Atari 600XL Mem Upgrade

[Sinjinhawke]

18 hours ago, cwilbar said:

If you think the issue is around the memory related circuits, there is a plug in sram upgrade (I think there is 1 wire to solder) that Lotharek sells.

 

If your current RAM is 64K, then this will eliminate that piggyback board, the delayline, the ram chips on the board, and a few other chips too.  Price is under $20 US IIRC (though that does not include shipping).

 

Just another option depending on how difficult it is to fix.

It's 64k of RAM and tests ok.  I have tried lifting the board but it does not seem to be budging and I am nervous about using too much force.  I assume it's just stuck with age.  Will try to wiggle it without forcing too much.  

[cwilbar]

It should just be a press fit.  Though since it plugs into multiple sockets and looks like it is using square pins, it likely is a tight fit to begin with.... add time to the equation, and it will likely take a bit of effort.  Try to reach under the board so any force you use is located close the where the sockets plug in and doesn't flex the PCB much.

 

 

[ClausB]

If they are big square pins, then the sockets might be stretched so they might not hold regular chips very well. If it's working, why not leave it in?

[Sinjinhawke]

1 hour ago, ClausB said:

If they are big square pins, then the sockets might be stretched so they might not hold regular chips very well. If it's working, why not leave it in?

It's having technical difficulties.   I will try swapping the accessible chips once I have secured some and if the issues are gone I will leave it as is.  Just hoping to fix it as I really like the 600xl form factor but I do have a 130xe that I use more.

[+hloberg]

I just ordered the memoryto upgrade my 600xl.

(here's what I ordered: 4x DRAM HM50464P - 12 DRAM Chips - hope it's right)

downloaded lots of info on how to install and watched several videos. I will post the process with pictures on my Atari projects blog and I probably will be posting questions here although but it looks fairly straight forward. still don't like the idea of bending leads to chips but it looks like many have done it without an issue.

 

[Blues76]

On 7/18/2005 at 9:43 PM, Guitarman said:

Here is a new one. I have a 600XL that I was preparing to sell. I set it up to text it and by chance decided to do the BASIC memory call (print fre(0)) to see how much memory was in it. To my suprise, there is 64K of memory in this 600XL. I then took it apart to see if it was the easy 2 chip upgrade that I did to my other 600XL I am keeping.

 

What I found was a daughterboard upgrade from a company called BOT Engineering. It has 8 4164 dram chips for the upgrade and plugs into 6 of the sockets on the main 600XL board. The locations it plugs into are:

 

U11, U12 - original dram locations

U5, U6 - both 74LS158N

U2 - Atari #61618 MMU

U18 - 74S32N

 

The date on the board is 1983.

 

Has anyone heard of this upgrade?? I have done a search on the I-Net but haven't found anything yet.

where were you thinking on selling ? ebay ? here ? Curious to see what other places people may be buying or selling ? 

[+hloberg]

On 10/18/2020 at 11:58 AM, hloberg said:

I just ordered the memoryto upgrade my 600xl.

(here's what I ordered: 4x DRAM HM50464P - 12 DRAM Chips - hope it's right)

downloaded lots of info on how to install and watched several videos. I will post the process with pictures on my Atari projects blog and I probably will be posting questions here although but it looks fairly straight forward. still don't like the idea of bending leads to chips but it looks like many have done it without an issue.

 

SUCCESS!!!?  Did the whole pin bend up thing and all and it works! I'm going to post a detailed step by step (with pictures) on how I did this on my project blog in a few days. here's a couple pictures till then:

 

[+hloberg]

A detailed (more or less) procedure for adding memory to 600XL.

 

[lowlevel]

On 10/9/2020 at 9:57 AM, ClausB said:

If they are big square pins, then the sockets might be stretched so they might not hold regular chips very well. If it's working, why not leave it in?

Indeed they are big square pins that stretch and ruin the sockets.

I have two revisions of this board.. one has bad ram chips (soldered) and the other with socket-ed ram works fine.

Made in Brampton Ontario CANADA I believe, but forget exactly... says 'BOT Engineering' on them, 1983.

[Sinjinhawke]

7 hours ago, lowlevel said:

Indeed they are big square pins that stretch and ruin the sockets.

I have two revisions of this board.. one has bad ram chips (soldered) and the other with socket-ed ram works fine.

Made in Brampton Ontario CANADA I believe, but forget exactly... says 'BOT Engineering' on them, 1983.

We had an independant Atari computer store in downtown Belleville, Ontario growing up. So odd to think such a thing use to exist in my small town (37000 at the time).  

 

I took my 600xl there and that is the board they put in it.  Still fine but it obstructs trying to remove some components and I was never brave enough to try to force it.  I did lift the left side out but on the right side it really pulls on the board so I got to nervous to force it. The ram is not socketed in mine so if it fails then I will have to force it.