Sophia 2 preorder thread

[Sophia 2 preorder thread]

Got my 3 today.

 

Thanks Simius!

[Atari 800 keyboard issue]

I have had a few 800s that have been sitting for years and I had to work a few keys quite a bit to get the contacts to start working again. 

[130XE Audio Noise/Buzzing with Cartridge Games?]

Hello,

I have a 130xe which I have added a Sophia, Ultimate1MB and a UAV to and they work great, however I have noticed something odd with this machine, when I play cartridge games the audio is noisy and full of background static. I replaced the original ROMs and removed the Sophia board and it had no effect. I checked all my solder joints and I don't see anything damaged or cracked/lifted. I thought I might have damaged the GTIA when desoldering it because it got REALLY hot but it seemed to work fine after. I also replaced the audio opamp. I was messing around with my new Fujinet today and I loaded Donkey Kong from an .atr and it didn't have any static! I tested Star Raiders and Donkey Kong both from cart and still had static... I've checked all the traces and contacts and nothing seems to be amiss so I'm at a loss as to what the issue could be.

 

Does anyone have any ideas?

 

Thanks!

[Bytewriter EPROM Burner]

1 hour ago, lbaeza said:

That is interesting, first time I read somehing like that. Years ago I made a hardware device that allowed me to plug a cartridge while the device was plugged on the EPROM programmer. It half-worked, and haven't had the chance to go back and fix it...

 

Is there a picture anywhere of this harness for the Bytewriter?

 

Kind regards,

 

Luis

I can't find any, it may have been vaporware. Convologic also advertised a device called the WAM cartridge which was like a regular cartridge but it was battery backed ram or something. I can't find any pictures or information on this device except that the Bytewriter software allows you to convert your dumped cart to the WAM cart's format.. 

[Bytewriter EPROM Burner]

Forgot to mention that mine didn't come with the manual but there is a PDF version at the Atari Museum: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/3rdparty/Other/ByteWriter/index.htm

 

It can burn 2716/32/64/128 as well as TI 2516/32/64 and Motorola 68764 (which is useful as this can be used as a drop in replacement for some commodore ROMS in their various machines.) There was also an adapter harness that allowed you to dump various carts however I haven't even been able to find a picture of this.

[Bytewriter EPROM Burner]

I recently acquired a Bytewriter EPROM burner, this is an EPROM burner for Atari 8-bits that uses 2 joystick ports as an 8-bit connection to the burner. I've had a saved search on eBay for years so when one finally came up I snapped it up

 

I thought the enclosure would be metal but it's actually plastic.

 

 

 

 

Inside is an 8035 microcontroller with a 2K EPROM and an 8255 parallel chip.

 

 

I really like the software...

 

 

I don't have a burner that can write 2532s so the Bytewriter is actually useful! Here I am burning an updated monitor EPROM for my SYM-1 SBC... The burner is SLOW compared to other ones I have but not too slow, it took about 5 minutes to write the 2532

 

 

The joystick connectors are recessed on the XE so the connectors won't fit, I had to hackup some gender changes to make extenders

 

Attached are the ROM dump and an ATR of the software if anyone needs them.

bytewriter8.17.BIN bytewriterA.ATR

[Sophia 2 preorder thread]

I'll take 3!

Get well soon

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

I was watching youtube videos and came across one with a guy who bought an Atari 400 at a yard sale, what I found interesting is that when he demoed Missile Command the 400 had the same lines on the left side of the screen as my 130xe. It seems this issue has been occurring since the beginning.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOrT6H2Wo9I

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

The power is still connected via the original jumper, I just bridged the 2 L5 pads with a piece of wire. I also cut the trace in 2 places and pulled up a piece to make sure it was a clean cut.

 

I have a defender cartridge plugged in and I took the picture before the screen came up to get the clearest picture of the lines.

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

Ok I cut the trace and connected the 2 L5 pads and it seems to be worse, the banding is more distinct and now I can see faint banding on the other side of the screen but its barely visible in the attachment.

I also left the ground wire on, tested, and then removed it with no effect.

 

Thanks for the ideas though.

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

Well, it looks like the power routing skirts around L5 quite a bit on that board (yuck)! It would take some trace cutting to really isolate the video components. I'll look at it some more...

 

Thanks!

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

Here are pics of the top and bottom wiring jobs. Please forgive my crappy soldering skills, I've built kits (Cosmac ELF2K, Micro-KIM, Replica 1) and they all worked I promise!

 

I cut the L5 pin connected to 5+ and bent it up, I then soldered a wire to the lead and covered it with shrink tube.

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

Yes, the 5v to the video circuitry comes in through inductor L5. If you lift one end of L5, you can feed 5V in directly from the power supply. The end of L5 you want to connect to is the one that goes to C50 and C51. Solder the other end of the wire to the switched power pin on the switch (goes to positive side of C1).

 

I believe the same power trace that feeds the video circuits also powers the RAM which explains the noise. However, Bob mentioned ground bounce which is also a possibility. You can also try soldering a wire from the other (negative) side of C50 & C51 to the negative side of C1.

 

I connected L5 directly to the switch power pin and connected C1's ground pin to C50/51's ground with no change, the lines are still showing the same as before.

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

The first thing I would try is modifying the power path to the video circuits so there's less influence from nearby stuff. I don't have a 130XE nearby to look at, but I've cleaned up XL circuits by running power directly from the 5V jack area and bypassing the path on the circuit board.

 

EDIT: After doing a little more research, it looks like L5 is where power comes in. I would try lifting it and running a wire back to the output side of the power switch.

 

Sorry, I'm kind of confused, could you describe this fix in greater detail? I've found L5 on the schematic, when you say lift it do you mean remove it from the board, and then directly connect the video circuit to +5 from the power switch?

 

Thanks for the help.

[Vertical Bands/Lines on Left Side of 130XE Screen]

Hello,

I recently acquired a 130XE that works great, the only problem is that there are faint bands/lines on the left side of the screen. I originally used an S-Video cable from eBay and thought the problem was with my LCD monitor, but they also show up when I use my Commodore 1084S Amiga monitor and a Chroma/Luma cable. I can adjust the color/contrast/brightness and that helps until the background color changes and they are visible again. After reading through the forums I found a few posts regarding 9 lines on the left side of the screen on a 5200 S-Video mod being "ANTIC noise during a DRAM refresh" and I am guessing I have the same problem. Anybody have any ideas on a fix? I have the later revision with 64x4 RAM. I've attached pics showing the lines, I turned up the contrast to make them more visible to the camera.

 

Other Topic:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/218246-s-video-mod-9-vertical-lines-on-left-side/

 

Thanks!