Troubleshooting 1050 w/ Happy

[telmnstr]

Home from VCF East, and motivated to tackle some projects. Two things that have been on my shelf for a while are a 130XE with RAM issues (will fix) and a 1050 that doesn't work. I picked up the 1050 years ago, it never worked. It had this pair of wires hanging out, which I assumed maybe was a means to move the drive to ID #5-8.

 

Well, upon opening it I found a Happy enhancement. I remember the Happy enhancement advertisements in the Atari magazines from my youth, but I didn't really have much other than 3 floppy games and self types programs. So it's exciting to me. To quote Virginia Beach native Pharrell, Happy.

 

Upon powering on the drive (no computer), the drive motor spins for a bit then stops. There is a pause, then this happens again over and over. Power LED is on, the disk activity LED comes on when it spins. The heads do not seek, at all. It does not return to the opto (I think it's an opto) if I move it off of it.

 

I checked the +5vdc and the +12vdc, both seem okay. Stable, above 5, above 12, even during motor operation.

 

My gut instinct is the drive is rebooting over and over?

 

I tried pushing down on all the chips on the happy PCB (covered in warranty tape) as well as the few remaining on the main PCB. The pins are lined up right from the happy PCB.

 

There are two wires hanging out of the back that are connected to a bit of PCB perf board on the back of the heatsink (isolated) with a TC4093BP quad 2 input nand. The wires from it snake through a screw hole under the main PCB where I assume it's tacked onto points. I haven't fully pulled the board yet. Any ideas on what this mod might be? Disk notch defeat would be a guess but I have no idea.

 

Thoughts?

 

Pull Happy and try to revert to normal drive for testing? Or something common that I might be missing?

[_The Doctor__]

wiggle the chips in their seats. give a good long time between power on and power off and power on again...

 

the wires... are they connect on both end? or are the just hanging with nothing connected on end like a switch is missing?

if they are connected somewhere... are there signs of missing wire connection point?

Edited May 8, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[+Nezgar]

The constant cycling of the happy drive motor (and corresponding front light) is indicative of a poweron self-test failure, either with the RAM, ROM, or less likely the supporting logic on the happy board.

 

Can you post a picture of your happy PCB? There were two main variants of the genuine boards, those with 3 6116 2KB SRAM chips, and those with a single 6164 or 6264 8KB SRAM chip.

 

The happy board also still requires the original 128 byte 6810 SRAM chip on the 1050 motherboard to be present as well.

 

If you have the 3x6116 board, as a troubleshooting option, you may have some success or at least a change in symptoms by rotating the 6116 chips to different sockets...

 

I had to replace the three 6116 chips in one of my flaky happy boards to resolve a similar issue.

 

If you do want to take it back to 'stock' configuration, you'll need to replace the original ROM chip, as well as the 6507 CPU that would have been removed for installation of the Happy. Maybe you have another 1050 you can borrow the parts from. They are socketed in every 1050. The only thing to watch for is the jumpers for the ROM, 1050's came from Atari with either EPROMs or mask ROM's. For mask ROM jumpers would be across JP1 and JP3, for EPROM, jumpers would be across JP2 and JP4.

[TGB1718]

Just a thought, might be worth checking if all the capacitors have been replaced, if not, might be worth doing before you go any further

[telmnstr]

Thanks for the feedback!

 

Here are pics of the happy and the mod someone made, it terminates in bare wires but there could have been a switch in the drives past -- not sure.

 

https://imgur.com/a/eemAHFH

 

Happy Computers HE1050D

Rev C.

 

Looks like 3 x 6114?

 

Drive is jumpered 1 and 3 so it was masked rom originally. I will have to pull out the other drive and open it up to see what it has for parts. My goal of course is to have a happy drive.

 

I think I'm going to have to void the warranty on it.

[telmnstr]

Okay, swapping the SRAM on the Happy didn't do anything.

 

Popped the top on the other "parts" 1050, took the cover off the chips and there is an ICD module in there in place of the CPU. Going to google for more info on that.

[_The Doctor__]

no need to google, it's an ICD US DOUBLER 1050 drive. The drive is double density.

[BillC]

Okay, swapping the SRAM on the Happy didn't do anything.

 

Popped the top on the other "parts" 1050, took the cover off the chips and there is an ICD module in there in place of the CPU. Going to google for more info on that.

The US Doubler upgrade consists of replacement firmware and a double height IC module to increase the size of the 6810 RAM buffer. The CPU is not modified.

[+Nezgar]

Okay, swapping the SRAM on the Happy didn't do anything.

 

Popped the top on the other "parts" 1050, took the cover off the chips and there is an ICD module in there in place of the CPU. Going to google for more info on that.

 

You can find replacement 6116 chips on eBay or AliExpress. For example: https://www.ebay.com/itm/132726954278from UK or https://www.ebay.com/itm/183010297389 from China.

 

Since the drive is doing the POST failure sequence, it would seem the CPU and ROM are OK.

 

Here is a picture of my 6K board like yours, with new SRAM chips: ( I had to break the seal of 'authenticity' )

 

 

Take a look at this post, which shows a US Doubler mask ROM, the original 6507 CPU still in place, and the large "ICD" module in the RAM socket:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/288201-five-1050s-determining-upgrades-and-diagnostics/?p=4219307

 

Yours could be a mask ROM as pictures there with JP1/JP3 configured, or an official EPROM version, with JP2/JP4 configured. If the motherboard jumpers are configured the same on both drives, you can transfer those three IC's over to the other drive to test without any soldering.

 

Mask ROM:

 

or EPROM:

 

Edit: Neat, my serial # "B 10117" is not far from yours "B 10151" !

 

Edit2: Those 2 loose wires might be for an RPM slowdown switch... can you see where the wires from that little PCB at the back of the drive connect to the main 1050 board? Looks like 5 wires go to the underside?

[telmnstr]

Awesome! I will get some pics of the bottom of the PCB that has the wires run tonight or tomorrow.

 

Is there any use in dumping the ROM from the Happy? I assume they're all captured at this point, same with the ICD.

 

I ordered RAM to repair a 130XE, I can order some 6114's as well. One of my arcade buddies *might* have a tester that can do 6114 but probably easier to just buy some extras.

 

I will see what I have regarding caps for a recap as well.

 

Last night and tonight I will be working to build a SMax or SD2SIO to replace my old unreliable SIO2PC cable. I am going to pick up an arduino touchscreen from Microcenter on the way home, that should get me Smax or whatever the touchscreen sio2sd is. I tried to build a sio2arduino last night but issues compiling the code. Once I get a working DOS boot I will then try to format disks and check compatibility between drives on the ICD drive, then use that to test the happy if it works. I do have my childhood 1050 that still reads the games I grew up on (Ghostbusters, Goonies and Mr Do's Castle) along with Atari DOS disk -- though I don't want to put those disks in unknown drives and don't want to use it as a parts donor for anything. I have plenty of 1SDD disks.

 

Excited to make some progress on all this!

Edited May 10, 2019 by telmnstr

[+Nezgar]

One things bugging me, since you've written it as such a few times now - Do your existing RAM chips really say 6114? I just want to make sure because that doesn't seem like a real part number in my searching. The "16" in "6116" indicates 16 kilobits, or 2 kilobytes.

 

No, it's not really worth dumping the ROM unless of course for your own acedemic interest. Good v1 and v2 dumps are online. It's actually tricky to dump the original genuine ROM because it has internal bank switching logic when reading bytes at 0FF8/0FF9 or 1FF8/1FF9, or whereever that ends up in the memory map when in use. Clone happy boards use an 8K eprom at minimum and have more external logic to replicate the function.

 

I am curious to see a picture of your ICD ROM because I suspect there is still a remote chance of an earlier version that isn't known yet... ie if yours has external date markings from prior to 85.

[telmnstr]

Hello, you are correct -- sorry it's 6116 RAM ICs. I have one on the shelf, but it's a MOS chip that has 4 more pins (Possibly from a dead C64, not sure.)

 

Okay, I pulled the main board out. The homebrew mod is tied to the front power LED for something, in addition to whatever the external switch is for.

 

There are pics of the tie points of the wires from the homegrown modification are here: https://imgur.com/a/PhM2P1I

 

 

I built an SDrive-Max last night (woah it's sexy) so can easily boot various DOSes and such.

 

I hooked up the ICD 1050, and whenever I go to initialize a disk the drive starts doing it but quickly get the rumble noise followed by error 138. So I'm wondering if the drive is not fully communicating back to the host or something. The interesting thing is the drive will continue to execute a formate while the machine has returned to a prompt. Note, I'm using Atari DOS on this drive with the ICD. I don't know if the ICD breaks compatibility with it.

 

I am going to move the happy into the ICD drive today and see what happens.

Edited May 11, 2019 by telmnstr

[telmnstr]

Okay, swapped ICD module and assistant chip into drive that had Happy (and has the hardware hack)

Upon powerup, disk does initial homing but doesn't seem to stop (not detected by opto? or CPU not using it.) Just keeps slamming against home position.

 

I swapped the actual disk drive mechanism from the other drive onto the PCB and same results, so most likely not the optical sensor.

I can oscope it to see if opto is reading or not. A camera should be able to see the transmitter side (IR LED) so I can test that.

 

I moved the happy into the drive that had the ICD. It doesn't do a post drive seek at all. Power LED and that is it.

Edited May 11, 2019 by telmnstr

[+Nezgar]

The happy needs the 6810 RAM chip present in U10 (where the black "ICD" module was) did you move that over along with the happy board?

[telmnstr]

Indeed I moved the RAM chip over as well as the HAPPY module when I swapped them.

 

Haven't had a chance to oscope the board yet. I did look it up on the schematic and it looks like the signal from the head home position sensor hits pin 34 of the WDC chip. The scan that I found is slightly hard to read.

 

Will check that on both drive mechanisms to make sure they're both good in those regards.

[+Nezgar]

Yep, pin 34 is the Track 00 detection.

http://members.casema.nl/hhaydn/howel/parts/279Xfdc.htm

 

Although if that was bad, I would think it would grind trying to seek past track 0 for some period of time during POST... or I guess it could 'always' thinks it's on track 0...

[telmnstr]

Okay, some updates. This is my brain dump that maybe others can get use out of :-)

 

So I'm an idiot - the reason I couldn't format the drive is because the Sdrive-MAX was answering to all 4 drives, and probably colliding with the real disk drive. I was able to get the happy board in a drive to successfully format a disk. Weather or not it's readable on another drive, not sure. But I was able to boot DOS off of the disk.

 

Note - last time I tried this I was using APE or something and I'm more confident the software wasn't answering on the drive. It did not work before.

 

Caps:

 

I recapped (mostly) both drives. One drive had some tantalum caps where the other had electrolytic.

 

 

Short list, but:

C21 - 4.7uF 35v

C69 - 47uF 16v

C70 - 47uF 16v

c42 - 47uF 16v

c43 - 47uF 16v

c41 - 4.7uF 35v

c51 - 1uF 50v

c44 - 2.2uF 50v

 

(Note, not every 1050 has all of those electrolytic.)

 

I replaced the caps except the 2.2uF on both PCBs. I also removed the homebrew LED and ?? modification and restored it back to original.

 

 

- Drive ID select

 

The SIO connectors and the drive ID setting switches were very dust covered and dirty. I cleaned them up with a paintbrush and then used deoxit on the drive ID switches.

 

 

- Position sensor:

 

With a Canon ELPH pocket camera (not with an iphone) I was able to see the IR emission from the bottom side of the head 0 position sensor. So the IR LED is indeed working on both.

 

The pin closest to the front of the drive on the 4 pin connector that is tied to the head position sensor is the output of the phototransistor. I unplugged the head stepper from PCB, powered on drive, and then was able to use an oscope to watch the signal move high/low when the head sled was at 0 or not. So confirmed that is good on both drives.

 

 

- Next steps

 

Next I will try to figure out what drives the stepping. Is it a function built into the WDC IC, or does the CPU drive this function but pick up status through the WDC chip. I might swap the WDC ICs between drives to see if that changes anything

 

Fun! Some progress!

 

(At the same time this weekend I also reflashed a GoTek with FlashFloppy, added OLED screen and mounted it in Ocean box to use as external drive on Atari ST systems. It is partially working as well :-) So many projects.)

 

Thanks for all the tips will continue to work on the ICD drive.

 

** Edit - I just read up on the SDrive-Max and found a thread here. It mentions that without a diode in there it mungs the bus up so other devices can't talk. I will see what I have in the way of diodes and correct that this week,

Edited May 13, 2019 by telmnstr

[_The Doctor__]

better off doing the isolation chip rather than the diode...

[E474]

Hi,

 

You need to keep track of which FDC goes in which 1050 board as they are not interchangeable in the sense that each board needs to be calibrated to a particular FDC to get consistent results. There is a thread started last year by tf_hh on this.

 

The SDrive-Max doesn't work reliably/consistently with a diode, it needs a 74xx chip to buffer signals (this is according to various AA posts, I haven't actually built the addition to the circuit using a 74xx chip, but it's on the list, and I have had problems getting the SDrive-Max to work with a real 1050 using just a diode).

 

Hope this helps.

[TGB1718]

IC Buffer Circuit for Sdrive-Max:-

[telmnstr]

Much thanks for the tip on the Sdrive-Max. I just ordered some Arduino protoboards that can sit between the touchscreen and the arduino (male and female connectors.) I should be able to drop the touchscreen on top of proto and put the buffer chip inbetween, gaining nice access to all of the pins. It should be cleaner. I looked around in my parts but all I could find is 7404 and 7408 chips so I will order.

 

Thanks for the tip on the WDC chip, I marked the donor and carried it to the drive with the ICD in it. Upon putting that in there, it now properly homes and boots normally. I was able to boot DOS from smax and then format a disk on the drive (unplugged sdrive-max once format util was loaded.) That disk mostly worked, except throws the 130xe into the diag versus AtariDOS 3.0 but w/e, close. I put the donor chip back in the original Happy drive and it returned to working. The formatted disk got it to the same point as well. So this one seems like it's solved.

 

I bought a replacement WDC chip from Poland, but noting the alignment will be off until it's recalibrated. I think I can pull off doing RPM adjustment but not sure about actual head alignment.

 

Much thanks for all the info, I will buy an AtariAge Shirt and some other merch to help support the site! So good to close up a project after staring at it for a long time.

 

I have RAM inbound to fix a 2nd Atari 130XE, but next project is dealing with Gotek setup external on an Atari Mega ST 2.

 

Thanks again for all the info, I will try to pay it forward where I can!

Edited May 14, 2019 by telmnstr

[+Nezgar]

Good to hear you have signs of life from both drives, and isolated the bad IC! Good detective work.

 

I bought a replacement WDC chip from Poland, but noting the alignment will be off until it's recalibrated. I think I can pull off doing RPM adjustment but not sure about actual head alignment.

 

It's not the alignment that needs recalibrating after changing the FDC chip, (that is a property of the physical drive mechanism stepper, and will remain the same) It's the 2 trimpots and 1 variable capacitor surrounding the FDC chip on the mainboard that will require calibration to the new chip, which requires an oscilloscope...

 

PS: I'd still like to see a picture of your ICD US Doubler ROM if it is different than the two pictures I posted earlier, thanks!

[Umberto]

Much thanks for the tip on the Sdrive-Max. I just ordered some Arduino protoboards that can sit between the touchscreen and the arduino (male and female connectors.) I should be able to drop the touchscreen on top of proto and put the buffer chip inbetween, gaining nice access to all of the pins. It should be cleaner. I looked around in my parts but all I could find is 7404 and 7408 chips so I will order.

 

Thanks for the tip on the WDC chip, I marked the donor and carried it to the drive with the ICD in it. Upon putting that in there, it now properly homes and boots normally. I was able to boot DOS from smax and then format a disk on the drive (unplugged sdrive-max once format util was loaded.) That disk mostly worked, except throws the 130xe into the diag versus AtariDOS 3.0 but w/e, close. I put the donor chip back in the original Happy drive and it returned to working. The formatted disk got it to the same point as well. So this one seems like it's solved.

 

I bought a replacement WDC chip from Poland, but noting the alignment will be off until it's recalibrated. I think I can pull off doing RPM adjustment but not sure about actual head alignment.

 

Much thanks for all the info, I will buy an AtariAge Shirt and some other merch to help support the site! So good to close up a project after staring at it for a long time.

 

I have RAM inbound to fix a 2nd Atari 130XE, but next project is dealing with Gotek setup external on an Atari Mega ST 2.

 

Thanks again for all the info, I will try to pay it forward where I can!

Where you located. I can do all analog adjustments and radial head alignment if you need it

[telmnstr]

Good to hear you have signs of life from both drives, and isolated the bad IC! Good detective work.

 

 

It's not the alignment that needs recalibrating after changing the FDC chip, (that is a property of the physical drive mechanism stepper, and will remain the same) It's the 2 trimpots and 1 variable capacitor surrounding the FDC chip on the mainboard that will require calibration to the new chip, which requires an oscilloscope...

 

PS: I'd still like to see a picture of your ICD US Doubler ROM if it is different than the two pictures I posted earlier, thanks!

 

Will take pics of it tonight, and I can probably dump it.

I do have both an analog 20mhz scope and a DSO (Rigol 100mhz something or other.)

But if it requires a known good disk, I don't have anything to align it against.

[telmnstr]

Where you located. I can do all analog adjustments and radial head alignment if you need it

 

Hello, I am located in Northern Virginia (USA.) You are Washington state not Washington DC right? :-)