Bad POKEY Causes Which Problems?

[boxpressed]

I have an Atari 800 that I'm using for parts because it has no sound and acted as though the space bar was always pressed down. I needed a POKEY for my Cuttle Cart 2, so I harvested the one from the 800. The CC2 wouldn't work after I installed the POKEY but worked fine after I removed it.

 

I went to Wikipedia and read that the POKEY is also responsible for scanning the keyboard.

 

Is it possible that the bad POKEY was causing the space bar issue? I read elsewhere that many 800s had bad space bars because Defender players used it so ofter for hyperspace. Thanks for any advice.

[+tf_hh]

POKEY uses a simple 8x8 matrix for the keys. So if only one key is failed, then this mostly a mechanical issue of the keyboard itself - sometimes often with the Atari 800, correct. You will find a lot of hints to fix this here on AtariAge.

 

Only a strange idea... are you sure that you put the POKEY in the right direction into your cart? Why I´m writing this... a lot of very old POKEYs - mostly used in the 400/800 computers - have an upside-down marking on the IC - so if you use the marking as navigation, the IC is inserted wrong in these cases.

 

Examine your POKEY again. There´s a notch on the "left" side, which indicates pin 1. Otherwise you will find a little dot on the lower left side - this also indicates pin 1. When you locate pin 1 on the lower left side and the marking is upside down.. try again

Edited May 24, 2013 by tf_hh

[boxpressed]

Thanks for the quick reply. I guess the keyboard has failed, then. It's the Mitsumi keyboard that I've read people complaining about.

 

I'm almost positive that I put the POKEY in the CC2 correctly. I didn't notice the dot, but the "notch" is on the same side, and I used the diagram in the CC2 manual.

 

Because there was no sound, maybe the POKEY *and* the keyboard are bad.