unixdude

Question bout the Pac-Man board: Should it be dotted like that? I thought it would be more solid. The pic attached to this comment is from my second 800, the one that displays only black & white for some reason (I'd love to get that fixed too). This is using the GTIA chip that wasn't showing PMGs in the SCCC 800, so maybe the GTIA chip wasn't the problem -- note that all the PMGs are visible here. Also note that the board is solid, not "dotted" like the blue one above. Any ideas what might be going on here?

Turned out to be a bad GTIA. I took the GTIA from my other Atari 800 and inserted it into this one, and now the PMGs appear. Attached pictures are of my working system (yes, I temporarily installed some electrical tape to hold the power cutoff switch), the screen showing Pac-Man and all PMGs, the donor card, and the bad chip. Please don't comment on my amateur install here. I'm pretty excited about the outcome here. Thanks to all who helped.

Thanks. The very first time this ran through the cycle, P0 was not visible until it started moving. P1, P2, and P3 were all visible as they were being drawn. In subsequent cycles of the same execution, P0 was visible as it was being drawn. What does this point to? Edit: I ran it again (after power cycling the machine and trying my Pole Position cartridge again), and this time, P0 was visible as it was being drawn. Pole Position still does not work correctly.

Super newbie question... how do I get this onto my 800? I'm just now resuming this Atari Incognito project after many months of idling on it, and I don't know how to do it. I'm sure there's a way to build an ATR file on my iMac, but I haven't found it yet. I have a CF card in my Incognito, but right now I'm trying to figure out how to format it such that it can be used on both the Incognito and the Atari. I know FJC has docs on this, but I haven't found them yet, and I don't have it sorted yet. Also, I have an SDrive-MAX at my disposal. Any guidance here would be appreciated. Thanks. ----- I got the file loaded onto my 800, and the attached pic is what I get when I run the program. There's no cycling, it just prints this one thing and then stops (note the "READY" prompt here, which is after running the program). This was run with my Incognito in XL/XE mode, with BASIC enabled. I went and ran it in Colleen mode using some BASIC (not sure if it was my cartridge or the Incognito's onboard BASIC), and got the same result.

Well, I have confirmed the soldering of the halt and ready pins to the SCCC. I have reset the ANTIC and GTIA chips. No change. 😥 I’ll try that program. Thanks.

I also have an Incognito in this 800. I wonder if I didn’t solder the halt line well to the SCCC. I’ll check that. Thanks!

Today I finished up my SCCC install (video is now routed through the 800's onboard monitor port), and now as I check it out, I see sprites missing from games. I remember reading about that somewhere, but as I look for it now, I can't find it. Do missing sprites indicate a dead/dying GTIA chip? Something else? As an example: in Pac-Man, the pac-man himself and the ghosts are all invisible. The pellets and board are visible, and pellets disappear as the Pac-Man eats them. In Pole Position, the cars are missing. The missing sprite issue doesn't happen in all games -- in Joust, everything looks good most of the time -- for a few seconds, the player sprite did show onscreen three times (simultaneously), but then 2 disappeared. Anyway, something's going on here. Any ideas about what it could be? Thanks.

Also, I see that there are 2 ground lines (pink and gray) on the 6-pin header on the SCCC, so I will twist together pink, gray, and shield, then solder that to C162 as you show. I will ignore green, because audio is routed another way. Thanks!

Thanks, flashjazzcat. That's perfect, and exactly what I had come to understand from this discussion. I shall be finishing up soon!

You're right - it does. But it's a scan of a poor print, and it is difficult to make out.

Thanks. I debated whether the one you identify as C175 was C173 or C175. On my silkscreen, it was difficult to discern. I'll get these components removed, and finish up - thanks!

Well, I separately received confirmation that these were the correct components to remove. Now, a question about C174, C175, and C176: two of them look like resistors (see attached photo). Also, the silkscreen is difficult to read. For confirmation, are the identified components the ones to remove? It looks like the one I identify as C176 might be C178, but I haven't found any others that might be C176.

So, I have a question: Is R189 the correct resistor? When I test my connector, R189 connects to pin 5, not pin 1. L105 does connect to pin 3, and L104 does connect to pin 6, so those match up. Maybe my board is different -- it connects to the monitor port as follows: - board connector pin 5 connects to monitor pin 1 - board connector pin 22 connects to monitor pin 2 - board connector pin 2 connects to monitor pin 3 - board connector pin 6 connects to monitor pin 4 - board connector pin 3 connects to monitor pin 5 I've been going based on the attached image, assuming that it is looking straight on at the female connector on the Atari 800. Based on all of this (L105 is chroma, which matches pin 5 on my monitor connector; L104 is CMV, which matches pin 4 on my system's monitor connector; R189 is luma, which does connect to pin 1 on my system), I think that R189 is the correct resistor, it just uses a different board interconnect pin on my system. Is that what I'm seeing here? Thanks.

Yes, I'm connecting the 5 volt line to the joystick port #2, pin7 I believe it is.

Thanks, I did see that comment from Jürgen, I just didn't understand it because I'm so new to all of this. I'm still trying to figure it all out. With flashjazzcat's comment above, I think I'm on my way, and will hopefully finish tonight or tomorrow.

I'm sure you're right, but I don't know where that is yet. The instructions I have detail how to connect the DIN-to-6-wire cable to the SCCC, but if I want to use my 800's onboard monitor port, I am not sure what to do with the wires after I cut off the DIN connector on the cable that Jürgen sent me. I know it's possible to use the monitor port, I'm just not sure how yet, because the SCCC instructions I just downloaded don't include info about that.

I'm trying to get one of these in my 800 right now, and I'd like to use the onboard monitor connector. When I cut the connector off the cable, where should each of the wires be soldered? I've seen some talk of removing resistors and capacitors, but I haven't seen any clear instructions on exactly what needs to be done. Can someone point me to that? Thanks.

Here's a little bit more information. I forgot that the Sys-Check has the ability to disable internal RAM. When I use this setting with Sys-Check connected to the 600XL, with the Sys-Check set to XL/XE OS, the 600XL boots to BASIC, not to self-test. When I do the same thing on the 800XL, it still boots to black screen.

It's entirely possible that sockets are failing here. I think I'll leave the 600XL alone for now, and just concentrate on the 800XL. Maybe the 600XL just needs some better sockets.

It gets even more fun -- I just booted the 600XL again in order to try to do a blind self test -- and it's showing video again! Strange things are afoot at the Circle K.

Maybe. I have the big black one in that picture; I thought those were known good. I found a diagram showing the PS pinouts, and my multimeter shows a steady 5.08V.

Well, here's some new info. I think I just watched a chip die in my 600XL. It was running self test again, and I noticed that the green blocks were turning blue -- to the point that they faded into the background. Then the display started getting more & more jumbled, then the display turned white. Now when I power it on, it always boots to black screen.

On a whim, I ran the self test on the 600XL today. The ROM and RAM both pass. Would I be correct in assuming that the two ROMs that it tests are the OS ROM and the BASIC ROM? If so, that would imply that my OS ROM chip is fine and that there's some other reason my previously working 600XL now boots to black screen. The only thing that changed between the time it worked and that it didn't work was that I removed the OS ROM chip from the 600XL and placed it into the 800XL in order to test my RAM repairs. Why would the 600XL boot to self-test when the XL/XE OS is selected in Sys-Check? Why would the 600XL boot to black screen without Sys-Check connected? Why would all self-tests pass in the 600XL, but the system won't boot?

Thanks, yeah, that was the first thing I tried, but it seems that the chips I bought are not known to work in the 800XL. I'll get some new ones and then try piggybacking.

Thanks for all the info, everyone. I'll just buy the ones I need.