DavidMil

I had actually forgotten about the 1200. My spare 1200XL doesn't have a case or shielding so I got it out and it is a different part number. I guess the only way to know for sure is to open up some computers and start swapping MMU's. David

This is my fault, but I can still cry! I saw a Percom drive for sale on ebay (not an auction), and it was a good price. It said that the vendor had tested the drive and it was guarantied to work. So I bought it. It arrived very nicely packaged, and it looked like he had blown out the inside too. So I unplugged my 1050's and plugged in the AT88 drive, turned it on, drive spun a couple of times and stopped. So far, so good! I put a disk, in closed the door again it spun a second then stopped. Now the pain starts! I turned on my old 800 and... nothing. Opened and closed the door, no change. Tried powering everything off and on again, no change! Drats! Unplugged the Percom drive and plugged my 1050 drives back in, and now the computer would not see the 1050's. It also dawned on me that I didn't hear the 850 initialization beep either. Not good, not good! I got out my backup 800 and plugged it in to the 1050's, and everything worked fine. I got out my SALT cartridge and ran a quick test. NO SOUND!!! Oh no... tore the 800 apart and swapped out the POKEY chip with a known good one and the 800 worked again. Now I was so mad I could have chewed up nails! I looked at the back of the Percom drive and all six of the jumpers will still on the drive. I tried pulling them all off to set the drive as one with no other drives attached, and the jumpers had been on so long I had to get a pair of plyers to remove them. Some were even corroded on. So I went back into ebay to complain to the guy, and then I saw in big letters: I Don't Take Returns, all sales are Finial. Anyway, it killed one of my precious POKEY chips. After I cool down in a few weeks I'll look at the drive and start trouble shooting. There is no reason to post this other than to warn you about people on ebay that say one thing and do another! DavidMil

Are all Atari chip's (C061618) programmed the same? I found a set of eight of these chips on a piece of antistatic foam in a small zip lock bag in my closet. The manufacture dates vary from 8316 to 8348 (which covers most of a 1983). Can this same chip be used in all XL's and XE's? Thanks, DavidMil

My gosh this thread brings back memories! We tried so many of those programs, kept some and filed some away! I think that I would have to say: 1 Basic 2 Assembly Editor 3 Disk Wizard 4 Omnimon 5 Syncalc I'd add some Modem software in there, but we tried so many different ones. We ended up using different software for different BBS's. Remember when adding an area code meant being charged long distance rates? Back then phone numbers only had seven digits... DavidMil

Ha! If anyone is interested, I've got six more PIA's that I'll sell you for 1/3 that price! But only six are left and VERY RARE!!! I'll even give you a VERY BIG discount if you buy all six at once ($131.66 each). DavidMil

I can attest to high blood pressure and a coma-like response while staring at the screen hopefully! David

Very cool Nezgar! How in the world did you find this? David

How about Rapidus in the 1088XEL? Any problems? DavidMil

Our first modem was an 830, but we had young kids who would open and close doors, yell at each other, and run around the house (Deliberately running into wall for effect). And yes, they were both boys! Anyway, that kind of background noise played havoc with the acoustical coupler. That noise problem caused us to invest in an Atari 835 direct connect modem. From there we eventually went on to a Hayes 1200 baud modem. I still have all three of those modems, and I believe that there are still several BBS's that will take 300 baud. Is Dark Knight's BBS still up? DavidMil

Just make sure you have a good, very flat, clean surface to work on. Any tiny particles or bumps will show up when you try to smooth out your piece! I have also found it most often BAD to use metal objects to do the flattening. I will usually cut a piece of wood the size of the aluminum to make sure I get a total surface coverage when I apply pressure to the aluminum. But as someone said to me lately, "Your results may vary". DavidMil

Is the UL1423 (silver plate on copper wire with PVC insulation) standard, what you are looking for? I buy mine at Phoenix Enterprises. I agree with you about the crap that comes out of China and is sold on ebay and Amazon. I bought some once and the wire was breaking inside the insulation if you bent it more than a time or two! DavidMil

I actually ordered that board from OSHpark (well, three actually since you can't order just one). I've been using it for some time now in my 1088. It seemed to me that some of the games played a little bit slower, so I thought I'd try the Rapidus to see if I could get any speed improvement. Sadly, the world doesn't pay any attention to one's wishes, so I haven't even had a chance to turn on my 1088 (or any Atari computer) in over a month. David

I bought two from Best Electronics about 6 months ago. He had a few left and he would only sell me two. Brad said that he is out of the key cap pieces and the longer piece at the bottom of the function keys too. DavidMil

Thank you for the know issues sheet. I will also be sending an email to Lotharek. Thank you again! David

I had a bad stepper motor on a 1050 not long ago. Not being as industrious as you, I just found a used one on ebay. After some hair pulling and foul language I finally got it aligned and it's working fine now. If you don't have a 1050 alignment disk, it's just about impossible due to the differences in track zero and speed differences between the motors! DavidMil