sskino

I have a couple different systems I tried. My Win7 box running AspeQt and my older WinXP laptop also running AspeQt. I've used Atari810 on the laptop also and both systems and applications have the same result. Some disks images will write to a physical drive some (most) will error out. I've also used my old PowerMac G5 running OSX 10.5 with SIO2OSX and that gives me the same results.. Tried several different 1050 drives (I have four drives) and still the same. It seems really specific to the images, so maybe the images I'm getting are junk. Been downloading them from "The Old Computer" website. I get most of my other system images there and haven't had any problems though. (C64/128, Apple II, Amiga) All are set up for serial speed of 56K (SIO shows 19200 though).

Well, thanks for the information. I went ahead and added a diode to the adapter but it made no difference. However, what's interesting is that my failures seem to be more related to the ATR disk images than to the adapter. Previously, I was using either the DOS2.5 or MyDOS disk copy option from the DOS menu and when I attempted to copy disks from a virtual to a physical drive, I would get the error 138/139 messages. It seemed to only happen with games that I was copying that were single density disk images (about 90K in size). I also noticed that I would not get this error with certain disks images that were larger, presumably double density (about 130K) disk images. After you recommended using the Copy 2000 utility, I continued to have these errors but I tried it on a wider range of images, which I pulled down during this test. I was able to copy some of the single density disk images without a problem using the Copy 2000 tool but the same ones that failed earlier with DOS/MyDOS, continue to fail using the Copy 2000. What's even more odd is that these images will boot fine and don't seem to exhibit any problems, when booting from a virtual drive, but copying them over to a physical drive does not work. So, I'm not really sure what the cause of this problem is. But I was at least able to get some images copied over to disk! At this point I'm not sure if the diode really did anything. I'm going to remove it any try again to see if I get the same results.

I cannot seem to locate the link I used to build this device. I used the same breakout board that Kogden used; The Sparkfun FT232RL. Basically the diagram I used was more of a list of connections, stating that you needed to connect Pins 3,4,5 and 7 to the breakout board's TX, RX, Ground and either RI, DSR or CSR pins. I chose to use RI for mine. But the instructions I went off of made no mention of a Diode. I've tried this adapter on my Mac (older PowerMac G5) and it works with the SIO2OSX software just fine, but only if I use just the virtual drive. Adding a physical drive into the mix prevents the software from working at all. On my PC, AspeQt works fine as long as I am not copying disks. I can add a physical drive in and AspeQt continues to work, but attempting to copy disks from a virtual to physical drive generates an error 138. Using the Atari810 software works the best and I am able to copy disks but oddly only ATR disk images that are NOT 90KB (single density?). So, where exactly does the diode go? Is there a diagram I can use to check my build against? You mention I need a diode from Pin3 of the SIO port to the TX line of the breakout board, but I just wanted to make sure I get this down correctly.

Excellent! That's exactly what I needed to know! Thanks for the information! The diagram I went by didn't make any mention of the Diode, so I was wondering. I'll get it fixed and try again!

Folks, I have a home-made USB to SIO adapter that works well with ASPEQT, however I would like to know if there is anything out there, in the open source realm, that works like the ProSystem component to APE? Something that will allow me to attach my 1050 drive directly to my PC, using my adapter, and write disk images to floppies? I've tried to use ASPEQT for this by mounting DOS in drive 1, using a physical drive as drive 2, and then putting my images in drives 3 or 4 and then using the disk copy function to copy from drive 3/4 to drive 2 and this doesn't work because DOS keeps spitting me out with an error. Does anyone know of any such utility? It seems that everything I have stumbled across is meant for drive emulation running off a PC. I tried to use the Prosystem software with my adapter but it will never detect my drive. My adapter uses Ring Indicator for connection to the "Command" line of the SIO port. Should I be using something other than Ring Indicator if I want to get ProSystem to detect my drive??

Thanks.. Yeah, I found that out. Had to throw in some extras.

Found the 6520 PIAs at Best Electronics for $1.95 a piece. Sounds like a real good price considering the other places I found want $8-10 a piece. Their site is real hard to navigate though. I'm guessing I will have to call them up and place an order. I'm very much into hacking up old systems also. Ataris, Commodores, Apples... I love the old 8 bit machines.

Thanks! I'll look into the U1M.

Any good mods to upgrade an 800XL to 256K of RAM? I'm thinking of doing a mod to get S-Video output on mine and bump up the RAM.. Or would the 1UM be the best way to go? What uses more than 64K RAM on the Ataris? Is there much out there that will take advantage of it?

I've not seen any mods for a 128K upgrade... Is one possible?

Thanks everyone for the help! Going to get a couple of them on order so I can have some spares!

Well... Looks like a bad PIA! Swapped out the PIA and MMU from my 800XL then got a full 64K RAM on the self test.. swapped back the PIA and then did a self test again and it's back to reporting 20K. So.. I guess the big question is.. Anyone know where I can get a PIA for a decent price?

These chips are 4464 which are 64x4. I ordered a tube of them from Jameco. I actually just used two of them to upgrade a C128's video DRAM from 16KB to 64KB and they worked fine, so I know the chips are the right size... Not sure if the speed is an issue though. I would think 100ns should be fine. But I think Rybags may be right.. Maybe this problem existed long before I did the upgrade and was never detected.

I noticed, after taking the picture, that U18 was not completely seated, so I popped it, inspected it and re-inserted it all the way. I also pulled and reseated U2. No difference. I did try poking 54017 with 125 but peeking 20480 gives the same result... 76 In thinking about this.. Even if I normalized it and put everything back, I wonder if that will prove anything... Putting back the original 16x4 RAM chips will just show me 16KB as originally.. Is the MMU and PIA interchangeable with an 800XL? I have one that I can use to test against if I need to swap some components. Also, I checked the resistor that I pulled up. The solder joint is filled in, but I can hit it again with an iron and check it.

Well, I hope it's not a PIA or MMU. I suppose I can normalize everything and see how it turns out... ? PEEK(20480) = 76 ? PEEK(54017) = 253 I've attached another shot, different angle of top and bottom view. [attachment=331292:DSCN0496m.JPG][attachment=331291:DSCN0495m.JPG]