DavidMil

Ok, I found the problem. It was three broken connectors (2 inside and one outside) of the J201 connector. The eight, ten, and eleven pins on J201 were all broken. I've pulled J201 out and I'll call Best to see if he has any. Thank you all for your help. David

Here's a new one on me. I've got an 800 power board that won't transfer anything on the SIO buss. Basic (including the keyboard) works fine, as does Star Raiders and Mule (sounds included). And I can press the Reset button to reboot the computer. I can hold down the Start key when I turn the computer on, and I can hear the Cassette player beep. Since I don't have a cassette player any longer, I can't tell if it works or not. I can't hear my 850 load or connect to any of three different 1050's. I have several 800 and several extra power supply boards. Any combination of other power boards or 800's work fine. The problem follows this 800 power supply board. All of the traces ohm out good between the 13 pin SIO connector and the big J201 connector to the mother board (and other connections on the power board). Suggestions? Anyone? David

When you hold down a key, would you mind counting the characters that appear before the odd character and L's start showing up? I'm curious to know if it is always the same amount of character repeats (no matter which key is held down) before the odd character and L's star showing up. DavidMil

The problem is with the transport stepper motor. The transport from the good 1050 worked ok with the PC Board of the questionable transport. Thank you Doctor and Peri Noid. I'll give both of your suggestion a try (Doctor's first), and let you know what happens. If I can pull the motor apart and clean it; great. If I totally destroy it; no real lose. At the worst, there are several on ebay. David

Does anyone know if there is a source for new 1050 stepper motors? I have a 1050 that the stepper motor stops and you can give it a little 'push' with a finger and it starts moving again. At least until it comes back to that same spot. I marked it with a pencil and the motor stops at that same spot no matter which way the head is moving. I pulled the whole transport assembly out of the 1050 and swapped it with another 1050. The problem followed the questionable stepper motor transport. There are no bad spots on the rails or other obstructions that I can see. The motor is a DC COPAL Motor # LC-177E DavidMil

The board is on its way to kenames99. I am very much looking forward to hear what he discovers about it! If I remember right, the 1090XL used the same power supply as a 1027 printer? Anyone know for sure? DavidMil

One time I think I was close to getting the hyperdrive booster, but the game crashed and I hadn't made a backup in a while. Then I discovered that my Flight II disk have died too. I do remember that it is important to use your Hi-DEF scanner. I picked up some clues from other ships via the scanner. If think that the game has certain goals that have to be attained before you can find the booster, I had been to all the stars and most of the planets. I had tried my hand at mining and piracy, and I had also bought and sold stuff and completed a few contracts. David

First thing I do is look at all the electrolytic caps. Make sure that none of them are swollen or leaking. Then I look for any blackened or burnt components. If everything looks good, make sure that you have about 9 or 10 volts AC at the junction of CR208 and CR209 to ground (with the power switch set to ON and the interlock switch closed). If that voltage is good, I would suspect the voltage regulators. A201 (78M12) and A202 (7805). Here is a copy of the Atari field service manual for Atari 400's and 800's. DavidMil Atari_400_800_Field_Service_Manual_June_82.pdf

It came today! Dr.Venkman was correct; this is not a working 1090XL board, but rather a prototype. Even at that, it still can't work as it is. First thing I noticed is that the on/off switch is jumpered out with a trace between the two through hole points on the board. Also the red LED (CR15) is in the middle of the board, just like the schematics at AtariMuseum. The passive components only go halfway down the side of the board, and there are a lot less caps, resistors and inductors on this board. While it's not a working board it is a very unique as most companies usually only make a very few of these proto boards. I'm sorry Ken, that I promised you something that I now can't deliver. Here are the pictures... DavidMil

Is there a site that keeps up with errors in Atari Manuals? I have found some labeling errors in the old 800 Power Supply board schematics in both the service manual and the field service manual? Specifically Caps being named as diodes. DavidMil

Sorry, the board has been mailed second day air. So that 'should' put it here Saturday. But this time of year, I'm thinking Monday. I'll take pictures and post them as soon as I get it. I can tell you this: It's for a 1090, but I don't think it ever went to production. As Dr.Venkman pointed out, I think it may have been an R&D board DavidMil

I'm getting a board from a friend and when I asked him what the Rev level was, he looked at the bare printed circuit board and read 'Rev.- X1R copyright 2-84 manufacture date 8-84'. This is an authentic Atari circuit board and he is a very reputable person. Anyone ever heard of this before? DavidMil

You might try My Atari. I bought one (a top and bottom case together) from him a couple of months ago. I told him that they didn't need to be in perfect condition. When I got the two pieces they both had some minor scratches on them, but nothing serious. DavidMil

After playing the game for 4 hours yesterday, I figured that it was time to make another set of backup disks. Now I remember one of the things that I had come to hate about that game. The make copies of disks that is included in the Save Game routine can cause faulty backups. To make a long story short, it corrupted all three of my player disks! So I'm going to start using a disk copy program to make backups of my player disk from now on. The save game part of the Save Game routine works fine, it just the make copies part that blows! David PS. The Flight II disk that DjayBee posted works great. Thank you!

Hope not, cause I just now made a disk of Flight II and when I finish this post I'm going to fire up my old 800 and see what happens! I'll let you all know... David PS the docs say that none of the disks are copy protected. Thank you videofx! DM

If anyone ever makes some more of these Print heads I would love to order three or four. Or I guess I could start over with making them myself... DavidMil

Thank you. I hope that the disk 4 is not the same as the one on Atarimania, because that dump is flawed. DavidMil

I had to go look at them. I have version 1.2 (dated May of 1984). I think that the Starport disk is the only one that is copy protected. As I remember the directions even tell you to make copies of the other three disks. David

This was a while back, but I was doing a lot of searching on the internet and somehow found the company that Atari purchased the print wheels from. Unfortunately that ended as a dead end because the company was purchased by a larger company that dumped all the printers/parts that they didn't want, and only kept the printers that sold well. That info is still out there on the internet. No one at the current company even knew anything about Atari printers or parts! DavidMil

Irgendwer's print head material was not strong enough and cracked/broke up after a few weeks of use (at least the two that he sent me did). Be VERY CAREFUL of the tines, if they are the slightest bit off, they will catch the sides of the raised characters and rip the printhead to pieces in a heart beat! I don't know if he ever revisited this project. I for one would love to get a couple more if he does! DavidMil

Any thoughts about floppy drive enclosures? David

By any chance is your Flight 2 disk still working? Mine is dead. I need it to finish the game. Thanks, David PS. I wrote a Quick Start Guide some years ago. That will help you a long way towards finishing the game! DM

Ok, I'm seeing different problems (though small) with different versions. I have rev 4.2.1. What version should I upgrade to for the latest 'bestest' all around version? Thank you, DavidMil

Well this is really too embarrassing to admit but... Today I went back and looked at what I was doing; and then it dawned on me. Where was the colon after the drive letters? Looking back at my posts, I wasn't even adding them there! I really hope that the Previgen I've been taking for several weeks now will kick in! Anyway I now have a lot of files to start moving over! Sorry to waist your time... David

After FDISK finishes I go back to the SDX D1 prompt and run Format. When Format finishes running a quick message appears that says, 'Format successful'. That only stays on the screen for about one second then it disappears and you are back at the format screen. Then I go back to the SDX D1 prompt and try to access the drives But I get the same '138 drive not responding' message. I've tried D3 and C (which Format likes to change D3 to on its' own when you press 'B' as in the picture). Note: I can always go back and look at the partitions with FDISK after I run FORMAT and they appear to be unchanged. David