electronizer

Recently I brought "the one that started it all" out of storage: the 800XL my dad bought for our family as a Christmas gift when I was 6. I wanted to clean up the video and add chroma, so I opened the case for the first time in probably almost 30 years. I was also curious to see the Rambo XL upgrade my dad installed to increase the memory to 256K. My dad was a member of the Madison (WI) Area Atari User's Group, or MAAUG. Having heard that "more memory is good," we decided to install the upgrade, which we purchased from the user's group. I think we thought that the existing programs we had would automagically run faster or better once the additional memory was in. The reality was that, years later, I dug out an old MAAUG newsletter and realized that unless you wrote your own software, had a program specifically written to take advantage of the 130XE's extra memory, or used a special DOS to set up a ramdisk, that memory was just sitting there idle. Other than using the ramdisk to save a few BASIC programs I was typing in (I was amazed at the speed), I never really used it. I'm hoping to change that now Upon opening the case, the upgrade in all its glory was revealed! My dad has excellent soldering skills, but he told me he was terribly afraid that he would hook it all up and find out that he had bricked the computer. Some of the MAAUG members held "soldering parties" to install the upgrade and test it out. I'm sure my dad was greatly relieved when everything worked. I have attached a picture of the upgrade. Luckily we had a socketed motherboard, so soldering the pins on the PIA was easier. If I can find the newsletter that details the upgrade, I'll post that here too. One other "time capsule" find. At some point a year or two after we got the computer, I had the stomach flu and threw up all over the keyboard! Undaunted, my dad disassembled the computer, took out the keyboard, and washed it. It's still working today! After I opened the case, I noticed some discoloring that could only have come from this incident. Memories...

Does anyone have any tips/tricks for taking apart cartridges that don't screw together? I have a Popeye cart that looks like someone buried it in the dirt for safe keeping, and I'd like to take it apart for a full cleaning.

Quite right! That should have been "3-4 story" buildings.

Back from Taiwan and I miss the food already! I ended up both going to Tamsui (current spelling) and talking to my wife's auntie. Her auntie did indeed work at the Philco factory (in the incoming department), but it was in the early 70s and she left before Atari got there. She said there were several major TV manufacturers in the area, but that most, if not all, eventually sold the land to developers. Finally (sad news), she said the Philco plant was no longer there. For those who are interested, the plant was walking distance from the Zhuwei station on the Tamsui-Xinyi line of the MRT (Taipei's rapid transit system). From the train, I mostly saw high rise housing and commercial properties, though there were a couple of older looking, 34 story large square windowless buildings that might have been factories or warehouses. Unfortunately, I didn't get time to investigate more closely, nor did I find any 1200XLs at the local flea markets

Great photos! What's the game on the 800XL in the 7th photo of the iPhone album? Looks like there are some palm trees?

The street food at the night market is the best part! A bit of searching led me to this: http://tamsui.dils.tku.edu.tw/wiki/index.php/臺灣飛歌股份有限公司 Feeding the second paragraph into Google Translate gives this: In 1966 , the American company Philco to Danshui set up factories , the plant is located 31 Danshui Houchuwei in the National Road , the plant in transistor radios, clock radios, record players, stereo radio , black and white TV , color TV board and other electrical products manufacturing and assembly. Then I found this link that makes the connection between the Philco plant and the Atari plant: http://taiwaninfo.nat.gov.tw/fp.asp?xItem=124918&CtNode=103 Richard Krieger, vice-president and general manager of Atari's Far East operations, confirmed that the company has purchased the former Sylvania-Philco Taiwan Corp. plant c1ose to Tamsui on Taiwan's northeast coast. It makes sense that Atari would acquire a plant like this since it's already geared for electronics production. A bit of Google maps searching and I came up with this: https://www.google.com.tw/maps/place/No.+31,+Minzu+Rd,+Tamsui+District,+New+Taipei+City,+251/@25.1363659,121.4600202,3a,75y,357.68h,88.86t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sleHKKUou2ao0Nlv5Vewv6Q!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DleHKKUou2ao0Nlv5Vewv6Q%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D64.478271%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656!4m5!3m4!1s0x3442af9d946e045f:0x559d8ab93cf22bdb!8m2!3d25.136607!4d121.4609779!6m1!1e1?hl=en My wife is from Taiwan, and my father in law knows this area well. We suspect that the factory is no more; the land is very valuable and the city has changed a lot since Atari was there. I'm still not sure I'm looking in the right place, but by amazing coincidence, one of my wife's aunties worked at the Philco factory back in the day and may have even worked there when Atari took over. I'm hoping I'll get a chance to ask her about it!

Does anyone know the location of the Atari Taiwan factory? I'm headed there and would like to check out the site if possible.

I've seen people talking about using the DVDO iScan HD video processor to clean up the video output of their Atari and display it on an LCD screen. I've been looking for one for a while now and finally found one at a flea market last weekend. I don't have a DVI to HDMI adapter so I was only able to test it out with a VGA cable (connected to a Samsung LCD TV) and the results were so-so. It looks like there are a lot of settings I can tweak. For people who use this device, how do you have it configured? I'm assuming the DVI output is the way to go and I have an adapter on the way, but are there any settings I should try that really make the video shine?

I was one of the first three to sign up. Really looking forward to getting one of these--thanks for taking on this project!!

My wife had this BITD and it was her favorite game. If we can get it ported to the Atari 8-bits, maybe she'll forgive me for filling our closets with vintage computers!

I came across this on Craigslist: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/for/5771377784.html I don't know the seller. I see at least one 800 in the mix...wonder what else is hiding in there?

Way back in middle school I installed menus and autorun.sys files on a bunch of Atari disks in our industrial arts lab, which had a room that was dedicated to computers (several Atari 800s and Apples). While looking through cabinets for more equipment, I came across an 820 printer, which I had never heard of before. The shop teacher told me it was broken and that I could have it. I eagerly took it home and started to try to diagnose the problem, but try as I might, I couldn't figure out what was wrong (the symptom: I turned it on, but couldn't get it to print or even to advance paper by pressing the button). All the right signals for the paper feed button were making it to the PIA, so I tried replacing that, but still no luck. I sealed the printer in my Atari cache and there it sat for...*ahem* quite a few years. Fast forward to the present. After fixing several temperamental 2600s and a 600xl by pulling out the socketed ICs, lightly buffing the pins, and replacing them, a light bulb went on in my head. I retrieved the 820 from the depths of my basement, pulled the three shielded ICs, buffed the pins, and replaced them. Imagine my excitement when the printer roared to life after so many years sitting silent! "Wow...it really does sound like a dishwasher!" Now, I want to give it a proper cleaning and re-grease the printer mechanism. However, the FSM calls for "IBM #23" or "Lubriplate #70" grease, and those appear to be discontinued. Apparently, tubes of the IBM grease are highly prized, and people say it's better than synthetic grease. So, my question: what kind of grease do people use to lubricate the plastics on their printers? Based on the design of the 820's bizarre printer mechanism, it seems like the grease is a crucial part of the equation for keeping the printer running at peak performance.

The seller mentioned that he plugged an 800XL power supply in to this 1400XL. Would that cause any damage? IIRC the pinouts are different and the 1400XL requires several different voltages, including -12V.

I have an SIO2SD and I use Disk Wizard II. I boot Disk Wizard II on the SIO2SD configured as drive 1 with an 810 configured as drive 2. Then, I select the sector copy option in Disk Wizard II, source D1, dest D2. Before I kick everything off, I reconfigure the SIO2SD to point to the ATR file I want to copy. Works like a charm! I've never used SIO2PC but I assume it can be configured similarly to SIO2SD to mimic any drive number and point to an ATR. More info on Disk Wizard in this thread: http://atariage.com/forums/topic/174204-disk-wizard-iidiskwizii/

While going through a box of Atari stuff I got back in the day, I found this homebuilt power supply: I made a quick schematic drawing; the only component I couldn't get a good view of was the small electrolytic capacitor across the output. I'm guessing it's around 10 or 20uF. Does anyone recognize this design (e.g. did it appear in a magazine or other publication)? Any thoughts on its quality? Based on the schematics I've seen of the "official" power supplies, this one seems simple in comparison—only 7 components! I'm a little short on good XL/XE power supplies. Assuming that the components are still good and I get 5V at the output, would this be a reliable supply to use?

Is anyone planning to bring Atari 8-bit systems to VCF West?

An Atari 400, Programmer, and Entertainer, along with various other cartridges, all in the original boxes and with all papers (bought it from someone who kept everything meticulously organized). Gave it away along with my NES. Sigh...

After a string of lucky "Untested/As-Is" 8-bit hardware purchases where things just worked, my luck ran out with a recently acquired 600XL (the last of the common 8-bit Atari computers missing from my collection). I never knew that the 600XL was smaller than the 800XL both behind and in front of the keyboard. Here it is next to the first Atari my family ever owned (purchased in 1984): I plugged in the 600XL, tuned my TV to channel 3, turned on the computer, and...got a noisy black screen. After disassembling everything (the 600XL seems to be built a little more solidly than my 800XL, with interlocking top and bottom RF shields), I reconnected the power, turned it on, and looked for hot chips. Finding none, I then started removing and reseating the socketed (whew!) ICs. GTIA, nothing. ANTIC...aha! We're in business! Of course, the picture is pretty terrible. I'm guessing that replacing the RF shielding will help somewhat, but I have two questions: Should I remove and reseat the rest of the ICs (or just some of them?) Should I use some kind of cleaner on the chip pins and the sockets? Atari computers with soldered ICs may be a pain to repair, but at least they don't suffer from the dreaded socket corrosion affliction (I have 3 socketed 2600s, none of which works—the only one I've had a chance to work on improved when I reseated the ICs). stock.mov ANTIC.mov

Christmas 1984: 800XL (still have it, including the 256K Rambo XL I watched my dad install) circa 1990: barebones PC XT (no case, 640k RAM, 20 meg HDD and 5 1/4" floppy with a green monitor assembled on a card table. Found an 8087 math coprocessor at the university's EE parts store and dropped that in too.) Circa 1993: 486DX 50MHz with VESA local bus graphics (16 million colors!!!) Used Sun workstations in college and HP workstations at my first job Various PCs after that until I switched to a MacBook Air when I became a teacher.

I always wanted to see Wings of Fury on the Atari. Played it for the first time on my cousin's Apple when we went to the east coast for a family reunion, and I was hooked!

Here's mine: AV 416673 103 Amazing how good the RF out is on these 400s.

I found this one in a trash pile years ago with a bunch of other Atari stuff, including an 800 and an 810 with a bunch of disks. I remember seeing the Fuji when I booted it up for the first time and thinking how cool that was. I wish I had some way to keep the serial number label from deteriorating any more :-( 72R DA 04338 173

I found a couple of old 300MB SCSI drives, hopefully one of them works. They're massive, they must be 5lbs a piece! I'm getting ready to replace the fried termination resistor network. It's the only chip on the board that isn't socketed. :-( How easy are these boards to desolder? Do I need to be more careful than usual about lifting a trace?

It seems the problem is worst when printing in 40 columns. For some reason, the feed roller reverses whenever there is a carriage return. When printing in 80 columns, the roller almost always feeds the ribbon in the right direction.

And, voila--the socketed 800xl works as is! I am able to load cartridges and the ROM test passes both bars. It's surprising that the socketed models are so much better. This 800xl has the 256k Rambo XL that my dad installed when I was a kid. It doesn't have any video updates though, so I'll be getting my soldering iron out again. Good thing I got a chance to practice adding chroma on the unsocketed model. On a side note, how did people cope with word processing in 40 columns and then getting an 80 column printout that looks totally different? :-P