atari_thomas

Thanks - I guess it's definitely a hardware issue of the 850. Just now, I have replaced all capacitors. Situation: Atari & 850 are turned off, no Floppy attached. I turn on the 850, wait some seconds then I turn on the Atari. Atari ist booting and I hear the (correct) squeaking sound = Atari ist booting the handle from the 850. Now I can access the 850 in Basic by using the OPEN, XIO and Print commands. I even can transfer some Bytes to my PC (Win98, real COM1:, Hyperterm) using my serial null modem cable and see them correctly on my PC-Screen. That works a while, maybe some minutes. Thereafter, suddenly I can't acces the R1: on my Atari anymore. My Atari shows 'ERROR 130' or I hear the buzzing sound. The transfer stops and no further Characters appear on my PC. I even found some spare ICs (R6507 & R6532) in my spare part box and tried them on my 850-board, but no improvement, the issue remains constant. Well - this 850 was used together with other Atari hardware by a former US Highschool here in Wiesbaden, Germany with 110V. I guess they operated their own power net with 110V/60Hz. This was a school only for US military personal and all this equipment was originally imported from the US. Maybe the 850 needs the US frequency of 60Hz to operate correctly and it's having a timing problem. We do have 50Hz here in the EU. I have some other 30-years old arcade hardware equipment (control boards for coin counters, made here in Germany for the local market), which use the local 50Hz of the main power as a timer. The power transformer transforms the 230V AC down to 18V AC and the logic board just cuts off the upper part of the AC sinus wave using a z-diode, a resistor and a small capacitor and produces a pulsed +5V signal, what is used as a timer to control a ... 6502. But this is just an idea - probably I just have a broken IC or so.

Hi everyone! I have a 30 years old Atari 850 interface (SIO -> 4x serial, 1x parallel) Unfortunately it's not working 100% properly. When I turn it on and subsequently turn on my Atari 800XE (Floppy not attached), the Computer boots it's handle from the 850 properly. Your hear the squeaking sound and Basic reports with "? FRE(0)" about 1K less free RAM than booting without the 850. But this works only, when my 850 was turned off for a longer while, f.e. longer than 30 minutes. When I turn off my Atari 800XE and reboot after some seconds, I get lot's of "BOOT ERROR"s on my screen and a lot of buzzing sounds, interrupted by some squeaky sounds. OK - I turn off my Atari 800XE and my 850, wait a while (fe. one minute), turn my 850 on and hereafter my Atari 800XE, I get these "BOOT ERROR"s again. I have to turn off my 850 and have to wait at least half an hour, before I can properly boot the handle again. Does anybody have an idea how to fix this? I already opened the 850 case and cleaned all pins of the socketed ICs, resoldered pins on the pcb, replaced some capacitors, but always the same issue. Thomas

Ok - I'll get to this project next week and will update this post.

Aha - thanks alex_79 - I found that link http://www.atariage.com/forums/topic/185932-my-2600-cart-dumper/ some days ago, showing the pinout of the Atari 2600 cartridge. The pin A12 "Chip Enable" (CE) already made me think. Looks like the Imagic Game Selector powers the 2600 Console on and off AND supports all cartridges simultaneously with power. Looks like the shown power supply http://www.cheeptech.com/kiosk/kiosk.html has a quite high output for that purpose.

@nathan: Harmony cartridge is ok but not old school enough for me. I built a 'uzebox' videoconsole some weeks ago with a sd-card controller and games stored on that card. Works fine, easy and reliable but I like the retro charme of these old 2600 different plastic cartridges. @yllawwally: Thanks - sounds too easy - I'll try this first with two or the cartridges and a smaller rotator switch. I wonder if this works without turning off and on the Atari 2600. Finally I want to have that 'Imagic-look-alike' electronic 3-button switch with that seven-segment display, probably working with a kind of decoder.

Hi everybody ! Some weeks ago I found the 'Imagic Game Selector' via Google. That was the first time I saw that thing and I'm impressed! I found that page here --> http://www.cheeptech.com/kiosk/kiosk.html Well - I'm collecting Atari stuff now for almost 20 years and I hold lot's of Atari 400/800/XL/XE stuff and also '2600' consoles and games. Of course - as usual - most of these things are stored in boxes anywhere in my attic. Now - I want to have them present here in my room and I also found pictures of the Atari POS Kiosk. Both, Selector & Kiosk, are rare and expensive, but I don't need an original. So I would like to rebuild my own kiosk where I can install a self-build rom selector. Does anybody has any wiring diagrams of the selector or any idea how to build one? I would also appreciate any constructions plans of the kiosk. Thanks Thomas