Dripfree

Finally. A good reason to go to college!

http://youtu.be/_cRIFhsMSTU Just did this mod the other night. It was simple but great. It almost feels like I'm cheating with this thing. I played the ASTROIDS! emulator and centipede with it. It's crazy I can do this rocking thing where If I time it right I can tick my movements around with real precision. You can't go to fast or the atari doesn't seem to get it. But if I click click away at the right speed it almost feels like I can move fame for frame on centipede and my asteroids game has gotten way better too! I didn't get the low profile switches like the dude in the video just cuz I cannibalized some switches from something I was tossing out. I will get low profile next time cuz I had to modify the bottom of my joystick skeleton and my button a lot more than the dude in the video did, and it was a pain in the ass. The results were still awesome.

This made sense to me. I had a big ole bag of rubber bands. I found a very small and thin rubber band that when streatched around the center of my flywheel it seems to give it this domed effect. So far its working but its too soon to say I'll let you know if my drive blows up.

No I wasn't thinking of using the 850 circuitry at all. I was talking about disconnecting the sio ports from the 850 circuit board. Then disconnecting one of the din9 ports Then installing my sio2pc between one of the sio ports and the din9. Then connecting my sio2usb adapter to between one of the sio ports and a usb install on the empty side of the 850. I've looked at it and I think I could do it in a way where I could restore it to its original function if I really wanted to reconnect it. Or perhaps there is a way it could be a way to hacked where it could have a switch that flipped it from 850 mode to sio2pc mode. It seems like it should be fairly simple cuz you would just be switching the ports from going to to its original circuitry or the sio2pc circuit. But I wouldn't know how to do that so for now I'd just disconnect them from the 850 circuit board completely. I actually started a thread a while back asking if the 850 could be used as an rs232 interface and I learned it's fairly unfeasible. I'm trying to figure out a way to use this 850 one way or the other.

That's all very good advice Wongo gave you. If you take your time you can totally fix this. Go on youtube and watch some videos on soldering also. The db9 connector is very common I bought one from radio shack just the other day. but you'll have to get someone to send you one from a 2600 if your concerned about keeping it original. All db9's I've bought are mostly metal where the 2600's is plastic. you can use the metal one but it will look funny and you will have to either drill holes for screws or use hot glue to mount it in the 2600's case. You may want to enlist someone with more skill to get you out of this mess db9 plugs are kinda a tight to work with for beginners, and I'm not sure if its worth getting a desoldering iron just for this project. Don't give up though. The first project I ever undertook with a soldering iron was making an adapter to use a ps1 controller on my pc via a db25 connection (pre usb days). it involved external power to make the rumble feature work. I messed it up so bad I fried my pc's mobo. Lucky for me it was still under its one year warranty. I was out a pc for a month cuz they had to send it out. The day I got it back I immediately tried again and I worked. Now I make stuff all the time and feel as though i can fix almost anything. Your going make mistakes on projects like this but that is also how your going to learn.

I got to agree with the "attack of the clones" statement. It is possible to win by just flooding the market. It reminds me of this thing I once saw on the battle between vhs and beta. It was well known that beta was the superior format. Retailers who didn't want a surplus of vhs machines when beta took over started giving them away with tv purchases. A while later so many people had their free vhs player it just became the standard even though beta was superior. Oh and the porn industry decided to go with vhs that had a lot to do with it too. Any one no if the porn industry sided with the pc?

Hmmm. That must be a Singapore because mine don't look like that. I see that housing almost completely covers the flywheel where my flywheel is completely exposed. It's to bad because if mine was built like that I don't think I'd be having this problem!

That does sound like an accurate description of my belt, however there is plenty of room top and bottom for this belt to fall off. I have read that there is a difference between Hong Kong and Singapore made 1050's. Mine happens to be Hong Kong. Perhaps you have seen the Singapore version and that one has less room for belt movement? Also not that this makes a difference but I now have noticed that I was wrong on my assumption of how the flywheel got corrosion. I manually turned it with the belt on and I see now that the corroded area is actually the part that was covered by the belt. There is a position where the corrosion is completely covered by the belt and the clean area is perfectly exposed. The corroded area is actually about 70% of the wheel while the clean area is 30%. Still I must point out this corrosion is very minimal seemed to change the color but not bad enough to change the texture.

I've done a quick search for new belt sources. None on ebay at the moment. Best electronics has them. Anyone ever order from them? Their site seems kinda dated. It looks like sales just get negotiated over email. Do they use Paypal? Anyway I got to say the belt really looks good to me. Its nice soft smooth rubber not even a crack in it. The store I got mt atari from told me that it was "professionally cleaned and restored". I never really believed that because I've cleaned about 50 vintage systems and I do better work then their "professionals". Also the 1050 didn't work when I got it home. I decided to open it up and take a look and guess what! The belt had fallen off! I have read a lot of stories about what happens to these belts over time and judging by how good mine looks I think they may have replaced it..... Anyway the fly wheel may have some corrosion about 50% of the wheel looks like clean smooth aluminum the other 50% look a little darker, but still not very bad. You really can't feel any difference in smoothness when running your finger over the different areas. I was assuming that this drive sat for a long time. The part of the wheel covered by the belt was protected while the rest got slightly oxidized. If this oxidation was my problem what could be done? If I did need to replace the wheel would it hurt for me to see if gluing the lip on worked first?

So the belt keeps falling off my 1050. I used to have to take it apart about once a month and put it back on, but now that I got an sio2pc its getting a lot more use. Now I got to put it back on about every other day. The belt seems good to me its a tight fit not really any stretch to it. I think the flywheel may have a little lean to it that causes the belt to slowly walk off. The big fly wheel that it turns has no lip to keep it on. I was wondering how common of a problem this is. I'm considering cutting a circle slightly larger then the flywheel (plastic, maybe cardboard) and gluing it to the bottom of the flywheel this would give it a lip to hold the belt on. I thought I'd consult the gurus of atariage before attempting this in case this is a very bad idea. Perhaps it would throw off the balance in some way and kill the drive. My 1050 works great otherwise just getting sick of opening it up every couple days.

Hmm well I'm thinking I will never have a real use for this I'm never going to use a modem, and if I were to get a vintage printer I think I'd get a 1027. I was thinking last night what if I took my rs232 sio2pc connected the serial end to one of the 850's serial port then soldered the sio end to one of the sio ports. Then I could just use a serial extension cable to connect my pc to my 850........ Maybe I could even take my sio2usb, connect the sio end to the sio of the 850 and just install a usb end on the empty side of the 850..... I wouldn't really be using any of the 850's circuitry. Wouldn't even have to plug it in. I a way I suppose I'd just be making an upgrade where it still fulfills it's intended purpose making the atari able to connect to more standard interfaces. Maybe its stupid but I'd like to make some use of the thing it's kinda pointless just sitting on a shelf.

So when I picked up my 800xl It came with an 850 interface. Sweet right? It didn't come with anything to attach to it. Just wondering if anyone knows of something cool I could do with this? It's sitting on a shelf now and that makes me sad. Is there anything really cool I could get to attach to it? Any sweet hacks? I'd love to make use of it. I was actually considering cannibalizing the SIO ports when I was building my SIO2PC but I thought that would be a waste. I'm glad I didn't but I'm just not sure what else I'll ever use it for. I'm curious how other 850 owners are using it.

Volume 4 Issue 4 August 1984 "Telecomputers". Is That a Mark I Iphone?

Just search the forums of this site for all the help you need for this project. There are many threads on this topic, a few recently started by me when I took on this project. I knew nothing about this stuff but thanks to the help of others on this site it's been a huge success.

10 print "Hello World" 20 goto 10 run Check out this PDF. http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/ti/beginbas.pdf I happen to have the real book it came with the TI's. It will get you going. If your familiar with any other forms of basic the TI is pretty similar.

So im rockin along with this SIO2PC. I got it working awesome on my windows 95 laptop with APE (tried aspQt but it says I'm missing ws2_32.dll will experiment with that a little more later). When I bought the parts for this project everything came in 2 packs. So I built a second. Then I had an inspiration. I took my rs232 to usb adapter and cut open the end to expose the circuit board. I took a hacksaw cut off the serial plug on the end, and soldered the serial wires from my sio2pc board right to the circuit board for my rs232 to usb adapter. Bingo now I got a sio2rs232 for my non usb win 95 laptop and I also got an sio2usb for my windows 7 laptop! Both work perfect when plugged straight into my atari. Im now trying to figure out the daisy chain. I have it plugged into the second port of my 1050 I want to start copying some atr. files to 5.25 disks but can't quite figure it out. I was hoping someone could tell me which virtual drive to load the disk images into where to load the DOS from. I'm assuming I have to load the DOS from my 1050. At the moment I only have DOS 2.5 and 3.0 on real floppy's. I was hoping some one could walk me through this process. I should specify I'm using aspeQt on my windows 7 machine and ape on my 95 machine. I can use either for the job. Will either do the job better then the other? I really appreciate every ones help I would not have been able to build these things or get them working if it weren't for the help of this great community! Dripfree

whoa I loved space taxi. It was my favorite game on my gramps 64. I was never good enuf to beat it back then was there really a swastika level?

This dude I knew In high school gave me a 2600 he thought was garbage. About a year ago I was watching a youtube video explaining the differences of the elusive heavy sixer. I ran into my game room pulled it out of storage and sure enough it was a heavy sixer. Haven't took her apart yet but I know his dad bought it and I think since they thought it was garbage they would have tossed it rather then fix it. Any way funny thing is is the dude who gave it to me is in jail now for secretly video taping his roomates in the shower!! Dude was a looser a weirdo and now I got his heavy sixer!

I always just use the power pad!

That's freakin sweet I've been watching Ebay for those but I've decided that its never gona fall into my price range just cuz magazines are heavy! All the good lots are usually out of my price range on shipping alone! I'd realy like to get my hand on COMPUTE! My gramps was a c64 man and he subscribed. Then in like 1996 my family got our first computer an Apple IIgs. No games of course that would rot my brain. My gramps would lend me copy's of COMPUTE! and I would spend days typing in a game. Then I would spend days fixing my typos. I got a couple copy's of Antic with my 800xl. In like two days I typed in every program in them. I love the articles too but I think the best part is the ads.

Cant wait to try this. Congrats on fulfilling your original dream. I'm glad to see White Circus Is not as racist as I thought it was going to be when i read the title.

I did some basement digging the other day too I found a dead mouse. I like your find better!! There is a store by me selling a 400 and 2 carts. Its all working with all cables and power supply. They want $55. Its been there for a while is that a fair price? I got my 800xl but I still want that thing just cuz its more classic. I was considering trying to trade them my extra 99/4a and some of my game doubles to get a discount but still not sure if it's worth it.

Hmmmm I got to say I'm a purest I really feel you got to go original all the way! If you do use any emulation I really feel it should only be used to fill in the holes until the real thing can be obtained. I myself own a flashback I recently built an sio2pc these things are great but my heart belongs to my original machines and my cartridges. This will require maintenance but it is a college and that maintenance is a great learning experience. I think as students start to catch a real love for these machines you will have no problem finding people willing to do the work to maintain them. I take great pride in learning to maintain these machines many of which are before my time. I think you have a great opportunity to pass that love and knowledge onto a new generation. Maybe my ideas are bigger then the actual scope of your project, but since this is a campus project I think it should be more then just a game room. For that anyone can just get a flashback disc for their xbox and play it in their dorm. For me at least the true love of classic gaming comes from learning how the actual machine works. Like how to load a game from atari DOS, or write a game in BASIC, or build a cable to hook an old machine up to modern equipment. Anyway I'm happy to hear you are taking on such a project and wish you the best of luck. I'm always excited to hear that new people are taking on this hobby.

Well I built a RS232 SIO2pc and I couldn't be more excited! Now the sky is the limit for my 800xl. Problem is I'm totally ADD and now I want another project. I really enjoy building this stuff, and I'm wondering if there is a similar interface (around the same skill level) that I could build to emulate disk drives for my 99/4a or my Vic-20. If so could some one point me to some directions? I actually enjoy building these things more then I enjoy playing the games they give me access to. I need another weekend project hopefully a TI or Vic enthusiast can show me the way.

Thanks a lot for all the info guys. I really like that site Vjetnam. It seems all the files are ATR. I got about 50 games from there and with all the ones I tested It's a 100% success rate. I do have to burn cds to gets these games on my old laptop cuz Its actually is a pre usb laptop. Its running windows 95 but seems to run ape flawlessly. Anyone know if AspeQT runs on these old systems? Id like to give it a try and would even consider running an old linux os if thats at all possible. Also I do have a rs232 to usb adapter which I believe may allow me to use my windows7 laptop but I have not really played with that yet just cuz Id prefer to dedicate my old laptop to the job of running my atari. Any way I'm in the "butter zone now baby" Thanks to all the help I've been getting from members of this site! I'm going to go play a little more before bed so thanks again. Dripfree