Level42

Cleaned up nicely. Yes it's yellowed a bit, but not as bad as it shows on the pictures. I'll probably try retrobright one day on some more stuff that I have. Nice to have an extra 1050 apart from the one I already have (which has a write protect switch and LED from BITD and a Happy that I installed very recently. Some pics.... I discovered there was a little something still not removed before :) Nice....almost like new

Hah, problem fixed ! Moved out the head a bit and noticed the plastic that goes into the optical track 0 sensor was very shiny....accidently some vaseline on it ! Cleaned it off with alcohol, looks nice dull black again and.......working ! Guess the shiny surface tricked the optical sensor into thinking the head was not at Track 0 while it was already

Crap.... I just disassembled the drive, washed the outer parts and dried them thoroughly. Cleaned the head with some alcohol and a Q-tip (no dirt visible amazingly !), did some dusting-off on the mechanism and re-assembled. I'm positive I hooked up everything correctly (made pics) and the drive worked fine a couple of times. Then I decided to put some vaseline on the metal rods (very little) and .....the drive stopped working !?!?!? When booting it spins up, I hear an occasional beep instead of loads and fast and get boot error on the screen...... did I accidentally damage anything ? Maybe some grease on the track 0 optics ? I tried to clean that, no result....any ideas ?

Old thread I know but I just picked up a 1050 that sounds like it has never been lubricated since it was new..... I remember greasing the metal head supports BITD and I'm positive I used something like Vaseline, or at least something that was not runny. However today we have silicon sprays, would that be any good ? Of course not just spraying it around but spraying a bit on a Q-tip and then applying it to the supports. it's safe for plastics (in fact I use it for work to lube plastics) but I wonder if it will work as long as the Vaseline. I have never lubricated the spindle but I do hear a noise from this drive that I never heard before while running and it's not the discs inside the cover, I know how that sounds. I would never use WD40, way too aggressive stuf.

Actually, you shouldn't need to mod anything...

I've been looking at the schematics of the 1050 and I THINK you should actually be able to use a DC supply on it. The power supply section of the 1050 is extremely standard (the one's we got taught at school). I'll have to have a closer look at it when I return from work but I believe you should be able to use an (unregulated)DC power supply on it providing it delivers the right DC voltage and the plus is on the inner pin. Don't go trying anything just yet though.....I'll do the theory and give it a try before you guys blow up stuff instead of me

Yeah if that would be possible.... I just played this game on a NTSC 800 and man does this conversion come close to the original arcade game, and I know because I own one. The behavior of the robots is really almost 100% identical to the arcade version. The only (but important) difference is that the robots appear and the action starts at the same moment. The arcade version gives you a few milliseconds to see where they are at a new level. The voice sounds actually BETTER on the Atari, although it has a much more limited vocabulary. That would be something that could easily improved by now, with extended memory etc. I have a full list of all the words that Berzerk uses. (some you hear VERY rarely on the arcade machine). I can NOT understand that this game was never officially released, it is the best home conversion for sure. Overall I have a feeling that the guy(s) who programmed this had access to the "rules" that the arcade game robots follow. I would love to know who programmed it and here the story behind it, also why it was never released.

Thought about it....it's kinda nice to have a 800XE, then again, already got a working 130XE. Would like to get 50 Euro for it ex. shipping.

Picked up the stuff, seller added about 30+ floppies to the deal, most actually still work The 1050 makes the worst grinding noise I've ever heard (but still works fine) so I guess it has never been re-lubricated since the 80s. The 800 XL works absolutely fine, passed all self-tests incl. all keys, joystick ports, cartridge port, SIO port all work fine. So....soon a NTSC and a PAL 800 XL will cross each other somewhere over the Atlantic

Yep got them, seller responded and confirmed, I'm picking up the set in 2 hours On a side note, I can also get a PAL 600 XL for 40 Euros if anyone would like that shipped over,

Never mind Sargie. I just found a nice set over here that I'm picking up tomorrow. Should be a fully working 800 XL that I can ship to you. The rest of the set is a Track ball, a Suzo joystick and a 1050, I'll sell on the Trackball for sure, already got one NIB

Those poor Aussies got some very weird and ugly PSU's by the way. These I found with a (finished) e-bay ad: Not sure if these were official Atari supplies, but at least they were specially made for the XL and 1050.... Note that the 1050 supply can handle 2 drives which is pretty handy.

Ah, so that might be the story I remembered....you mean bridging the Thermal fuse I assume ? You'd expect the Friwo 1050 PSU to be more capable than the Taiwanese one (nr. 1) though because the Taiwanese is only rated at 30,6VA and the Friwo at 50VA. Again, I never had any problems with any Atari PSU's so far but I don't remember playing seven cities for very long I do remember very long "back-up" -sessions at regional clubs though ;)

Hah, just googled and found it. This is the power supply that I got with my 1050 BITD. It's another FRIWO product. Clearly it was also delivered with the 1020 printer....this transformer is bigger than the 800 power supply but smaller than the XL supplies. 4) CO60592 Input: 220VAC 50Hz 50VA Output: 9VAC 3A FRIWO typernr.FW6699 Fuse T4A Thermal fuse 117 degr.C T40/E Approval signs, VDE and GS (German) also Norway, Sweden and Finland.

Well they didnt build it themselves, simply ordered it from Friwo. Even so, indeed you'd expect them to have ordered them from a Far East company but I have a feeling that they had had bad experiences with the epoxied version so that's why I wonder if anyone here has had problems with those too. There is something in my memory that there also was another version power supply for the 1050, I may have one of those still, will try to find it,

OK, so nobody gives a fuck....but has any of the Euro guys had a Euro power supply go bad, or even damaging the machines they were connected to ? I seem to remember from BITD that sometimes the epoxied version sometimes blew it's thermal fuse and rendered it completely useless although I found them to get not that warm at all. Especially compared to my cousin's C64 which had a power supply that you could fry eggs on. In fact his dad once installed a small fan on it. It was the first computer with a fan that I experienced and man, that was a joy....could barely hear that sucky SID because of it and I've hated any computer with fans ever since (one of the reasons to own Macs now instead of PCs.....but I think I'm drifting off

Funny you should say that.....I showed my son two vey simple BASIC programs and a book written for kids to teach the Atari and he asked me to switch computers Honestly I use them for gaming mostly now, but I want to upgrade my 600 XL to make it stereo, extend memory and run demos and stuff....

Hah, this text about Friwo even mentions the Atari link: http://www.awilco-multiplex.dk/226/about-friwo

3) CO61763-11 Input: 220VAC 50Hz 26VA Output: 5VDC 1,5A Fuse: T 2.5A Thermal fuse: 125 degr.C T40/E Approval signs: VDE (German) GS (Geprüfte Sicherheit (="tested safety", German) Brand: FWGB which stands for Friwo Gerätebau GmbH. from Germany Notes: The FW1599 Typenr. is a factory Friwo number. Although it doesn't say it was made in Germany it was produced by a German company and the unit is over a very very good quality. Construction, lay-out are excellent. I haven't checked the schematics, but the set-up is pretty extensive for a "simple" 5V DC power supply. The big filter cap is of the Frako brand (www.frako.com), a very high quality German capacitor brand. FRAKO stands for FRAnkfurter KOndensatorenfabrik or "capacitor factory of Frankfurt". I couldn't see the brand of the smaller caps but I measured all of them with a high quality ESR meter and all show excellent values still. I think this supply is the most common one for the XLs around here and my preferred power supply.

2) CO 61763-34 Larger epoxy sealed unit. Input: 240VAC 50Hz 24W Output: 5VDC 7.5VA T40/E No approval signs only text: Produced to BS415. BS does not mean Bull Shit but stands for British Standard Seems to have a brand logo: TAD Made in U.K. Note: I remember that one of these came with the 600XL I bought in 1983(84?). This is not that unit though. The mains plug is probably not original, I guess there used to be a UK mains plug on it and it got replaced with an aftermarket plug. The 240VAC indicates it was meant for the British market (but works fine here too. Present day, we officially all are at 230VAC all over Europe, incl. the UK). Not repairable as it is fully closed and epoxied.

I'm sure by now we've all seen and learned about the US power supplies that Atari used for the 8 bit machines (and that there is one that could damage your machine(s)). That XL styled power supply looks awesome, wish they kept that design for the Euro one's too....but they don't exist I am sure. Is there a comparable page/thread for European power supplies ? If not, here are some pics of the one's I've got: 1) CO60592-11 Small unit for powering 400/800 or 1050. Input: 220VAC, 50Hz 50W T40/A Output: 9VAC 30,6VA Thermal fuse: 115 degr.C Fuse: 5A Made in Taiwan English warning: WARNING Shock hazard Do not open German warning: VORSICHT - nur zur Verwendung in geschlossenen räumen (= use only indoors) Approval signs: GS (Geprüfte Sicherheit (="Tested Safety", German approval) Notes: I did not open this one because I borrowed it and it's just a transformer, nothing more. Production date seems to be week 12 1987.

Love listening to the podcast while driving through The Netherlands for work Some great interviews so far, keep them coming !! I actually met Ernest (and his brother Bo) a couple of times back in the 80s in the Dutch Atari scene. Great guys

Wellllll........http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5574883395&toolid=10001&campid=5336500554&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fitm%2FVintage-Atari-800-XE-with-10-games-NIB-very-rare-2600-st-xl-mint-in-box-%2F201026823417%3Fpt%3DVideo_Games%26hash%3Ditem2ece21e4f9 That is NIB and lots of games with it. I remember that these sets were sold by a large toy-chainstore here (Intertoys) and they cost like €45 then When Atari Benelux closed it's doors they sold off about their entire inventory to Intertoys. This is also why you see the same cartridges here over and over again, there was a limited amount of certain games they had. The set always came with controllers and 10 carts, the games did differ per set though. Still a bad GTIA in that for sure...

I meant, I'd pay that for you. Getting a complete and working PAL XL here is more expensive I bet...

Sargi, a mylar plus PAL GTIA would cost $32 ex. shipping (that is, if Best's "website" is still accurate). Are you able to swap the mylar and put the GTIA in the socket ?