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Osgeld

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Blog Entries posted by Osgeld

  1. Osgeld
    in this post I am going to take a fairly nice 65XE case, and put a big arse hole right in the face of it, lets put our big boy pants on!

    This of course is for the LCD Screen of the integrated SIO2SD

    First I am going to place the LCD screen roughly where I want it, on the 65XE the most appropriate place for a standard screen seems to be right in the middle of the case badge, from there I will roughly mark it with a pencil and a square







    then drill out the corners well away from my lines



    on the underside there are some ribs to be removed, so I used a razor saw to cut the upright sections, and a sharp knife to score the bottoms, then easily breaking them out with a pair of pliers. Cleanup is followed up with a chisel, not to make it perfectly pretty, but to remove any plastic nubs and uneveness that could interfere with the LCD PCB later









    next i cut out the bulk of the material, there are plenty of ways to do this in my arsenal I could have used a dremel, I could have taken it to work and jigged it up in the bridgeport, I could have used a hot knife, I used my shiv. Yep I used a prison weapon, as its a broken off coping saw blade jammed in a off brand Xacto handle. its fast its aggressive its quiet (which is a must with a sleeping 2 year old).

    It was on my desk, and it did the trick... this is bulk material removal not precision work, stay within the rough lines and all is good.





    after bulk material removal I went back and made more accurate measurements, and marked them out with a sharpie and my square, I then used a utility knife to whittle down close but not on my lines, which is just less crap to have to file away later on.




    finally we are starting to get down to the nitty gritty, using files ... these are not special files, hell it was the cheapest set at home depot cause I had a gift card with like 10 bucks left on it. there's a couple tricks to it

    Go slow, files only really work on the push stroke, as you push go sideways long the surface to be filed, dont apply (any significant) pressure into the material, that only makes your hand twist



    pushing the file while skating it along the length of the hole can provide some impressively accurate results with little effort (and checking along the way)







    once all 4 sides are done you end up with a nice square rectangular hole, yea there's some fine tuning to be done with some 400-600 grit paper to knock off the burs, but for now the LCD is a good tight snap fit within the hole, with enough room for an acrylic lens to finish things off





    (ps I dont know what's going on in that last picture, my stupid phone likes to fisheye shadows, so while the right side of the screen looks like its all out of whack its actually dead nuts on in reality)

  2. Osgeld

    Project 65XE: Chip Removal

    By Osgeld,

    Nothing too much today, I have the schematics all drawn up for the mods I want to do (video, internal SIO2SD, 512k ram, dual pokey), going to review those tonight and work on the pcb anyway far enough along I can go ahead and order a pile o parts ...

    side tangent, when I was younger there were a couple, one stop electronics shops around ... like mini digikeys, I would drive downtown hope they had everything I wanted, and most the time they did, and drive back ... now I order online cause those shops are long gone but it sucks when you forget something cause instead of a short drive its often a pile of postage and a few days wait ... least I KNOW they have what I want but it just kind of sucks cause you want to make sure you have everything in that cart before committing

    anywho since those parts are on the way I went ahead and removed the chips I need to remove, they are soldered in place of course. I need to remove the pokey, the mmu, the cpu and the pia, which is 80 pins on a motherboard most people call fragile.

    I set the temp on my soldering iron to a not low but not as hot as I usually solder at temp, and loaded up the usual array of tools. Flux, solder sucker, solder braid and removed as much solder as humanly possible ... course there is always a little bit of solder gripping a few pins you can never really reach. One can sit there with braid and solder trying to get the surface tension to snag hold of it but heat for long time = lifted pads.

    My magic wand however is my el-cheapo hot air station which will easily melt anything still holding on and the chip falls right out of the board. Once out I flux over the pads with a pin and clean up whatever is left with braid, and wipe it all down clean

    took about 2 hours, not setting any speed records here, but also not using my solder sucking iron and being extra careful, all is well, I also went ahead and put a 20 pin socket in the mmu spot, its not going to have a big pcb as only a wire or 2 has to connect to it, so something like a machined socket is overkill



  3. Osgeld
    I got on it this weekend with this machine (and I am tired of scrubbing). I scrubbed the case down with heavy duty decreasing cleaner (says to dilute with water, bah who has time for that) and a bunch of paper towels and rags and a brush. That was fun

    once I did that I tore apart the keyboard, and did the same on each individual key, even more fun .. Friday afternoon I hit the dollar tree and got 3 aluminum baking pans large enough to hold everything, 6 quarts of 3% hydrogen peroxide and a bucket of generic oxy clean (which is good for the wash anyway). My stock recipe is as much peroxide as possible, and top off with hot water from the tap, which has as much oxy as it possibly can hold, set out in the sun and let her do her thang.

    The case was not too bad and after a full 9 hours in the sun, its pretty much going to do what its going to do. The keys on the other hand were super yellow and stubborn so they sat out all day saturday, overnight and all day sunday with a refresh in oxy. They turned out a heck of a lot better than they were, but they are still tan and still uneven, I will revisit this at another time in the process, but at least they don't look nasty anymore



    While messing around, its been my intent to install a SIO2SD internal to this machine, and the LCD for that will be a blue backlight, I think it looks good against the cool grey of the case. The power on indicator LED on this machine is very weak due to age and use, so since I am going to have a blue LCD screen I might as well have a blue power light ... but the default lens is red, therefore it would turn out purple, I do not want purple.

    I broke of a shard of thin acrylic (that I keep around for various things) from a scrap strip and started sanding, and sanding, and sanding, until matching the profile of the original lens, and I think that turned out pretty good

    Sanding


    Test fit


    Result


  4. Osgeld
    Yea its been since September of 2017 since I actually did anything, but I was re-arranging my shelf of stuff the other day and said "hey you do not have any projects that are paying you money for a couple weeks, put down the brand new (to me) coco 3 and work on the Atari!"

    In my last update I cut a gigantic hole in the front of my case to accommodate the LCD that goes with the integrated SIO2SD, since then I have trimmed it out, added a acrylic front and replaced the 65XE name badge. The badge I had was actually in pretty good shape, I did not want to cut it in half, so I gave it to a buddy who needed one. I ordered a silver and black plastic replacement off of eBay, and it looks good, but my only complaint would be the material is a bit too thick so it stands a tiny bit proud of the case, though not that big of a deal.

    With the LCD fitted into place its now time to figure out where the SIO2SD buttons will live, which is when I noticed the LCD screen crashes directly into the keyboard. The only sensible choice at this point is to cut a notch in the keyboard! I took the keyboard apart figured out where I needed to cut and how far I could cut before I would need to cut the Mylar circuit sheet, I did not want to cut that so if I ever have to replace it, it would be a drop in without a problem.

    Now that the keyboard is able to fit back into the case, I can go about deciding where to place the buttons. I am leaning to a row above the function keys, as that seems like the most logical place without accidently hitting buttons while using the keyboard. I had considered going down one of the sides of the keyboard (and yea I would have clearance, I checked) but in fake typing I hit the cut tape of buttons off the keyboard pretty quickly ... not that they would be standing a full quarter inch off the top of the case, but its something to think about

    I also obtained a ultimate cart in a trade deal, I printed a new case matching my blue black and grey color scheme (remember the power LED is now blue, the LCD is black text on a blue background, and the buttons are blue), but our beater i3 printer at work is leaving some funky artifacts in the starting layers. That sucks but I am not bothered to fiddle with it too much since I already spent time printing a cart shell at work heh







    eventually I need to give a strong dose of retrobrite to those keycaps, but not today



  5. Osgeld

    Project 65XE: GOODIES

    By Osgeld,

    Today I got a fat box of crap from mouser, 512k Sram, stuff for SIO2SD and connectors wooter



    I still haven't laid out PCB's yet cause I had to make some last min alterations to what packages of components I got, and I wanted to lay hands on them before committing (that and being a combination of stupid busy and lazy) I did get a handful of connectors

    one was to make up the custom av cable, the core of which is some fat honkin off brand monster like stuff for component video, each video signal wire in this thing is like triple shielded and the audio connections are double shielded. I bought it years ago at a thrift store and have been chopping it up for various things since then, what was left was a ~4 foot section in which I made my custom cable from.

    It plugs into the Atari DIN 5 for composite and S-video connections but also branches out to the stereo connections I made on the back of the machine, the TV side connects to a standard 4 pin S-video port, composite video port, and L&R analog stereo connection ... for a chunk of scrap wire, a liberal use of odd cuts of heat shrink / loom, and a couple bucks of connectors, I think it turned out quite well.



    Next is the power connector, which I did not finish today, but want to mention. The power supply for this machine, since I did not get one with it, is a 5 volt 2.5 amp wall adapter, which is much much much smaller and better regulated than the original stock supply. I do have to change out the connector which is no big deal, and one could use a 5 pin DIN, just like the video connector.



    Problem with using a 5 pin DIN like the video connector is you could plug the power into the video output, and potentially smoke some stuff. Ok fine looking on mouser for a 7 pin din, in stock, turned up a few choices, one of the cheapest being 11 freaking dollars!!!! OK I understand din plugs in 2017 not used hardly at all and 7 is a odd beast, but FK a bunch of that!

    So I bought a 8 pin din for 80 cents and heated up the center pin with my soldering iron until it came wiggly and yanked that joker out, saving 10 bucks, and you cant plug the power into the AV jack by accident.




  6. Osgeld
    Having worked all weekend to meet a deadline (great thing about engineering, flexible schedule bad thing about engineering, hard as nails deadlines) and most of Monday spent doing yard work and prepping for the eclipse photography session my wife dove deep into (and I am glad for that, she needs a more involved hobby) along with prior commitments, I hardly had a chance to do anything to the 65XE.

    the main input filter cap seemed a little sketch and there was some corrosion around that area I decided it would be in my best interest to replace all the electrolytic's on the board. Since I was at work and we have a large selection of high quality, high temperature, automotive grade capacitors, I snagged what I needed and did the entire board.

    When I turned the machine back on I noticed my color hue was now completely wrong and the picture got quite a bit sharper (I am still using a composite hook up), and I have been reading about "super video upgrades" to the XL line, and even found a guide to do a similar setup on the XE machines. I did that upgrade and the difference is...

    totally un-noticeable, that was a great waste of an evening (evening being about an hour I have tween baby bedtime and my bedtime) ... so I still have a bit of a flat color, and some jailbars (in comparison to the 400 I JUST did) the biggest difference being placing fresh modern good quality caps which crisped up the image quite well. I can already hear the gallery shouting UAV and VBXE, well I am an engineer, and while I could take this 30$ machine and add 300$ worth of mod boards into it, I don't want to.

    I am already laying out a 512k rambo compatible board, a dual pokey board (maybe with covox, I haven't really seen a benefit), a internal SIO2SD board, whats another AV board as I have plenty of room on the panel so far, and the whole shitbang including parts is less than a UAV + simple stereo including postage.

    Anyway, I have a second Pokey on its way, getting a shopping cart together from mouser, and getting ready for this weekend where the freshly washed case will undergo a liquid retrobrite treatment
  7. Osgeld
    So I get home this evening and sitting in my workbench chair out in the garage, is this box that looks small and looks like someone punched it, great vibes. Adding on to those good feelings I open it up and see a bunch of shredded up junk mail as packing material.

    Luckily the ebay seller was not a complete moron and the machine itself was encased in fairly thick styrofoam. At this point I am filled with half optimism and half dread, did I just buy a money pit? or did I just stake a pretty darn good deal?




    Once retriving the machine form its packaging I am greeted with this, yep that's a dirty 65XE with a chip on its top case right corner




    but hm wait a second, there's something interesting on the back



    and the motherboard is different from the one I previously had



    and the crystal is not 3.57 blah blah mhz



    yes sir, this is a pal 65XE using a 130XE motherboard, I added some life support jumpers since I have no power supply and I know my tv wont sync to PAL RF, but it will sync to PAL AV




    fired her up and ....




    WIN!

    all of a sudden I am feeling quite good for my 27$ dirty but working perfectly fine European 65XE, now its time to mod!



  8. Osgeld
    Almost three years ago I did a recap job in trade for a Atari 65XE computer, it sat in the trunk of my car for darn near a year, then one day with a baby on the way I am sitting there looking at this thing, which I had never even taken out of its box, and sold it here on Atariage for what I had invested into it ... 40 bucks.

    Fast forward pretty much two years later, I catch a deal on a untested Atari 400 computer. I tore it apart cleaned it up, upgraded it to 48k, added composite out and installed a SIO2SD internal to the case, and its a pretty kick ass little game machine. So much so I had to talk myself into selling it, cause every time I went out to the garage I would spend half (or more) of my time playing games on it!

    But I would run across games that would not play on it, which is no big deal, there's a ton of games that will run on the older setups, but I wanted demo's, I love demo's. I have been addicted to demo's since the early 90's and I still check pouet.net just about every darn night, and for the non XL/XE machines there is not a whole lot of them besides cracktro's and simple (but impressive) scrollers.

    Dang I really loved that 400, but there was only 1 kick ass demo out of hundreds, if not thousands that I could find to run on it (and I checked every single one in the TOSEC archive on archive.org!). What I needed was a XL or XE machine to pimp out.

    While the 400 was still sitting on my bench in pieces, only working with jumper wires and careful touches, I started looking out for newer machines. Most were way out of my price range ... cause I am cheap, no not cheap, willing and able to fix these machines, one kept popping up on my searches. A 65XE missing its screws, looking like it had sat in a gas station toilet for most of its post useful life, advertised as broken, wont power on, buy it now for more than I wanted to pay.

    There was a couple things that tweaked my spidey senses, but I am no Atari computer expert, move along and keep looking. Finally after the 400 was put together, sold and moving to its new home in Canada, I really wanted to play with an atari computer. I popped back on fleabay and the only XL/XE computer still in my price vs risk of repair range was this darn 65XE.

    I had since read up on the nuances of the machines I was looking to find, and observation of the ebay photos, which were pretty good, I had a idea of what I was actually looking at. I shot the seller an offer, they accepted, I sent in darn near 30 dollars to someone in Georgia USA and its quickly put in the mail. OMG what have I just done!

    I just spent almost 30$ on a 65XE with no screws, claimed to totally dead, and dirty as a truck stop griddle. It arrived today, but I will make a second blog entry about that in a little bit as this one is already long winded.

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