Keneg

Ok, I have had that off and on twice. I am fairly certain it is on correctly, unless it was wrong when I received the drive. I will try checking continuity of the wires.

I got in the 6532 chip and replaced it. It still didn’t work. Since I now hav3va good drive I formatted a disk and transferred the DOS files. I then put it in the dead drive and tried to format it. Failed with error 173. Put it back in the good drive and all of the files are still there, so it seams like the head isn’t erasing or writing to the disk. I took a good look at the head. It is shiny with no indication of wear. I know that doesn’t rule out an internal fault, but it may indicate that the head isn’t receiving the signals it is supposed to. Since I now have the shields off, I guess I will check voltages at some of the test points.

I think you will still need some logic that tests paths to make sure everywhere is reachable.

You might also be able to do the generation in two steps. Generate half of the dungeon with the key location and let that fix in place doors or corridors to th3 second half that has the locked door with the treasure or whatever behind it.

While I understand that you probably couldn’t make much money from them, porting some of the later games from the C64 to Atari 8-bit to see if you can make the Atari version better would be interesting. Another option would be to duplicate the interface and similar, but better, graphics and then add a different story line. That is basically what the gold box series did. There was some improvements over time, but once you learned the interface you could play them all. One thing I’m not really fond of is the use of a joystick. I much prefer using the keyboard so I can keep my hands there. It’s been a long time since I programmed in 6502 code, so I could be wrong, but it seems like a lot of the C64 code could be reused with just some changes in the system calls.

Yes, if the price isn’t too bad.

I downloaded Alternate Reality the City, but the first file is an atx that RespeQT will not load. What do I need to use this file?

Tonight I made a full DOS 2.5 disk and managed to duplicate a disk. I was trying and failing to duplicate the diagnostic disk, but then I noticed it was a 512 kB sector HD image. Doing a 90 k image worked fine.

If you want to get the most money for it, get the correct power supply and verify that the computer and card work.

It has 8 64k bit chips, so it should be 64 kilobytes.

I plan to buy a diagnostics disk from Best Electronics. If the drive reads it, the alignment should be close enough.

Thanks Nezgar! I received a true C017945 adapter today. One of the drives now seems to work fine. I was able to format a disk, transfer DOS files and then boot off it. I realize it could still be misaligned, but that probably doesn’t matter to me. I just want to create disks using RespeQT and a true Atari drive so I can experience what it was like back in the 80s. I am returning the 1 amp adapter. Very upset that the seller mislabeled his adapter.

I checked voltage at the power switch tonight. Power off ~11.5 VAC. Power on, after initialization, less than 5 VAC. Definitely 1 amp is not enough.

I had last 8k of ram missing on my 800xl. I checked the voltage across the power jack. It was something like 5.16 volts with the computer off and dropped to less than 4 volts with the computer on. I built a power supply and it has been fine ever since. So try checking power supply voltage first.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have two originals ordered. Learned my lessons. 1. Don’t trust that the eBay seller is right about all of the devices his listing shows the item working with. 2. Check the power requirements of the device and make sure the power supply meets them BEFORE plugging it in and trying it.

I only ran this one for a few minutes, so I doubt I did any damage. Cross my fingers.

Yes, I am quite upset that the item I bought is likely why my drives aren’t working. I have ordered an original 3.7 amp supply. Cost a lot more and will take a while to arrive from California, but then I will know that is right. It seems to me that you could build one with a transformer and the right plug. Has anyone done that?

I was hoping that, even if it didn’t work, it would have a different problem so I could swap things to troubleshoot.

I just checked my power supply. It is 1amp 9VAC supply I bought off eBay that was listed as being for several Atari devices, including the 1050. What do I need to make sure I have enough power?

Thanks, I am trying to get some things from Best Electronics. Brad is slow to answer emails though. I received another 1050 today. I gives the exact same message, error 173, when trying to format a disk. It also gives the same results for diagnostics. Fail motor tests and track zero.

Ok, they are only available from China, so it might take a while to arrive, but I ordered one. It was cheap, so worth a try. Thanks for your patience and help.

LOL, I actually did exactly what you are suggesting yesterday and used the diagnostics disk to verify that they work. I think early on I was using different DOS versions. The latest information I have been posting used DOS 2.5. I forgot to mention that when the drive was really warmed up, the drive light would come on when powered up, the head would seek, the light would go out, then the sequence would repeat until the drive was powered off. I think I read somewhere that this is an indication of which chip is bad. I am sorry if Im not giving enough information, I am new to this. If someone wants to give me a list of questions, I will do my best to answer them.

I easn’t clear. I was referring to the RF shield that covers the middle of the PCB.

I decided to leave the drive on for several hours and re-test. The drive won’t initialize when power cycled and just gives error 138, which it think is drive not ready. Shut off for several hours and back to error 173. The back part of the shield seemed warmer than the rest when it had been on for hours.

Another happy Lotharek customer here.