Zogging Hell

Perhaps there is some spillage in the keyboard, sounds like it will be worth stripping it down and giving it a good clean, it might also be worth resetting the IKBD chip on the keyboard itself (I recall the STm and original ST have a different keyboard from the later STs - different connector anyway, so you will probably need to fix this)

Not qualified to comment on the PSU but your other queries can have a stab at, All you will need to do for a test is turn it on and wait about 30 secs, the desktop loads from a ROM chip on the motherboard - it waits for a floppy and if it doesn't find one will eventually boot to desktop. Even if you just get a white screen you are probably not too far off. I don't think it will boot properly without the keyboard (I could be mistaken) If your TV can still accept RF then yep that is the easiest. Else in the Euro zone area a ST to SCART cable will be the next easiest.

To answer a couple of your points more specifically.. The red thing (if it is one of those long thin things on the motherboard you are talking about) is a resistor pack a.k.a resistor network (presumably that is what the RP is refering to) I believe. You could get a replacement (check the schematics floating around for a value or read from the side if it is still visible) for almost nothing - certainly no more than a pound including postage. Ebay has packs of 15 of assorted values from somewhat dubious Chinese sellers for £1 The rusty ports - depends where the rust is, you may be able to salvage them with some rust remover - perhaps vinegar can sometimes help depending on the corrosion as long as you clean/ wash it up after. You could also sand off the larger surfaces. I would just check continuity and whether the port pins are structurally sound - if you don't want to spend too much money. The effect will not be particularly pretty, but no-one will be likely to be gawping at that ST with no case on so shouldn't show anyway. The top RF shielding isn't really necessary, but if you can reshape it, it does help defend against the odd drop of coffee The keyboard - depends on the cracks, if they don't go all the way through there is a good chance it could work. Even if it doesn't they crop up on ebay reasonably frequently. There are some rubbery key caps inside I would be more concerned about rotting, you'll probably want to take all those tiny screws on the back off and inspect the other (in) side as that is where all the tracks and gubbins are .. I would wait, however, until you can power it up before spending a lot of cash. The case - if you really want to 3D print bear in mind it is larger than the average consumer printer in width so you might need to do two halves and 'weld' them together! I think someone on Atari forum may have done something like produced a 3D model (try and search there) - I would try power before doing that though. Seriously the first thing I would do is give it a good clean up, try and clean up the ports as best as possible with some corrosion cleaner and sand off the rest. Replace that resistor pack. Then get a replacement PSU. It's worth getting a new one from Exxos if you have to get one anyway as you would probably want to recap even a pristine on. I would then try the ST and see if it works (you will need to plug the keyboard in, but the floppy can stay out). If it does then hooray, buy some other bits for it. If it doesn't.. well... the ST is probably worth about £30 - £50 in working order with no case (possibly being generous), so you spend more money doing it up than its final value. However, saying that - don't chuck it - as I'm sure someone will be happy to try and fix it up if you decide not to. That ST deserves a better life

Yep definitely an STFM. It doesn't look to bad considering how long it's been exposed to the elements (bar some cosmetic stuff on the ports and shifter box). I would almost not be surprised if a new power supply was added whether it would not fire up! Even the keyboard might work with some cleaning up.

I am wondering whether it is a disk drive issue rather than a faulty disk. I know when I used Spectre I had some problems with my disk drive and reading the Mac disks, as in I couldn't seem to access some tracks (this was with a disk from a real 'bridge' Mac). I believe I eventually had to copy the disks piecemeal to get a working minimal system disk, which was just enough to get the system to boot, and then fudged things around to get a working install. Did you get the 800k or the 400k disks? I'm wondering whether you are having issues with the HD disk drive not being able to access later tracks (although you wouldn't have thought that would be an issue). I dread to think how hard it would be to get the other ST Mac emulators up and running in this day and age, given Spectre can at least access disks, whereas they can't.

Odd the whole bank has gone, is it the same with the new gubbins you added removed? Perhaps try checking the seating of the MMU chip while you are at it. Have you checked the value/ amount with any other programs? A ram tester might be an idea. Regarding the ROMs I'm no expert but I believe you can use the 32 pin ROMs, but need to use some additional wires to bridge some pins on the chip itself. I'm sure someone more knowledgeable on the subject can point you in the right direction. In the mean time 1.02 can be patched to perform on par with 1.04 fairly easily (Fatspeed or Bigdos and Pinhead 2.1 add most of the missing functionality, Selectric will sort out the file selector).

These people do it apparently, I've never used them so can't comment on the service https://rescuemyclassicmac.com/

It's been a while but I think the Mac can handle them natively with a program called 'disk copy' (depending on the image)

Hhhm if Dirsort is not directly effecting the order of the menu, then it is probably not relating to the actual loading order from disk but something else GEM is doing. If that is the case then I think you might have to grin and bear it. What order are they loading in? Perhaps it relates to the length of the file/ program name..

This is the hard part, getting System 6 on the ST in the first place. I had to use an old mac to make the disks (one which was still new enough to get on the net or had a way like a CD drive to interface with a newer model that could, but old enough to have a compatible disk drive. The cheapest old macs for this are the early power pc ones prior to the original iMac. The iMac is the cut off point really, as at that point apple killed the floppy drive and like with the ST the USB replacements can't write the disks do to the non standard format. You really want to use a hard disk if you want to do anything productive, the Mac is really unpleasant to use with just floppies, it really is - copy small part of file - ask for system disk - insert original disk - insert system disk and so on... I think you should be able to get the disk images on Winworld (ironically) So if you can't find a old mac then I seem to recall there were a few websites who would offer to write some disks for you (I would do it myself if you were on my side of the pond).

Dirsort might help with that, kind of autosort, but for any directory. For the second question, the problem you'll find with the ST and jpg's is that you probably will have difficulty working with true colour large images on the ST itself. Given the 4mb memory limit you will find you will run out of memory pretty quickly as soon as the ST tries to decompress the image with most conversion programs, plus it will be painfully slow. Unless you have a Falcon, TT or clone, I would leave the image editing to the PC, unless your jpgs are small and colour limited.

You could try and see if the bootsector has been wiped on the disk (Ultra Virus Killer might be an option here, as long as you inspect rather than wipe the bootsector, which UVK may think is a virus... although in theory it could really be a bootsector virus... - that program also allows you to restore some bootsectors so might help), or the disk is physically damaged - pull back the tab and rotate the disk looking for scratches or general filth.

The fact the floppy does nothing is a bit odd, even a dirty disk will attempt to load and eventually bring up the desktop (or grind to a hideous halt). Is your drive single sided by any chance (on the ST you could test this by trying to format a blank disk to double sided from the desktop. Some STF's did ship with single sided drives, often these are the big button versions. You may have been lucky with your game choices being single sided and then Continental could be a double sided game.

XN-View has something called N-Convert which I think is what you need (this is kind of separate to the main program), there is also an Atari ST version, unbelievably, if you look hard enough. When you say Atari ST graphics I presume you mean 16 colour PI1 or NEO formats, as programs like Imagecopy on the Atari could view most image formats. Anything you use will need to dither the images down to 16 colours or less, so the less colours the original image uses the better really.

Back in the day I mainly used if for attaching a hand scanner, with occasional switches to the MV16 above, Spectre and sound samplers. My main problem with it is its position on the computer and how easy it was to knock the cartridge (particularly the bigger ones) out by accident if you moved the machine. Not so good with an unbuffered port.

BTW I thought Word Perfect only hit 4.1 on the Atari?

Early Atari ST word processors (usually) required you load a specific program dependant printer driver for each program. So Word Perfect would have it's own usually propriety drivers for each printer and 1st Word would have another set of propriety drivers. Usually these drivers were for Epson compatible dot matrix (say FX 80). You may also get some slightly exotic drivers for daisy wheel printers and the Atari Laser. None of which would work I would have thought with your printer routine. I would have a look through the Word Perfect manual to see what printers there are drivers for (you might get lucky with Word Perfect) and change accordingly. Normally the driver files are in the format of a text file with the printer operation codes written in them. You would need to install the later standards of Speedo GDOS or NVDI to get access to more universal drivers, these work with later Atari word processors like Atari Works, Tempus Word and Papyrus etc - these will have drivers for printers that work with at least one of those standards. The original GDOS may also work, although I don't know whether it has drivers for something as 'modern' (cough) as ESC/P2 or PCL data. I would have thought if you can add Epson support to your printer program you will have a lot more luck with early programs like Word Perfect

You are looking for Maccel, version 3 is the last version I believe. It is a simple 2x accelerator, but it works well with the original Atari mouse and actually makes it useable.. It is on a disk image on this site.. sure it must be other places http://christophe.bray.free.fr/informatique/falcon/archives/atari_falcon_utilitaires.htm Don't worry it is for Falcon but the program will work on ST, although you may need to use an emulator to extract it. If you want something a bit more souped up, Silkmouse is an alternative (I believe it also has a CPX). I never got on with it, but it does have some more advance features..

You could also try plastic 'welding'. I used it to repair an Atari monitor case. You can do it from inside and then sand down. You need an old soldering iron, super glue and baking soda, as well as some donor plastic, there are plenty of instructional videos on youtube.

Perhaps try 1st Word or 1st Word +, that had a window with all the characters available (though it was somewhat dependant on printer support iirc), you click on the character in the window and it would appear in your text (I remember using it to access the J.R. Dobbs characters )

Yeah probably should qualify what I said with 'TOS 1.04 looses some compatibility with some early games' - i.e. prior to 1.04's release generally, and there aren't many of those anyway; but not generally worth upgrading unless you want to do more than play games, as all the TOS 1.* versions are at a pretty similar level for that

Oh regarding the modulator, you could buy them as add ons which a repair shop could fit (or yourself). The way to check whether this is an STFM would probably be by the board revision number, and whether it has space for a blitter chip (although very early STFM motherboard revisions didn't have that either iirc). Yours doesn't have a blitter chip and I can't see the board number. I would guess from that it is likely to either be STF or very early STFM.

I wouldn't bother upgrading the TOS version if you plan on only playing original games on floppy disk, TOS 1.0 is one of the most compatible, TOS 1.04 looses some compatibility (unless you get 'fixed' versions of the games from someone like Ppera). 1.62 only works on the STe so is a no go, and 2.06 is somewhat problematic with a lot of original games. If you do want to go down the Ultrasatan etc route though 1.04 is the best choice. The only real improvements in TOS 1.04 really relate to hard disk operation, something that was buggy and slow in TOS 1.0, and slow (but patchable) in TOS 1.02, although there are a few other tweaks, like an improved file selector. The power supply shield is helpful for keeping dust out of the PSU itself, giving some protection from spills, dust, and things falling through the vents, and if you have to take the top bit of the plastic case off while running it is an extra shield to stop yourself getting electrocuted I guess. It may increase the temps slight around the psu a bit though and isn't necessary for normal operation. Personally I like to keep them on for the odd occasions when I'm working round the ST and paper clips or staples fall on it.. I'd say the mystery extension just adds RTC functionality to the computer. You will probably still need to use the millennium clock patch though for it work fully (if the battery is not dead). Is the battery a rechargeable number or a straight coin cell? If it is a 2032 or 2016 it might be worth desoldering and removing it and installing a socket for a normal coin battery.

The Cheetah bollistix and the AM Action Pad are two joy pads made specifically for the ST/ Amiga (although I presume they will also work on the Master System. The latter has the benefit that the second fire button gives ultra fast 'autofire' when you hold it down (seems perfectly set up for Xenon 2), although the d-pad seems a little over sensitive for a lot of ST games. The former tends to give me hand cramp if I use it for too long, although the d-pad is nicer. In my opinion they are both better than the Master System controller, the d-pad on that always felt a little flakey to me.

Few suggestions.. Are the ROMs in the 520 in the right order? They seem to have numbers labelled on them, has the original owner had them out and have they been put back incorrectly? Also try swapping the shifter chip (if possible, is it soldered?) from the known good ST to the bad ones to see if that helps? (basically try swapping anything you can). This might help to pinpoint if one of them has had it. You could also try the MMU from the 1040 to the 520 to rule that out. There seems to be a modulator in the first 1040, or am I just seeing things? If it is and it really is a 1040 STF then it must be an after market (modulator) number, so it might be worth checking the connections (solder points) on that.