digitalman

Thanks for the suggestions.

Seems obvious (you think I would have tried that), when I disconnect the power for the drive I can consistently use the floppy drive. I tried a separate power supply for the drive and the floppy (gotek) works fairly consistently. I guess it's just a bad drive issue? Are there SD or CF flash drive solutions that work with my setup?

I am fairly new to the Atari ST, having issues with a Mega ST2 and I am currently lost. It was working just fine it seemed. Needed a good cleaning and many keys need a hard press. Also the battery compartment was covered in battery acid. However, it does have an internal hard disk and would boot to the desktop, I could read floppies, etc. Cleaned everything up, added a Gotek drive and it seemed to continue to work. I put SYSINFO on a disk image and loaded it up. I then added some batteries and attempted to set the clock (via control panel). After disconnecting everything and setting it up on a more permanent workbench where I could start using it, it wouldn't boot. After a few minutes it would go to a TOS desktop where SOMETIMES I could read floppy images. I could boot into the Gotek menu and launch some floppies some times, but I could never get it to boot a floppy image. Not sure what to do next, I decided to recap the power supply. All voltages test good but still same issues. One time after a restart the hard drive began to boot but hung and gave me "sense $10" which in my experience is a hard drive failure. Tried a few things to get the hard drive going, but through all this I could never get a floppy to boot. I switched back to the original floppy drive and have not be able to read anything. When TOS opens and I try to open a disk the floppy light flickers but I get nothing. The only thing that I can launch consistently is the Gotek autoboot launcher. It's really bothering me, since I changed the time, it has basically been a paper wait. Any advice is appreciated. Attached is the SYSINFO right before it died.

HI, I came across a TI-99/4a in a pile of other computer stuff I picked up. I know nothing about these things. All I have is the console, power supply, and RF converter. First question I have, are the Commodore 64 5 pin video cables compatible with the TI-99/4a video port? Because right now I am just getting a blank screen. Thanks!

Maybe a dumb question, but do the Atari monitors support both PAL and NTSC signals? Can I use Euorpean and North American St machines with the same native display? ie. Atari sc1224 Monitor

What? Are you saying my obsession with vintage tech has no practical purpose!? Nothing has more practical purpose then drinking beer and bidding on eBay on a Friday night! lol.... thanks for the feedback. I was looking at Hatari. Any recommended locations for ROM images and/or disk images?

Thanks for the feedback. Is it easy to find an STE? My current searches only turn up STFs.

I wanted an ST when I was young but ended up getting a C64. My knowledge is around Commodore but thinking about learning the ST world. However, where to start? 520, 1040? STf, STe? From my minimal research the STe seems to be more rare. Can you convert an STf to STe? What's the going price for a system? (NTSC) I'd like to run some games, maybe do a little programming and playing with connectivity. Can you get these things on the internet? Any advice is appreciated.

To make a long story short, I borrowed the RIOT chip from my Atari 2600 (2nd gen wood grain) to test some other equipment. When I put the chip back I put it in the wrong direction (of course this one goes the opposite way of the other chips on the board). I was just getting a scrambled screen. When I realized what I had done I flipped the chip back but was just getting a black screen. However I had the metal casing disassembled and thought maybe the board wasn't grounded or something as the plate on the back of the case seems to make contact with the board. I assembled the metal case and viola! Console was working. I played a few mins of Berserk (my only cart) and thought I was back to normal. I then assembled the entire console and ran one last test. Now I get a very distorted screen, almost like it is zoomed in on the upper left corner. The Berserk cartridge seems to start but as if it is already in a game and the player is constantly shooting. If I plug in my joystick (game port 2) The player acts more erratically. If I start the console with the joystick attached I get nothing. I took everything apart and the conditions remain the same. any thoughts? Is this a bad RIOT chip issue? It's frustrating because it was working. it's like a short or something but the screen is also gone wacky. Any feedback is appreciated.