Atari 400 XL – Update and Sound Question
Hi Guys
I never owned an Atari when I was younger but always coveted a friend of mine’s unit.
So, when I has the chance to buy an Atari 400 for not too much – I jumped at it.
So – Please excuse me for being ignorant of things Atari here…
I tried to get an RF picture on the unit when I bought it and could not – I could hear the unit clicking when pressing keys – so I surmised that it was working.
I watched the you tube video from “Perifractic's Retro Recipes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JG_9W-LzWXc&feature=youtu.be
And so I purchased one of the AV mod units from the Brewing Academy – This arrived and I today looked into getting this fitted.
If you have a 400 XL, this ‘might’ be of help - Here’s what I did:
Open the unit & disassemble – be careful not to snap the little tag at the bottom of the keyboard. Remove the power board, metal casing and take the RAM & processor boards from the main board.
So you now just have the main board
Set the jumpers on the AV mod board to the 400 XL positions (see instructions)
Take a piece of link wire - around 3 inches in length. Strip a few mm off each end to expose some wire. Solder one end of the link wire to the ‘inside’ leg of capacitor C187
Remove the chip marked “TC4050BP” and put the new Video mod board into the socket.
Put the other end of the link wire into the green connector – the outside terminal
Then take a single phono wire – about 1 / 2 meters of cable and strip the ends to expose:
The outer shielding – Put into the ‘Ground’ terminal – The inside terminal
The centre Core – put into the ‘Composite’ terminal – The next one in
Remove the RF lead from the case of the machine and put to one side.
Then reassemble and the machine, finding a suitable path out of the metal casing and out of the back.
This should give you perfect AV composite signal from your 400 – It did for me anyway..!
Now here’s my ignorance and the subsequent question…
Ignorant bit – I saw the speaker when disassembling the unit. I thought...
‘Ah, it’s like the BBC Micro and early spectrum. All sound output must come through this on-board speaker”
Never having owned one – I did not know. But I don’t this is the case as when playing Star Raiders it’s in silence.
I re-watched Perifractic's video and I then saw he had an additional AC Sound mod board that he purchased from Brian here an AtariAge.
I checked the packaging and I don’t seem to have been sent this board.
Here’s the question(s):
Do I need this AC Sound mod board?
Is all of the above all correct? My fitting and assumptions??
If so – Can I get one??
I’ve checked the brewing academy website an cannot see one
Is it the Audio Companion board that i need that is here:
http://atariage.com/forums/topic/260267-the-uav-rev-d-video-upgrade-thread/page-20?do=findComment&comment=3851659
Please advise me
Thanks
Baz
PS – Does anyone have a 6 Volt power supply for an Atari 410 Program Recorder (tape deck)
(I'm in the UK)