgrade would work on an XEGS:

 

http://www.mega-hz.de/Angebote/512K/512k.html

 

On an 800XL it's practically a drop-in upgrade but it's tougher on others since you have to desolder ANTIC, etc like I did on my 600XL. It's less pricy than Ultimate 1MB but is a more old-school design. I like it though, supports separate ANTIC access, use as a battery backed RAMdisk, etc. No built-in SDX or RTC though. But for that I have an IDEPlus. With no switches connected it defaults to 512K RAMBO mode.

[gilsaluki]

That upgrade looks intriguing. Wish I could read it, my only language is English (some Hangul--Korean).

[kogden]

That upgrade looks intriguing. Wish I could read it, my only language is English (some Hangul--Korean).

 

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mega-hz.de%2FAngebote%2F512K%2F512k.html&edit-text=&act=url

 

That should do it. The English ends up slightly weird in a couple spots but you'll get the idea. It's basically a GAL, an SRAM chip and a socket for ANTIC. The board sits in ANTIC's original socket. Comes with a little MMU adapter board too.

 

--Kevin

[jaybird3rd]

I'm glad the instructions were helpful, and I'm especially glad that the upgrade worked for you! I think that having some sort of soldering experience is almost a prerequisite to maintaining a collection of vintage computers; it's much more fun (and much cheaper in the long run) if you can service and repair your own gear.