gollumer Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Years ago I picked up a second 1050 drive, in my original drive bit the dust. I haven't used either in years, but spent time this weekend setting up my 800XL and 1050 drive. I found the second drive, and had completely forgot it was modded: there are two switches mounted on the front. I opened it up to see if I could tell what it was, but I have no clue. I didn't take the drive mechanism out to see what might be on the main board. The switches are connected to a small board, which has wires going to the back of the unit (see pics...middle pic, the connector on the left) and another set of wires going underneath the drive mechanism. I don't know what those are connected to. Anyone know what those switches are used for? The drive works...I was able to boot off a dos disk, as well as a program disk. I haven't touched the switches, though. Pics aattached. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Looks like a happy enhancement, along with the optional "controller" mod which has the 2 switches and tri-colour LED. There should be a big PCB in the place of the CPU under the drive mechanism. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitoco Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 One of the switches should be used to write in side B of diskettes without making a R/W notch in them and, if the switch has 3 positions, to write-protect diskettes even if the notch is not covered The other one might be a bad sector writer, but I'm not sure. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vitoco Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 1 minute ago, Nezgar said: Looks like a happy enhancement, along with the optional "controller" mod which has the 2 switches and tri-colour LED. There should be a big PCB in the place of the CPU under the drive mechanism. Or this!!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gollumer Posted January 13, 2021 Author Share Posted January 13, 2021 Thanks, all. I'll open it up fully tomorrow to confirm it's a Happy board (but pretty sure it is after looking at some pics of other Happy mods...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 Here's a thread of mine where I posted pictures of a Happy drive I acquired with a controller that needed repair. The happy PCB in that case had a single 8KB SRAM chip, vs earlier version that had 3 2K chips (6KB RAM total) You can use the 7.1 ATR's attached to this post for diagnostics and other stuff: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/283666-archive-of-happy-backup-software/?do=findComment&comment=4127979 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xrbrevin Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 do you know if the atarimax happy clone can have a controller retrofitted? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted January 13, 2021 Share Posted January 13, 2021 2 hours ago, xrbrevin said: do you know if the atarimax happy clone can have a controller retrofitted? The headers are not present on the AtariMax board... But there is some discussions that describe the specific conditions the switches present to the CPU/RIOT: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/256683-altirra-280-released/page/17/?tab=comments#comment-3684109 Without the controller, write protect can still be overridden easily with a toggle switch on J11 on any 1050... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.