tep392

Sure, you can use my patch. I'll need to find the files though. I'll look for them in a couple days and PM you.

I tried it out after verifying the voltages were all good. The drive will spin for a couple seconds after I power it up, as expected. But when I try to access the drive, nothing happens and I get a 138 - Device Timeout. It seems that the control board isn't communicating with my Atari.

I partially disassembled it, so here are some pics of the pieces. The MPI drive is single sided. I found a small piece of metal inside the drive that broke off the open/close lever. I placed it next the part it broke off of for the picture. Here are some shots of the control board and transformer. You can see on the left side of the board where the components are placed for the optional second internal drive power supply.

The Percom arrived! I haven't tested it yet but did open up for a quick inspection. It does have the FD1795 controller, so should be able to do double density as long as the firmware supports it. The ROM is version 1.11. I don't know anything yet about the various ROM variations. I'm very happy to discover that it has unpopulated component locations for the regulators and caps needed to power a second drive. The installed drive is an MPI 501C. I think this is the same mech used in the Rana 1000. The control board doesn't seem to have any way to set drive number so I'm assuming that is done with the jumpers on the drive itself. I haven't had any luck finding a user manual for this version of the AT88-S1PD.

I was reading this topic and it made me curious about what would happen if I turned on my 810 with an Archiver disk inserted. So I made a backup of my original Archiver disk and used it to test powering up the 810 with the disk inserted to unlock the drive. I powered up with the disk inserted 20 times and verified the drive was unlocked each time. I periodically used a sector editor to inspect the last track. Everything is zeroed except the last sector which has the code that unlocks the drive. Not a single byte was damaged by doing this. It then occurred to me that Atari might have fixed the glitch issue when they started using the separate analog board. A schematic of the analog board confirmed that they added an analog multiplexer between the read/write circuit and the head. The enable pin of the multiplexer is connected to a resistor and capacitor (RC circuit) to delay connection of the head to r/w circuit. The intent is to disable the signals to the head until the rest of the system has stabilized. This would seem to be the reason that a lot of people have not had problems powering up the 810 with a disk in it. Of course an early drive without analog board revision could potentially damage the disk so the general advice to not power on with a disk inserted is reasonable.

I remember listening to this years ago. I don't recall if he talked about the ICD or CSS. They also interviewed Bradley Koda around the same time period. It was interesting to hear about how they started up these businesses. https://ataripodcast.libsyn.com/antic-interview-8-the-atari-8-bit-podcast-bruce-carso-bc-computervisions

My guess is that this is an original label. It looks like the adhesive is showing thru the label, indicating it is old. If it was produced by B&C, I think Bruce would have included his company on the label. Would a pirate have typed up a label with ICD copyright notice?

Good idea to archive that photo. Are there photo's of the various Archiver disks out there? I have an original Archiver disk that has a nicely printed label with the Spartan Software logo on it. It looks like they simplified the labels later on.

I wonder where this stuff is stored that it get's so filthy. https://www.ebay.com/itm/115818780799

I'm hopeful. It's such an obscure item, I would think that it was either purchased by an Atari collector or a flipper. Seems like there's a good chance either would be a member of Atariage.

It is funny to put a 1/2 height drive in such a huge case. They won't arrive until tomorrow, but I'm very curious what the board looks like. The later drives had the DD controller on the main board.

That is the Q6 transistor, and it uses the insulator so that the collector doesn't get grounded thru the heat sink.

The 8-bit Alchemist article comments that the case/heat sink is grounded. The package of the voltage regulator is also grounded thru the common pin, so why would the insulator be needed? Now if the regulator was configured to produce a negative voltage thru the common pin, then the insulator would be needed to keep it from shorting against a grounded heat sink. But I don't think this is the case with the AT88-S1PD based on the schematic I've looked at.

I was watching this auction to see what it would sell for. $51 seems pretty reasonable for such a rare disk.

I just picked up a Percom AT88-S1PD and a Tandon TM50-2 (DSDD) off Ebay. They likely need some repair, but that is half the fun for me. I plan to add the TM50-2 to the AT88-S1PD to make it a dual drive. I might eventually replace the original SSDD Tandon with another TM50-2 so I can have a whopping 720k of storage!

Looking for a Bit 3 Full-view 80 column card for my 800.

It is by far the rarest object in my collection.

I think this is currently the only way to get Yamaha sound using the Cartridge. The other option is running the A78 file on a Dragonfly or the upcoming 7800GD. I'm still hoping someone will develop a passthrough device someday.

Thanks for the info. The Axlon compatible I'm using has the S6 jumper to the ROM card. I also have a real Axlon 256K but that just uses what is available in the second RAM slot.

An Axlon type card maps it's RAM to 4000-7FFF and must sit in slot 2. Will a 32k card in slot 1 fill the space from 0000-3FFF and 8000-BFFF?

Found this cart image that looks to be another copy. The corner cuts don't match yours. https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/atari-2600-multicart-255-games-menu-1787028537

I have an 800XL motherboard but not the rest. I'm looking for an 800XL case and keyboard in good condition. A complete non-functional 800XL would be great. Found one.

It was the flagrant name calling. Experienced members or people who have read the forum guidelines know this.

@braincell1973 Please review the forum guidelines. Here's one quote to remember. "While we understand some discussions can become heated, we will not tolerate members insulting each other in the public forums. " Consider yourself warned and please keep the discussion civil. TEP392

I went ahead and posted my issue on the Discord server.