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I'm fairly sure that's a Plus/4 picture - the C64's 16 colour palette wouldn't be able to touch that.

[Install or keep as it is?]

Wrong photo?

 

I had a B-key from new.  Sure, more usable than the membrane default but in the modern day for a collectable I'd say original all the way.

 

[Looking for info on this console]

I've not kept up with prices recently but $180 to me seems way too much.  For that price you'd want at least an 800XL and some extras thrown in.

[Earliest Atari 400/800 ads?]

For comparison, pic of a close looking 410 model.  But I'm just about sure I've seen a pic before of one with the retractable handle like the ad has.

 

 

[Earliest Atari 400/800 ads?]

For easier reference...

 

[Earliest Atari 400/800 ads?]

The lighting isn't very good for the photo which I suspect is causing the darkness in the controller jack cover.

 

It's hard to tell but 400 and 800 lettering looks solid whereas most production units are outlined and we've had pictures of a solid 2-tone (brown and orange?) which are assumed to be very early or preproduction models.

 

Also note the text on the monitor - that font doesn't look like ours, I suspect probably an Apple II provided a mockup screen.

[Moon Cresta updates]

The intention was for it to work on >= 64K and not care about type of expansion.  My 800XL has U1Meg.

But I've not touched the game in probably 8 years.  It's entirely possible some configs might get a problem.

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You'd be not far from Eustace from Mountain Men ?

[Sophia 2 - improved GTIA replacement]

Corrected -  how so?

 

I've not looked deep into these threads but I assume Sophia 2 also has no PAL colour blending?

One thing I did think of though that'd be nice - could scanline simulation be done?  Like having the option of reduced brightness on alternate lines to simulate an old TV?

 

And can updates be done by the user easily?

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In a strange way, sort of reminds me of The Shining.

[VBXE output]

Do you have a link to the file for that case?  Might look into getting one done.

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I suspect changing the BG colour would make less colours available to cover the feathers and likely introduce unwanted artifacts.

... but definitely worth a shot though.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Power supply really is the only common thing aside from storage location (and at that they were apart).

 

I might give the DC power supply idea a try tomorrow.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Tried my 800XL for the exact same result.

 

It's got me beat.  The only common elements - I've only got one 1050 PS though I just tried a 400 PS and got the same result, both drives not used for probably 4 or more years and stashed in my bedroom so not the worst environment with low to medium humidity most of the time and temps from about 8 to 30 C at worst.

 

I also pulled up and reseated the 6810, 6832 and WDC controller chips a little while ago.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Update - I bought a multimeter that has frequency/duty cycle measurement.  Pulled one drive apart and tested for 125 KHz and got 124.9 reported (the actual test point is TP 9 for that).

Adjusting all 3 trimmers made no difference.

 

Wasn't able to get a reading on the other 2 points.

 

But now the big revelation - neither drive seems to write anything to the disk.  Both will commence and fail a format command doing the full 40 in/out steps but I've just determined that the disk itself isn't written to.  I was using a C64 formatted floppy to test and just got out that machine and 1541 and it's still a Commodore floppy.

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A change to INIT should work - don't trust testing by using "Load Xex" from the emulator menus since that injects the program into a coldstarted machine and there's likely no environment to properly process after the RTS.

I  just tried a pic from Dos with Basic present and even that was able to return in a stable condition (though as you said, likely Dosvec is trashed)

[Star Raiders Font/Text wanted!]

I'm almost sure I've seen another game that uses practically the same font.

 

But regardless, the game should contain sufficient characters that you could get the style right for the remainder.

[Benchmarking the Atari 800XL]

Not necessary IMO.   The 6502 is doing something on every cycle typically, probably except when /HALT is active since it holds the CPU in the inactive part of the cycle, /RDY also halts the CPU once any pending writes have finished.

 

Of course a benchmark that does a variety of things will probably generate more heat due to actual work e.g. logic and ALU operations as opposed to idle loops.

But our sub 3 MHz CPUs shouldn't need a heatsink, even most Intel CPUs didn't need them until the '386 era.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Tried it without SIO2SD, yes.  "Working drive" - that's the problem to begin with, 2 now dud 1050s and an 810 that when powered up 10 years ago did nothing at all.

Like I said, the format fails.  I guess I could try a write operation but not holding high hopes.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

I haven't tried a different computer - SIO2SD has been on the chain after the drive and it's fine.

The drives respond to commands as would be expected also (just that the result is obviously not what's wanted).

The ID switches are OK as I had different settings along the way which all worked.

 

But I might try another computer just to be sure though I'm not expecting any difference.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Neither drive has had any modification or been opened up for anything beyond head cleaning.  Format attempts get the same result whether SD or ED.

I've tried what I think are some SD disks but same result (generally the only disks I formatted to SD were full disk games)

 

I checked that linked thread - could it be possible some of my adjustable pots/caps have gone bad?

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

Well I'm fresh out of ideas.  Both drives seem fine re RPM with or without a floppy inserted (got RPM by doing a 240 FPS recording of rotation which conveniently gives 50 frames for 288 RPM)

 

Could it be something within the logic portion?  Like bad cap or an IC with dirty contact (though aren't these guys soldered in) ?

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

What's the accepted drift of speed?

I've done a high speed video and a strobe measurement by phone on one drive, looks like it's about 287 from the strobe, 288 on the dot from the video.   So looks like it's OK there, though I will remeasure it with a floppy present.

[Ballblazer on 600XL?]

This has come up before - the bottom line is that this and a lot of other re-releases of older disk games onto cartridge only use the cartridge as a sort of Rom-disk.

The program "loads" into Ram just as it would from a SIO device - nice easy way to port the games without the pain of a partial redevelopment to get it to operate from 8K banks.

 

Obviously the downside is that anyone with under 32 or sometimes 40K of Ram misses out, but by the mid 1980s they would have been a small minority.

[Both 1050 drives gone bad]

The thought was to bypass the internal PS board and supply the 5 & 12 VDC direct.