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joeatari

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Posts posted by joeatari

  1. Posted

    When I removed C109 and added the 2.2 uf capacitor, my printer still behaved the same (not starting or continually advancing the paper).  When I removed the 2.2 uf capacitor described in the fix (C109 is also still removed), the printer starts up normally and the paper advance button works properly.  I need to test the printing function now.

  2. Posted · Edited by joeatari

    I'm trying to revive an old 820 I found that had a broken fuse holder.  I have replaced the fuse holder.

    I'm wondering what is the proper polarity of the capacitor in this fix?

    I am experiencing the symptoms you describe, and also sometimes when I turn the printer on it will keep feeding the paper over and over until I shut off the switch.

    Sometimes the paper feed button won't work and the printer won't print.

    Other times the printer will function, at least for awhile.

     

  8. Posted

    Thanks for the info.  I have DB-9 on both ends, so I don't need the HDA 15 VGA.  I use the scan converter I mentioned for a VGA monitor, and that works just fine.

     

    I have tried some DB-9 cables I had lying around, but I don't even know if any of them are monitor cables.  They are probably serial cables, and I'm just getting a black screen.  If I can find the pinout for the monitor, I can make an appropriate cable. 

  9. Posted

    I would like to connect my 130XE VBXE NTSC to a Commodore 1084s-d1 NTSC monitor.  I have a female DB-9 connector installed on the 130XE.  I currently use a GBS8219 RGB to VGA scan converter, and that is working great, but it must have a different pinout than the Commodore monitor because I get a black screen on the Commodore monitor when using that cable.  

    Does anyone have the pinout for this monitor?  In my searching I have only found PAL information so far.  If you have already done this and have insight I would love to get your input.

    Thanks!

  11. Posted

    Turbodos is working great for me. I started this project because I wanted to have one system with real 1050 drives and no modern extras, but I did want the high speed sio for the drives. Everything is matched from the 800XL days, i.e. two 1050 drives, a 1010 cassette and a 1020 printer. The 800XL was the first Atari I ever used. It all looks very cool together. Very nostalgic for me.

     

    I have done the same thing with my 130XE. Two XF551 drives with Hyper+XF and an XMM801 printer, so everything matches, but the XE has Ultimate 1MB, VBXE, Stereo Pokey and P Covox upgrades.

     

    It is very tempting to install an Ultimate 1 MB in the 800XL :) Thanks for all the help!

  12. Posted

    When considering all the power bricks needed when powering an A8 computer, drives, printers etc. I'm wondering if anyone ever built (or considered building) a custom unified power supply?

     

    My idea is to build one device that would power the computer and multiple floppy drives (maybe other devices) without all the many power bricks. I'm developing a crazy amount of power bricks on my floor!

     

    Just curious what all the BBS veterans, etc. will say.

  15. Posted

    I recently installed a P Covox together with Ultimate 1 MB, VBXE and Simple Stereo.

     

    I wanted to play some music with Neotracker, and I had a very difficult of a time finding any information on how to use the installer, so I thought I would share what I discovered.

     

    I'm using Neotracker 1.8.

     

    In the installer program:

    I needed to set my Covox to $D700 to avoid conflicting with VBXE. I finally figured out that you have to press the space bar on the address field to make that change.

     

    Also, if I used the Extended memory as was defaulting in the installer, files would not load. I would get an error 173. I pressed the space bar on the memory bank fields to disable all the banks on the first three lines, and then I could load files after that. I was just guessing that this would resolve a memory conflict that may have been happening.

     

    Operation:

    For the operation of Neotracker there is a help screen when you press "help."

     

    Ctrl+L will bring up the file directory. Return to load and Return to play. Space to stop. Shift+Ctrl+Esc to quit to DOS.

     

    Hopefully this will be helpful to someone.

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    Would a card edge adapter to the 3.5 floppy connector work?

     

    https://www.ebay.com/itm/Card-Edge-to-IDC-Connector-Adapter-5-25-to-3-5-Floppy-Cable-HxC-Gotek-34-pin/163481202090?hash=item26103d2daa:g:cDMAAOSwkAxcOB4U&frcectupt=true

     

    I thought about something like a Gotek, but I decided that the only reason I really wanted an XF551 was for the nostalgia, and to have a drive that matched my 130XE. I found a Teac FD-55BV drive that I am going to try. I'm not sure what the difference is between FD-55BR and FD-55BV. I read something about the BR being the "low power" version. I hope the FD-55BV won't draw too much power for the power supply. The V may also just relate to color or other features. From what I can tell it is still a 360K DS/DD drive. From the picture it looks exactly the same. I'll see when it gets here.

     

    I'm pretty sure I'll have to replace or extend the floppy data cable on this particular drive. I'll report back when it arrives and I have tried it out.

  22. Posted

    I received my 2nd XF551 today, and it has exactly the same problem as the first one that I bought. It will not format to 360K, but seems to work fine for any format that a 1050 can do. This makes me wonder if it is something I am doing wrong, but it is more likely that I just have bad luck, since the Teac mechanism fixed the problem in the 1st one. It is interesting that someone put screws on the SIO connectors of this drive to keep them from moving around and breaking the solder joints.

     

    Anyway, more related to this topic, the 2nd drive has different power and data cables, and I don't think this data cable would be long enough for the Teac drive, so you may want to watch out for that.

  23. Posted

    The floppy data cable was just barely long enough to reach. I was very glad I did not have to re-do that. If you fold the cable carefully it should reach. The floppy data connector does collide with the heat sink because the Teac is a bit longer than the original mechanism. I used some airplane snips to remove a rectangular portion of the heat sink. The aluminum is fairly soft. I just made two cuts and then bent the part I wanted to remove until it broke loose. This avoided having to remove the heat sync to dremel or saw out the section. The whole process only took about 15 minutes. I set the drive jumper to 0, and it fired right up and worked exactly as it should. It is more quiet than the original drive, but I don't have a reference for what a good working original mechanism sounds like. I bought another XF551 that should arrive today, so I'll see what kind of adventures I get into with that one. I hope you work it out. This link with Google translate was helpful:

     

    http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/Atari-XF551-oprava-vymena-FD-Mitsumi-za-TEAC-FD-55BR-Repair-Atari-XF511-replacing-FD-MITSUMI-TEAC-FD-55BR.aspx

     

    but it seems it was much easier for me. Hope you get it worked out!

  24. Posted

    I'm curious to know for those who still use real floppy drives together with sio2pc and etc. how you manage your drives.

    With my setup I currently boot from MYIDE. I use AspeQT to load ATRs to try them out.

    Sometimes I want to boot from a "real" floppy, but typically my system is set up this way:

    Drives 1-3 MYIDE

    Drive 4 XF551 Floppy drive

    Drives 5+ AspeQT (or disable MYIDE to boot from Drive 1 on AspeQT)

     

    My plan is to add another XF551 that is set to Drive 1, but turned off most of the time so that I can boot from it when I need to. The XF551 set to Drive 4 will be used to write images to real disks, or backup data.

     

    I pre-ordered the "Biggus Dickus" (Hilarious!) https://lotharek.pl/productdetail.php?id=243

    from Lotharek, so that will add other resources to the mix, and I'm upgrading a 130XE with Ultimate 1 MB, VBXE and SIDE2 soon for even more experimentation.

     

    I don't play many games. I'm interested in legacy Atari productivity software. Several programs expect to write to drive 1 or 2, and may not play well with a hard drive image or an image not formatted by the program, etc.

     

    I thought it would be interesting to see what others do when it comes to this boot drive source thing. Perhaps you have creative or more intelligent solutions.

     

    Thanks!

    • Like 2

  25. Posted

    As suggested, make sure you re-flow the solder points on the SIO connectors. I found it best to add some new solder to each point. It is a common problem with these drives, and it only takes a few minutes to take care of. Hope it works out!

     

    I recently restored an XF551 that would not format to 360K by replacing the Mitsumi mechanism with a Teac FD-55BR. The face was a perfect match and the drive is very quiet.

     

    post-62925-0-71265300-1554503243_thumb.jpg

    • Like 2
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