shoestring

You can probably solder on a leg from a donor chip if enough of the broken pin is still exposed.

Don't know how extensive the damage is. I've used adhesive copper tape which works really well also. I cut the tape into thin strips then patch the area.

I think the quality of the XE mainboard is quite good actually. I've socketed a 130xe mainboard without issues. Try working on some of these arcade PCBs and you'll see what I mean

Have you tried swapping the two 4051 multiplexers ( two identical chips near the ribbon connector ) to see if your symptoms change on the keyboard ?

It probably wouldn't. Each dram is organised as 16kb x 4 bits. Which basically means you need at least two of them to give you 8 bits of data per memory address.

Have a look at the Sam's Computerfacts Technical Service Data - Atari 130XE http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/Atari%20documents/Service%20Manuals/Sam's%20Computerfacts%20Technical%20Service%20Data%20-%20Atari%20130XE.pdf

Sounds like the CPU is shorted internally and that's dragging the +5v down so much that the clock generator isn't working. Are you getting the typical low->high reset signal on pin 36 of the antic or rst pin of the 6502 ? That will tell you if the reset circuit is good or not. The Freddie chip is CMOS and I believe the MMU is as well, probably fried also. This is going to be hard to trouble shoot without a good known CPU. I have a 65xe with a 130xe motherboard that suffered exactly the same fate. I ended up replacing the CPU, Freddie, MMU ( I programmed a GAL16v8 in its place ) , RAM and the GTIA ( I was missing keyboard click sounds ) to get it working again. I also had to replace the OS ROM as well due to my own stupidity.

Yes the 600XL uses the MMU ( C061618 ). In theory it should just turn the block red but my understanding is that it doesn't test all the ram. Some of it is used as work ram to create the screen, perhaps make use of the stack and if that is bad then CPU will crash.

If its crashing at the same point every time in the self test then my money would be on the ram ( pairs of 4416s ) or associated support logic ( ttl ). While you're in there, its probably worth while upgrading the ram and perform this mod. http://atariage.com/forums/topic/183694-600xl-64k-upgrade-pictures/?p=3625550 As for some keys not working it's likely that you have a bad 4051 mux or you've unintentionally bent one of the pins when you re-seated the chips. To test these things you really need a logic tester and ram tester. I use my TopMax EPROM programmer which has test functionality built into it but these don't come cheap.

Try a different power supply. Or check the +5 voltages at the chips.

1. Pitstop II 2. Maniac Mansion 3. Murder On The Mississippi 4. Mercenary Escape From Targ 5. Terra Cresta This is based on games I played the most on my c64.

He does give credit when it's due. So I don't think he is biased at all. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7poswTbHIaM If you think you can make a better comparison between the c64 and Atari then open your own YT channel and make a video. It's not as easy as you think.

Nice fix. I was following this thread and was thinking it was an issue with one of the caps in the audio/amp section but russg had already suggested it. Quiet / humming audio is almost always a bad capacitor.

I have a few spare gal16v8s and the equipment to program them. I am based in Australia though so maybe you can get a better offer closer to you.

I've been following his channel for awhile and he does some really good game reviews. He is the only guy on YT that does lets compare videos on real hardware, he refuses to do comparisons on emulators. He does admit in his videos that he may be biased towards the c64 in some ways because that's the system he grew up with however, I don't think there's anything wrong with his view on the Atari.

There's actually a similar mod I stumbled upon which is even cleaner than the mod I used but I can't seem to find it again.

Don't forget Terra Cresta. That's a very good port with great music

Great work. Yes the alcohol makes the biggest difference to stubborn keys, some folks replace the key switches instead when there is no real need ( most of the time ).

The only issue I had was with the board not sitting flush in my 600xl which made the system unstable. It was just a case of trimming the pins back on the solder side of the board and I could get the board to sit flush. I'm really happy with the board. I'm looking at getting another for my XE.

Thanks I'll check then out!

I forgot to mention that I also had no click sound when the keys were pressed in basic. So the NOS GTIA finally arrived and I installed it, now I have my clicks back. Now the question is, where can I get a label from ? I know someone is selling a reproduction on eBay but I'd like an original. If anyone has a spare lying around that they don't want or knows someone please let me know. It doesn't have to be a 65xe label, 130xe one will do.

It's probably the 2114 colour ram or PLA. If you think it's heat related then try some freeze spray on the suspected chips.

I used some isopropyl and inserted a few drops inside the keyswitch, worked the keys up and down, side to side. Seems to have done the trick. But it seems you have a different problem.

I've been looking at the original C64 / disk based code through Regenerator 1.7 This is actually a much better disassembler than what I've used previously but I'm still using Infiltrator to look at the resources. I'm currently looking to see what I can re-use and what I would have to wre-write ( disk based I/O, DLIs..etc ) to see if this is feasible or leave it to someone with more experience. I work full time, so I'll only be able to work on this stuff during my own time.

Yes it's definitely one of the games that should have been released on the Atari. If I were going to port this, it would have to be the disk based version. There was a tape version which was missing a lot of features.