Dr Memory

Hi

I've encountered a 130XE here which completely failed to see that SIDE3 was plugged in until I replaced the 74LS08 chip on the computer's motherboard with a different one from the spares box. On the basis of that, I assume there was an O2 timing issue which caused issues, and was nudged in the right direction by the replacement chip. All other cartridges (SIDE2, etc) worked fine on the machine (which was in completely stock condition).

I really don't mind answering questions privately or on forum threads, subject to available time. I'm happy to provide support for SIDE3 alongside Candle, Lotharek and Trub (I did write the SIDE3 loader and the SIDE3.SYS driver, after all, so the buck stops with me there), but there's always one special snowflake who makes a lot of noise and expects updates to be churned out every week. Don't worry if you see me blowing up on the forum: it takes quite a lot of aggravation before I start to lose patience with people.

Same here (I was always a software guy), but in the last decade - after learning to solder - I found that basic electronics and modding old computers capitalised on my model-making hobby skills from back when I was a kid. So I managed to blend my two favourite hobbies together (Ataris and making things)... well, aside from playing the guitar, but that's a different story.

Anyway: something else you could try is testing different carts with the XEGS, and cleaning the cartridge contacts with a quick blast of aerosol switch cleaner or something. Quite often, with newly purchased old Ataris from eBay, there's some oxidisation going on and it can take a few tries to get things going. In fact, it's more likely to be something like that than the timing issue I described above.

Hope that helps a bit? Let me know, anyway.

Jon

I had to order some DeoxIt electrical contact cleaner and it took a couple days to get here thanks to COVID and holiday shipping issues.  It worked great.  I verified that the slot was flaky by wiggling carts around in it and seeing whether they crashed/locked up/etc.  They did.  I then dug up one that didn't have a connector protector or whatever you call it, so I could get to the connector more easily.  I didn't want to use my SIDE 3 as a guinea pig so I ended up using Action!.  I cleaned off the contacts with DeoxIt and Q-tips a couple of times and then put some more of the fluid on them and inserted it into the XEGS slot and wiggled it around.

This worked great.  It seems happy.  I don't think I need to disassemble it and do surgery after all.  I'll still have to do that if I end up installing the Ultimate 1MB, of course, but I was trying to postpone it and work on one problem at a time.

Thanks for the advice!  It worked!

I ordered a spray can full of DeoxIt also but for some reason they shipped them separately and that hasn't arrived yet.  I'll probably spritz it into the slot a bit when it arrives just to be sure.  I don't regret ordering it - it appears my older carts do indeed have oxidation so I need to clean them anyway.

Now I just need to track down a bigger archive of CAR files - I'm using a test archive the AVG guy had posted but it isn't very complete in terms of dev carts (languages and disassemblers and such).

Anyway, thanks again!  All good now.

_john

Great to hear that worked out relatively painlessly John!

Try this archive for a source of CAR files:

https://atarionline.pl/archiwa/archiwumgier-atarionlinepl-2019-12-05.7z