Falter

My wife gave me this unit as an Xmas present. I powered it on but saw no picture onscreen. I then noticed a noticeable plastic smell coming from inside. I opened it up and removed the RF shield and plugged into start checking voltages, and as I was doing that, the 12V regulator (LM342P-12) started smoking. I replaced it with another, but same thing. I've been checking the diodes CR1-CR8, not seeing any shorts, etc. Not seeing any damage to other VRs. Just wondering if any of you have run into this. Many thanks!

I've purchased 3 of these for not very much money at all. One in the classic grey colour scheme and two in the ST colour scheme. And amazingly, they all work!

So I did a bit more research, and on old-computers they mention that there were a few versions of the Falcon - the FX-1, one that came out in ST case/keyboard colour scheme, and then the one with the dark grey keys. This is what I have.. I note the serial number is a little different from the usual Falcon serials, the case, looking at it now definitely looks like an ST color case. Is this something unusual? https://drive.google.com/file/d/1FVrm81tysytUIF8g_CnBZYr9DWp4ElKB/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1shKN0n0w7GHNR4jhnVxZvdLgzSl98AHF/view?usp=sharing

I've picked up a couple of Falcons recently, both with the white ST coloured keyboards. I've seen a few of these over the years and am aware of some where for sure the end user swapped keyboards, but I've long wondered if others could have legitimately come with keyboards in that color scheme. Does anyone know? I understand near the end Falcons were liquidated or something similar. I'm wondering if whoever did the final clear out was putting whatever parts were available to complete them together?

Looking for one of these for a broken Bit3 video card. I googled and found a post here mentioning having one but it was from 2011. If anyone has one please let me know... they're really hard to find! Thanks!

Thank you.. I did a purchase on ebay and will see but if yours is still available I may come back to you. Appreciate the offer!

NTSC

Hey guys, So I'm trying to figure out this early 800 I have and so far nada. You power on, and with the composite out you get a solid white screen - the TV output just gives you a little less static. Nothing really seems to change matters, cartridge in, cartridge out. I even have a spare OS cart but nothing there either. I've removed and reseated every chip in the thing. I've checked the RAM chips in another computer that uses them. I've even taken a DMM and, with the cards plugged in one at a time, confirmed continuity between the topmost part of the card 'teeth' and the bottom where the socket pin is soldered in. Kind of dizzying work and I *may* have missed one, but all that I tested came back ok. I'm wondering if I should just buy a known good motherboard from Ebay or something just to test with, or a complete system... just to see if the cards are any good. When I first got a power supply for it it was doing something similar and if you pressed on the OS ROM card with a bit of force it'd work. I figured maybe the socket needed cleaning to so I did more cleaning but after that it was white screen of death forever. Would be grateful for any suggestions/advice.

As mentioned in another thread, I have an early 800 that powers up to a solid white screen on composite and almost nil on TV. When I first powered it up I recall having this issue. I cleaned the edges of the cards and with a bit of pressure on top managed to get the thing to power up to Memopad, BASIC, etc. I then thought I'd do a bit more cleaning of the ROM socket in particular.. after which it hasn't worked since. When I was initially troubleshooting the first time, I ordered a spare ROM cart and plugged that in. I can no longer remember which cart it worked with, but now neither does. I have a GQ-4x4 EPROM reader and was wondering if maybe I could read the ROMs and make sure they're still alive. I can't think of anything I might have done to damage them, apart from repeated power ups and applying pressure on the card when I was trying to get them to operate. Other options I've considered include picking up a known good 800 motherboard, maybe another ROM cart. I'm pretty sure the RAM is good, I removed and tested with a RAM tester in an Apple II. The CPU card would be he only other unknown. Power voltages seem to be fine. I actually went through with the ROM cart plugged in with my DMM and checked continuity between the top of each pin and where it solders into the motherboard on the other side... all seemed to make the connection (although, you can go crosseyed doing that so who knows if I missed one). I also removed and reseated every single IC in the machine. None of the legs on them them looked dirty or rusty. The CPU is good.. I tested it in a PET.. no problem there. At a loss at this point.

Actually I think I have it right.. unless it's different for the A ROMs... A401 A403 A402 respectively is: 14599A, 12499A, 12399B? Unfortunately that'll mean I've got some other issue going on here.

Does anyone know the proper ROM order on the board? All I get at present is a solid whitish coloured screen when I power up. I have a second, newer ROM board here that I bought to test with and it doesn't work either.. but again I may have, not knowing what I was messing with, messed with the chips.

I regret the actual logo fell off - I don't know if it was ever there when I had it. I have a grainy picture of the machine from 5 years ago and it looks like it's not there so probably it's been like that since i have it. Strangely you can see the actual outlines of the logo in the glue (?). Anywhere here's the spot along with the Atari 800 script: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZEjFhaDQfYtayPozkivsXboNuJwolly3/view?usp=sharing

ROMs are: C19074 - CO14599A - 7937E C58023 - C012399B - 7939E R3280-11 - C012499A - 7944 The board itself has silver fingers and is 'Rev 4' Only one problem. I actually removed them from the board while I was cleaning it... now I forget which order they go in!

Thank you! I seem to be on a roll lately... in addition to this I scored a low serial (#336) Osborne that has a prototype-derivative motherboard in it rather than the normal one. Can't believe I let this 800 sit collecting dust this long. Yes the card edges are silver. One of the ram carts has ceramic 4116s rather than plastic 5290s. The date coding (ie. 949 = 49th week of 1979)... how was it established that that was what those numbers meant? Does that come from somewhere authoritative? Reason I ask is I have been following 800 serials on ebay and they are all over the place.. doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to how they are set up. Like this one that appears to be an early unit like mine but has a stamped number in the hundreds of thousands: https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F123673782612

About 20 years ago my favourite local computer haunt closed down. They had a museum of old computers and one of them was this Atari 800, which I picked up for free with a bunch of other stuff on the promise of giving it a good home. I'm a pretty serious collector and have about 200 machines, but this one for some reason just escaped my attention for all those years and sat on the shelf. Just didn't have an interest in firing it up.. it was missing the power supply. Anyway last year I finally got a power supply and briefly had it working. I think it has possibly a cold solder problem or something... initially I was able to make it work by applying downward pressure on the ROM/RAM cards... now nothing works.. just white screen. Anyway I took it apart to inspect and see what I can find, and as I was comparing it to other machines for reference, I noticed mine is a bit different. For example, it has a handwritten serial only... no machine printed one. It has the earlier CTIA chip, and none of the ICs date later than the 30th week of 1979. The power board doesn't have the silkscreening in white.. it's all in black, and if I'm reading the date correctly it was made or something in July of 79. It also has a handwritten number in marker in the 300s, and the Revision is a number rather than a letter like Rev A, B, etc. as I've seen on other 800 power boards. I'm wondering, is this a really early one? I'm trying to figure out exactly what serial number it is. The handwritten sticker suggests it could be maybe 442 or 4420 depending on whether that last digit is a O or a C.. t doesn't look like it was ever a complete circle so maybe C?... where there are what appear to be serials on the boards they're all in the low 100s. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1nBexbJMgRF-XGxzPhgGjNhTjaWnP7ITM?usp=sharing