Space Centurion's Blog

With the help of Atariage members, diagnosed my joystick issues to be the joysticks themselves, so now I have a pair of dead joysticks... :-( Opened them up to find the traces are peeling a bit...argh...all well, I think I just might remove the joysticks from the wire, solder on some new diodes and db9 sockets, and make the atari joystick mod out of it. I really hate to destroy something like this, but if it is already dead, then it is not sooo bad.

 

Also quick tested the RS232 card, seems to respond ok, both serial and parallel.

 

Managed to get the tape drive to work too, too bad most of the titles I have need the extended basic though.

 

Bit by bit......things will come together! :-)

More updates.... Well, looking closer at the joysticks, turns out the traces are not peeling, but has an oxidized look to them. What it looks like is that the contact points have gone bad. I'll try to repair them down the road. For now, I built the the standard joystick adapter using diodes and db9 connectors, and everything works well, although my Atari's and Commodores are a bit upset they have to share the joysticks! So, I can at least play some cartridges for now. I also went on a buying spree and have a diskmanager II cart arriving soon with a Parsec cart and manual. Also bought a lot of 12 carts, 11 of which are educational. I am hoping I can get the kids to sit down and learn something. They both seem to be into the retro computers, and I figure this way it might be more fun learning. The final cart of this lot is, of course, Parsec, because I just bought one! :-) Hope they get here soon.....

Well.....I went on a bit of a spending spree.....I bought another 4a that came with joysticks, these one work. My little 2 year old likes using these. :-) The 4a itself works very well, and is the best one so far as there are no keyboard issues. Added to the list, I bought some carts too. Most are some early kid educational games that were a good price on ebay. I also bought a disk manager 2 cart so now I can test my PEB. Just quick tested so far, drive number one works well, drive two has some issues. May just need a good cleaning. I also got the parsec game, which is addictive in its own way. Now I want to get the speech module to hear what it says....hehe...more things to buy!