Yea its been since September of 2017 since I actually did anything, but I was re-arranging my shelf of stuff the other day and said "hey you do not have any projects that are paying you money for a couple weeks, put down the brand new (to me) coco 3 and work on the Atari!"

In my last update I cut a gigantic hole in the front of my case to accommodate the LCD that goes with the integrated SIO2SD, since then I have trimmed it out, added a acrylic front and replaced the 65XE name badge. The badge I had was actually in pretty good shape, I did not want to cut it in half, so I gave it to a buddy who needed one. I ordered a silver and black plastic replacement off of eBay, and it looks good, but my only complaint would be the material is a bit too thick so it stands a tiny bit proud of the case, though not that big of a deal.

With the LCD fitted into place its now time to figure out where the SIO2SD buttons will live, which is when I noticed the LCD screen crashes directly into the keyboard. The only sensible choice at this point is to cut a notch in the keyboard! I took the keyboard apart figured out where I needed to cut and how far I could cut before I would need to cut the Mylar circuit sheet, I did not want to cut that so if I ever have to replace it, it would be a drop in without a problem.

Now that the keyboard is able to fit back into the case, I can go about deciding where to place the buttons. I am leaning to a row above the function keys, as that seems like the most logical place without accidently hitting buttons while using the keyboard. I had considered going down one of the sides of the keyboard (and yea I would have clearance, I checked) but in fake typing I hit the cut tape of buttons off the keyboard pretty quickly ... not that they would be standing a full quarter inch off the top of the case, but its something to think about

I also obtained a ultimate cart in a trade deal, I printed a new case matching my blue black and grey color scheme (remember the power LED is now blue, the LCD is black text on a blue background, and the buttons are blue), but our beater i3 printer at work is leaving some funky artifacts in the starting layers. That sucks but I am not bothered to fiddle with it too much since I already spent time printing a cart shell at work heh







eventually I need to give a strong dose of retrobrite to those keycaps, but not today