nadir Posted March 4, 2021 Share Posted March 4, 2021 I just received my first Atari 8-bit ever a couple hours ago. It's a 600XL with the 64K upgrade. It looked to be in beautiful shape, even had a good condition original box (albeit no manuals) and fired up into BASIC and ran great there at first. Got my first "Hello, World!" program in and all was good. Admired the screen and the fact that it worked and shut it down. Then I powered it up again with the included AtariMax cart. Keyboard wouldn't work at all and the system just keeps making a "binkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbinkbink" sound. With the joystick I can get into Adventure by double clicking real fast, but nothing else. I held down option and rebooted. The keyboard test screen just makes a continuous "booooooooooooooo" sound and the tab, control, left shift, space bar, right shift, caps, and return keys are lit up. Help to exit doesn't work. Reset back into BASIC and it's just spewing //////////// now. However, I found if I very slightly hold the + and * keys down that it stops repeating. Nothing else on the keyboard works, but if I hold those 2 keys just barely pressed, I can reboot into AtariMax and select games with the joystick. How bad is it? Do I just have a fancy joystick only game machine? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 It’s most likely the keyboard mylar. You can get a new one for it from Best Electronics, or get the one for sale on eBay that is from Poland. If that doesn’t work you can replace the keyboard multiplexers marked 4051 which are right by the keyboard ribbon cable. Could also be a bad pokey. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nadir Posted March 5, 2021 Author Share Posted March 5, 2021 (edited) 29 minutes ago, Paul Westphal said: It’s most likely the keyboard mylar. You can get a new one for it from Best Electronics, or get the one for sale on eBay that is from Poland. If that doesn’t work you can replace the keyboard multiplexers marked 4051 which are right by the keyboard ribbon cable. Could also be a bad pokey. OK, upon further testing, holding down +, *, tab, space, return, /, or caps on boot will prevent the keyboard from running away. As soon as I let go of any of those, the / key starts repeating. Duplicated inside self-test. Example, go into self-test with spacebar held down from power up. All good. Let go of space bar and the / key lights up and "booooooo". I've also noticed a few games on the AtariMax have no sound, but most do (and some of them sound really good). Does that help narrow down the possibilities any? Edited March 5, 2021 by nadir Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 Open it. Unplug keyboard. Quiet. ? Let us know what version you have. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 if keys repeat there are a bunch of tiny screws on the back of the keyboard, loosen the ones ever so slightly near the repeating keys... prolly just a slightly warped back plate... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul Westphal Posted March 5, 2021 Share Posted March 5, 2021 ALL 600xl’s were made in Hong Kong, so the chips are socketed. Try Reseating all the chips ( being careful with the 64k modded ones with wires ) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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