Question about my old Atari 800 and 1050 drive

[serafine]

Hi folks!

 

I have an old Atari 800 computer with a 1050 Disk Drive and haven't messed with them in years. I recently set things up and the computer comes on just fine...cartridges boot just fine and games can be played as usual...without cartridges, Memo Pad comes up as expected. When I hook up the 1050, put in a disk of any kind, DOS, blank, bootable files, I get the same result...computer drops into Memo Pad and no disk access occurs (without cartridges), or pops into BASIC with that cartridge installed, but, again, no disk access of any kind occurs. If I have the "READY" prompt in BASIC, and type "DOS" it drops into Memo Pad. If I type a LOAD command with the correct syntax, I get an ERROR 130.

 

What do you suppose is the problem? I have 3 different i/o cables and the results are the same with all three. Do I have a bad circuit board? Keyboard works, sounds and graphics all work. I am puzzled.

 

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Bryan]

1. Is the 1050 set for drive 1 (white/black switches accessible through a hole in the back).

2. Does the 1050 act normally otherwise? Does the busy light/motor come on and go off after a few seconds when turned on?

3. Any bent pins in the SIO ports?

[Guest]

if you have access to another working atari and disk drive - try swapping them over and see which works/which doesn't

 

this'll (at least) identify exactly where the fault lies

[_The Doctor__]

I always bring stuff up on a variac after long storage and don't put it to use until after about 4 hours, this leave time for capacitors to heal and prevents damage...

 

If you don't have a variac use a 100 watt incandescent (old school glass filament) light bulb IN SERIES with the equipment coming out of storage... your equipment will thank you!

 

I would leave it on for a day not connect or used but turned on, then I would try it, after that refer to the multitude of threads dealing with the drives their repair and troubleshooting....