Atari 800XL SIO2SD Custom Build!

[beamer320i]

Hi all,

 

No doubt many of you are aware of the massive contribution Jon (flashjazzcat) has made to this forum and the Atari 8-bit community with his projects, software, advice, (most of which is far too technical for me!) etc but less documented is his 'engineering' side!

 

I'm a gamer, pure and simple. SIO2SD is a great device for me, choose your game of choice and boot it up. A few years ago there was quite a few posts on the 'best' way to encase the SIO2SD boards which had then become readily available. One of the most popular methods was to use the XM301 modem case, others used XC12 cassette players, 1064 cases, etc etc.

 

Back in 2012 I had a US 110v 'beauty queen' XL style PSU that was gathering dust and posting that off to Jon resulted in this..

 

 

 

 

A great looking unit which maintained the style of the stock 800XL, now made immensely more practical for me! (It's still here, a mainstay of my rather modest set-up!)

 

Anyway, fast forward to 2017 - I've recently returned to the Atari scene after concentrating on other projects and wanted to combine the 800XL and SIO2SD into one 'ultimate gamer' package. I spoke to Jon and he agreed to take on the Herculean task of making my fantasy machine! I ordered the Ultimate 1MB upgrade and SIO2SD board from Lotharek and sent the bits to Jon, along with the donor 800XL.

 

In return, he sent me regular updates and photographs. I've just taken delivery of the finished machine and it's blown me away. It is absolutely awesome! I've got the U1mb so can run the big games and it has an 800 OS-B on board to run the older stuff (it also has a ton of features that I will probably never use or understand but others will!)

 

Best of all I think is the custom installation of the SIO2SD. I've seen similar builds on other machines so thought I knew what I would be getting but this is top class. The workmanship is outstanding. The whole thing just oozes quality. The screen install, the positioning and 'feel' of the buttons, everything is superb. Here she is...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm absolutely over the moon with it (as you can probably tell!). A lot of engineering work went into this project and it's all down to Jon that it has turned out so well. A lot of time and thought has gone into this and I cannot thank him enough. And no, I'm not on commission either - I just wanted to highlight his hardware skills as well as his programming skills! Thanks again Jon :-)

 

 

 

[+Stephen]

Excellent!

[Guest]

that's a beautiful piece of work!

Jon did it again

 

i cannot recommend Jon's work highly enough...he's rescued and restored/upgraded/improvised some great stuff for me

[Guest]

just to "bump" this one up

thought i'd upload some pics of the latest batch of fixes/cleans/services and repairs that Jon has done for me:

 

what's been done?

1] standard XL - power switch replaced, video cleaned up, faulty ram replaced.

2] secam XL - faulty ram replaced, video cleaned up

3] 130XE - faulty ram socketed and replaced. video cleaned up

4] 2x 130xe keyboards - cleaned, repaired and restored (de-yellowed/peroxide+UV)

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