justrob Posted December 28, 2013 Share Posted December 28, 2013 (edited) So...I picked up a lot of old gear from a guy on the local CraigsList: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_173758.jpg Included in the milk crate at the bottom of the pile were a 1050 with some sort of mod done to it, and a few carts with no labels and obviously replaced screws. I popped open the carts to find a couple with empty sockets on their boards, and another two with seemly legit looking boards. The final cart had a couple of eproms with tape covering the uv windows. Could these be possible prototypes or just homebrew or bootlegs? Here are some pics of the drive and the cart internals. I haven't gotten around to testing the hardware I picked up yet but it constitutes the totality of my atari equipment so until I get one of these up and running I can't test the carts to see what's on them. Still, opinions welcomed. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_181824.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_183730.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_184304.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_184544.jpg Edited December 28, 2013 by justrob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Allan Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Nice find. Did you get any disks or documents/manuals with it? Allan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 I would suspect a 1050 duplicator board, which is similar to a Happy, and Rocklan and K-Byte were game companies. Plug the carts in, you might have a rare game there. IIRC, some old K-Byte stuff only runs on OS A or B, so try it on an original 800 (or an XL/XE with compatible OS) before you decide it doesn't work. Nice CL find -K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted December 29, 2013 Author Share Posted December 29, 2013 Alright, took some time to test out the hardware a bit. There were 3 1050 drives, two boxed. An 800, 800xl, and a 130xe, all boxed. The 800 is modified to high heaven. All the ram slots are populated, and the closest slot to the cart ports, which I'm guessing is a rom card slot, is full of chips with wires running every which where through to the inside of the case. There are switches coming out of the underside of the front and another hanging out the back of the case under the vents from the ram slot bay. I have no clue how to plug this thing in to my tv. I've got a monitor cable, but I can't figure out how to make it work with my tv. There are 2 video cables, so I'm guess separate chrom/lum cables? I don't see and rf jack so I can't figure out how to turn that one on. The 800xl boots straight to the self-test. I didn't count the memory blocks but all came out green. The keyboard test the first time it ran had a bunch of keys randomly pressing themselves. I was able to get it to boot into basic after flipping the power switch and hitting reset a few times. The keys were really sensitive though, the slightest touch would register a keypress. Not sure what to do with this guy. The 130xe was the real gem. The outer box was beat to hell but everything inside was still plastic wrapped, didn't look like any of it had ever been removed. That one of course works fine, but the power switch was stiff and it's a little wobbly now. It'll turn on and stay on, but I have to kinda massage it a bit closer to off once I switch it to on. It seems to run fine, but damn the keyboard is squishy. As for the carts, none of the ones I took pics of seemed to boot except for the one with the obvious eproms, except it went straight to the self-test on the 130. None of them would boot on the 800xl. A few of the other carts I have seem to be just empty cases, no boards inside. On the 800xl, a few of the games would boot, but I couldn't get either of the 2 basic carts to start up. One just stays at a black screen, the other stays on the blank blue booting screen without ever giving me the ready prompt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Closest slot to the carts contains the OS ROM. Next 3 are for RAM. A wire mess might mean some sort of RAM upgrade, possibly 64K or more if the first slot has wires coming from it. As mentioned, worth testing the carts on the 800 as well. Old carts can be finnicky though, cleaning the contacts with a pencil eraser followed by a quick wipe over with contact cleaner or video head-cleaning fluid can help. Monitor port on the 800 supplies composite as well as S-Video, a compatible video cable should give 4 RCA jacks with Composite, Audio, Colour, Luma. Composite + Audio should work on A/V input on modern TVs, you'd need an adaptor to run S-Video most likely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted December 29, 2013 Author Share Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Here are some more pictures of the 800. The rom board and the slot under it can be seen. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215356.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215408.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215614.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215809.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215813.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20131228_215834.jpg The monitor cable I have has 4 plugs at the end, yellow, red, white as per normal composite, and a black plug. I tried using it for all three machines plugged into two different modern tvs and got no signal with any combination, but rf seems to work fine on the 800xl and the 130xe. Still no way to get the 800 to display video. The 800 seems to power on just fine, but with no way to get a display out of it, I have no way to test further. Also, the disk drive with the mod seems to be a Happy mod. I found a printed out manual and a warp speed v7 disk in one of the other 1050 boxes. Edited December 29, 2013 by justrob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 (edited) Red/White equate to right/left audio but chances are that cable doesn't conform to modern colour/function standards. Yellow might well be composite but it's most likely the cable only has one audio plug. Just try one at a time in the video in socket on the TV, plugging the wrong one in shouldn't matter. If you get only B&W then that'd likely be the luma cable. That OS module has Omimon onboard, I'd guess one switch might turn that on/off. Reasonable chance another extra button might be a Reset switch for the computer. The RAM module has 256K of RAM onboard, so the machine probably has at least 288K of RAM. Other switch is probably to disable the extra RAM or possibly change operating mode. Edited December 29, 2013 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted December 29, 2013 Author Share Posted December 29, 2013 Well, I managed to get the monitor cable to work with the xl and xe. The red cable seems to be composite video, yellow and black may be audio. White just gives me a nice dark green blob on the screen that turns into a light green blob when I turn the brightness up. Still nothing out of the 800 itself though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 Forgot to mention - nice haul. How much $$$ ? The 800 might be problematic in that much of the extra wiring is vital for it to function so just one loose/broken connection could be a show-stopper. So long as the keyboard speaker is connected you can power up without a cart and at least get some feedback as to if it's partially working. You should get a barely audible click when it turns on, then if it goes to Memo Pad after a few seconds be able to get keyboard clicks. Although of course the keyboard itself might be playing up so no guarantee there. If you have another 800 you could try swapping the OS module in and a single 16K board in the next slot although since the machine's modded somewhat it might only work with the configuration you have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted December 29, 2013 Author Share Posted December 29, 2013 The guy wanted $95 or trade for an android tablet...which I just so happened to have lying around. Technically I paid nothing. Just tested out the floppy drives. The one with the happy mod goes into an endless cycle of trying spinning and blinking the access light. #2 doesnt even spin up when it powers up. #3 will finish the initial test cycle but I get infinite boot errors on screen. It also doesmt have the spring back when I inset a disk. I tried these all with the 130 if that makes a difference? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 This may sound strange, but was there any beeping when trying to boot, or was it a low pitch "farting" sound, or a higher pitch one? That's part of the beauty of SIO, sometimes, you can literally HEAR the error. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted December 29, 2013 Author Share Posted December 29, 2013 I didn't have the sound cables plugged in, so I only heard what noises the drives themselves were making. When I plug in the sound cables I get major static and it just sounds like shit so I've been leaving them out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted December 29, 2013 Share Posted December 29, 2013 #1 sounds like data error to the processor, the spinning, blinking is a known error message. Try re-seating the socketed chips. #2, possibly dead power. Check capacitors, diodes and stuff. #3 maybe mechanical problems. Little silver tab on left side, maybe spring broken / missing? Felt pressure pad still in place? Spring set properly? Swap mechanisms from 1 and 3, just, PLEASE, take notice how at least 1 plug on the left hand side goes in backwards of the others. I don't have one in front of me right now. The important thing is to PLUG THEM IN CORRECTLY! It's fairly simple, just be careful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thegamezmaster Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Nice haul! Hope you got some good or undiscovered stuff in there. Enjoy! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 So, I noticed that I was using the wrong power supply for the floppy drives. I found the correct one in the pile of stuff and I have a few updates on the drives. Drive #1: Happy mod. Booted right up with the DOS 3 disk that was in the box for one of the other drives. Managed to do some stuff with it and the warp speed disk. Drive diagnostics all came out ok according to what I saw on the screen. I tried to format some of the random floppies that was in the pile but I kept getting 139 errors and a 144 error once. I turned it off to test the other drives and when I came back to it, it went right back to the continuous red access light and spinning mechanism every few seconds. Drive #2: Powers on, no spinning whatsoever even with a disk inserted. I opened this one up to check it out and found something interesting... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_192257.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_192312.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_192332.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_192352.jpg The board was just sitting in the case, not plugged into anything. That would account for the "something is sliding around loose in there" sound I heard when I shook it a bit. The pins are somewhat bent on the chip on the bottom, but I see how it's supposed to be mounted. I may give it a try but I'm not sure if there were any other modifications needed or whatnot. Still haven't tried the drive after opening it but maybe it's next. Drive 3: Turns on, spins for a second then stops. I can put a disk in and it'll spin to try and read it but it has no springiness to it as I can push a disk all the way into the thing with no resistance. Any suggestions or links on where to begin on repairing these things? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Reseat Happy boards in 1 & 2. Check silver metal tab thing on left side of mech on 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Just opened up the 800xl to take a look. I think I know why it won't boot to BASIC... https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_202936.jpg Also, the OS rom does not look stock in anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Were all these items shipped in the same lot? What did they do. shake them to pieces? That's what it looks like. If you have an EPROM (or Universal) Programmer, we always like to examine dumps of new or unknown OS (EP)ROMs -K Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 This whole lot came from a guy on my local craigslist. He said they belonged to his brother years ago. I found a receipt for one of the 1050 drives in the box for one of them dated 1986 shipped to a guy named Peter Dominguez in Augusta, GA. The 800 is modded everywhere, the 800xl has a custom os rom, the 130 at least looked brand new. Haven't found anything to say otherwise. At least 2 of the 1050 drives are modded. I have NO CLUE what's on any of the floppies or unknown carts. If I had a programmer I'd dump the chips to see what was on them. This is really my first experience with Atari 8-bit stuff of any kind so it's interesting trying to piece together what the original owner may have done to these machines and what he used them fore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Reseat Happy boards in 1 & 2. Check silver metal tab thing on left side of mech on 3 I reseated the happy board in #2. It powers on but it still doesn't spin or anything. #1 seems to be booting and reading disks just fine again, but I can't format anything still, 139 errors. Still need to pop the top on #3 to take a look. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 And here we have the internals of Drive #3: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_212438.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_212447.jpg I don't know who the previous owner was or what he did with these machines but he didn't leave anything stock. I'm tempted to open up the 130xe and see if there's anything inside that has been messed with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 And here we have the internals of Drive #3: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_212438.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/5933567/20140103_212447.jpg I don't know who the previous owner was or what he did with these machines but he didn't leave anything stock. I'm tempted to open up the 130xe and see if there's anything inside that has been messed with. That one has a home brew US Doubler mod... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Tried to pop open Drive #1 to verify what's inside, but the screw tunnel was far more narrow than the other 2 drives. Not sure how that happens. My thinnest screwdriver wouldn't fit so it'll have to wait till I can get to my other set of tools. All in all, I think this was an interesting haul, if not immediately useful for my needs. I have a buddy who is going to try and dump the different roms I couldn't identify so who knows, maybe there'll be something interesting in those too? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted January 4, 2014 Share Posted January 4, 2014 Check your wires, particularly the drive motor wiring at the J1 connector. It is on the left side, notice the offset orientation. Are your wires, yellow, grey, blue,red in the correct order? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justrob Posted January 4, 2014 Author Share Posted January 4, 2014 Check your wires, particularly the drive motor wiring at the J1 connector. It is on the left side, notice the offset orientation. Are your wires, yellow, grey, blue,red in the correct order? 1050wires1.png1050Wires2.png Yeah, everything seems to be in place. Could it be the happy board in that drive is faulty? The power light comes on but that's about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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