moonlight_mile

I toned a bunch of traces and stuff on the board and the cable. They all seem to tone out. From what I can tell. However, while looking at the chip it appears from the top that there is some discoloring by pin 37 and 36. Yet if I pull it out and look at it on the side it looks fine. Those pins do connect to the board in the socket but they do look a little funny.

It won’t read a double density disk at all. I have tried formatting them on all my other drives. It will format double sided, but only in single density. I know pin 37 goes somewhere on the schematic but I didn’t see it going to the card edge either but I thought I would check. I am a beginner/novice at reading schematics but the one I have does show pin 37 (indicating s/d) going into one of the 74 logic chips.

That is one of the few things I didn’t do. I will tone it out. I know pin 37 on the controller chip is the density select so I assuming that should connect to pin 2 of the card edge of the floppy/cable. I have tried a few different cables and I do think I toned out my cable so I think that should be good. I will re-tone it just to make sure.

I haven’t tried that. I have thrown almost all my drives at it. They all do format double on the Percom controller. I have another 3 1797s on the way. If those don’t work out I will try the xf. Drive.

I vant to bite your finger is a Dracula game. I loved that commercial.

Struck out again. I don’t know what else it could be. I did order one of those z8430 chips but it looks like that is for the printer port. I broke down and ordered another few 1797s it’s gotta be that chip.

Well I have one of those gq-4x. Hopefully none of the win10 updates fubared it. I remember having to jump through hoops to get it working. Lol. Will let you know how things works out. I downloaded the rom file from: http://atariki.krap.pl/index.php/ATR_8000 I take it that is the most up to date rom file available.

I am going to give that a shot. I just have to re-teach myself how to use the eprom programmer. I had to get one that does the 25volts. It is a bit different than the other one I have (and everybody else has). I have noticed something with my 1797 chip. It looks as though it might be a burned prom. Is that possible? I attached pics of my original dead 1797 and the new 1797 I got. I doubt this is the issue but it just struck me as odd that they were clearly different packages.

Gave it a shot. Tried all kinds of different combinations. (Sparta 3.2d) but it always refused to format DD. SD it was fine. But never DD. It would just sit there with any drive I through at it. I tried swapping out the drive controller chip and the z80. All the same result. There is only one other socketed chip I haven’t swapped (I don’t have any spares). The only other thing I could think of is maybe my rom is corrupted? Is that possible? Would it affect the drive controllers? I have spare EPROMs but not gonna bother is yaw’ll don’t think that is the problem.

I did play a little with the config. How would I tell mydos/drive to use the Percom block?

Nope, no dice. I am not overly familiar with Mydos but I think I got it. I originally formatted a disk. At the top it indicated “1S-“. Formatted fine. I used the P command to change the density. I keyed in 1,D. After this the top indicated “1D-“. Won’t format. Just times out. I can hear the head moving once every 15 seconds but then it times out. Any ideas?

Hmmm. Maybe that is it. It will not read any double density disks. I have been able to get mydos loaded and tried to format the 5.25 drive in double density and it just sits there and eventually errors out. Now. I only tried to format the 3.5 disk in dd in Sparta dos. I will have to try to make a mydos disk and try to format the 3.5 in double density. See what happens. Low and behold I found out the new tandon 100-2a I got, the top head broke off it’s mount and was just dangling there. Ugh. Gonna try to return it. I am so close to finishing this project. Lol!

Been playing around with the atr. Got the old 3.5 drive from my st running nicely and the other drives I hook up run nice. Now the issue. It seems as though if I try to read/write/format in double density it chokes. I only discovered this because I was trying to create cp/m disks. But it appears any sector copier I try it needs to write the disks in double density. I was able to write them with the xf551 but it never seems to work with any of the drives connected to the atr. Is there a jumper on the atr I am missing? Seems really weird that it does everything in single density but it chokes in DD. I have the terminator in the drive, I try to index a double density disk, nada. Any ideas?

I just got an email from the State of Texas regarding SWP. Here is the email: Good afternoon, I found 2 different entities out of Arlington by the name SOFTWARE PUBLISHERS, INC. The first was filed October 2, 1981 but went into tax forfeiture December 2, 1985. Reinstated January 15, 1986, this corporation changed its name to JOHN D. MCFARLEN, INC. before ending up in tax forfeiture again January 9, 1989. The last registered agent listed was John D McFarlen and the last registered office address was 1208 Sugar Mill Arlington, TX USA (file # 58055400). The second corporation by that name that I found was filed November 9, 1982 and was voluntarily dissolved November 27, 1985. The last registered agent listed was John D Mcfarlen and the last registered office address was 1208 Sugar Mill Arlington, TX (file # 62932000). Please see screenshots below. If you would like, it is still possible to order copies of the documents we have on file for these entities, but because of the age of the filings, they would need to be ordered from archives. You may call our office Monday through Friday from 8:00-5:00 CST and ask to speak with a representative on the Certifications Team. Tell the person you speak with it cannot be ordered online, since they are legacy filings. 512-463-555 the screenshots only show what she indicated above. I can upload those if you all want them.

I am going to do some more playing around. I am only testing it with my Percom tandon 100-1a. It is set as ds1. (I am too lazy to tear apart my other percoms. Lol) So I am either booting from the sio2sd or my xf551. I think late last night I got it to attempt to format but I was trying it with the hd disks which it didn’t like. Is there any way to use ds/hd disks? I already ordered some ds/dd disks. While on the subject. I apologize if this was covered, I did read this whole thread but didn’t really see the info I was looking for. Can I write the cp/m .td0 with the atr and Atari? I don’t have an old pc with a floppy controller so I can’t use that. Thanks.

SUCCESS! The new 1797 brought the drives to life! Now it does not like to play nice with spartados 3.2d. But I did get the drive to format in Atari dos 2.0. So it is clearly working. Sadly all the blanks I got a few years ago are starting to flake out. Probably tired of me running them through all my Percom drives. I found some ds/hd disks but those don’t want to format. I am guessing the hd disks just aren’t compat with regular 180/360/720k drives. I’ll have to look for some new old stock ds/dd disks. Did the ATR ever work properly with spartados 3.2d? I did play around with it in mydos 4.x. So now I am going to have to decide what kinda of drives I want to use. I gotta find ones that work as I have 4 full height paperweights.

Those are already socketed. If I have to order the buffers I will order some sockets. Keeping my fingers crossed. My chips should have been here yesterday but with all the shenanigans going on with the USPS I have to wait until Monday.

Wow. I didn’t know that about their CP/m exposure. Yeah, when you search for software publishers you get a slew of recent companies. Lol. I guess we could request government information about them with the freedom of info act. Maybe I will look into that. I mean I never had an atr in the 80s. I was a Percom guy but now that I have one I’d love to find out info about them. I coveted one. Lol. I know the 8-bit guy is doing a run of episodes of all Texas tech companies. Maybe they will show up in his videos.

While we are on the subject and I am waiting for my chips. Does anyone know what happened to Software Publishers,inc? (SWP). I can google the address and it appears that the building is still in Arlington but couldn’t dig up any info on what happened to the company? I know there is a little webpage for Percom and their background but nuttin’ for ol’ SWP.

Thanks. Buddy. It just dawned on me the other day when I saw the 16 sticker and I knew the jumpers were set for 64.

Gotcha. When I get my new controller chips if that doesn’t solve the issue I will look at those. (Probably need some help but I’ll cross that bridge as they say). Oh did you know how I can tell how much memory I have in my Unit?

Which chips are the drive buffers?

Phew! I really don’t want to have to start unsoldering chips if I don’t have to. Ok I order two 1797s and a few 2732s (needed a $30 order for). So hopefully this will solve my problems. Will keep you guys informed. Thanks again everyone for your help!

Hey guys, I have an ATR with some issues. I have been working with Jeff (Worley) on getting it up and running. My main focus is getting the floppy drives working. I have replaced all the caps but it still seems to have some issues. Basically, the drive lights with light up but it never initialized the drive. (No head movement). I have tried a number of drives, checked the cables, etc. All the normal stuff. It is set up as an Atari peripheral, not an Rs232 terminal. I thought the z80 May have been the problem so I ordered one. Got it and it was worse than before, so either the “new”z80 was dead or a fake. (The screen print looks a little to new so I think it was a fake ). I did order another one but that hasn’t arrived yet. Jeff suggested I try getting into the ATRMON to see if it is doing anything. After a few failed attempts I got the ATRMON to come up. I didn’t have any real commands to test but I did try the “m” command and it started spitting out memory locations. So it is doing something. (I put the original z80 back in). So... it seems the RS232 seems to be ok. Playing around further I thought maybe try replacing the fdc1797. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find any on eBay or anywhere else. I also noticed that U46 and u53 were getting warm. None of the other chips (besides the z80) were warming up. So, I stumbled on this thread. I looked at U46 and u53 and they don’t seem to be regular 74 series logic chips. First off. What are u46 and u53? Seems from some of the replies in this thread they might be some type of EPROMs. Can these actually be replaced? Does anyone have any idea where I might be able to find an FDC1797 and those other two chips (or replacement chips)? I attached pics of u46 and u53. One last query. I have a 16 sticker on the back of the unit which I am assuming was put there to indicate a 16k model, however, I am pretty sure the jumpers are set for 64k. How can I tell how much memory is installed on my unit? I included a pic of my memory banks. Thanks for any and all help!

Yup! I have to clean that desk up twice a year as it gets to be such a mess before I know it. Why I’ll never know as I don’t ever seem to have enough time playing down there. Lol.