What in gods name is that?

[wildoliver]

Short version, found a "thing" in an Atari St I have bought.

 

Long version, been buying up any cheap old STs and other bits to rebuild my much missed collection.

 

One of them being a broken ST, stripped it down to investigate the problem.

 

There is a small daughterboard attached to the outside of the metal shielding between the disk drive and power supply. The disk drive cables come off the mother board, plug in to the daughter board then the daughterboard plugs in to the back of the drive. No other ports on it.

 

It appears to be original Atari, it has an Atari logo, is attached by 3 genuine Atari set screws (not self tappers) in to tapped holes in the case, all in all it appears it left the factory like that.

 

The machine is an early 520 fm, it has the big button drive so an early machine. Is it a board to allow a double sided drive?

[nathanallan]

That's possible, but would need to see it if you can take pics.

[simonsunnyboy]

I don't think any circuit board is needed to add double sided capability. It *might* a HD mod however. However hard to tell without any information on the exact fitting, wiring and components of the addin board.

[Junosix]

Had an early STFM for a while, which had a circuit board which is similar to what you describe. Always reckoned it had something to do with allowing a double-sided drive to work. I think the date's on it somewhere? Mine said 1987 if I remember correctly.

[wildoliver]

Well it's a Dec 87 machine.

 

This is the board in location on the computer.

 

 

This is a close up of the board.

 

[nathanallan]

Just found this on atari-forum, from 2006:

it was basically used on the very early single sided large eject button type disk drives and was part of the floppy drive's circuit

 

it sat between the rear of the floppy and PSU

 

basically you dumped it when you changed the drive to a double sided one as it wasn't needed

 

it's a worthless piece of crap but no doubt some fool will buy it coz it says "ATARI" and that means it must be worth something!

 

http://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=16362

 

Very interesting that it has an 8048 chip in there; it's its own microprocessor.

[wildoliver]

Cool! You learn something every day!

 

As I'm most likely going to have to use a different drive in it as the belts gone on the original then it will be getting deleted.

 

I'm doing pretty well so far, it's looking like I'll end up with my desired 520fm and 1040E plus monitor, mice and games then a couple of machines to sell on!

[nathanallan]

Erm, the ST's are great hobby machines but not sure if they'll sell enough to keep your interest (if that's what you do). Definitely great to use, though. Very fun machines.