Keyboard Problems

[Keyboard Problems]

Yeah, when I use those U shaped pullers, I usually have to rock the chip back & forth while pulling, and more times than I would like I end up yanking it out at an angle & bending the pins.  😠

[I love the sound of the Dot Matrix in the morning...]

For dot matrix, you could get a (single) color printout by swapping in a color ribbon.

 

if color ribbons aren't available for your printer, then you have the Henry Ford model - you can have any color you like, as long as it's black!  😀

 

I wonder if you can wash the ink out of an old ribbon and then redye it with some color ink?  I know that my old Epson ribbon was more light grey than black.  Especially after so many WD40 treatments!  😀

[Atarigraphics - Lightpen Doodles]

I probably built mine based on some magazine article.  IIRC, it was just a phototransistor and a resistor.  The first one I built into a small AA or AAA penlight case.  I think that this is what the article had done.  For the second one, I actually built it into a pen.  I think that I was figuring that the smaller diameter body and smaller aperture would give me better accuracy.

 

[Atarigraphics - Lightpen Doodles]

How accurate are the official Atari lightpens?  I built a couple back in 1984, but they were never very accurate.  I wrote a simple drawing program to draw in high res with a bright white screen & black dots.  IIRC, it worked pretty well in the Y axis, but I would get quite a bit of scatter in the x axis.

 

[New 800XL owner.. looking for advice...]

Hold option when you power up to boot without basic.  Do you still get the same red/brown screen?  If not, then it would likely be the basic ROM that is at issue.  if you get the same results, then you probably have another issue.

 

[Lets make Snokie better !]

On 5/23/2020 at 2:58 AM, Rybags said:

That might translate well to a RC pic.  But the aspect ratio is all wrong.

What it needs - cut a little off the bottom, compress the vertical size of the text to about 50% of what it is now.

Possibly the resulting pic could be incorporated into a screen displaying the game options.

 

 

It would take some redrawing work, but you might be able to preserve the aspect ratio by writing "SNOKIE" vertically to the left of the bird.  That would make the picture both wider & shorter, so much closer to a 4:3 aspect ratio.

[Did i get a good deal?]

1 hour ago, hobbyhands said:

I'm pretty new to 800xl.  Like I mentioned before. I do have a working one, and can write and read to my tape drive. I have written a few very basic programs.  Is there a trick to writing and reading to the 1050 drive or is it similar?

You will have to boot up with a DOS disk in the drive first.  Then, from basic, you can type:  SAVE "D:FILENAME.EXT"  and LOAD "D:FILENAME.TXT"

 

Try testing out your new 800XL with your known good power supply & cables.  Easy way to see if it is working.  Just verify everything is working with your old one, then unplug all the connections and plug them into the new unit.

[Firmwareupdate for the Sdrive Max]

Also, any idea why my new, just-opened, Uno board will not update the SDrive.hex file?

[eclaire XL P.C.B. aka "Atari on FPGA project"]

The Zucchini!

 

I built one of those back in the late 80s.

 

IIRC, there was some problem with mine where it looked like one of the output pins (I think - it's been over 30 years) was inverted, so it never worked.  I never did fix it, nor debug it enough to figure out if it was a software issue or a hardware issue.  I remember thinking that if i had the source code, I could easily have inverted the signal in the code to make it work.

[AVGCART]

Ooooh!  µSIO.  I like it!

The first thing that came to mind when I read this is an HDMI connector.  It has more than enough pins (19) and is even shaped sort of like an SIO plug.  😀

 

Of course, they are not cheap.

 

USB C connectors have 2x12 pins.  You could wire them up in pairs using axial symmetry so that you could plug it in either way.  That would get you 12 SIO pins (skip the +12V pin12 only connected on 400 & 800) in a very small package.

 

 

 

[Firmwareupdate for the Sdrive Max]

I unsoldered the annode wire on my RX/TX LED, and I was then able to flash the new fw.

 

So I am guessing that maybe 220 ohm is the wrong value to use here?

I think that I had tried a 470 ohm, but one side of the LED wouldn't light up when I was breadboarding it, so I went to a smaller LED.

 

Any suggestions on what the proper value of resistor I should use here is?  Or should I rework my board to hook the annode right to pwr and use two separate resistors on the RX & TX?

 

It's been 30 years since I studied EE at university, so I remember just enough to be dangerous!

 

[AVGCART]

Just now, Mr Robot said:

looks like using a micro usb connector would be safer and easier. Micro usb breakout boards are cheap

Right up until someone plugs a powered USB cable into it! 😱

[Firmwareupdate for the Sdrive Max]

I'm having difficulty updating my SDrive-Max firmware.  I've downloaded & extracted the 1.2 files.  When I run Xloader & select the eeprom_writer.hex file & click upload, it says "Uploading..." and freezes.  I have to unplug the USB cable to get it to come back, at which point is says, "Upload failed".

 

The display clears, flashes white, then goes back to the SDmax display.  It does this twice.  Like it is resetting twice.

 

My configuration is correct as I can flash a separate, new Uno (although, oddly, not with the SDrive.hex file, which doesn't freeze but does come back with "Update failed".).  Flashing the eeprom_writer.hex file to the spare uno shows the normal writing & verifying progress bars on the display.

 

I finally got around to wanting to update my fw as I tried to format a DD disk and it failed, as previously discussed about the v1.1 fw.

 

Any ideas?

 

My setup includes a homemade UNO2SIO board, as well as a bicolor LED on the TX & RX lines with a 220 ohm resistor on the comman annode.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

[AVGCART]

I don't know if it will be an issue with your setup, but there is a possibility that inserting/removing the plug may short adjacent contacts.

 

Back in the 80's, I rigged up a remote plug in the top of the A-pillar trim for my radar detector so that I wouldn't have to have the cord hanging down to the cigarette lighter, and it would be easy to remove the detector so that it wouldn't be a theft target.  My first attempt had a short wire going from the detector to the A-pillar with an 1/8" phono plug on the end, with the jack in the top of the A-pillar trim.  Every time I plugged it in, I blew the fuse.  After going through several fuses, and checking my work, I realized that the plug tip was shorting between the two contacts on the jack.  Argh!

 

I ended up going with an RCA plug on the end of the wire to the detector with a little RCA jack sticking out near the top of the A-trim.  That worked great for years.  The RCA jack was still in place when I sold the car.

[#FujiNet - a WIP SIO Network Adapter for the Atari 8-bit]

Neat!

 

Can you try my old PrintSheet utility discussed here:

 

It prints correctly when printed directly to an Epson printer, but when someone used an emulator to print it to a PDF, there were extra line breaks in the middle of the title lines.

 

Thanks!

 

 

[1010 doesn't play but rewinds perfectly]

This is probably a noob question, but are belts measured as the total length around them, or the length of the belt when folded flat?

 

[Crystal Computer Products 256K RAMCARD]

Just use the power & ground pins on one of those TTL chip sockets.  Top left, bottom right.

[New dust covers for 800]

14 hours ago, griff3125 said:

Maybe add a flap/cut like that for the front joystick ports, possible divided by 2 so it's not awkward with only one stick connected.

 

I plugged in a joystick and there wasn't really any problem with the cover still fitting.  The cover is wide enough, and the plugs are close enough to the middle, that it just lifts slightly where the joystick plug holds it up.  Still, you are correct, that one/two/four flaps could be put in the front for the plugs.

 

[If you flash Incognito ROM to Ultimate 1MB - How I fixed it]

Reminds me of something my father used to say.

 

"You can't make something foolproof because fools are too damn clever."

 

[#FujiNet Hardware Discussion]

18 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said:

A stylized FujiNet logo with some sort of lightning bolt etc. would really set it off...

An Atari Fuji with a wifi symbol arcs coming off of it?

 

Or, how about an Atari Fuji with the center line extra tall (like an antenna) with the WiFi arcs up off of it?

 

[New dust covers for 800]

It's a simple 3-piece pattern.  The left & right are the same, and the middle piece wraps around from the back, over the top and down the front.  If you are using fabric that has a good & bad side, like vinyl or corduroy, be sure to flip the side pattern over so that you get a left & right.

 

I made the pattern by taking measurements off of the 800 at each of the vertices.  4.5" tall in back, 6 " across the top, 2.5" tall in front, 12.5" front-to-back, 16" wide, etc.

 

The pattern as shown includes 1/2" seam allowances & 1/2" hem.  You could probably reduce the seam allowance to 3/8" if you wanted to.

 

The body is 17" wide x 21" long.  So after assembly, it is 16" wide to match the 800.

The flap slots are 2" tall, and are 3/4" & 7.5" from the back corner (measured & cut after assembly).

 

After cutting out the pieces, I marked the inside of the side pieces 1/2" from the edge.  Then, placing the body with the outside up & the side piece with the inside up (good sides together, with markings on side piece showing), I sewed them together.  Start by aligning the bottom back corners of a side & body together.  The back edge of the side piece should match up with the long edge of the body piece.  Sew along the marked line until you get to the next line.  Then comes the tricky bit.  You want to rotate the top piece so that the top edge lines up with the bottom piece (I do this rotate by lifting the presser foot while the needle is down in the intersection), and sew to the next corner.  Keep doing this until the side piece is sewn to the entire length of the body.  Then, repeat for the other side.  Now, hem the bottom all of the way around.  You sewed it inside out, so now turn it around.  I think I ironed it at this point to get the hems flat & make the corners crisp.  I also ironed creases into the body to replicate the lines of the 800, but that is entirely optional.  I then cut the 2" slots into the port side (well, starboard side, actually, but you know what I mean!😀) and edged them with bias tape. 

 

I could have matched up my thread color better, but out of laziness I went with a color that I already had a bobbin wound for.  As I said, this was all made from scrap on hand, including a couple of ~10" scrap pieces of bias tape.

 

For our non-US friends, multiply all of the above measurements by 2.54 to convert to cm.  😀

 

 

 

 

Edit:  The grid the pattern is sitting on is 1" squares.

 

[New dust covers for 800]

5 hours ago, koolmoecraig said:

if you could do brown canvas it would be better i think. The more vintage it looks the better.

So to be period correct for the 80s, maybe I should go with pastels?  Or bright Miami Vice colors?  😀

[New dust covers for 800]

I used blue canvas as we had a scrap of it that was just big enough to make two out of.  With the stay-at-home order, this was all made from stuff on hand.

 

I gave it some more thought and realized that I can't really print a white logo.  Kind of obvious when you think about it.  Yellow would look good on blue, though.

 

I was also thinking maybe replicating the Atari 800 label on the cartridge flap and iron it on to the same spot on the cover.  I have some small scraps of leftover canvas to do some tests on.  I'm not much of an artist, so I would have to find samples online to use.

 

Should I post the dust cover pattern that I made?

 

[New dust covers for 800]

I just made a couple of dust covers for my 800s.  What do you think?

 

I used some scrap blue canvas that I had.  Instead of cutouts for the cables on the right side, I just cut a couple of slits to make a single, wide flap.  That way, the ports are covered when not in use, and it just sits up on the plugs when they are present.

 

I ironed creases into the cover to mimic the sharp lines of the 800.

 

I'm thinking about maybe getting some laser printer Iron-On transfer sheets to put an Atari Fuji logo on the top.  Right now, I am considering either a white logo, or maybe a traditional rainbow logo.

 

 

 

[Trying to revive an 800, no color, low volume, keyboard doesn't work]

22 hours ago, Colleton said:

Do you have a link for the plastic rivet you used?

Here's a pic of the box, and a pic of the contents.  I think that the one I used came from the left-most compartment.

 

Hopefully this will give you some leads.