Jump to content
Have You Played Atari Today?
2600|5200|7800|Lynx|Jaguar|Forums|Store  

SpicyChronos

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    202

  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by SpicyChronos

  3. Posted

    I'm bumping up to the top, let let everyone know that I still have the items that don't have strike through. I am also letting you know, I'll combine items together, like if you want the 4 in 1 installed in one of the 800XL's I'll do the install for free, etc. I also have some parts to do memory upgrades for the 800XL's as well.

     

    One other item to add to my list is I do have a Happy board to install in one of the 1050s. If you'd like to get your hands on a Happy Drive, I'd be more than happy to install the Happy in a drive, and test it out for you before shipping it out.

     

    Thanks for looking.

     

    -Marshall

  5. Posted · Edited by SpicyChronos

    Hi all,

     

    I have some Atari 8-bit hardware up for grabs. Please make me an offer.

     

    I have 4 - 1050 Disk drives w/ Power supplies and SIO cables. Not sure if any of them have been modified, etc. I'll check them in the morning when I get home from work. One has be spoken for. (07-29-07)

    Update on the 4 - 1050s All stock drives (07-23-07)

     

    3 out of the 4 drives are good, the one will only spin the disk, and not seek the head (Tandon). Spins for three seconds, shuts off, and repeats. I think this is an easy fix.

     

    And as well as 3 of the 4 drives are Singapore built w/Tandon mechs, as the 4th is built in Hong Kong with a World mech.

     

    I also have a 65XE stock with Power Supply and monitor cable

     

    One 130XE modded with Steven Tuckers 4-in-1 OS (Normal OS, APE OS, 800 OS and Reverse Basic OS), with power supply and monitor cable

     

    2 - 800XL's in various states, but they all worked before disassembly. I was going to upgrade the memory and install 4-in-1 OSes in them. Never got the chance. I now have one (1) 800XL left, I'll re-assemble it to stock, but if someone would like to have it upgraded, i'll do whatever you want to it, Memory, OS upgrade, ClearPic, etc. The 1st 800XL has been spoken for, and will get some nice goodies. The 2nd 800XL has been spoken for (07-29-07)

     

    One 1050 for parts missing the front bezel. This is a Singapore built drive w/Tandon Mech. (Updated 07-24-07)

     

    An 810 for parts missing the top cover and front bezel

     

    An TRAK drive Model AT-D2 ( I'll get the model in the morning) with Power supply (not sure of the working condition of it, I'll check it as well. It's been in storage for a while) Looks Like it works great. Single and double density. Slave drive hook up, and printer interface on the back. Was able to format a disk in single and double density, and read/write both types of densities. The Trak AT-D2 drive has been spoken for. (07-29-07)

     

    An Indus GT drive in poor shape, w/ Power supply. (I added a write protect switch in the back) The drive worked before going into storage, but when I pulled it out, the control board at the front got damaged, and pushed in. This drive also has the CP/M module installed (I got it for a deal a long, long time ago, and never knew how to use it). So i'll sell it as parts as-is. The Indus Has been spoken for. Thank You. (07-20-07)

    A MyIDE+ 1Mbit flashcart modded with the Pin-20 power.I'll include an IDE to Compact Flash adapter w/LED indicators. (classics again) The MyIDE+Flash cart has been spoken for. Thank You. (07-23-07)

     

    1 - 4-in-1 OS upgrade from Steven Tucker (Classics) This uses two toggle switches to change the OS (Nornal OS, Reverse Basic OS, 800 OS, and Ape Warp OS+). (Updated 07-27-07)

    1 - Wizztronics 800XL 256K memory upgrade board with support chips, ribbon cable and 8 - 256K memory chips.

     

    1 - P:R: Connection by ICD (Just added 07-23-07)

     

    1 - 850 Interface in beige plastic shell w/Power Supply (just added 07-23-07)

     

    1 - CX-85 Keypad. (added 07-23-07)

     

    1 - Happy Drive modification board for 1050. (Added 07-27-07)

     

    Two huge boxes of blank or can be re-formatted DS/DD disks (at least 180+ disks) (updated 07-23-07)

     

     

    UPDATE: 07-29-07

     

    All items have been spoken for, thank you everyone for looking, and for those people who bought from me, thank you, I hope you enjoy your newly aquired Atari 8-bit hardware.

     

     

    Thanks all!

     

    -Marshall (SpicyChronos)

  10. Posted · Edited by SpicyChronos

    That chip was the problem with my Super Archiver II drive I won off of eBay a long time ago, even though the person said it didn't talk to the computer, I guessed that was the problem. So I promptly got some IC sockets and about a dozen of those chips (never know when your gonna need spares), and viola! it worked. So I hope for your problem it is the CA3086 chip at U1. Best of luck to you!

     

    -Marshall

    post-3905-1177130419_thumb.jpg

  13. Posted · Edited by SpicyChronos

    That's pretty slick!

     

    Hey Algie.. did you do the Write protect switch as well? Do you have a wiring diagram that you used?

     

    Mine works, but my LED only lights up when I put it into write only mode. nothing in normal (it should change when it detects a notch) I wonder if I wired mine wrong..

     

    -Spicy

     

    EDIT:

     

    Gee Um, helps if I wire it right. HAHA :roll:

     

    It's fixed now..

  14. Posted

    Well in my troubleshoting, etc of the drive, I opened the case and tried moving the rw heads a few times to see if it might have seized up. well the movement works fine if I remove the metal stopper that stops the head at track 0. otherwise it makes a horrible clicking sount, as it's trying to get to track 0.

    The top of platter 0 doesn't seem to have visible damage, but that may well lurk on one of the other sides. When bad sectors develop, the drive should try to read them a number of times before giving up in vain. If track 0 is bad, you're screwed. Does the drive find track 0 if you remove the stopper alltogether?

    BTW: make sure to close the lid if it doesn't need to be open, as even the tiniest of dust particles can cause a headcrash. When that happens, you're really, really screwed. :sad:

     

    Now you could try the following trick as a last resort, if you're prepared to wipe out any data stored on the drive. Put in the stopper in the position you think it originally was and lowlevel format (built in the controller's firmware or available as a separate program?) the drive. This will rewrite all tracks including track 0. If it detects a bad sector on track 0 when verifying the sectors, screw the stopper in a few turns and lowlevel format again. Repeat this procedure until track 0 verifies OK. Now lock the stopper with glue.

    What this routine does, is shift the physical position of the cylinders a bit to the inside of the platters. Usually there is some room available for this. I recall owning a Maxtor XT-1140 MFM drive once, which had a spare of more than 100 cylinders. That's more than 10%, originally it was listed as having 918 cylinders, but the completely identical RLL model (XT-2190) was sold as having 1024. Formatting the XT-1140 with 1024 cylinders worked flawless, and later on I used it on a WD1006 RLL controller for years without any problem whatsoever. :cool:

     

    As a sidestep in history, and an amusing story in its own right, I remember that back in the days over time Tandon TM-262 drives developed a similar defect as your drive is having. They didn't have a feature that parked the heads in a safe zone when powering down. Usually they parked in track 0, which was particularly nasty, as your partition table, sector table, directory entries and boot sector were all stored there. Once it had a bad sector there was nothing you could do about it. A friend of mine had found a way to revive such a drive, though. By reverse engineering he had found out he could inverse the position where the drive stores track 0. Originally this is the most outer cylinder, but by putting in modified PAL on the drives' electronics he could make the drive store track 0 on the most inner cylinder. After this hack these drives were good for another 2 years or so of use. Ah yes, the good ol' days, don't you just love 'em... :ponder:

     

    re-atari

     

    Very cool information.

     

    But what I need is some type of software to try to read sector 0, since this is where the partition table is located with the Supra/KP interface. I really would like to get the data off the drive, as there are programs on there that I don't have backups of from the originals (ie. Daisy Dot III, and some others) The software that I have for the interface is very simple, and no re-tries built in, etc.

     

    What I need is something that will read the sectors constantly, so I can see if I can get to sector 0. Like you said, read, adjust screw, read again, etc... If I knew what commands to use, I possibly could write something.. it'd be crude as I don't know assembly, m65, etc.. but I guess I could try BASIC. *shrug*

  15. Posted

     

    The Problem I'm having with the XEBEC drive is that the RW heads might be out of alignment (my fault) and I have no clue on how to re-align them.

     

    I think a lowlevel format can take care of the misalignment. The controller will have to provide such a routine in its firmware, of course. LLF'ing basically writes new blank tracks.

    Do you mean by misaligning, that you shifted or removed the track-00 sensor?

     

    re-atari

     

    Well in my troubleshoting, etc of the drive, I opened the case and tried moving the rw heads a few times to see if it might have seized up. well the movement works fine if I remove the metal stopper that stops the head at track 0. otherwise it makes a horrible clicking sount, as it's trying to get to track 0.

    post-3905-1176841659_thumb.jpg

  16. Posted

    Hi all.

     

    Okay, here's the scoop.

     

    I would like to try and get another HDD hooked up to my Supra/KPI interface, since my poor Xebec drive died. But I have a few old SCSI HDD's laying around, and would like to know how to tell if the drive supports 256Byte sectors. *i'm guessing that's what I need for this interface* I know I won't be able to use the full size, but I think the EPROM has it set to a 10Meg drive, with 1 720K fake floppy and two equal size 5 meg partiitons. I'm just wanting to make sure that it wasn't a futile attempt.

     

    Thanks all.

     

    -Spicy

     

    You are probably going to need the mfg's. data sheets to determine that. You mention "SCSI HDD's" -- I read that the Supra interface had booting problems with real SCSI drives (as opposed to an MFM drive using a bridge board). But perhaps that got fixed along the way. What kind of a bridge board did your XEBEC (SASI?) drive use?

    -Larry

     

    Hi Larry,

     

    It was a Xebec Owl 4000 drive I think, from the documentation I got from LLPWhite. It was just a drive. It had it's own controller on the board. it was an 50 connection edge connector straight to the KP interface.

     

    Here's what I tried... I have a 213MB Maxtor LXT213SY SCSI drive. I dumped the EPROM from DanWinslow's interface, and with the documentation I figured out what bits to change to add the correct Cylinders and Heads. As well as changing the partiton sizes. Well I tried that and with the formatting utility that comes with the docs, it errors out with some error codes.

     

    That's the smallest SCSI drive I have. all the rest are 2.1GB and 4.1GB.. too big for this project..

     

    The Problem I'm having with the XEBEC drive is that the RW heads might be out of alignment (my fault) and I have no clue on how to re-align them.

     

    -Spicy

  18. Posted

    Hi all.

     

    Okay, here's the scoop.

     

    I would like to try and get another HDD hooked up to my Supra/KPI interface, since my poor Xebec drive died. But I have a few old SCSI HDD's laying around, and would like to know how to tell if the drive supports 256Byte sectors. *i'm guessing that's what I need for this interface* I know I won't be able to use the full size, but I think the EPROM has it set to a 10Meg drive, with 1 720K fake floppy and two equal size 5 meg partiitons. I'm just wanting to make sure that it wasn't a futile attempt.

     

    Thanks all.

     

    -Spicy

  19. Posted

    Yes.. like that... and something else.. like my 800XL...

     

     

    I've done a lot of google searches, and still can only stumble on the hardware modification FAQ a lot, but not much else. I had a hard time locating the US doubler installation instructions with pictures. But I finally figured it out from the text.

     

    Well hopefully this might inspire more 8-bitters to dig through old docs, etc.. and get some of this knowledge on here.

     

     

    -Spicy

    post-3905-1176261769_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176261958_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262013_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262065_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262114_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262163_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262209_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1176262255_thumb.jpg

  20. Posted

    Hi all,

     

    I've now moved on from my old SCSI HDD fiasco, and now into trying to improve / hack / etc... some of my 8-bit stuff.

     

    My 800XL has been hacked at a log time ago, and I don't remember what the heck the hacks did. It does have the APE 4-in-4 OS, 256 Wizztronics memory upgrade, and I added a switch for compatibility with ramdisks (128 or 256K) and something to do with the video output to change it to monochrome for sharper text reading.

     

    I recently installed a US Doubler for the 1st time, and its working great. I've also modified the drive # switches, by moving them up to the front of the drive under the mechanism.

     

    I've also added the write protect switch w/the LED.

     

    But it took me a LONG time to research the write protect switch mod, and I can't seem to find other modifications out there. I remember being on a BBS and there were tons of documents on how to do this and that.

     

    But with the power of the internet, it seems like the information has disappeared.

     

    I suggest we collaborate and create a sticky or some other depository of information for these mods. I know we have a sticky for restoration, but this I'd like to see for hardware mods.

     

    I'm going to document how I did my mods, and include photos, and try to be descriptive as possible, so in the future, other people will be able to do it.

     

    Thanks for your time.

     

    -Spicy

  21. Posted · Edited by SpicyChronos

    Hi all,

     

    I've now moved on from my old SCSI HDD fiasco, and now into trying to improve / hack / etc... some of my 8-bit stuff.

     

    My 800XL has been hacked at a log time ago, and I don't remember what the heck the hacks did. It does have the APE 4-in-4 OS, 256 Wizztronics memory upgrade, and I added a switch for compatibility with ramdisks (128 or 256K) and something to do with the video output to change it to monochrome for sharper text reading.

     

    I recently installed a US Doubler for the 1st time, and its working great. I've also modified the drive # switches, by moving them up to the front of the drive under the mechanism.

     

    I've also added the write protect switch w/the LED.

     

    But it took me a LONG time to research the write protect switch mod, and I can't seem to find other modifications out there. I remember being on a BBS and there were tons of documents on how to do this and that.

     

    But with the power of the internet, it seems like the information has disappeared.

     

    I suggest we collaborate and create a sticky or some other depository of information for these mods.

     

    I'm going to document how I did my mods, and include photos, and try to be descriptive as possible, so in the future, other people will be able to do it.

     

    Thanks for your time.

     

    -Spicy

  25. Posted

    Please give a moment of silence for a old 10 megabyte HDD. Yes the Xebec 4000 10MB HDD has passed away. I took the old beast out back and put a slug through her platters.

     

    I've given up on getting the data off. I know when I'm beat, and I'll go into the corner now and lick my wounds. :sad:

     

    DanWinslow, I'll be sending back the interface shortly. Thanks again for letting me borrow it.

     

    Algie, thanks again for providing the BIN images for the interface.

     

    And everyone else that tried to help out.

     

    R.I.P.

    Born Dec 20, 1985

    Died April 6th, 2007

    Xebec 4000

     

     

    -Spicy

    post-3905-1175889210_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1175889240_thumb.jpg

    post-3905-1175889265_thumb.jpg

AtariAge
Forums
Store
General
Follow AtariAge

Copyright ©1998-2021 AtariAge

×
×
  • Create New...