Is my PSU safe to use?

[JayArgonaut]

Hey all,

 

I snagged an 800XL (images to come) and I'm wary about switching it on till I've confirmed that the PSU is not one of the notorious Ingots. Here's a photo of the unit:

 

From what I've read here, it doesn't appear to be one of the dangerous PSU's but I just want to make sure before I plug everything in.

 

Is it safe to use? I'd really appreciate some reassurance - or otherwise. ?

[StickJock]

I believe that the Ingots are 120V supplies, so your 240V one should be OK.

 

[TGB1718]

Yup, that looks like a standard UK 800XL/130XE PSU, good to go

 

[JayArgonaut]

2 hours ago, StickJock said:

I believe that the Ingots are 120V supplies, so your 240V one should be OK.

 

20 minutes ago, TGB1718 said:

Yup, that looks like a standard UK 800XL/130XE PSU, good to go

 

Wonderful! Thanks for the confirmation. Now I can concentrate on having some fun. ?

 

Speaking of which, here's my new (to me) 800XL. £105 GBP from eBay courtesy of buy-it-now.

 

 

 

 

 

It came with a couple of cartridge games and a QuickShot 1 joystick. Considering that many of the 800XL's on eBay around that price point are "untested" and/or don't even include the PSU, this isn't too bad. There's no cassettes or a tape drive but I remember using them to load stuff in the 80s and 90s and I don't want to revisit that chapter.

 

I've ordered a UnoCart and a DIN to RCA cable so that I can dispense with RF picture quality. This is my first foray into owning an Atari 8 bit and I've read the sticky for beginners and returnees but please share any suggestions or advice that you think I could benefit from. ?

[xrbrevin]

UK ingots are not a problem, its the US ones that are moody

[Beeblebrox]

2 hours ago, JayArgonaut said:

 

 

Wonderful! Thanks for the confirmation. Now I can concentrate on having some fun. ?

 

Speaking of which, here's my new (to me) 800XL. £105 GBP from eBay courtesy of buy-it-now.

 

 

 

 

 

It came with a couple of cartridge games and a QuickShot 1 joystick. Considering that many of the 800XL's on eBay around that price point are "untested" and/or don't even include the PSU, this isn't too bad. There's no cassettes or a tape drive but I remember using them to load stuff in the 80s and 90s and I don't want to revisit that chapter.

 

I've ordered a UnoCart and a DIN to RCA cable so that I can dispense with RF picture quality. This is my first foray into owning an Atari 8 bit and I've read the sticky for beginners and returnees but please share any suggestions or advice that you think I could benefit from. ?

That is a very good price in the UK for all that given increasingly even single 800XL with a psu, (that are often advertised as Untested), will typically sell for upwards of £125. I know the price bubble in the last couple of years has caused prices to rocket in the UK. I read 5 - 10 year old posts here on AA where at the time people were paying £40-50 for confirmed working 800XLs.  Ce la vie. 

[TGB1718]

11 hours ago, JayArgonaut said:

please share any suggestions or advice that you think I could benefit from. ?

There are just so many nice options for upgrading, it really depends what you want to do and your

soldering skills if you want to do internal upgrades.

 

Personally I went for Ultimate 1MB internal paired with SIDE 3 as it's so flexible.

 

Others here can advise you on the other options available.

[xrbrevin]

14 hours ago, JayArgonaut said:

any suggestions or advice

get a decent display sorted and a memory upgrade to allow loading of larger software.

 

standard SVideo can be good enough for some but your PCB will need a few small soldering mods to get the best out of it. alternatives are UAV - for the clearest SVideo option, Sophia gives DVI (and thus HDMI) out, VBXE basically gives you a graphics card with more resolutions and outputs but it costs more. composite is an option as standard but the quality is only 1 up from RF.

 

the better memory options give you the ability to select the 'bank-switching' type as some software can be fussy. as TGB1718 stated above, the U1MB is a current favourite - it also allows you to store various O/S ROMs (handy for high speed loading, monitor software, preferred DOS etc) the U1MB also combines with the SIDEx cart for .atr file support. another is the Antonia device - it has the selectable ROM slots and the various options for bank-switching types. one that doesnt require soldering is 'sys-check II' - it is mainly a diagnostic cart but it can also give you an extra 512k however i think the O/S ROM options are less sophisticated. really handy to have anyway tho - it just plugs into the parallel port (or cart & ECI on an XE) so its zero aggro to get it going. there are a lot of homebrew type memory mods out there, it depends on what floats your boat. theres even one to fit a 30-pin simm from an old PC!

 

for software, generally you can load via the SIO port or the cartridge port

 

the common SIO options are:

• SIO2SD - simple SDcard reader
• SDriveMAX - touchscreen SDcard reader
• SIO2PC - uses your PC to emulate an Atari drive(s)
• Fujinet - wifi internet based device with built-in SDcard reader and bluetooth

the common cartridge options are:

• AVGcart - supports .xex files and .atr if using an SIO connection
• SIDEx, Ultimate cart - all cart types supported and .xex files
• UNOcart - supports .xex files and (most) .atr
• MyIDE2 - supports .atr files

basically .xex files are executables (like .exe on a PC) and require an O/S to be loaded, whereas .atr files are a full disk image that boots from power-on.

 

check out lotharek's site for interesting curiosities and have a browse in the forum. guys like santosp and tf_hh kindly make these type of things available to us folks on here

 

if youre into modding - you can also get stereo audio upgrades, PS2 keyboard interface, CPU & disk drive accelerators, bluetooth connectivity, theres allsorts going on!

[Rybags]

You can still get dodgy 240V PSs - I threw one out some years back as it was overvolting.

Can't remember the type but fairly certain it was an epoxy-filled one.  Computer gave the symptom of audio buzz.  From memory I did volt test it and it was into the high 5s.

 

Given you can easily spend $100+ on a machine it's well worth testing any PSU you get with it even if it's one with good reputation.

 

[xrbrevin]

yes, the only original 240v one ive found to be faulty is the 'ribbed chocolate block' type..

[Fred_M]

European ingots do exist! I have several of them. Luckily the PSU in the picture is not an ingot ?

[JayArgonaut]

On 4/21/2022 at 12:12 AM, Beeblebrox said:

That is a very good price in the UK for all that given increasingly even single 800XL with a psu, (that are often advertised as Untested), will typically sell for upwards of £125. I know the price bubble in the last couple of years has caused prices to rocket in the UK. I read 5 - 10 year old posts here on AA where at the time people were paying £40-50 for confirmed working 800XLs.  Ce la vie. 

It's insane isn't it? Just last night I saw an 800XL which was similarly described to mine fetch £241 on eBay UK. The only difference was a cleaner computer and the inclusion of a tape deck. There was no disk drive, joystick, games stash, programming books or any accessories which would have warranted a bidding war of that level. I think I'll resume trawling the boot fairs and jumble sales and take the risk on stuff being faulty or in need of attention if they're cheap enough.

On 4/21/2022 at 9:36 AM, TGB1718 said:

There are just so many nice options for upgrading, it really depends what you want to do and your

soldering skills if you want to do internal upgrades.

I do have a soldering iron and other equipment but some practice would be in order before I begin operating on anything of value. ?

 

For now I'd like to play games - classics and homebrew and perhaps dabble with a bit of programming.

On 4/21/2022 at 9:36 AM, TGB1718 said:

Personally I went for Ultimate 1MB internal paired with SIDE 3 as it's so flexible.

 

Others here can advise you on the other options available.

 

On 4/21/2022 at 12:57 PM, xrbrevin said:

get a decent display sorted and a memory upgrade to allow loading of larger software.

 

standard SVideo can be good enough for some but your PCB will need a few small soldering mods to get the best out of it. alternatives are UAV - for the clearest SVideo option, Sophia gives DVI (and thus HDMI) out, VBXE basically gives you a graphics card with more resolutions and outputs but it costs more. composite is an option as standard but the quality is only 1 up from RF.

 

the better memory options give you the ability to select the 'bank-switching' type as some software can be fussy. as TGB1718 stated above, the U1MB is a current favourite - it also allows you to store various O/S ROMs (handy for high speed loading, monitor software, preferred DOS etc) the U1MB also combines with the SIDEx cart for .atr file support. another is the Antonia device - it has the selectable ROM slots and the various options for bank-switching types. one that doesnt require soldering is 'sys-check II' - it is mainly a diagnostic cart but it can also give you an extra 512k however i think the O/S ROM options are less sophisticated. really handy to have anyway tho - it just plugs into the parallel port (or cart & ECI on an XE) so its zero aggro to get it going. there are a lot of homebrew type memory mods out there, it depends on what floats your boat. theres even one to fit a 30-pin simm from an old PC!

 

for software, generally you can load via the SIO port or the cartridge port

 

the common SIO options are:

• SIO2SD - simple SDcard reader
• SDriveMAX - touchscreen SDcard reader
• SIO2PC - uses your PC to emulate an Atari drive(s)
• Fujinet - wifi internet based device with built-in SDcard reader and bluetooth

the common cartridge options are:

• AVGcart - supports .xex files and .atr if using an SIO connection
• SIDEx, Ultimate cart - all cart types supported and .xex files
• UNOcart - supports .xex files and (most) .atr
• MyIDE2 - supports .atr files

basically .xex files are executables (like .exe on a PC) and require an O/S to be loaded, whereas .atr files are a full disk image that boots from power-on.

 

check out lotharek's site for interesting curiosities and have a browse in the forum. guys like santosp and tf_hh kindly make these type of things available to us folks on here

 

if youre into modding - you can also get stereo audio upgrades, PS2 keyboard interface, CPU & disk drive accelerators, bluetooth connectivity, theres allsorts going on!

There's no doubt that I'm spoilt for choice! I've got a UnoCart on the way so I'll play around with that for a while and then I'll be able to decide what will be my upgrade and modding path. Thanks for the clarification that the PSU will be fine and for the heads up regarding my options.