RodLightning

Yeah, we should be careful that this thread doesn't degenerate (as usual) and call attention to the slow decline of basically everything worthwhile. Isn't 2022 a great time to be alive? God I miss the 80s... Some of us reaching the half century mark may very well be past retirement age before manufacturing returns to what we remember, and this is wishful thinking. I wish I had grabbed up a few things before the plague made everything scarce. More ammo, bags of caps and transistors, Raspberry Pi stuff. On the bright side, Batari's Hokey replacement will be available. That's one ray of sunshine. I think e-waste recycling should be suspended or at least restructured. There might be a full time career in harvesting components off of old circuit boards. Don't the Chinese already do that to some degree? I have seen legacy chips for sale online that have been pulled from old hardware. Better that than having everything ground up to get the gold and base metals. This would be great for those of us who still care about such things.

I built just about this same pc that year. I think we weren't alone. I recall having a Yamaha OPL and S3 Virge in my version of the system. Did you try to overclock? When I went that route, trying to speed up Quake, it just added to my disappointment. @Keatah, yeah Quake did definitely kill that cpu! Thanks to Cyrix, I learned the difference between linear and pipeline burst cache. At least one of the reviews tried to blame idsoftware for not taking advantage of the 6x86mx and instead writing the game as optimized for intel's pipeline burst mode. I still tried to like my Cyrix and stuck with it for a couple of years. It was small comfort that the cpu was reported to excel at spreadsheet calculation and other business related tasks. I wish I had that board (m-tech r534g) and cpu framed and hanging on the wall of shame...

Could be a confused BIOS. If everything suggested previously doesn't work, also try pulling that daughter card and boot without it. Is it a modem board on the riser? Network card or something else? I remember sometimes having lockup on boot with 90s pcs after swapping hardware around. After a few cmos resets and tinkering, the problem would go away. I would definitely replace the battery. I would also probably try to get it back to a bootable state with the original drive and stock configuration before going any further. my two cents

That keyboard is a great item to have. I found one like it at a thrift last year for about the same price. No usb radio in it either, but I already had a couple of mice with unified type adapter. Any Logitech hardware with the red star logo on the bottom sticker can be paired with a unified dongle using their provided software. The one I have here is moved routinely between a MiSTer box and Raspberry Pi.

Great news! Maybe shipping time will return to something near normal for a while. Only around 8 months until Xmas holiday purchases start up and overload the postal system again! ? ? ? ? ? ? Seriously though, I hope all the chaos from 2020 will be over for good by that time. Best of luck!

Brilliant and long overdue. Perhaps at some point someone will offer to sell a kit with brackets, key cap adapters and circuit board for those of us without access to a 3d printer. My 800 has the white plungers starting to crack, but is still usable with only a few loose keycaps. This is still a project I might consider later on though. I imagine the cherry switches might be pricey unless one found a donor keyboard with the correct parts. I am interested in how much wiggle is present in this new design. Is it enough to interfere with speedy touch typing?

I agree than the choice comes down to personal preference. I have always preferred the XL. It was the current machine when I got my first computer in my teens. The 600XL in particular will always have a special place in my nostalgic memories. It was my first learning machine. Upgrading it to 64kb RAM was one of my first soldering experiences. Build quality was much better with the XL. If the XE is untested, I would be wary of buying one with bad memory. Some 65XE models have 8 DRAM chips, later designs use just 2 4464 DRAM for the 64kb. The 130XEs with defective MT (micron) memory are a known problem. I'm not sure how many 65XEs are affected or if any were produced with the same sketchy RAM as in the 130XE, but it is a consideration. I won't completely condemn the XE series. The truth is, I still love them all. 400/800/XL/XE. Aiming to own just one machine? Getting a good deal on a 800XL would be a safer choice, if you find one gently used or at least well cared for.

Using a leather driving glove, as pictured in the ad, might actually work. The stick always feels good at first, but over time my hand starts to tire and cramp. Extra padding would be welcome. I still like the 500xj, even though I have to occasionally put it down and use a different controller.

Here's one that I feel foolish even posting... I have one of those cheaper quality USB to 2 Atari joystick port Y adapter cables, purchased via ebay years ago. It has annoyed me for a long while now by disconnecting from the computer when the cable bends even a little bit. I have always handled it gently and wondered how the cable became shorted. To make a short story even longer, I planned to cut off the USB connector a couple of inches up the cable and splice on a new cable with correct end from my junk box. Tedious work I had put off doing for months as I hate splicing tiny wires and messing around with shrink tubing. Before doing that, I decided to use a sharp razor to cut open the defective type A connector. I was surprised to find that this particular cable end could be taken apart to reveal four solder tabs. Stupid job, I know, but so much easier to fix and good soldering practice within a tight space. The vinyl outer jacket slipped back over metal and now it looks decent and no longer disconnects the joysticks in the middle of a game.

Baby Pac-Man comes to mind. It was talked about very much and I seem to remember reading about it in a magazine. I saw one once with 'out of order' sign at Aladdin's Castle. A manager there told me the pinball portion was broken. Later, it was gone. Other than it being part of the Pac-Man series of games, I can't say if it was super popular. Maybe it wasn't upon closer examination?

Just wanted to add my good faith endorsement. Most everyone who has any dealings with Jurgen (tf_hh) will stand behind his work and professionalism. As others have alluded, we have some serious problems going on in the USA at high levels that has effected USPS. This global plague mixes well with it all to make the perfect storm. Hopefully, some of it will resolve with time and we can put all this into the past where it belongs. Best regards, Jurgen.

That's just $3.93 each if 100 of us go in together. Count me out however. I have one too many since my 1050 came with it. It was the first time I had ever used floppy disks. How is it possible that I still loved Atari after they provided this DOS?

I'm happy to see so many designs being offered these days. As for those who design/create, they make their choices and I am fine with it. I am grateful for all efforts. I'm thinking the SpartaDOSX super cart by Dropcheck and tf_hh and santosp will pair well with this new version of 130XE if it is made.

All of the above, please. None of the above really contradicts a legacy remake of Atari's board. Headers are always a good thing, and I like the idea of users being able to install whichever third party upgrades that are compatible with original 130XE. Personally, I would prefer a minimalist design to keep cost down and be less of a headache to create.

UAV type video circuit designed on the board is the best idea. Some of us were maybe picturing a header where we need to plug in existing UAV board. 128kb ram with four chips is the right path, in my opinion, with fewer points of failure present. I can't deny the allure of SRAM instead, but I get the feeling you are leaning towards a legacy design. In that case, the four chip version Atari used would be fine. Edit: Freddie is in short supply these days, a CPLD to replace it and associated logic is welcome. I would be happy if Sally, Antic, Pokey, GTIA and maybe PIA were the only donor chips required from old hardware.

It's not a game loader per se, the list represents ATR disk images and XEX (executable) programs that happen to be on the SD card. The default SD setup provided does assume you are into gaming, but those ATR and XEX games files could be removed/substituted for any disk images from your library. SpartaDOS, MyDOS, app and utilities, etc. I do look forward to being able to save a startup config in the next firmware. This version of SDrive is limited by its on-screen interface, and it does want to be your primary drive unit. The screen that comes up is there for us to select however many ATR images we want online at one time and assigned to what disk drive number (or just load a XEX directly). The lights and touch sensors on top allow for on-the-fly disk swapping with programs that assume you are using a real floppy D1. It works, but takes some getting used to. You might prefer a SDrive-Max as it has a touch screen on the device for selecting and ejecting disk images and stays on all the time with its own power supply.

Make sure SD card is formatted in FAT32. Files and directories at the following link should be placed on your SD card. https://github.com/fintros/SDrive-ARM/tree/master/sd

A drop in replacement for those original boards would be welcome. Tramiel era cheap PCB materials and MT memory failures have plagued the 130XE for so long. Completely agree about third party upgrades. Fixing problems with the original would be enough, however you went about it.

I recently ordered a self powered usb 2.0 hub from ebay. They are now getting harder to find at a low price. The hub was described as new in box. I got the device and manual with box in just a few days. A 5vdc power supply that was supposed to be included, was not. Item not as described? Yeah, but I happened to have a spare supply that would fit it. Seeing as how the grand total of the sale was not much over $5 usd, I left positive feedback anyway (no stars). Item was obviously new in sealed plastic. If I had decided to complain, it would have been through private message to the seller. The seller only had a few listings with zero negative feedback. Ebay should start monitoring buyers who file repeated not-as-desrcribed claims (if they gave a damn) and stop punishing sellers. Especially small operators who get hit harder by these decisions. Looks like they have gotten too big and corrupt to be decent anymore. The scum bag thing to start doing would be offering seller insurance to cover a few bad transactions per year.

DOH! I tried TI for login and 99/4a among others but didn't hit on the right login as 99. Thanks for the additional info. The 99/4A Lives!

Trying out this version of The Lurking Horror. Login and password copy protection on the whiz-bang pc have been changed to something else. 872325412 and UHLERSOTH don't work. If it's something simple, I'm missing it. Any ideas, other than just playing the official version?

Merry Christmas 2020 to all AtariAgers! Lets boot DOS 2.5 today and remember good times! I'm thinking about a Christmas long ago when I unwrapped my new Atari 600XL....

That looks like one of those little "greenie" fuses that were used in keyboard circuits. They were sometimes soldered to the F1 position on 486 and Pentium era PC motherboards. Someone may have had one of those on hand and chose to use it instead of a glass fuse. Nice that they left the fuse holder clips in place, so installing a replacement would still be easy.

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