sloopy

I would say bad ram.

My apologies, I am not being clear enough and leaving out information... Your SIO2PC-USB I would guess is probably a FTDI based one? Or one of the AtariMax units? (others are similar, but not all. and I am most familiar with the FTDI FT232RL as I have sold hundreds of sio2pc-usb adaptors with them) The issue is the Atari uses non-standard baud rates, the FTDI chip in your SIO2PC-USB is capable of selecting speeds that are non-standard to a rather high degree of resolution. These SDrive type devices are not... Different high speed drivers on the Atari will be more 'accepting' of data rates ( 'baud rates') that are off 'standard' or even try to be closer to common rates. Even the Atari 'standard' rates of 1x, 2x, 3x are not the same as true RS-232 rates (Serial/SIO@2x = 38400bps/38730bps, Serial/SIO@3x = 57600/59387) The speeds for the divisors below 10 are: divisor 10 = 52400 divisor 09 = 55675 divisor 08 = 59387 divisor 07 = 63628 divisor 06 = 68523 divisor 05 = 74233 divisor 04 = 80982 divisor 03 = 89080 divisor 02 = 98797 divisor 01 = 110598 divisor 00 = 125000 'Standard' data rates are: 110, 150, 300, 1200, 2400, 4800, 9600, 19200, 38400, 57600, 115200, 230400, 460800, 921600 Which as you can see the Atari is no where near in the higher reaches... But the serial-USB controller (such as the FT232RL) can use 'odd' rates as its speed can be defined using a number that is 'user' generated and allow 'steps' in speed that can more accurately match POKEY in terms of speed. sloopy.

You can try hooking it up to a scope (and not one of those USB dongle types, something with 50-100Mhz resolution), and looking at the timing of the bit pulses... sloopy.

That would be the other issue most likely... The divisors are not exact, and as you get into the upper speeds, the Atari has less tolerance for 'drift'... You also have the issue of how off the crystal is from exactly 1.79Mhz... I will test mine tonight and see what it says... as my 800XL wont work reliably on divisors below about 4-5 on SDrive Micro, SIO2PC (Serial), SIO2PC-USB, or on my SDrive Nuxx...

You are at the cusp of the abilities of that Atari, some will do better and others will be stable at $06 and no more... You can get a Timeout as the Atari can receive some of the data, but not the whole data frame... When you hit the break key, the Atari resets its speed setting to the new speed, until you do this the Atari does not know the SIO speed has changed. As for your file system issues, I have not used mine enough to comment. sloopy.

Take the power cable and move it around a little while it is on and see if there is any change in the display. open the 65XE and see if any of the IC's are socketed... if they are, removed them and then put them back in (dont bend any pins )... replace the DRAMs if there is 8 of them and they have 'MT' written on them... sloopy.

Come to irc, we would love to have you http://urql.com/atari@irc

I am playing some of these games... grf... 4000 miles...

Mountain King?

Mr R. Level I have not tried the others...

I will try to play on occasion... but no promises...

Blinking Light Win, the last cart connector you will ever need for your NES... $35 shipped with in the US (slightly more outside the USA) and ships immediately, not in 3-4 weeks.

Reduced prices...

I have two Apple IIc+ machines. 1) Boots fine, beyond booting the ADTPro floppy no testing was done (it will include the ADTPro Floppy) 2) Starts up, but wont boot the floppy, but otherwise seems to be ok, case is a little sunburned tho... I also have a couple floppy drives, I can include one 5.25" external drive for each machine for additional $25+ shipping I will also include 5 floppy disks of your choice of; NOS stock for 3.5", or new athena's for 5.25" Prices are 1) $200USD+shipping and 2) $175USD+shipping, offers are welcome. Paypal or local pickup (Northern DE/ NE MD area)

My condolences...

Dragos, I did not see this cart, nice... I would be interested in one also... you know the details, and how to contact me... sloopy.

Maybe its time to move to irc? then classic computers can connect and use the machines we discuss to talk

Sorry, I have not been online much lately beyond looking for a job... I am still around, but have no money at the moment... Please note, there HAVE been some VBXE's shipped... some as recently as a couple months ago (yes, I know still no excuse), but just so it is known, I am not 'shirking'... I am just being very slow... the people who have gotten them, I will ask them in message if they will post in here to let others know they ARE being shipped... I should have 3-4 done in the next week or so and will ship them according to the list. sloopy.

Mine came Monday (28th), looks like quality work, as usual for santosp I plugged mine in my 800XE to test, but havnt had much time beyond that... many thanks, sloopy.

No, it would mean the CPU/Antic/GTIA/ are good, and the MMU and PIA are atleast mostly good(if not fully good)... first thing I would do is replace the DRAMs and then troubleshoot from there... sloopy.

What kind of Atari stuff are you looking for?

Last year was the first year I wasnt at VCFe in several years... I missed it due to issues at home. I am hopefully going this year, I wont be demo'ing as I no longer live in NJ...

I would be interested in one...

you may not hear from the others in the USA for a while as its around noon, and they are probably working... sloopy.