Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Hi this is my 520st + motherboard without tos can i swap this 6 chip tos ? for my 520st ? https://allegro.pl/oferta/atari-st-stf-stfm-mega-st-tos-1-04-uk-6-chip-10606479894 will it work ? do i need solder something ? tos.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Will work, and no soldering needed. So, motherboard rev. C, and still no TOS ROM, only boot ROM .. Although, maybe someone downgraded ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) apparently, this version was very rare, without tos, but i dont know mayby was downgraded. I bought one. Edited April 13, 2021 by Davero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Nice to see the piggy back RAM upgrade too , mines got one of those too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 Could you tell me how to put chips ? i have 6, hi 0 1 2 and low 0 1 2. where to put low and hi ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 1 hour ago, TGB1718 said: Nice to see the piggy back RAM upgrade too , mines got one of those too That’s how the 520ST+ were originally sold, with a piggy back RAM upgrade to reach 1M Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 I didn't know that, mine is an early 520STM, had to do the RAM upgrade myself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 1 hour ago, Davero said: apparently, this version was very rare, without tos, but i dont know mayby was downgraded. I bought one. Is there a date printed in the back label? Maybe 11/ 1985? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 2 hours ago, Mr. Undo said: Is there a date printed in the back label? Maybe 11/ 1985? I will check and give you sign in thursday Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 4 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: Will work, and no soldering needed. So, motherboard rev. C, and still no TOS ROM, only boot ROM .. Although, maybe someone downgraded ? Could you tell me how to put chips ? i have 6, hi 0 1 2 and low 0 1 2. where to put low and hi ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TGB1718 Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 Does this help ? https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/tos/index.htm#TOS6CHIP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 (edited) 9 hours ago, Davero said: Could you tell me how to put chips ? i have 6, hi 0 1 2 and low 0 1 2. where to put low and hi ? Nothing printed at left side of sockets ? On my REV I. (1987), with same layout there are, from top (closest to cartridge socket) to down it is: Hi-2, Hi-1, Hi-0, Lo-2, Lo-1, Lo-0. Most important is to put chips properly in sockets, reversing them by 180 degrees is certain death. Edited April 13, 2021 by ParanoidLittleMan mistype Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 13, 2021 Share Posted April 13, 2021 9 hours ago, TGB1718 said: Does this help ? https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/tos/index.htm#TOS6CHIP Should inform him that there is no L3 ROM chip , pardon, maybe on cartridge ? Hmm, same error on both photos . And this is strange, because on my C070243 REV I. Hi-2 is at cart port, while on those what exxos photographed is opposite ??? Google in hands ... https://temlib.org/AtariForumWiki/images/e/e9/ST_Motherboard_C070243_Rev_C_Factor6.jpg No printings. One thing is sure: those with 0 go lowest in their section of 3 (L or H), so there are only 2 possible ways: as in my previous post (middle is Lo-1, my mistype), or: Lo-2, Lo-1, Lo-0, Hi-2, Hi-1, Hi-0 . There will be no damage if chips are in wrong socket - machine just will not work, then just change Lo and Hi order. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 13, 2021 Author Share Posted April 13, 2021 ok i will try , i put "cutter" to the right side Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 Work perfect !!! This my version and correctly inserted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 (edited) qwerty Edited April 18, 2021 by Davero Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davero Posted April 18, 2021 Author Share Posted April 18, 2021 On 4/13/2021 at 4:10 PM, Mr. Undo said: Is there a date printed in the back label? Maybe 11/ 1985? 12/85 i think so ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 18, 2021 Share Posted April 18, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Davero said: 12/85 i think so ... Thanks @Davero! I have also a 520ST+ with a REV.C board, in this case from 11/85 and with the ROM TOS upgrade. The german ROM TOS V. 1.00 dates from February 6, 1986. So, it's very possible all the STs launched in West Germany up to this date included only the boot ROM. Many of them were updated later. Michael Vogt, from atarimuseum.de, wrote once all the early STs (520, 260 and 520ST+) that were shipped initially with TOS in disk could be upgraded at a specialist dealer in Germany at that time for 98 DM. @ParanoidLittleMan: amending what I told you in another topic, at the end those upgrades weren't made for free as Atari really announced at first and I initially thought. I also discovered later that in the US the cost for the upgrade back then was $25. It's not really usual to find a system with boot TOS as it was originally sold without being upgraded, specially in systems with 512K RAM (pretty useless in that case), but for sure not everybody made the ROM upgrade. Of course it's also possible to find systems nowadays that have been downgraded, I guess mainly to preserve the original config. Edited April 18, 2021 by Mr. Undo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 Let's just see some TOS version release dates: Boot 1.00 - Nov. 20 1985 (16 KB only, needs disk with TOS). US, UK complete 1.00 (192 KB) - Nov. 20 1985 - ??? De 1.00 Febr. 6 1986 Fr 1.00 April 24 1986 This values are well visible in TOS header (with Hex viewer for instance) . What confuses is same date for boot ROM as full 1.00 . Hmm - it looks that it is some edited boot ROM, found other one, where no date since no TOS header too. Actual date of boot ROM should be end of 1984, begin of 1985 (first couple months max) . So, it took plenty of time to move from boot ROM to full 1.00 - 11 months. And little more for other lang. versions. This reminds me on what Landon Dyer wrote that they had only 2 weeks to squeeze 1.00, so it fit in given 192 KB space ? What they did other time ? Finalized AES, Desktop and other things, I guess. Surely 520 ST with only boot ROM was not good for plenty of SW, actually after 1987 for 99% of it. But sometimes computer just finishes in closet, nobody using it, or even is aware about . Downgrade could happen for instance when full TOS ROMs broke, or owner broke (financially) - and sold them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 (edited) The truth is that this period of time between the end of 1984 and practically all of 1985 is still quite dark in terms of the evolution of the ST operating system, as well as the commercialization of the computer itself. I've been investigating this period of time more thoroughly for a few months and I've found some data that may perhaps shed some more light here. Let’s go for it! JANUARY 1985 Prototypes shown at CES in winter 1985 (January 5-8): The operating system was still in development. GEM desktop very similar to the GEM Desktop 1.0. DRI released on 28th February '85. Atari TOS own icons not yet designed. It already had a folder structure (reasonable doubts if it ran under CP/M-68K or under a still-in-development GEMDOS). More info about this topic here: MARCH 1985 At the beggining of march Atari started to offer the 520ST professional development package (2 monitors, 2 drives and a 520ST) to software developers: https://archive.org/details/SanLeandroComputerClubslcc-Atari-Newsletters1985/SanLeandroComputerClubslccJournalAtariNewsletter85-04April1985/page/n4/mode/1up?view=theater It was still a computer halfway between the prototypes shown at CES in January and those that began to be marketed a few months later. This system, costing over $5000 ($5,500 was the price Antic magazine finally paid for the complete bundle – in other sources it’s said that this development system cost $4500-) included also development software, documentation and a hard disk drive. In words of Sig Hartmann (President of Atari Software at the time), at the end of march these development machines apparently has been purchased by most of the leading software vendors. The list of some 38 companies included: ANALOG Computing, Infocom, Synapse, Broderbund, Microbits Peripheral Product (MPP), Electronic Arts, Microprose, SubLogic, Matrix Software, Lifetree and Hayden Software. On March 30th ’85 Sig also said there were also five machines in Europe being used for software development. It's known that both Analog and Antic magazine acquired one of these computers, which will arrive at the respective newsrooms in the last week of March 1985. This Antic’s development 520ST was shown (back side and motherboard) in an article for the Antic’s August ‘85 issue: https://archive.org/details/1985-08-anticmagazine/page/n19/mode/2up This is the earliest Atari ST board of which there is graphic evidence. Interesting details: 192K ROM IN 6 CHIPS TV MODULATOR (Functional?) with Channel selection BOARD LABEL: ATARI 130/520ST BD REV B TOS IN ROM It was manufactured in the same production plant in Taiwan but assembled by hand. Did not include shielding inside. This early ROM TOS version was presumably a still-in-development TOS with icons placed at the right side of the desktop. We can take a look a this TOS version at the presentation of the 520ST in the TV program Computer Chronicles (S02E15: Low End Computers) premiered on April 8 1985: https://youtu.be/uuxtJFwNHXY?t=571 I’m pretty sure this early ROM TOS version was the version Landon Dyer was referring in his post. By early may ’85 there were a dozen of this development machines in Germany and just one in UK . 200 more of these machines were scheduled to arrive in the UK during the month: http://www.personalcomputernews.co.uk/pcnb/html/110/personal_computer_news_110_hardware_atari_advances_the_atari_520st.html MAY 29 1985 Date from the initial US and UK RAM TOS (also known as Disk TOS) release. Version 1.00 (named also v 0.99 or v 0.98 in some sources) It used a 16K boot ROM (also named “Das Boot” in the "Hitchhicker guide to BIOS", one of the documents included with the initial development systems). This TOS is loaded in RAM from disk. That same day (May 29, 1985) Atari sent a letter to all the Atari Users Groups in the States offering their members the chance to get the 520ST in scoop, together with a 360K SS 3’5 ”Disk Drive and a monochrome monitor for $799.95. The offer was available through June 25,1985: http://ftp.pigwa.net/stuff/collections/Atari newsletters/Atari Computer Enthusiasts of Columbus/atari-acec-1985-06-June.pdf JUNE 1985 The first 2,000 units of the 520ST are sold to members of User Groups in the United States. The 520ST also begins to be sold in Canada, UK and West Germany. JULY 8 1985 The first 520ST are commercially distributed in the USA, although still in a limited way: https://archive.org/details/ComputerShopperNov85Vol5No11AtariArticles/page/n1/mode/1up?q=atari+st LATE OCTOBER / EARLY NOVEMBER Atari shipped the 260ST (512K RAM system sold without monitor, disk drive or mouse) and the 520ST+ (1024K RAM system sold with monitor, disk drive and mouse) in Europe. These computer initially shipped with TOS on disk. http://www.atarimania.com/catalog-atari-atari-germany-atari-aktuell_336_S.html NOVEMBER 20 1985 US / UK ROM TOS v. 1.00 release date GERMANY RAM TOS v. 1.00 release date Of all the information shown here this is really the only date that does not add up to me. If the German version of RAM TOS is from November 20, which version of RAM TOS was included in the thousands of computers sold in this country between June and November ‘85? As of the end of November on, all computers that were marketed in the US and UK already included the ROM TOS version 1.00 This ROM TOS version 1.00 appeared in Germany, as already mentioned here, from February 6, 1986 and in France from April 24. Edited April 19, 2021 by Mr. Undo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ParanoidLittleMan Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 Nice overview, thanx for it. Btw. it was me who made that edited boot TOS image (16 KB) - so it can work in Steem - which refused it without usual TOS header, so I added it. I guess that they just sold it with UK or even US version in Germany before Nov. 20 1985. US version is not big problem without modulator, color encoder, and those early machines were without it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 3 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: it was me who made that edited boot TOS image (16 KB) - so it can work in Steem - which refused it without usual TOS header, so I added it. That's good to know! Is that the reason of the 08/1999 date in GEM Version? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Undo Posted April 19, 2021 Share Posted April 19, 2021 3 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said: I guess that they just sold it with UK or even US version in Germany before Nov. 20 1985. Yeah, it had to be that Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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