tregare

-sigh- need to troubleshoot a 1050 drive, it formats single density fine, wont format enhanced or double density (it has a happy board in it) it presumedly will write a single density disk, (haven't tried yet) but will not write an enhanced or double density disk any suggeations? I will most likely be p0ulling hte happy board and resetting the jumpers for the mask rom and revert it to a standard 1050 and try the enhanced density on it then. according to the drive speed test in prosystem it is spinning at 286 rpm.

i would hope that the xf351 used a different processor, the '551 uses an 8040, which is an odd bird chip wise., it looks like it -might- be 8031 compatible.

If touching the head helps you might try replacing the felt pad or adding some additional pressure to the spring by shimming it with something like a penny. Cleaning the head and replacing the pad is a good start though, it usually does the trick for drives that work when finger pressure is applied to the r/w head. Steve Actually it was the opposite. It kinda worked if I too the spring completely off. it still didn't read properly but it at least tried. did you clean and lubricate the mecahnism?

Just got my SIO2PC, USB version from atarimax! and I AM THRILLED! no longer do I need to have an atari hooked up to the disk drive to allow imaging disks!!! I had considered doing the 7805/power mod to allow my serial one to not need an atari hooked up, or mod one of my 1050's to provde the power on the SIO connector.....

Have you checked the brighness and contrast controls, they are on the bottom-ish......just a wee bit in from one of the the sides IIRC it is VERY easy to bump one of these when carrying it and it's amazing how many people swear the computer is broken after doing that

Now that is very cool. Good price for those boards too. I would have loaded up on them. looks like that board has an 80xx series microcontroller on it... (8031 or 8051)

Hey, does anyone have a dead XF551 that they'd be willing to part with? I want to make a schematic for the '551 in some circuit-board software I have

Does anyone have schematics available for the ATR8000 and / or Black Box? I've emailed the Black Box creator a few times about seeing if any of the boards are still available but no reply, so I'm looking ofr schematics so if they aren't available I might be able to get a board made to make my own. although I'd love to get an atr8000 again to replace the one I had that was smashed by the id10t's that groke into my storage unit a few years back

Hey, is there a collection anywhere of PDFs or scans of the Atari 8-bit manuals (incl tech reference) if not, is there interest in that?

Paypal froze my housemate's paypal account because someone they once received funds from had a negative balance on their paypal account. Paypal then went so far as to claim that the accounts were linked by Physical address (ie that the other person's paypal account was tied to their home address) Paypal is still insisting that to this day, and was going to close out their paypal account (and release the funds in ti after 6 months) until they got in touch with the Washington State office of financial institutions (I think it was) and lo and behold, the day AFTER paypal received an official inquiry from the banking and financial admin officve for wash state, their account was cleared and active again..... However they are still insisting that the other account is linked to theirs (even though it is not them)

The one piece of electronics that I've steadfastly refused to work on has been monitors. But over time, I've kind of been forced to for one reason or another. Lately it's been Vectrex units, C1084x and a few arcade monitors. Can't give any better advice then to learn how to safely and properly discharge a monitor. I've been a bystander witness to what can happen when you don't do things the right way, and it ain't pretty! after surviving a HV discharge, you'll get religious about discharging the HV before working near a monitor (unless you have to work on one powered up for adjustments then you'll be very very careful...)

i need to pull my pix off my digital camera, but some cleaning I did this evening has me wondering. I was using some Caig DeoxiT to clean the contacts on some carts I just got, and it was easiest for me to open 'em up and pull the boards to clean them, and I noticed that the Galaxian cart is socketed? it only has a mask rom in one of the sockets, the other one is empty. I've never come across a retail atari cart with a socketed circuit board. Also, the circuit board is red? in color (or masking, I'm not sure... I don't have it open anymore to look at.)

Try Bruce over at B&C, he has them listed for $9.95. http://www.myatari.com/ Steve thanks, I've come across too many sites when googling that want 20 - 30 $ for a cable

I have a couple drives I need to test, but the SIO cable that came with my atari is MIA is there anyone in the seattle area that has a spare I can talk ya out of (or buy at a reasonable price) if not anyone else out there that has the cables at a reasonable price?

Yeah if it didn't look like something they could turn a quick buck on, they trashed it what was done was really adding insult to injury (or is it more adding injury to insult?)

I have been bidding on drives on ebay, but keep getting outbid for "as is" 1050's. almost got a percom drive which if it had good electronics but a bad mechanism I could have swapped out the mechanism (I have standard 5 1/4 " low density drive mechs...

unfortunately most of the atari stuff (including a atr8000 that used to run a Atari BBS here in washington (don't remember what it's name was anymore) years ago were the victims of a motorcycle engine being pushed off the shelf onto them and probably also stomped repeatedly

Unfortunately I am just getting back into the atari 8-bits. I had a storage unit broken into where i had my ataris and drives, my Northstar S-100 bus machine, a couple morrow MD3's a dec rainbow and several other computers and anything they didn't think was worth anything, they smashed to bits.

I worked in an air hub for a year and the treatment that I saw boxes get was horrendous, especially small boxes buried in air freight containers under large, heavy boxes.

I have a rana 1000 that may or may not work (*i have yet to get a chance to test it out) I am looking for a couple more drives for my 800xl. 1050's, XF551, Percom, Indus GT's are all within my interest. also possibly a ATR8000 would work but I doubt anyone who HAS one is interested in selling it. I looked at a website that had something similar but the person running it doesn't seem to answer emails.

-Sigh- I tried to get it, but was outspent by someone else. it looked like a wonderful collection, it just went for more than I could afford...