Incognito installation problem

[Calibus]

I bought an Atari 800 a couple years ago - and found out about this great thing called the Incognito - which sadly wasn't being sold any more and was super expensive on ebay.

So - during this past summer when I saw the post on FB that Lotharek was doing a new run - I fell over myself throwing money at him.

 

I was cheap on the postage - no tracking - but it made its way to me eventually.  In the meantime I watched FJC's installation videos - so I was all set when mine arrived.

Last weekend, I finally cleared enough space on my bench to open up the 800 and started installing it.

I got to the part in the video where he does the quick power up check.

 

So - I hooked mine up - powered it up - and got this on my monitor

 

 

 

I powered it off quick and double checked my connections.  Everything seemed OK to me - so I took a bunch of pictures and

showed them to FJC to see if a second pair of eyes would reveal my goof.

 

He spotted I have swapped the connections from P5 Pins 3 & 4 - the ones to the resistors.

So - when I got home that day - I wired them up correctly - and tried again.

Same thing - blue screen with squiqqlies.

 

It was at this point that I studied his example connections on the CPU card - and saw that it looked quite different than mine.

I was confident that I followed the instructions though - and connected the wires to the right pins on the chip I identified as the Antic via a part number lookup on google.

 

 

 

So - some more back and forth PMs and we realized I had a different rev CPU board than he did.  Maybe mine is normal for NTSC machines?

On both my CPU cards (I also have a parts 800 that arrived smashed from ebay) pin 1 of the large 40 pin chips is towards the card edge connector.

My CPU cards are oriented in the same layout as in the 800 service manual I downloaded.

 

 

I reverted my 800 temporarily back to an OS card and 48K - and it booted up fine into notepad.  So I at least didn't kill the machine.

 

I emailed Lotharek and he assured me that every Incognito is tested prior to being shipped.

 

So - I've pestered Jonathan enough these past three days - and I thought I might see if anyone else has any ideas what might be wrong.

Hopefully I didn't kill the Incognito with my wire swap accident.  Mine did come with a populated JTAG header - so if there is something I can do via that - it's an option.

 

I did originally plug the CPU and Incognito cards in the motherboard correctly - I double checked the video to see what the orientation was prior to applying power.

I also had the P4 cable connected properly - the 74LS42 replacement.

I have both jumper wires on the motherboard correct - I double checked against the video.  (Ref from the memory card slot to the personality module slot & RNMI to Reset)

 

Any ideas?  Does anyone else have it working with this style of CPU card?

 

 

I also have a TL866 if I needed to reprogram something.

 

Help?

 

Jim

[Faicuai]

(deleted)

 

I see reversion already worked.

 

Definitely need to focus on Incognito board. Unless you receive any other (workable) suggestion to re-connect or re-solder again on CPU board (and you are ABSOLUTELY sure that wiring-sequence is correct, from/and/to Incognito main headers) then.... you board may need to be diagnosed...

 

You may want to PM me for additional info. on this regard, if no other option is left (It should boot right up, without any problems).

 

UPDATE:

 

Contact this person, first (has the same / older CPU board you have, last post of thread), and he seems to be Ok.:

 

 

 

Edited November 21, 2019 by Faicuai

[Rybags]

That's a valid OS powerup screen, you can see the cursor as well.  So the Incognito supplied OS is at least partially working, but there's character set corruption that might suggest some address screwups are occurring.

 

Did you see if you can type?  Also try a game cart or 2 if you have some.

[+Stephen]

I've seen a similar screen before with a bad ANTIC, so as Rybags suggests, perhaps something in the address bus shorted?

[+Stephen]

Here's my https://www.flickr.com/photos/75619516@N06/albums/72157629855929494

 

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/75619516@N06/8362421147/in/album-72157629855929494/

 

 

[Calibus]

15 hours ago, Rybags said:

That's a valid OS powerup screen, you can see the cursor as well.  So the Incognito supplied OS is at least partially working, but there's character set corruption that might suggest some address screwups are occurring.

 

Did you see if you can type?  Also try a game cart or 2 if you have some.

With an incognito - do you normally get the memory test (?) sound effect on power up?

I definitely don't hear anything.

 

When I put the OS ROM back in and 48K of RAM - I definitely heard it on startup before either going into Memo Pad or BASIC or whatever else I tested it with.

 

I will definitely try a cart when I have a chance - with the Incognito plugged in.

I didn't have the keyboard plugged in - but I can try that also.

 

[Calibus]

2 hours ago, Stephen said:

I've seen a similar screen before with a bad ANTIC, so as Rybags suggests, perhaps something in the address bus shorted?

I assume you mean something is being shorted while the Incognito is plugged - since when I revert - it seems fine.

Granted, I've only done limited testing with this 800 - but it seems to work fine with a BASIC cart and Star Raiders when I reverted it.

 

[Calibus]

2 hours ago, Stephen said:

Here's my https://www.flickr.com/photos/75619516@N06/albums/72157629855929494

 

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/75619516@N06/8362421147/in/album-72157629855929494/

 

 

Looks like the same rev CPU card I have.  Mine is wired identically.

 

[Faicuai]

7 minutes ago, Calibus said:

I assume you mean something is being shorted while the Incognito is plugged - since when I revert - it seems fine.

Granted, I've only done limited testing with this 800 - but it seems to work fine with a BASIC cart and Star Raiders when I reverted it.

 

No, it is unlikely you have a bd ANTIC, since you had already stated (posts ago) that a full reversion works.

 

It seems your Incognito is highly suspect of (possible) malfunction.

 

In years of operation with Incognito, already, I have never seen a Gr.0 corruption like yours, unless I intentionally soft-load an entire OS under OS-RAM running in SDX (e.g. a momentary character-set corruption with Antic's DMA=ON)... and that is after everything is up and running.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Faicuai

[+Stephen]

1 hour ago, Calibus said:

With an incognito - do you normally get the memory test (?) sound effect on power up?

I definitely don't hear anything.

 

When I put the OS ROM back in and 48K of RAM - I definitely heard it on startup before either going into Memo Pad or BASIC or whatever else I tested it with.

 

I will definitely try a cart when I have a chance - with the Incognito plugged in.

I didn't have the keyboard plugged in - but I can try that also.

 

We affectionately call that noise the "Atari fart".  It's actually the OS polling for serial devices, and with none there, a timeout happens and makes the noise.  That should also happen when Incognito is installed.  If you have a disk drive (or SIO2SD type device), you will not get that noise - the device will attempt to boot.

 

Keyboard being unplugged will not cause any issues.

[Calibus]

I re-installed the Incognito in my 800 motherboard - and it WORKS!

 

i think I might have had a bent pin on the small cable that fits in the socket where the 7442 is removed from.

And yes - I had the orientation correct before - but I might have had one of those very delicate pins bent under - so it looked like it was in the socket, but it wasn't.

I powered it up - and it dumped me into Sparta DOS - so it looks like it's alive!

 

thanks for everyones suggestions and especially thanks to FJC for his above and beyond support via PMs

 

Jim

 

[+DrVenkman]

12 minutes ago, Calibus said:

thanks for everyones suggestions and especially thanks to FJC for his above and beyond support via PMs

 

Jon (aka @flashjazzcat) is a gem and a credit to the community. If you haven't already updated to his amazing firmware, you owe it to yourself to do so. And if you didn't buy your board pre-flashed with it and update, don't forget to drop a little tip into his jar. He and his contributions are worth it! 

 

Anyway, glad you got your board up and running. Congrats!