New 1200XL

[Colleton]

Bought a 1200XL this past week and it arrived on Friday.  It was dirty and yellowed, looking every bit the 36 year old computer that it is.  Powered up okay, fuzzy video output, almost half the keys didn't work.

 

Took it completely apart and washed all of the case pieces (protecting the mfg sticker on the bottom case), and then put the case out in the sun for some "light brightening" - 3 hours on Friday and 5 on Saturday.  It did take most of the yellow out of the case and I'm pleased with the result.  Light brightening seems (in my limited experience) to work pretty well with the Atari beige plastic, not so much with yellowed keyboard keys though.

 

I had ordered everything needed to do the "ClearPic 2002" mod when I bought my 1st 1200XL (ended up putting a Sophia DVI in it), so I spent a few hours Saturday morning doing the ClearPic mod on the new 1200XL.  It was easy enough, no issues encountered, and the video output looks fantastic.  Not perfect like a Sophia, but for a few dollars in parts and a small amount of my time, it is a great bang for the buck.  So now I have a clean, sharp s-video output and my sio2sd works on the SIO port.

 

Now the keyboard...  I had previously ordered a Best Electronics mylar, so I thought I'd give that a try.  Removing the old mylar is every bit as tricky and nit-picking as it looks in one of FJC's videos, but I got the old mylar off with minimal damage and installed the new Best mylar per the less than great instructions on their website.  No joy.  Tried it with and without the ultra-thin PCB included with the mylar to no good result.  After that I cleaned the tape residue off the keyboard PCB (even though the instructions say not to do so), still no joy.  In the end, I pulled the tape off the old mylar connection, scraped off the tape residue and rebuilt the connection fingers with conductive paint.  ...and there was much joy in Mudville, as the mighty Casey knocked it out of the metaphorical park.  (Casey At The Bat)

 

My thanks to FJC for the excellent video how-to and retrobits.net for step by step instruction on keyboard mylar repair.

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Colleton

[256 colors]

Look's a lovely nice and clean 1200XL  there

[ACML]

No you just need to upgrade the OS (see attached thread).

 

[Colleton]

Thanks ACML.  This machine has 28 pin sockets from the factory with 24 pin roms installed.  I've thought about replacing the roms, we'll see.

[tjlazer]

Rev 11 OS fixed a lot of incompatibilities I found.  I bought one of the last sets at Best Elec.

[Sugarland]

Awesome!! Great minimalist restoration.  Yes I had no luck light brightening the letters on an 800 keyboard. Beautiful machine!

[ACML]

51 minutes ago, tjlazer said:

Rev 11 OS fixed a lot of incompatibilities I found.  I bought one of the last sets at Best Elec.

I second that.  The Rev 11 (C060616B & 17B) fixes a lot, but not all.  I found that the 600/800XL OS provided the best compatibility while still retaining all the 1200XL's unique LED and F1-F4 features.  Also since you've accomplished the fantastic ClearPic 2002 video mod, your RF Channel 2-3 selector switch is freed up to be repurposed as an OS selector.  You pair up two OSs of your choice on two 27128 EPROMS and have your choice.  It still looks stock and fits under the RF shield.  I highly recommend it.  If you don't want the Omniview 80 OS (it works great with a ClearPic 2000), you could elect to go with Rev 11 (1200XL) and the 600/800XL OS for those titles that still have problems with Rev 11.  

[ACML]

4 minutes ago, Sugarland said:

Awesome!! Great minimalist restoration.  Yes I had no luck light brightening the letters on an 800 keyboard. Beautiful machine!

The letters on the 1200XL that appear off-white likely came like that from the factory.  There are two versions of keys.  One is bright white and seems more plentiful and then there are ones that had the slightly off white look.  Don't know why there was a break point.  US vs Taiwan manufacture????  So if they came like that from the factory, it makes sense that it does not change.

 

[Sugarland]

39 minutes ago, ACML said:

The letters on the 1200XL that appear off-white likely came like that from the factory.  There are two versions of keys.  One is bright white and seems more plentiful and then there are ones that had the slightly off white look.  Don't know why there was a break point.  US vs Taiwan manufacture????  So if they came like that from the factory, it makes sense that it does not change. 

  

 

Ahh! Yes my 1200 has the more yellowed keycap font. What makes me wonder though is the yellowing on mine varies considerably. SET on the tab key looks near white while UP arrow is brown.  It gives the keyboard some soul!

 

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by Sugarland

[_The Doctor__]

your finger acids will clean and homogenize them soon enough if you use them all quite a bit.

just kidding, it might help, but sometimes it's different keys at the start, or use and then storage.... so

it'll be okay

Edited September 2, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Gunstar]

17 hours ago, Sugarland said:

 

Ahh! Yes my 1200 has the more yellowed keycap font. What makes me wonder though is the yellowing on mine varies considerably. SET on the tab key looks near white while UP arrow is brown.  It gives the keyboard some soul!

 

 

Yes, your keyboard needs a retro-bright job or just out in the sun for a day or two. Below is what my non-yellowed 1200XL keyboard looks like. Pay no attention to the bright base of my keyboard, it has been painted with a special reflective paint so the LED back-lighting mod I did to it is brighter, as in the second picture-now THAT is SOUL. (which never looks as good in a photo as it does in real life)

Edited September 2, 2019 by Gunstar