Kurisu

Looking to buy the crazy middle-man box for the Atari 5200. Mine has gone missing (so this whole thread might become a moot point if I do find it) so, I kind of am in need of a new one now that I have gotten the machine moved over to my new house. We all know the box in question, I think, so, if anyone has a spare they would be willing to part with, do quote me a price. Thanks! ~Chris

I will have to take another look in the drive and try this out. I did go ahead and order a SD reader for the machine, but of course, I want to be able to run original software disks, and make backups of the data the original owner had, so keeping the drive alive is still a priority. Need to buy some good needle nose pliers for that spring tension trick.

Hi guys! Carlsson, yes, I have checked out his guide in my research, which indeed is where I got the idea to at least play around with the drive head, to see the results! R.Cade, This drive certainly had been in storage for a while, and while it did have the transport card in the drive, the drive was NOT locked down, meaning, during the move from the estate sale to my friends shop, it certainly could have been damaged. I carefully studied the drive, and I'm not noticing any bent metal... then again, I can only do so much with this being my only specimine of 1571. It looks nearly identical to the photos on Ray's site. I do believe the spring is the culprit, since adding weight to the drive head causes good reading results. It would make sense then that the force of the spring is no longer enough. I still have a piece of metal taped to the drive head, and it's still working. I just need to snag another one, or alternately, I need to just get a SD reader for this machine. That would be the best route, and just use the physical drive sparingly. :3

Thank you for your reply! I had tried formatting, etc, and the drive would always try to work, then result in the same issue. I certainly should clean the heads when I get a chance, as that can always help things. I do however, have an update: I read more in depth on the workings of the drive this morning, since this is the first full day since getting the machine that I have had time to do such, and I DID get it to read a directory.. by pushing the head down a bit with my finger... The result? While I know it cannot be safe for the hardware in the long run, I have a metal plate, actually left over from the IC insertion kit I bought last night, taped to the head assembly very carefully, and balanced, weighing it down to where it reads both C64 and C128 software. I was able to run various Chess games (the old owner loved chess), some word processing software (turns out the owner was a doctor, who took trips to places like Saudi Arabia, etc) and CP/M... so, things seem to be working fine, but the end problem is simply that this is NOT a safe way to run the drive. I still intend to take video of the drive, operating correctly and with the "fix" and improperly, without the weight attached, but I think I at least found what the final issue was: heads not contacting. Now to figure out WHY this problem existed in the first place.

Hello everyone! been forever since I have been on here. Hope you all have been well. ANYHOO, I recently came into posession of a Commodore 128, a Commodore 1902 monitor, and a Commodore 1571 floppy drive. The monitor and the actual computer are fine, and seem to run perfectly as far as I can test, but the floppy drive has something severely wrong with it. I am aware of how fragile the drives are, and have read quite a bit on the issue, but nothing is quite matching the experience I am having with my drive: It seems to initialize fine, and behaves fine until you actually send a command to it. Then, it will grind senselessly, followed by the flashing green light of error land. It can be turned off and re-initialized just fine, and any commands to force the hardware to do most head-moving tasks seem to go fine, but any actual read or write commands just fail with this same error. Here's the funny thing: thinking the controller might be bad, and noticing that the machine came with un-installed JiffyDOS, I decided to do my first IC replacement and remove the original controller, and install the new JiffyDOS chip. Installation went perfectly fine, because after install the 1571 does the EXACT SAME THING AS BEFORE! I actually laughed about it, since i clearly had done the install right, but it in no way was related to the drive problems. To give an example of the issue at hand, if you hit F3 for a DIRECTORY command, the drive will begin to seek, then, will begin it's flashing green light and the commodore will return to it's "Ready" prompt without displaying any data. I will record video of this later, as I just woke up and decided to post here (go figure, right?). I hope there is an easy fix for this, but if the drive is fried, oh well. I just have a ton of old floppies from the original ower, including much actually user-generated data that would be interesting to look over. Thanks. Again, I'll record and share video of the issue later today.

Well, I am going to be blunt: I fubar'd my lovely "day old" 5200 Trackball. I was going to fix the fire buttons, and a little bad positioning on my part sent them flying. That wasnt the bad part, I amazingly found all the springs, AND found 3 of the 4 buttons. Great, right? Especially since the fire button went missing in an area that it should be easy to find in... Well, I go to get things put up in some form, and, well, you know the little bearing the rotator wheel sits on? Yeah, one of those went missing. Thus, the controller went from just needing the button found to totaly useless in an instan. This little tiny metal piece would be quite hard to find in my rather messy room, so I am kinda just screwed. So, Anyone got one they want to sell? I would even take nonworking since the only parts I would need are mechanical, or just those parts themselves, a fire button and one of those bearing deals (I would take a picture, but my camera died :\ ). Thanks... ~Chris

I got the game in a bulk lot, and thought nothing of it. Fired it up, and was amazed. Such a nice game. Always hoping for fule instead of more worms.. hehe.

My copy came in today. I still wish I had an Odyssey to play it on, but the simple fact I own it is awesome. It is quite a beautiful package, and I think it was well worth the money, and the wait for it all to be produced and shipped. I also love how the cirtificate has my real name and not my nickname. It makes it much more personal, and I feel very proud to own it. Not like I did anything more than say "I want one" and pay for it, but for a game that only, what 17 copies of which exist, and that mine has an identifiable number, well, that is pretty awesome. If my camera hadn't fallen in water, I would take some pics and put them on my website. I will still make a post on my blog about it, but yeah... I guess it is just the whole idea is awesome to me. Oh, and as always, thanks! ^_^ BTW, is there any way for us to figure out which one of us may have gotten the prototype? It would kinda be fun to know, but at the same rate, once it is discovered, the magic is gone.. since it is always nice to think maybe the copy you have IS that special one. heh.

Well, 2 "voices" is all the real game has. Now, try something more developed and correct, like Beatmania or GF/DM on it, and now you would run into an actual challenge.

Well, I would use the term "sudden" for the fact that I have heard people mention that they would stop playing for a the day, come back, and the buttons would already be pretty much gone: not instantaneous, but one of those "it was fine yesterday" situations. I had heard the rubber boot was the only thing in the design to "center it" so calling that a self centering part was the best term I could use, I guess. hah. Nice to hear that the analog sticks themselves are alright. What is funny is, the way people complain, you think they were the most messed up parts, but it seems they last longer than the rest. I don't mind cleaning if it lasts a month or more, and repairs can eventually be bought, so it sounds like I would be able to deal with the 5200. As for that POKEY adjustment. that sounds like a major headache for me, but one I am willing to try to go at when I can. hehe. Thanks! I hope to hear more little "here and there" facts about these things as I wait to get my unit.

Alright, I will soon be receiving an Atari 5200, and would like to know exactly what the problems with the controllers are. I am aware of the following: Loss of / practical lack of self centering capabilities due to use of a very soft, poor strength rubber boot for the joystick support, thus creating problems for non-analog games. Sudden loss of conductivity in "flex circut" contacts, thus creating the inability to actually activate gameplay; fixable with constant cleaning, or a circuit replacement. ... And thats really it. I was wondering waht else was out there. Did the actual analog stick component hold up decently? how much maintenance does it take if it does act up? I understand it is made up of 2 potentiometers, and that things CAN come undone, so is it that hard to reset them in the tracks? How long would a good flex cleaning last? Is there a cheap way to "rig" something up? What about the fire buttons, how well do they hold up? I would like to be ready to go when the machine arrives. I hope to have a friend over that same day to play it with, and I would hope to know exactly what to do to get started, and know what to look forward to in the very likely rate that they start to give out again in the MIDDLE of playing (I have heard that within an hour controllers will die out.) Thanks a ton.

Tis not a problem. I was trying to be funny more than anything, but I seem to fail at that more and more in recent days. Ah well. At least I got the main thing I wanted.