Splatm4n

Hey all, still not working, bought a used drive (not confirmed working) and nothing boots up. Starting to think it's the atari 800 that was/is the problem. @Ricortes / @Klund1 any chance you guys are willing to help me test this?

Have an Atari 800 with busted ATR8000 so need a floppy drive. Please contact me if you have a working one! Thanks! Eric.

I gotta take a biz trip for a week, but when I get back I'm definitely going to hit you guys up. Im also going to try to see if anyone is willing to sell a 1050 here too. No one responded to my initial post, so I'll post another. You guys are all awesome BTW> Thanks to everyone for the great advice. This is a blast. My kid is loving it. He can't save his code still but my 12-year old is now into the graphics section and bugging me to go buy a (working) controller since he wants to move graphics around on the screen. Such good times. Glad I got him to read Ready Player One because that's what kicked off his interest in all this.

That's possible? If I had a schematic of this thing that'd help. Will go search for that now.

Thanks for that offer, but it seems based on typing LPRINT with no floppy plugged in my first issue is 800 not talking to the ATR8000.

Wanted just the drive, ignore previous post.

I'm in northern cali. San Jose area.

Hey, I used a DMM to measure the Atari800 connector and soldier joints, it's good I then ohmed-out the SIO cable itself. Looks pretty good. Then did the same (with SIO cable plugged in) from Atari side SIO cable to solder joints inside ATR8000. All good. I reseated all chips. Still when I boot up Atari800 (after powering up ATR8000), type in LPRINT and nothing. Just the buzz (farting noise) and Error - 138.

Found an ideal little tool and was able to stabalize the motherboard while pulling / pushing, so woo hoo. Bad news is: pulled and replaced every DIP package (including memory) to no avail. Still the same Error - 138 when I type LPRINT. Note, I have BASIC cartridge in the left socket of ATARI 800 when I'm doing this. Sounds like one of the chips on the ATR8000 is bad or... something internal to atari 800. Seems like I need a 1050 floppy drive to confirm. Any other thoughts?

Hey thanks for the help, sincerely. This computer is such a great memory from when I was young. My kid (now same age I was) is going crazy over it since he just finished Ready Player One book. 1. Okay so first thing I did was take off the floppy ribbon cable from back to ATR8000. Powered up ATR 800 then Atari800. Typed LPRINT, and again got Error -138 2. Re-seated jumpers. Still the same Error -138 from "LPRINT" 3. Removed the back of the Atari800 and checked the SIO connection. Even used multimeter to measure impedance between outside pin and backside solder connection. Some scratches there of solder mask but nothing too concerning. All looks good. Re-tried LPRINT once I powered everything back on: Error-138. 4. Moved the SIO cable to 2nd (out peripheral port) and LPRINT produces the same. 5. DIP socket chips on ATR8000: trying to pull them out without a DIP puller is a pain, PCB is bending a bit too much when I try. SO I need to go buy one. I might try to find another SIO cable too, though I doubt that's what it is. 6. Using DMM, measured from Atari800 side of SIO all the way to solder connections on ATR8000 to validate cable. Everything looks good. LPRINT = Error-138 again. 7. Also inside the ATR8000: C20 is 12V, C18 & C45 are 5.0V and C48 seems to be -12.0V lastly: when I type LPRINT (no floppy connected, ATR8000, it makes that buzzing error noise (Atari 800 does). Summary: only thing I couldn't do was re-seat the DIP packages on the ATR8000.

Attempting to upload video. IMG_0276.MOV

Basically the drive wont spin up after initial power-on sequence: Plug everything in, checked all manuals and pin-1 locations a few times. Seems right. Power on drive. Then power on ATR8000 it clicks on the drive: - spins for about 3 seconds - clicks to a stop. That's about it. No major noises that seem too out of place. Same noise(s) as when you hit the reset in the back. Dont think the ribbon cable is bad, but could be. I checked the SIO cable seems okay to me.

Attempting to upload photos.

Attached is the inside of the ATR8000 nothing glaring wrong like a blown out cap.

Looking for an Atari1050 that works. My ATR8000 (and cheaply-bought knock off floppy drive) seems to be not working. Will pay, let me know. My 12-year-old son is super into doing BASIC and I want him to be able to read and write his getting-longer code to floppy. Thanks!