yorgle

These boards would seem to provide a workable means of connecting an 8bit keyboard to a pc. Or am I way off? http://www.vetra.com/Encoder2.htm

Those are absolutely fantastic. Imagine an entire office decorated by that guy!

I know Galaxian works because I just happen to have it and tried it on my 1200xl.

I've been thinking about buying an XEP80 but have read some really negative reviews. What do folks here think is the best option for 80 column display for my 1200xl? Is there any sort of internal mod that can be done to have the option for 80 columns right from boot?

Glad to hear I'm not the only one hiding 8bits at work...

That's quite a machine. I just finished the clearpic2 and Rambo 256k upgrades to my best looking 1200xl. Planning to add internal sio2pc as well, but I hate to modify the case. I may try something like removing the RF modulator and fitting a usb cable through the hole. I'd love to do an OS hack as well that would boot to a dos menu but that may be beyond my abilities.

Email sent. Thanks much.

After messing around for about an hour with various capacitors and resistors, I finally settled with a 2.2k resistor at C62, which gives a very good compromise between color saturation and image sharpness. Thanks to everyone for their input.

I have a 600xl that has nearly perfect video through the rf modulator, so I agree that you might want to hold off on the video mod. Also, if you're interested, I have a 1064 memory expansion that I used the case for another project. You could still plug this in and have 64k but it just wouldn't look as pretty. PM me if you're interested. I'm willing to let it go for little to nothing as long as you pay postage.

Bob1200xl: Thanks. I'll give the variable resistor a try. In any case, even with the slight ghosting, the image is way better than it was stock.

I keep meaning to do a side-by-side component comparison of Clearpic2 and Clearpic2002. Maybe this serve as the motivation I need. I like Bob's sense of humor on 2002 "Version 128.3." Glad it works for you. Can you do S-video in addition with your TV? I remember that when I made the 2002 mod, I could get composite color, but no S-video chroma. -Larry My TV doesn't have s-video. I played around with it this morning and found that with a wire in place of C62, I get a perfectly sharp, clean image, but the colors are washed out, particularly the reds. Using a 4.7uf capacitor at C62 gives nice colors, but adds some slight ghosting. I'm going to buy an assortment of capacitors and see if I can find a happy compromise. Does anyone know if there is such a thing as a variable capacitor?

Well, I tried a different monitor cable and still could only get black and white. I then stuck a paperclip in where c62 should have been and WOW! Nice, crisp clear color. Obviously, I need to stick a capacitor in there, but I'm still puzzled as to why there wasn't one there in the first place. It makes me want to pull apart my other 1200xl's and see what they have.

I just finished the Bob Woolley? video fix (the 10 component version) on one of my 1200xl's. Before the mod, I was able to run a monitor cable to the video in on a tv and get a color picture. Now all I get is black and white (but really nice and clear). Is this a monitor cable issue or have I screwed something up with the mod? I noticed that the mod says to replace the capacitor at c62 but my 1200xl doesn't have one there? It doesn't look like there ever was one there to begin with so I didn't put one in. Could that be the problem? BTW, this is the modification I followed: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS...1200clrpic.html

I'm in the process of finishing a RAMBO 256k mod in one of my 1200xl's. I'm expecting the new DRAMS to arrive any day and I've read that I need to be sure to be properly grounded before handling them. My question is, what's the best way to do this?

If you are primarily interested in storage, why not just use a 1050? Moreover, as much as Atari's are fun, if your daughter needs to do stuff for school, it really doesn't make much sense to have her using a format that is completely incompatible with everything else at school. You can buy a pc for peanuts nowdays- certainly for less than you'll spend trying to mod an 8-bit to use a 3.5 drive. Still, I like the idea of using a 3.5 drive- it would be great to have a 1200xl with built in 3.5 drive.

Not sure I have 10 reasons, but here are some reasons why I keep several Atari's alive: 1. I enjoy restoring things 2. Learning digital electronics in small steps by modding my 1200xl's, so far I've done internal sio2pc, sio2sd, RAMBO 256k upgrade, and in the process of doing the clearpic mod. 3. Learning machine language (actually started this with an Atari 2600) 4. I just love the look of the XL computers. I plan on making a pc out of one of my 1200xl's just to get the ugly Dell off my desk. 5. Relatively cheap to collect (as opposed to my other hobby, restoring classic cars) 6. My kids love playing Atari- both the 2600 and 1200xl. 7. I'm approaching middle-aged. It's fun stumbling upon a sound or image I haven't seen or heard in 20+ years. 8. Get to meet great people like those on this site. Hey, I almost got to 10.

Hi, I noticed the reference to DataPerfect and thought I could provide this info... It is still available as a free download on a GPL licence at http://dataperfect.nl . Also manuals and ebooks are available. DataPerfect runs on MS-DOS and all the Microsoft Windows and non-Microsoft versions of MS-DOS. It can store millions of records in fully relational tables, and each table limited only in size by the operating system. It has an incredibly small application footprint, the executable being only about 170kb in size. It is blindingly fast, stable and easy to use It can be web enabled, thru CGI programming. there is an active mailinglist for support questions, and ideas. Regards Brian Thanks for the info. I'll be sure to check it out.

Inspect the power cord connector (on the console pcb) for breaks at the solder joints. Years of plugging and unplugging the cord to the console often cracks these joints.

Just received my 4th and 5th (and probably last) 1200xl's. The serial numbers are: 72RDA03011 163 and 72RDA04626 173. Both were made in Taiwan and are in excellent condition. Can you ever have too many 1200xl's?

Well, I found part of the problem- I didn't have a good connection on one of the sio lines to the pcb. But in the process of swapping in a backup Atmega32 to test, I think I screwed up my new Atmega chip-- all I get is a solid grey bar on the LCD. Is there someone willing to reprogram this chip if I send it to them? I'll pay for your time and postage, of course. Or can I reprogram it myself? What is involved in doing so?

I've got the newer sio2sd from pigula that doesn't use the diode. Is there anyone that can reprogram the firmware on my sio2sd ATMEGA chip? OK, I don't think its the chip. Just as an experiment, I swapped ATMEGA chips with another sio2sd and I get the exact same problem. It must be the way I'm setting up my sd card. After formatting a card, I have been creating a new folder named "ATARI" and putting .atr's into that folder. I copied the .bin file from my sio2sd software disk to the card, but have not put it into the "ATARI" folder. Is that the right way to do it? Also, what key sequence do I use to get the config screen on my 8bit?

I tried settting up yet another SD card without success. I can load .atr's onto the card and they show up in the directory (i.e., I can scroll through them on the sio2sd) but they won't load. I see that the device does create the config file on the root directory and everything else seems to be working just fine, e.g., I can get into the setup mode by holding k4 when booting. I can cycle through the drives and mount files to drives. It's just that nothing loads.

My sio2sd just developed a problem today- it won't load any programs. It worked fine up until now. I've tried several different sd cards, reformatting each and trying different .atr files that used to load fine. The display and menus work fine- when I mount a disk image to a drive and try to boot, nothing happens. Any ideas what might have happened? Oh, and if I boot up without a card inserted I get a message "card init error" instead of "no card" which I believe is what it used to say.

Does anyone here know if something like this could be used to display an 8bit image on my laptop: http://cgi.ebay.com/USB-Video-Audio-AV-DV-...1QQcmdZViewItem

To tell you the truth, I'm scared to open it now that I've finally managed to stuff everything inside. I'm sure others could do a much more professional job than I did, but for what it's worth, here's what I did: I removed the LCD screen connector from the pcb and soldered in a ribbon cable to allow the screen to be mounted separately from the main pcb. I then soldered jumpers in between all of the switches on the main pcb and the 800xl keyboard function keys. I murdered an old usb sd card reader and harvested its sd card socket which I then connected to the main pcb by simply soldering in a ribbon cable pin-to-pin with the socket on the main board. This allowed me to mount the sd card socket away from the main pcb. Both the function keys and the LCD screen are held in place by plastic posts made from LEGOS.