CommodoreDecker

Additionally, as the number of working units declines, what's left will become more valuable. Granted, a chassis in pristine condition will fetch a lot of coin on its own, but the innards all have MTBFs - generally due to amount of use with the power on, rather than sitting in a closet unplugged as the components have a nice long half-life that will probably outlast dinosaur bones. Not surprising for dinosaur computers... except for capacitors, whose components dry out regardless and need to be replaced as early as a decade after their construction, and if you see wavy lines on the screen then you know the power going through the computer is dirty and that places more stress on the microchips and other components... Now ask how much a real dinosaur in pristine working condition costs - before the food budget kicks in. 🤪 Sorry, I had to digress...

...joystick envy? 😏 Sign me up!

Some Atari 1040STF units for fairly cheap, one with a Mega ST keyboard swapped in for whatever reason. All of the original floppy drives work, which is a big plus as I've yet to program the GoTeks. A SC1224 and SM124 to complement as well, plus a VGA cable I'll try to find a 15khz monitor for... One of the ST PSUs gets warmer than usual, but removing the RF shield helps nominally with airflow. The other produced wavy lines and the ST spontaneously reboots (yay) so I know it'll need to be replaced. Or a simple recap, but that can be tricky... I also saw, by pure chance and complete surprise, a Indus GTS-100. It with the 1040STF look marvelous when placed next to the Indus GTs next to the 130XE. Those GTS units are disturbingly quiet, and can format disks for slightly greater capacity.

Oh, is it a simple matter of taking a regular 520/1040ST power coupling and wiring it to the 1040STF motherboard so I can use brick-based PSUs instead, assuming I match up the 12v, 5v, and ground wires? (Are such couplers available or do I have to cannibalize a 520ST to get one?) Thanks!

I recall reading that SD4ST requires 1.04 ROMs or higher, is UltraSatan the same? (my SD4ST arrived but am waiting to finish up the PSU swap or recap before hooking it up)

Thanks everyone! Will get an extension cable ordered and clip the pins... On the power supply - I booted up my other ST and saw recurring wavy lines. Is it possible just to swap out the old capacitors for new ones in the original PSU board? Are there any vendors that sell kits, or should I just look up the comparable parts and uf ratings on Amazon and order a bunch of relevant capacitors? Thanks!

Apologies if this has been posted before; I saw one post but had a bunch of dead links. So the 1040STF rev C board I've been fitting with 1.04 ROMs and new power supply (the new units working great; the old PSU got piping hot and I'm not using this to warm bacon and eggs on) also has the built-in floppy I'm trying to replace with a Gotek bought on Ebay. The Gotek should line up and fit perfectly in the STF opening, which it does, but the floppy data cable isn't long enough. It also is immovable and I don't want to risk yanking harder or desoldering it. Is it a simple fix to get a 6" M/F extension cable and plug in between? I've seen 40 pin cables where matching the lines and not plugging in the last six leads would be straight-through... Otherwise, if not a side-question, can the ST boot from a drive "B" if nothing is in "A"? Now to think of it, is it possible to have three floppy drives daisy-chained? Thanks much!

Based on post 1 and wanting to take a wild pot shot guess, and I'd have to find the schematics, I would surmise that R363 might pertain to the brightness part of the circuit? Given the number of resistors on the circuit board, it's not quite a needle in a haystack but approaching it... resistors don't go bad as often but it does happen, of course... yay for entropy! I'd probably replace the capacitors on the board as well for good measure as well - after ensuring they're all discharged...

What everyone else said. It's rare, the joysticks are definitely of better build quality due to the nature of the kiosk, and it'd fetch a ton of money, especially on auction sites.

Emulation wasn't for me; the last time I tried it, the colors were sometimes incorrectly mapped. Green cherries in Ms Pac-Man being one example. The issues since then may have been fixed. I purchased a composite/S-Video modification kit off of eBay some time ago. The results are stunning, especially via S-Video. I then purchased an S-Video-to-HDMI adapter and that looks better than direct composite into the TV (or via composite-to-HDMI, of course). RF works on LCD, true, but all the other benefits of it remain. Benefits including, but not limited to: Fuzzy video Random flicker in video static/hiss sound that nasty spark if you don't unplug the power brick first (or if you don't plug it in last, and the engineers didn't make the fuse easily replaceable, despite having one in the power brick) the inability to use the RF cable as a jump rope while playing etc

It looks like that, if one subscribes, then the ability to bring in other ROMs is opened up...?

USB - sweet. Thanks for the link!

Thanks much! I've got the ROMs swapped out. Will test this weekend, but it's great to read there's no harm if I put U2 in U5's place.

So I'm upgrading my 1040STFM to the Rainbow 1.4 version -- the socketed chips have a numerical order, but I'm not sure which is supposed to be 'lo' and which is 'hi'. If the ROMs are placed in the wrong sockets, but otherwise in correct orientation (the notch in the middle-left lining up with the socket), can they be repositioned if I get the order wrong?

Cool info, thanks! I know Best Electronics, whom I ordered a replacement mouse cord from lately (great place), has some trackballs that are PC-based -- I wish there was a simple adapter to get any PC serial/PS2 trackball or mouse to work... I sorta like the feel of the ST mouse. Like the angles as well. Nicer than the Amiga mouse, certainly...

Thanks! I did whip out my old trusty disk cleaning kit (the fuzzy felt platter with alcohol), but that hadn't done much. Will go in with a cotton swab... I've a Gotek on order if all else fails. Thanks! Am new to the ST (only took me 3.5 decades to get there) The SCM124 shows a black border (overscan area?). It sounds like I might be better off not tinkering on the monitor and leaving it be. I bought the unit for a working monitor and it's not terribly bad by any measure. About the mouse, thanks especially for the heads-up on the ports' fragility. I'll be careful... I did find out it's got to be the cable. The other ST I purchased arrived on Saturday; testing the mouse on it and had the same results. Will look up a replacement cable, for the sake of having a working unit. At least, if there is a broken port socket, those are easy enough to fix.

It was a cool selling point in the day - buy an ST, with Spectre, and run Mac productivity software faster and less for the price of a real Mac. Games could be tricky, but the ST already did games and most games were available on both systems anyhow...

Hi! I recently got a sweet 10240STFM. Main unit works great, but neither mouse button works, and the floppy won't read disks. The mouse - is it just a matter of using a meter to check resistance for the buttons? I looked up the pin-outs and saw a +5v pin, making me think that just connecting ground and the button pins may not be appropriate for confirming, as pressing either button on the mouse doesn't cause changes on the meter. Ditto for +5 and button pin in question. The good news is that the scrolling up/down/left/right directions do work, so I used alt-ins to simulate the button for operability. The monochrome monitor works and is sharp, but the lower right edge starts to extend at an angle - instead of a full rectangle, it skews slightly. Is there an easy fix if I were to pop off the cover? Would degaussing help? It's minor, but if nothing else it's due to capacitor replacement... What's the lifespan of the floppy drive mechanism? I will be buying some GoTek units regardless and swapping out the floppy drives, but otherwise still want a working floppy, if it's even practical to have. If nothing else, the noise induces ASMR and who doesn't like that? Thanks!

My apologies as well; it started as a possible Concerto issue but wasn't, and then I should have made a distinct post. (Side note: Both 7800s do work flawlessly now; much thanks for everyone's help!! )

The noise looks more like a pattern and not random -- could one of the graphics chips (e.g. ANTIC, or GTIA) be starting to fail or getting warm?

Never had one as a kid due to the reputation of the controllers scaring people off, but got into collecting for it almost three decades later, and finding out about the replacement flexcircuits that cure the bulk of the problems. Centipede and Qix are amazing ports. Defender is a given. Space Invaders has a charm. Donkey Kong... mmmm, not so much a great for gameplay due to the noncentering nature of the joystick - but any game needing the greater precision of potentiometers over pure binary button controls like the 2600 joystick definitely were amazing. Loved the voice synthesizer for Berzerk and Tennis as well, and both play decently... The 5200 could easily have been more, if it wasn't for mixing a forward-thinking controller design with games that weren't meant for it that was also made with cheap tin contacts that oxidied and became useless way too quickly.

Fun side note: My other 7800 - amusingly, has a different AV mod. Glaringly, the pokey output is soldered across two resistors (?!!), rather than the top of C10 where it should go (per RetroFixes' own documentation.) Should be an easy fix...

Cool. Things get more curious -- I checked out Ballblazer again and, this time, it worked. Apart from some random popping noises, but nothing significant... Will see if I can find other posts with people having similar problems. Yet Commando still does not. After yelling pointlessly at the TV, I looked up Atarimania and downloaded Commando. That worked. Still scratching my head enough to fill an 8oz glass with dandruff, but it's working. Am wondering if there's a bug in the rom files I had. Owning the carts definitely helps troubleshooting faster, that's for sure. I might remove that newly-moved resistor, since the TIA sounds are now slightly quieter than the HOKEY/POKEY ones, since hearing the character get riddled with bullets is fun... (Goota admit, Atari allowing up to 6 sounds with POKEY + TIA was a good move, but the implementation was still, um, hokey...) But am happy to report all is well. I won't need to open Concerto at all, woohoo! My other 7800 probably has the same issue. Will verify its setup and remove any resistors from the POKEY connection accordingly... Thanks for your help!

Much thanks for the response! I actually just finished doing that and was uploading photos when I saw the pop-up coming in that you'd replied. I had wanted to rule out the 7800 entirely. Was intrigued that the resistor would be on the POKEY channel and not the main one, but swapping that took care of the 7800's native sound output configuration to an acceptable level... I think... ...Is there anything else I could try before unscrewing the Concerto cartridge? Thanks!

So I took apart the 7800 after trying out my Commando cart. Looked at C10, et al. Saw the C10 had a resistor on it for Pokey output. Saw where the TIA output was. I moved the resistor there and soldered a separate blue wire in its place, since I didn't want to risk breakiing what felt like a fragile wire. The result of this is a near-even sound when using the Commando cart. I then tried Concerto. Commando's TIA output sounds a bit quieter, but not too much so. However, there's still no POKEY sounds at all. I'll probably look for a higher-ohm resistor and swap it out, just to even out the sounds perfectly. But something else is still going on. ON EDIT: Spelling typo (re: the Concerto) and slight clarification text (blue wire).