What kinds of upgrades for a 520ST?

[nathanallan]

On the inside are the os chips and two socketed chips. Can those be upgraded? I want to avoid soldering anything. Are there any kind of chips I can pick up and drop in?

 

Is there a ram upgrade that goes into the rom slot? What can I do with that?

 

Nathan

[krupkaj]

you can change the TOS chips. But the latest version you can use in ST without soldering is "Rainbow" TOS 1.04. There are upgrades with TOS 2.06 but they are not just plug and play.

 

I don't know about memory upgrade for ordinary ST you can install without soldering.

[Gunstar]

As krupkaj said, basically on TOS 1.4 without soldering, and even then if you have the two chip design, you have to upgrade to a two chip design without soldering, though you can switch between 2&6 chips OS's as well as upgrade beyond 1.4, but it requires soldering. With some ST's like my 1040STf it was easy to switch from two to 6 chip requiring only two solder points that were labeled, not all ST's are quite so easy to find what needs to be changed there. But, if your willing to learn to solder and follow basic electronic instruction, or even learn a little basic electronics yourself, there are a plethora of ST upgrades ranging from OS to memory, accelerators, stereo and 4096 color upgrades, Math co-processor and blitter upgrades, etc., etc., etc.

A Mega ST, Mega STE or TT are required for any upgrades that are solderless, any other ST or Falcon requires the vast majority of upgrades to be soldered.

[nathanallan]

This is an old thread but I have reopened my 520STFM and am trying to just get a baseline. It's a stock machine with the color monitor, SC1224. I think I mentioned this stuff in another thread but couldn't find it to reopen it.

 

I had the fdd pulled and went ahead and replaced the belt from a SF354 that I had gotten a new one for. I put it all back together and the light stays on the drive. The cable cannot be flipped since it's the stock cable, in good shape, short so it can't be flipped. Everything else seems to be put together right. I have a couple of drives that will work, but I'll have to cut the face of the computer to make it work, and they're not a great fit anyway. Epson SMD-300's.

 

So how do I fix this thing. I can try to make one of the smd's external by adapting the ext drive cable. I bought a bunch of female pins for that purpose. But is there an easier way? Does anyone have an external drive (not SF354)??

 

Nathan

[dinosaur]

This is an old thread but I have reopened my 520STFM and am trying to just get a baseline. It's a stock machine with the color monitor, SC1224. I think I mentioned this stuff in another thread but couldn't find it to reopen it.

 

I had the fdd pulled and went ahead and replaced the belt from a SF354 that I had gotten a new one for. I put it all back together and the light stays on the drive. The cable cannot be flipped since it's the stock cable, in good shape, short so it can't be flipped. Everything else seems to be put together right. I have a couple of drives that will work, but I'll have to cut the face of the computer to make it work, and they're not a great fit anyway. Epson SMD-300's.

 

So how do I fix this thing. I can try to make one of the smd's external by adapting the ext drive cable. I bought a bunch of female pins for that purpose. But is there an easier way? Does anyone have an external drive (not SF354)??

 

Nathan

 

I am not 100% positive,as far as I remember,if you unplug the floppy drive (flat) cable

from the motherboard,the computer will see the external drive as A:.

 

Don't take that to the bank,but that is what I remember.

 

Back in the day,Atarians with an 520ST with a single-sided (360K) drive wanted to add

a 720K (double-sided) external drive and boot from it.

 

AFAIK,this was the way it was done.

 

If I am wrong,don't throw bricks at me. (I have grey hair and drool a lot! )

 

 

BTW.... I have a perfectly good Golden Image 720K external floppy that I got in a box of stuff,with no power supply. It has no model number on it.It uses a power supply jack like a 1050 disk drive.

 

Does anyone know the voltage and polarity for the power supply for this drive?

 

I asked this question here a long time ago,and the only response I received talked about a

multi-pin connect,like an SF354. Not the right answer!

Edited December 20, 2006 by dinosaur

[nathanallan]

Thanks for the reply, and now I have a plan. I'm going to use the innards from a SF354 drive and an SMD-300 fdd outside the box, while having the original one pulled from the system. It looks like the innards only provide connections to the power and interface, so this shouldn't be a problem. It'll be an ugly hack for a little while but it's still in the experimental stage.

[tjlazer]

The EPSON SMD 300s are actually drop in replacement drives for the TT030, MegaSTe and Falcon030! They are hard to find. If you had the newer 1040STE case that had the cutouts for that drive, you could use it. IMHO just try to find another drive to install w/o hacking the case. Unless you are good with a dremel and other tools to make it clean.

[tjlazer]

n/m

Edited December 20, 2006 by tjlazer

[nathanallan]

I've been looking around for a long time for a replacement drive, and they are either expensive to buy or expensive to ship. One guy I emailed on ANOTHER FORUM didn't know how to reply properly, else I'd have an SF314 right now. You can imagine my upset. Anyway, the SMD will also work on the 520/1040's with a little mechanical modification (flip the cable) but won't fit the case. I'll see what happens when I make it external (this way, I have a metal box with a fdd and no case mod)

 

/edit I'm still going to be looking, heh heh.

Edited December 20, 2006 by nathanallan

[Goochman]

I was able to add a PC 3 1/2 to my 1040 many moons ago - I had to dremel the case for the eject button and I think set 1 jumper for the drive ID and I was set.