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New video upgrade coming soon!


Bryan

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Actually, how many people have installed theirs so far?

 

I was messing with ground/power points in a 5200 install, and managed to fry a UAV and my 5200. Atari labelled the regulator pins wrong and I stupidly fell for it!

 

Anyhoo... I can confirm that UAV doesn't like 12 volts.

 

 

I haven't yet; I want to install the first one in an XL machine before I give the 2600 a shot, and that means assembling the kit parts into the configuration I need. I just haven't taken the time to do it yet.

 

Sorry to hear about the 5200. :( Hopefully you can fix it or at least salvaging it for parts.

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More info:

 

The board is designed for NTSC or PAL and conforms as closely as possible to those video specifications. Today I'll be transferring it to a PAL machine for more testing. Installation is fairly simple if you have a socketed 4050 and a computer which doesn't obstruct placement of the board. I tried to make it fit as many machines as possible. You do need to install one extra wire to the COL pin of GTIA since it doesn't go to the 4050 socket. If the board doesn't fit your machine, I'll have a stripped down option with the socket header removed. Then you just have to wire up the signals yourself and stick the board somewhere nearby.

 

There's a terminal strip for video out (and the aforementioned COL signal in). It provides the standard Composite video and Chroma/Luma signals. All signals can be used at the same time unlike the original video where the picture is degraded if S-video and Composite are both connected.

 

The jumpers are there because different A8's use the pins of the 4050 differently. They allow you to designate which pins contain which signals. There's also two breakable pads at the front for +5 and GND connections so you can run your own dedicated power connections in case the 5V to the 4050 is bad enough to affect operation. This could happen on some machines which have a high resistance inductor on the 5V supply.

 

-Bry

Hi Bryan!

I really like what I see and I would very much like to get two of them.

 

Thanks in advanced!

Stephen J. Carden

http://www.realdos.net

 

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I wonder if Bryan or a mod could edit the title of the thread to indicate orders are closed? People aren't reading the whole thread and are missing it.

 

Also, might someone who has one and installed it start an Installation/Issues thread?

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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You can always pick it directly from pin 37 of the pokey. I don't have readable schematics here or I would give you a resistor to pick it from

It's tricky because there's no good place to grab audio that includes SIO sound and Pokey. I'll look into it...

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This is the problem. The 800 mixes the audio up front and has a buffered output for the monitor jack. The 400 only mixes the audio at the modulation point. With the addition of a few components, you could duplicate the 800 circuit in the 400.

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post-3606-0-50320700-1457578397_thumb.jpg

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Thanks for the quick reply, but I am afraid my electronics prowess would only allow me to do that if I got very concrete 'hook this part up there' type instructions....:(

 

Anyone out there who already tackled that?

 

Is there a way to get it just before/as it gets into the RF modulator or is that an unsuitable signal?

 

 

Gesendet von meinem iPhone mit Tapatalk

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This is the problem. The 800 mixes the audio up front and has a buffered output for the monitor jack. The 400 only mixes the audio at the modulation point. With the addition of a few components, you could duplicate the 800 circuit in the 400.

Wow, your scan is really good. I only have a version, which is really bad, especially the circuits. Where did you get it?

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Wow, your scan is really good. I only have a version, which is really bad, especially the circuits. Where did you get it?

The 400/800 hardware manual is online here:

http://www.bighole.nl/pub/mirror/homepage.ntlworld.com/kryten_droid/Atari/800XL/atari_hw/atari_hw_contents.htm

The schematics are available from a link near the bottom of the page.

 

The manual is also available as a PDF from Atarimania:

http://www.atarimania.com/documents/atari-400-800-hardware-manual.pdf

Edited by BillC
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Thanks for the quick reply, but I am afraid my electronics prowess would only allow me to do that if I got very concrete 'hook this part up there' type instructions.... :(

 

Anyone out there who already tackled that?

 

Is there a way to get it just before/as it gets into the RF modulator or is that an unsuitable signal?

 

No, the audio to the modulator is on a carrier frequency (kinda like color is) and is mixed with the video. It could be done acceptably by disabling sound to the modulator, but I'd rather find the best 'clean' method. This picture shows the part of the circuit the 400 and 800 have in common. The next step will be to see how easy it is to modify the rest of the 400 circuit.

post-3606-0-03429300-1457622315_thumb.gif

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Thanks for exploring. Waiting eagerly. I'll probably be able to hack something together on a board if I just know what ;)

I'm thinking the easiest way is going to be with a simple amplifier IC instead of discrete parts.

 

EDIT:

I'm looking at the Microchip MCP601 IC. It's $0.50 and is designed for 5V applications. I need to build up a circuit simulation of the 800 circuit and make sure I keep the levels about the same.

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I'm thinking the easiest way is going to be with a simple amplifier IC instead of discrete parts.

This is what Atari did for the 800, where the 400 used 2 discrete transistors for color and audio the 800 used A104, a DIP IC. Sams Computerfacts shows A104 being an LM3086N/CA3086 which contains 5 transistors(3 separate, 2 with a common emitter).

 

The transistors with the shared emitter were used for the audio, their collectors produced the 2 audio signals. The 800 converted the CTIA/GTIA color signal to chroma in 2 steps using other transistors in A104.

 

post-26063-0-39492100-1457654920_thumb.jpg

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This is what Atari did for the 800, where the 400 used 2 discrete transistors for color and audio the 800 used A104, a DIP IC. Sams Computerfacts shows A104 being an LM3086N/CA3086 which contains 5 transistors(3 separate, 2 with a common emitter).

 

The transistors with the shared emitter were used for the audio, their collectors produced the 2 audio signals. The 800 converted the CTIA/GTIA color signal to chroma in 2 steps using other transistors in A104.

 

Yep, they used those CA3086's in the disk drives as well. It just saves space over a bunch of 2N3904's.

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Good News:

 

I have installed the basic kit in my 7800 PAL (Rev. C - with the little daughterboard).

7800 SVideo: Perfect image without interference (on CRC an LCD TV)

7800 Composite: Very good image without interference (on CRC an LCD TV)

2600 SVideo: Perfect image without interference (on CRC an LCD TV)

2600 Composite: Very good image without interference (on CRC an LCD TV)

 

Of course 7800 AND 2600 Games are in color!

 

The PAL Rev. C Version has not the same circuit diagram an Pin-Numbers like the NTSC Version and.

So i used the schemtic by Sobola (http://www.dereatari.republika.pl/atarisch/7800.zip) and not the one by AtariAge.

 

If there is interest, i can post some pictures and some instructions where to solder the wires.

 

Olix

 

post-40758-0-96533100-1457872724_thumb.jpg

Edited by olix
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Took my 65 XE apart, started to try and understand the installation instructions in this thread and gave up. A bit of soldering doesn't worry me but the fact there is no step by step install instructions for each machine does. Show me the inside of a Speccy, 64 or CPC and I know what is what and what goes where. But this is the first time I've had an XE open.

 

Am I missing something or is it just the case that the instructions are so randomly spread over a 17 page topic which mainly contains people placing orders that I simply cannot find it all?

 

In anycase the XE is back together and the mod will be installed another day. Not willing to mess around with 29 year old hardware unless I have 100% confidence in what goes where.

Edited by chinnyhill10
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Instructions would be greatly appreciated!

 

!!! Importan: This instruction is only for the 7800 PAL Rev. C Board !!!

 

1. Remove R32, R33 and R62 from the motherboard. For the RF box; you can remove it entirely or leave it, go with the way you prefer. If you leave it, then cut the 4 pins from the R-Box. This step is necessary to prevent interferences. Also remove the channel-switch - you don't need it anymore, and here you can take the 5V an GND.

 

2. As you can see in the schematic, you can pick up the different signals either on the pins of the 74LS32 (U13) and the Maria Chip. Or you can pick up the signals on resistors:

L1 - R65 (right)

Syn - R66 (right)

L3 - R64 (right)

L2 - R67 (right)

L0 - R29 (down)

C-Maria - R25 (left)

 

Only the Color-TIA i take direct from pin 9 of the TIA-chip.

5V can you take from the right pin of the channel-switch

GND from the left pin of the channel-switch

 

3. connect the 2 left pins of the desoldered resistors R32 and R33. Here you can pick up the audio-signal (Pokey AND tia)

 

4. solder the wires on the uav-board as described in this artcle

 

Thats all :-)

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Edited by olix
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3. connect the 2 left pins of the desoldered resistors R32 and R33. Here you can pick up the audio-signal (Pokey AND tia)

 

 

 

SORRY, but i have a mistake in my instruction.

At point 3: For the audio-out, you have to connect the two pins of R32 and R33 on the RIGHT side !!!

 

post-40758-0-33358100-1457896416_thumb.jpg

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@olix: thanks for taking the trouble!

Similar hints by other hardware wizards tackling the other installations would be highly welcome!

 

I feel a lot like chinnyhill10, I am confident I can solder enough but don't always understand why I am doing what I am doing.

Edited by slx
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I assembled my kit today (this is the one I SHOULD have ordered as an assembled unit but didn't, because I misunderstood the options and goofed) ... But anyway, the kit is easy to assemble but very small. Don't try it with a soldering tip larger than about .75 mm (I used 0.5 mm) or solder thicker than 0.032". But #protip for anyone who does it this way: install the jumper block (if you're using it) BEFORE you install the two rows of pins for the 4050 socket adapter. I wasn't thinking when I I started and did these two in reverse order. That makes doing the jumper block very, very tight and it's hard to do it neatly. I did it, but it's not pretty and it took far too long. If I ever assemble a board like this from kit parts again, I'll know better.

 

I plan to install in my daily driver 800XL tomorrow. Should be pretty straightforward.

Edited by DrVenkman
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