hueyjones70

I have an original RAMBO but it is installed in a 1200XL. I have a piggyback OmniView that was installed in an 800XL, I took it out of the XL and tried it in an XE. It works fine in the XE and with the Atariwriter+ 80 which was modified by David Young to work with Omniview. The AW+80 will not work with the 1200XL or the 800XL. I tried the AW+80 on an 800XL with wiztronics 256 and omniview; the program would not load. I tried AW+80 on a 1200XL with RAMBO and 32-n-1 omniview; the program would load but the screen was subject to rapid flickering and would not work. I then tried AW+80 on an 800XL and the Omniview Piggyback setup. The results were the same as on the 1200XL. I concluded that the AW+80 will only work on a 130XE with omniview. The RAMBO and Wiztronics upgrades are supposed to be XE compatible but they are not compatible in ALL cases.

Pictures of piggyback chips

For some reason, my pictures did not show up as pictures. I thought I was following the directions for adding images but apparently not. Would someone care to remind me of the correct procedure for posting images.

I recently bought an 800XL that had a switch on the side that was marked XL and 80. The 80 turned out to be Omniview 256. the OS chips are piggybacked and the chip on top did not have a label, so I don't know if it was an original from CDY or a copy. I haven't been able to find any reference to this set up anywhere in the forums or on line anywhere. I suppose someone with a good knowledge of electronics just knew where to place the resistors and which pin to eliminate. I am attaching pictures. I would like to duplicate this setup and use it in a 130XE.

That is what I had in my 1200XL and my sockets were 24 pin but the silkscreen shows the pattern for 24 and 28 pin. I replaced the sockets with 28 pin for the 31-in-1 OS upgrade.

Correction to a previous post, my RAMBO is an original, I have a Bits-of-the-Past on an XL.

My Rambo was from Bits of the Past.

I will give that idea some thought. I would worry somewhat about losing the only copy that I personally know still exists, but I might be willing to make an effort for the greater good. I would want the copier to make me several back-ups. Is there any way to break copy protection and create an ATR of a protected disk?

I just installed my new 32-in-1, OS in a 1200XL and it is giving me some problems. When I first went to set it up I would power on while pressing SELECT and nothing would happen until I pressed reset then I would get the menu screen. I specifically purchases this item for the OMNIVIEW OS. After selecting OMNIVIEW I would get a screen that showed OMNIVIEW XE in the top left corner of the screen. When I pressed a key I would get a column of garbage characters. I could get to the 80 column screen but it did not respond to any commands such as DOS or anything else. Going back to the 40 column screen yielded the same results. At first I did not have any problems with the XL XE OS but now the system has frozen up and when I boot up I get nothing but a green screen. I finally inserted a cartridge and powered on and the cart booted. I was then able to reboot without the cart and switch from Omniview to XL/XE and the system seems to work again. The problem is that I really wanted Omniview because I have speedscript 80 and hopefully Atariwriter Plus 80. Does the 32-in-1 have any compatibility problems with RAMBO 256 because I have that installed and I have also done the Supervideo modification to this 1200XL. I wasn't able to get anything to work with omniview, I didn't think to try it with a basic cartridge installed. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow.

The disk is copy protected, I have tried to copy with regular DOS 2.5, and with a happy drive and no success. I don't have an Archiver or anything that is supposed to be able to copy the uncopiable disks. If I knew that the Archiver would definitely work, I might be tempted to purchase an upgrade.

Now I need to find an ACE 80 cartridge and a bit 3 board to complete my collection.

I would like to announce at least partial success. I purchased an assortment of used diskettes on ebay and one of them was the 80 column omniview modified AtariWriter Plus. The omniview people only modified the XE version of AW plus. When I tried to run it on my 800XL with wiztronics 256 upgrade, I got the screen message "This is not an XE". I removed the wiztronics upgrade and installed a Rambo upgrade. The program would then load but the screen was unstable in the create a document mode. The screen seemed to be rapidly oscillating between two or more screens views. If I typed a letter, I could see the letter during the key press but then it would disappear. I then moved by omniview to a 130XE and now everything works as it should. I don't know if the problem is with that particular XL or if the problem is with the way Rambo does something. I am going to try the omniview in a 1200XL. If it doesn't work there I will just let it go and be satisfied that the XE version will only work correctly on an actual XE machine.

The resistors were R134, R135, and R136

Black screen or blue screen I have an 800XL that has previously been a blank blue screen and is now a blank black screen. I have changed every chip on the MB and they all work on another computer. I don't know if this is the problem or not but, the GTIA pins 12, 13, and 14 ( these are for START, SELECT, AND OPTION) only show .1 to .15 Volts. I have checked the voltage on the pins and on the connectors in the back of the MB. I get the same voltage at both ends of R133, R134, and R135; likewise on pins 20, 21, and 22 on the keyboard connector. I can't trace where the voltage comes from. Does anyone know. I have tried 3 different GTIA chips on the bad board and none of them work but they all work on a different computer.

I have a 130XE that boots with random letters filling the screen and after about 1 second, parts of the screen start rolling like an old TV when the horizontal hold needed adjustment. If I plug in a Star raiders cart, the screen is still filled with letters but it doesn't roll. There seems to be some background screen interference but the screen stays still. Any idea where I should start trouble shooting, this will be tough because nothing is socketed, and replacing chips isn't much of an option unless I want to redo the entire motherboard.

Does anyone know why Atariwriter Plus XE version thinks my 1200XL with Rambo 256k is an XE but doesn't recognize my 800XL with wiztronics 256k as an XE?

If I were to find one of the missing programs either original or a copy, how would I submit it for the good of the group?

Today I was working on an 800XL that booted to a red screen for about one second. The screen would then go black. There was usually one "boot click" when the power was turned on. By successively replacing chips,I found that the XL delay chip was the culprit. I forgot the U number, it is the chip that is missing several legs. I was replacing from bad machine to good machine as previously suggested.

Where can I find a file or instructions that tell how the colors relate to the numbers when configuring the Last Word?

I purchased one of these devices and I really like it. I also purchased an SIO connector from BEST Electronics to solve the daisy chain problem. I would like to purchase another one if possible.

That statement is the reason that I am pretty sure that the program exists somewhere.

Does anyone have a link or a copy of Atariwriter Plus modified to work with Omniview 80?

If you find one on ebay that is working you will definitely pay more than $50. I check their stuff several times a week. Those listed as not working usually sell for$40 or more and then there is $20 - $40 shipping.

What kind of is the nomenclature of the RAM chips that I need to purchase in order to do a wiztronics or Rambo upgrade. (what numbers would be written on the top of the chip) I know the installed chips have a number that ends in 64. I would like to buy them separately from the upgrade boards because I believe they would be much cheaper.