gobo

Thanks and Thanks! That's great. Can't wait to try it out. I probably should have figured that out. Don't know how I missed XSPEED and YSPEED. 😅

Hi This looks cool! I was wondering if there is a way to use this with 16 player directions instead of only 8? Are there some sort of input parameters I could use with it Sort of to point a player in one of 16 directions and let the player just go it that direction until its told to change to another, then continue on again. Kind of like the planes do in 2600 Combat. I've been spending a lot of time lately trying to update a game that I wrote in TurboBasicXL way back. Especially trying to smooth out the jerky PMGs that this would be perfect for! Would I be allowed to use it in my game? Thanks

Hi there! Is this what you are looking for? Boots with black screen while loading an unmodified copy of TBXL. TBXLBLCK.ATR

Another what if. Maybe Atari could have just skipped the 1200XL and 800XL and instead sell a 64K 600XL with expansion bus and monitor port alongside a 1450XLD with that huge case used for expansion cards. Kind of like a built in 1090XL. 600XL owners could have had an upgrade path to the external 1090XL. Definitely would have had a more budget premium contrast than the 600XL/800XL. The 800XL would not have needed to exist. Back then I always thought making the 1450XLD case so huge just to house floppy drives was kind of silly. Hindsight is always easy.

Also looking at this keyboard and the usual ones, does this one seem to have more metal support around the edges?

Yeah and there was no spring on the door. Lucky I found the one I lost. LOL. I just looked on ebay and there is another 400 keyboard on there that looks like this one for sale at the moment so it might not be so special. Has anyone ever seen the green slots before?

Hey guys. I was cleaning out my basement and found my original Atari 400 that I gotten when I was a teenager, buried in a Rubbermaid tote! I've been looking for this thing for years and it was literally a few feet below me the whole time. The basement floods a little occasionally so the 400 was very musty but no rust. I've been cleaning her up and it took soaking it in vinegar in the end to finally get rid of any smell that was left. Powered her up and she works fine! Very happy! The actual reason for this post is because when I was reassembling it the cartridge door spring flew away from me and I couldn't find it. A 10 minute reassemble turned into hours of where the hell did the damn spring go. I literally had to empty the room bit by bit to no avail. Since this 400 was my original baby I had to fix it perfectly so I decided to win the junkiest Atari 400 auction I could find just to get the spring! It so happened that on Goodwill there was a batch of 2 dead 400's just about to end and I got them for just over 80 bucks. Figured they might work or could be fixed and could make a few bucks on eBay selling them. So long story short both of the 400's have 48k and works fine but the other one was weird. It had 2 SIO ports, a parallel port, a couple of LEDs in the grill and it just looked a little different to my eye. When I opened it up both of extra ports were disconnected. The motherboard has green card slots and a few other changes. The keyboard's rear is very strange and has a soldered connector cable and was screwed to the shielding. Other little things like the shield back panel has to circle indents. Even the cardboard underneath has two big circle cuts outs instead of the normal 2 big 2 small holes. It turns on and displays a BW screen because it's also a PAL machine. Here are the pics. Is this any special. PS I found the spring about 10 minutes after I won the Auction of course! (Sorry if too many pics)

I think it is. Has the same slash key. The keys have a very smooth ivory like feel to them. Wonder why there seems to be so few of them.

Wow! Thanks Beeblebrox for so much help! I'm planning to hopefully open it up this weekend and see whats up or if there are any surprises inside. I'll start another thread, independent of the keyboard variant in it, on the repair process if it's needed. And again, the help is much appreciated!

Also, just looking at that picture of it, they are such beautiful machines!

Wasn't sure if this should go here or into the "Need info on this Atari 800XL system" thread. I recently grabbed a 600XL of of eBay. I sorted the search by recently listed to maybe find a quick bargain and jumped on this one when I saw the keyboard. It's the same one from the above mentioned thread and is not listed here among the variants. It looks sort of like a type 4, has that solid feel and level function keys but with different keys caps. They keys are very smooth (they looks nice) and if you notice the slash under the question mark is different. Not sure if it's just because of a different key cap but it makes a totally different sound then my regular type 4 800XL when you type on it. To me it feels different/better to type on. The machine is very clean, no yellowing but only shows a blue screen when it's turned on. Gonna search the board about the causes of that. Will post pics of the inside when I open her up if anyone wants to look for something that might be different inside.

Thanks. The machine is like new inside other than the chips. Strange.

Hey Guys, I bought another Atari 400 a little while back for the forthcoming 400 Incognito. I finally got around to testing it and it boots carts fine. Has a clean picture but there is no sound or keyboard functionality. When I opened it up both of the TC4051BP chips were missing. I ordered chips off of ebay today titled "TC4051BP "Original" Toshiba 16P DIP CMOS IC 2 pcs" for a few bucks. Are these chips interchangeable? Just wanted to make sure before I try them out. Other than the missing chips it looks very clean inside and out. Thanks! These are the actual chips from ebay:

Maybe this topic has something to do with that. :0 I got a second 400 off ebay for a good price. Just took a while waiting for one.

AWESOME! Can't wait! Already bought a 400 just waiting for it!

Funny, that's the way I feel too. I originally thought it would be nice if there was no slowdown with the explosions but then when the slowdown was gone ,with the Phaeron routines, I missed them. Being so fast makes them less dramatic. I remember seeing the big Star Raiders box in the stores when I was a kid and I always passed on it. While I loved the artwork the in game graphics on the box looked boring. When I finally bought it I was blown away! Loved playing with the sound way up.

I'm crazy that way too. While I like the real keyboards better I actually got so used to and good at using the 400 membrane it felt strange going to an 800XL. My fingertips did start to feel weird after a while after a long session on the 400 though. :) Membrane definitely worked well for what it was designed for..games.

Was just thinking. I've never heard of anyone mention that they had an Atari 400 Keyboard fail. Back in the day, when it was my first computer, I beat on that thing! Are they virtually indestructible? (Just bought a 400 to put the future 400 Incognito into)

Can't wait to put an Atari 400 capable of everything the 8bits have to offer as a console in front of the TV. The thing looks so cool!

This is so awesome! I already have an Incognito for my 800. I'll probably buy 2 for both my 400's. Can't wait!!

Good news everyone! I adjusted the Color POT and it looks pretty good. Still has some bars but not too bad. Might be able to blend them out by adjusting the sharpness of the monitor. There are a few artifacts shown when I put up all 256 colors but so far I haven't noticed it anywhere else. I think a UAV is in the future but for now I'm OK with the results. Heck at this point I'm not even sure if there was ever problem with it turning on because when I plugged it in today using the same 3 outlet extension cord (and after its been powering on fine) it didn't power on. At first I thought WTH but I switched it to another outlet on the same cord and it works fine. Would not have been happy ripping it apart and later finding out it was that! So basically it looks like that messy looking upgrade was working all along, all it needed was the POT to be adjusted. I'm a little embarrassed actually but I learned something along the way! And thanks for all of the help.

Had some time today to try out a few things on the 600XL. First thing I did was hook up the audio lines to a speaker like kheller2 said. When I tried the new extra audio connection I got nothing but when I attached the ex-RF port I got a beautiful Atari fart. Music to my ears and no smell.;) I had originally tried to hook it up from there to a TV's RF. Next I tried an S-Video to HDMI adapter that I borrowed and viola I had a picture too. So the RF works as audio, the other "audio" port does nothing unless I'm missing something and S-Video produces a picture. Memory is 64k and tests fine. I'm very happy and surprised it's working at all with no changes. The only problem now is that the video output is off. The colors are wrong and there are vertical bars. When I tried to set the background to a shade of grey, the bars disappear and the picture is very smooth. Would the next move be to swap out the GTIA. Was trying to avoid dismantling my 800XL. Would it be hard to dismantle the s-video hack (and use a more modern video solution)?

Thanks Sugarland. I'm going to try both of those ideas. I'm new at troubleshooting electronic circuits and ICs so I appreciate all the help I get!

Well there may be life in it yet. I switched out the keyboard and now the LED comes on. Guess even the keyboard was bad! This thing might turn into Princess Fiona next! Still nothing on screen, not even a blip when powered on with both S-Video or RF. The multi-meter says 5v at the power port input inside the XL and on the lower lead of the power switch when it's in the off position but when I turn it on the voltage drops to 4.2 on the power switch (lower and middle lead) and everywhere I check on the motherboard that should be 5v. I wonder why someone would go through the trouble of doing all that work in such a nice looking case. I guess I'm shallow because if it was ugly and beat up it would be easier to let it go! Next step is to get rid all of the upgrades.

No offence, but what a mess! Apocalypse Now (Colonel Kurt). "The Horror, the horror". Worst example of a bodge job ever Can you say it's and accident waiting to happen that actually did. LOL Guys, tell me what you REALLY think! ?? And she's such a beauty...on the outside! Maybe I should just rip it all out and go back to stock. Would almost feel bad undoing all that hard work! Weird thing is both power supplies are putting out 5v. The USB one is rated at 3 amps. Even the SIO port says 4.2v. Maybe that capacitor by the power switch? The 4.2v it seems to be system wide. Would it not even turn on without an BASIC chip? The back panel has an S-video and an audio jack. The RF jack is still there. It does look scary in there!!