Just got XF551

[+videofx]

Hi Everyone,

 

Just picked up a XF551 disk drive. I was able to format a disk, copy a DOS XE disk and boot from it. So the drive appears to be working.

 

Here are some pictures.

 

It looks like the capacitors have leaked. Can someone please confirm? If so who can fix it for me? 

 

I will clean the heads and lube the rails. It is worth it to put the Hyper ROM in it?

 

Anything you can tell me will be appreciated

 

Thanks!

 

Bill

[+Nezgar]

Congrats on the acquisition. I don't see any leaky capacitors. Leaky capacitors leak from the top. That white gunk you see at the bottom of them is glue, or a loctite type substance to secure the capacitors from coming loose from transport / vibration.

 

Hyper XF ROM upgrade is probably the easiest upgrade you can do, since I believe all XF's have a socket for the ROM. Only thing is ideally there's an extra piece I think most people skip to help with disk change detection.

[+Larry]

These photos remind me of a question about the board.  Why all the connecting wires?  Wouldn't it have been cheaper to have used a printed board?  Logic suggests that the wires were cheaper, but I don't understand why it would be.  BTW, I've never had an issue with an XF551 that I purchased new (at least 3 from Toys R US), but did have trouble with two boards from used XF551's that I acquired (one SIO, and on unknown issue).  I always reinforced the SIO jacks with screws.  You used to be able to buy a tested repaired/pulled board from Bruce (B&C) for $75, so that was a good, pretty economical fix for bad boards.

[xrbrevin]

it has the connecting wires is because the mech is not made in-house, i think its a standard shugart type from a third party supplier

dropcheck used to make a new PCB, listed on her site: bitsofthepast but some projects on there come and go so i dont know if its still available

HyperXF ROM is an easy upgrade and well worthwhile

Hyper+ XF 1.0 MANUAL.txt

HYPROMA.rom

[+videofx]

10 hours ago, Nezgar said:

Congrats on the acquisition. I don't see any leaky capacitors. Leaky capacitors leak from the top. That white gunk you see at the bottom of them is glue, or a loctite type substance to secure the capacitors from coming loose from transport / vibration.

 

Hyper XF ROM upgrade is probably the easiest upgrade you can do, since I believe all XF's have a socket for the ROM. Only thing is ideally there's an extra piece I think most people skip to help with disk change detection.

Thanks! I thought it might be glue.

 

What is it that helps with disk change detection?

[+videofx]

31 minutes ago, xrbrevin said:

it has the connecting wires is because the mech is not made in-house, i think its a standard shugart type from a third party supplier

dropcheck used to make a new PCB, listed on her site: bitsofthepast but some projects on there come and go so i dont know if its still available

HyperXF ROM is an easy upgrade and well worthwhile

Hyper+ XF 1.0 MANUAL.txt 30.35 kB · 3 downloads

HYPROMA.rom 8 kB · 2 downloads

Thanks for ROM and Manual.  

 

Will Hyper+ allow me to format DS/DD disks? I could not find that in the manual

 

Thanks!

[xrbrevin]

i think the drive natively supports DS/DD (360k).

find the version of DOS that came with the drive if you can and try it. maybe a 3rd party DOS will also be compatible?

[+Nezgar]

39 minutes ago, videofx said:

What is it that helps with disk change detection?

The Solonoid thing described here: http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/Deja-vu-XF551-Navrat-do-minulosti.aspx

 

It helps the drive automatically switch to the correct density by attempting to read a sector from the disk before the Atari does.... otherwise, if you were previously working in DD, and change to a SD disk... the first read of the new disk may fail normally...  I don't think "most" people have added this component of the upgrade.

 

30 minutes ago, xrbrevin said:

i think the drive natively supports DS/DD (360k).

find the version of DOS that came with the drive if you can and try it. maybe a 3rd party DOS will also be compatible?

The drive originally came with DOS 2.5, which did not use the drives double-sided or true double-density capabilities. DOS XE later came out which did, so maybe your manual was from the earlier set.

 

SpartaDOS 3, RealDOS, SpartaDOS X will also make use of the DSDD capability.

 

[+mytek]

2 hours ago, Larry said:

Why all the connecting wires?  Wouldn't it have been cheaper to have used a printed board?  Logic suggests that the wires were cheaper, but I don't understand why it would be.

Cheaper is the key word. Even the main PCB was made as a single layer, hence all the machine form wires to make up for missing top layer traces. This is also the reason why these boards are so difficult to work with, very easily lifting pads when de-soldering. Without the typical top and bottom layers, there are also no plated thru holes which is what prevents pads from easily lifting in the first place, and why simply rocking the SIO jacks will pull the pads right off the board and/or break the traces that connect to them.

 

[+videofx]

49 minutes ago, Nezgar said:

The Solonoid thing described here: http://blog.3b2.sk/igi/post/Deja-vu-XF551-Navrat-do-minulosti.aspx

 

It helps the drive automatically switch to the correct density by attempting to read a sector from the disk before the Atari does.... otherwise, if you were previously working in DD, and change to a SD disk... the first read of the new disk may fail normally...  I don't think "most" people have added this component of the upgrade.

 

The drive originally came with DOS 2.5, which did not use the drives double-sided or true double-density capabilities. DOS XE later came out which did, so maybe your manual was from the earlier set.

 

SpartaDOS 3, RealDOS, SpartaDOS X will also make use of the DSDD capability.

 

 

My XF551 came with DOS XE

[+MrFish]

1 hour ago, videofx said:

My XF551 came with DOS XE

 

There were two packages for the XF551: one was with DOS 2.5 and the other was with DOS XE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by MrFish

[manterola]

Mine also came with DOS XE, but I mostly use MyDOS to create DD/DS diskettes (360KB). Check this post on how to set the disk to 360KB.

And extraordinarily I got my XF551 without firmware Ina separated ROM. It uses the firmware inside the 8050 chip. 

I am still trying to find someone with the capability (probably old eprom programmer) to extract and backup the firmware from the 8050.

Please also check this thread for comments for a little project I am working on to fix sio connections without replacing the whole PCB

 

Edited October 6, 2021 by manterola

[+kheller2]

Perhaps I missed something but were there XF551s that used the internal 8050 ROM?!?!

[manterola]

10 hours ago, kheller2 said:

Perhaps I missed something but were there XF551s that used the internal 8050 ROM?!?!

Probably not so many. It was though for decades that all XF551s used external ROM for firmware. However, when I wanted to try Hyper+ XF firmware I opened my XF551 and it did not have the ROM nor the socket. It also had the S4 jumper installed instead of S3. There should be more of those XF551 in the wild still left to discover.

So I guess in theory, anyone can move that jumper, and remove the ROM and the drive should work with the internal firmware (as long as you have the Atari branded 8050 processor).

 

[+kheller2]

9 hours ago, manterola said:

Probably not so many. It was though for decades that all XF551s used external ROM for firmware. However, when I wanted to try Hyper+ XF firmware I opened my XF551 and it did not have the ROM nor the socket. It also had the S4 jumper installed instead of S3. There should be more of those XF551 in the wild still left to discover.

So I guess in theory, anyone can move that jumper, and remove the ROM and the drive should work with the internal firmware (as long as you have the Atari branded 8050 processor).

 

Do we have pics or some info on manufacture dates?

[+videofx]

Now I will have to remove my drive and lets see if we have a ROM or No ROM

[cwilbar]

If I recall correctly, that Intel architecture when it had on board ROM used, had a pin you could ground the EA pin (pin 31) which would have it use external rom.  So, you could still use Hyper-XF with one that was using on 'cpu' (microcontroller) firmware by setting that line appropriately.

 

As for how to dump the 8050's contents I presume you'd use an EPROM reader/burner with an appropriate adapter.  There is a video on you tube of someone dumping code from an 8051.  That video is here:

 

I don't know if there was a means of protecting the code (like with newer programmable parts), or if any of the Intel MCS-48 series are able to be read.

 

 

[manterola]

Thanks for the video!.. @cwilbar . It is interesting since I never knew that the AT89 series was compatible with MCS-48 (at least to read). The TL866ii lists several of those Atmel chips in the compatibility list, so I tried to read the generic 8050s I have selecting Atmel 89S53 and 89S51 and I got 0xFFs . Except in one that I got a few 0x01s and then 0xFFs. So I tried to read the Atari/Intel branded 8050 and I still got 0xFFs only. I tried other tricks, but I just either full set of 0xFFs or 0x01s

Now I am thinking on getting one of those GQ-4x4 programmers....

19 hours ago, kheller2 said:

Do we have pics or some info on manufacture dates?

Regarding this quetion I could not find the original PCB itself yesterday, as I've been using @Dropcheck reimagined one in my XF551. I will keep looking for it this weekend.

What I do have is:

1.- The Intel/Atari 8050 processor (together to generic ones in case they give some clues on manufacture date):

   

 

2.- A picture of the label of my XF551 (you can notice the mark done by "Coelsa" the authorized distributor of Atari in Chile, as it was purchased there back in 1991 or maybe 1992). This drive is a Mitsumi standard based model.

 

Sorry for derailing another thread....

Edited October 8, 2021 by manterola