Berger

I'd be interested in this as well. I like picking up atari programming books when I find them, would be good to know if one is on the list or not. Aaron

My 600xl has arrived and is sitting at home, while I'm at work. Hopefully it'll help me trouble shoot my broken one I have gotten before.

Buy a voltmeter and test your 600XL power supply for exactly 5 volts. You haven't "checked it out" by substituting your 130XE PS on the 600XL machine. That just tells you that the 130XE PS is working. Your 600XL Power Supply remains a lethal threat to your 130XE if you ever swap power supplies before you actually TEST your 600XL power supply. 80% of the time, the power supply goes bad and sends overvoltage into the machine shorting out one or two RAM chips that then draw down the voltage and keep the damage among the RAM chips instead of the 40 pin count chips. You can feel which RAM chips are shorted by placing your thumb on top of them - the ones that melt your skin are the bad ones. If you replace them with a bad power supply you just get to replace even more of them. It is vital to measure the voltage on your power supply first and then destroy power supplies that produce more than 5 volts so that you don't take out any more 8-bit machines. Power supply failure is the number ONE all time failure, ignore that fact and you'll have dead 8-bits all over the place. You must measure. My atari power supplies (I got 1 with the xe and 1 with the xl) measure 5.09 and 5.03 respectfully That still within specs? -Aaron

Thanks for all the help guys! I'll get some replacement parts and see what I can figure out. -Aaron

The screen is one whole color, there seem to be some vertical lines on the left, but they are pretty much the same color. The color is a really dark green. If I rotate R4 on the motherboard I can get the color to change to red or blue as well. Thanks for all the quick replies guys! -Aaron It's the OS Chip. Try Reseating it. If that Doesn't work, Get a new OS chip from Best Electronics ( 408-278-1070 ) Open From 1:30pm to 5pm PST. I know its a stupid question, but which is the OS Chip? Are there any images that have the chips labeled? -Aaron

thanks for all the help! Unfortunately the only atari systems I have are a 2600,600xl,and 130xe So I guess I'll try the new ram when I get it in. and if that doesn't work I'll see if I can get another unit, or maybe a motherboard from Best Electronics. Even if I get a different working system, I'm going to swap the parts around to see whats the problem with this unit, and so I know what good parts I have. -Aaron

I will try this when I get home today. -Aaron Ok I tried this over lunch. I do not get a beep. The power light on the keyboard does come on. -Aaron

I will try this when I get home today. -Aaron

Power supply checks out fine. I have a 130xe and use the same power supply with it. I tried my PacMan Cart (which also works with the xe) and it does not change anything on the screen. The screen is one whole color, there seem to be some vertical lines on the left, but they are pretty much the same color. The color is a really dark green. If I rotate R4 on the motherboard I can get the color to change to red or blue as well. Thanks for all the quick replies guys! -Aaron

I recently got a 600xl from ebay, and its not working at the moment. The rf adapter does work, and the unit does power up and display some color to the screen. In fact rotating R4 on the motherboard changes the color that is displayed on my tv. After reading through a lot of posts here, I took out all the chips and reseated them, but that hasn't made a difference. The 600xl looks like it was stored in a garage, the rf shield had a lot of rust on it which is sanded off, and some of the chips have a little oxidation and/or rust on some of the pins. The power supply works fine. I have the ram chips coming for the 64k upgrade, so I was going to try those to see if they make any difference. Any other suggestions of stuff to check? Should I just get another one, or a populated motherboard, and use this one for parts? -Aaron