Colleton

I'd like to be able to burn my own TOS chips, but need some advice to get started. I'm looking at the TL866II Plus USB Programmer as the burner, but what software do I use to control it? What EEPROMS do I need, and where can I buy them? Any and all advice/help would be appreciated. Thanks!

https://archive.org/details/Atari_ST_TOSEC_2012_04_23

AA user tf_hh sells a 48/52K RAM upgrade board for the 400. You might try contacting him. I've bought several, and they work very well. thebrewingacademy.com sells a stereo pokey upgrade.

I bought a sheet of those from the eBay link above. They aren't right for an 800, but from a practical perspective they work very well.

Just as an example, here is the cart door and expansion bay cover from a case that arrived broken to pieces. I've been "light brightening" them for 4 days now and took this picture so you can see the difference it has made. They look pretty good, but still need at least another week with just sunlight. Peroxide would speed things up pretty well.

Try an Ultimate 1MB card and a SIDE2 cart for HDD storage from Lotharek, and a Sophia rev B for RGB or rev C for DVI output. I have a U1MB, SIDE2 and Sophia rev C and am very happy with them. https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld/products/sophia-rev-b https://thebrewingacademy.com/collections/atari-800-xl-xe-xel-xld/products/sophia-rev-c-dvi-output-same-as-xld AA user jamm is looking for people to go in on shipping for a group order from Lotharek. You might want to contact him to get your U1MB and SIDE2.

Thanks. If my repair breaks I'll try this.

I used it to make fillets around the new pieces to hold them in place, not just to glue them to the side of the case. Unless I get on it with a hammer I think it will be good. We'll see.

Well, I finally got this resolved. We'll have to see how long the fix lasts. I watched Jan Beta's recent video about refurbing an Amiga 1000. In one part of the video he added baking soda to harden super glue in order to repair parts of the case. It got me to thinking... Ended up using super glue + baking soda to glue on some plastic pieces (from another broken 800) to replace the broken posts. Super glue turns hard as a rock when you add baking soda to it, and the plastic pieces I'm using seem to be very firmly attached to the case shell. You can't see it at all when the computer is assembled.

I disassemble them and only put the case parts outside. While the case parts are outside the machines get disassembled for cleaning, recapping, repair, etc...

Flashed my U1MB and Side2 this morning. Many thanks to FJC.

I picked up an 800XL a while back with an ingot PSU, so I ordered this 5vdc PSU from Amazon, thinking I would cut the DIN jack off the ingot and solder it onto the new PSU. Then I took a look at the adapter that came with the new PSU. I installed the cut off DIN jack onto the adapter instead of cutting the barrel jack off of the new PSU, and now I have an XL PSU adapter that will work with any 5vdc PSU with a center positive barrel jack. Pretty sure you can buy just the adapter.

It's in the back yard, light brightening right now. There are enough valleys and seams in it though that I think filling and painting is the only viable route in the end though. I'll watch that video again, had forgotten it. Thanks!

The bottom case half is in one piece now and is solid. It will never be a beauty queen, but it works. I'm probably going to have to paint it, although I hate the idea. What paint is a good color match for the 800? Anyone?

I started working on it last night. The bottom half of the case is in two large pieces, with a bunch of smaller shards where it was smashed. I have the smashed side mostly put back together, but still need to reassemble the grille and weld the two large pieces back together. I think it will turn out pretty well in the end. I'm using acetone to weld the plastic back together and it's working pretty well.

I just received a 1979 800 with a completely smashed case. I could really use a top case half, and maybe a bottom as well if you can spare it. If you can help, thanks!

Yeah, I was pretty pleased, saw the listing shortly after it was listed Sunday evening. It was a "Buy It Now" at a very good price. Well, I've been working on the case, trying to piece it back together with acetone. It's working fairly well, but it's never going to be what it was. Will probably have to use some filler in places and then paint it.

Yes, it's a Hi-Tek keyboard. It doesn't have a connector at the end of the ribbon cable, it's just bare stiff wires sticking out. My other 1979 800 is like this as well.

I agree, but I think it will be extremely difficult to do, let alone do a good job putting it all back together. I'll start sifting parts tomorrow.

I did. I sent him the same "these are very fragile, please use extra care" email I send every seller when I buy one of these old machines. Apparently, he had better things to do than spend an extra 15 minutes packing this up. FWIW, this is the 7th 800 I've bought and is the 1st that arrived broken. The seller has given me a full refund already.

So, I found another 1979 800 earlier this week on eBay and snapped it up. $39.85 + S/H. It was dirty and some of the grille work on the bottom case was broken, but it looked okay. S/N: 947 2392 (47th week, 1979) Well, it arrived today. The left side of both case halves are shattered, just shards and pieces. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. After removing the remains of the case I fired it up, and it works like a champ. OS Rev A, and it has an 8K memory card. I'd never seen one before and expect that they aren't that common. Anyone know what they're worth? I guess that I need to find a new case for it. Anyone have a complete case set they'd be willing to part with?

@Jetboot Jack: I bought an STE that was a really dark greenish brown. A little over 2 hours in the sun with 40 Volume hydrogen peroxide cream turned it back to the original light gray. Before and after pics of a badly yellowed 800 after retrobrighting with jamm's method. It took several days. The last pic is after reassembly. It is the one on the top left of the shelf. ...and yes, I kinda like 800s. I have another one arriving tomorrow (hopefully).

Yes, this was a scary job for me. I thought about it for a few months before actually doing it. The hardest part was desoldering the empty pads on the motherboard. I have a fine tip Weller soldering iron and one of those blue plastic manual pump solder suckers. After you have everything desoldered you need to ohm all of the traces I listed in the OP for continuity, to make sure you haven't lifted any. Sadly, I lifted two traces. Both were at the end of several hours spent desoldering and I guess I got sloppy. I used some 24 gauge solid core wire for bodge wiring and was able to fix the two traces. The BOM would be 16 18 pin sockets, 16 .1uf caps (I used ceramic disc caps) and 3 33 ohm resistors. tf_hh says you may need 68 ohm resistors instead of 33 ohm on some machines so I ordered those as well, but didn't need them. Yes, those are the exact DRAM chips I used. So, this is what I used: 1. A 20 piece set of 18 pin sockets from Juried Engineering on eBay. 2. Two 10 piece sets of .1uf ceramic disc caps from resistorsandmore on eBay. 3. One 10 piece set of 33 ohm resistors and another set of 68 ohm resistors, both from resistorsandmore. 4. Two sets of 8 pieces of the Toshiba DRAM you listed above. The sockets were nothing special but worked well for me. If I had been ordering the resistors from somewhere like DigiKey, I would have bought 1/4 watt resistors. Since it was eBay, I bought what was available (1/2 watt). Good luck!

Thanks!

People (rightly or wrongly) replace the electrolytic capacitors because they have an electrolytic liquid/paste inside that can dry out or chemically change over time. Small capacitors like this one do not need changing.