dukes909

Everything seems to work except reading the disk. If I try to do a disk directory, format etc the drive tries to complete the task but grinds back and forth without stopping, then I get an error 144. I thought maybe the RPM utility could at least check the speed.

When this boots I get a screen of scrolling garbage characters.......

PS I have tried DOS 2.6f 2.8f and the screen just goes all wonky with garbage characters as it tries to boot these.

Looking for a disk based utility to check the drive speed (and any other disk diagnostics) for my 810 drive. My 800 is running on 32k currently and I can only run .ATR files from RespeQt for now.

I used to subscribe to Electronic Games magazine, and they did a feature story on the crash (or "shake-out" as they called it), and they shut down ceased publication within a year because of it. I am way late to this thread and enjoyed Pac-Man on the 2600 back in the day, but I was disappointed with how it looked compared to the one in the arcade. In any case, what brought me here was this line about Electronic Games magazine. I remember that issue well and still have it somewhere. Rather than dig it out of my basement and scan it, internet archive has copies online: https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Games_Volume_02_Number_12_1984-03_Reese_Communications_US/page/n21/mode/2up Page 6 has an editorial about the crash as well. I also remember reading it back then thinking "duh!" as it was obvious to me at the wise age of 15 that arcades were going the way of the Dodo and my 2600 just wasn't as fun anymore. I was using a brand new computer called a Macintosh in a high school journalism class instead of playing games. The Police had broken up, Star Wars was over and was now a name for Reagan's missile defense system, agggh my youth was ending, bwaaa! ? Dukester

Wow! Ok I will send PM. Thanks ?

Guys, I tracked the wonky characters on my Atari 800 screen (originally diagnosed in this post about my bad 810 drive and which I still haven't fixed) to a bad 16k board. On that board I found 7 of the 8 ram chips were bad (I swapped with a good board one by one and found 7 bad ones). Anyway the chips are a mix of National Semiconductor MM 529ON-4 and Mostek MK4116N-3GP on the same board (which seems weird to me - was this std practice??). So, what is the best way to get this 800 up and running now with 48k again? Are there sources for new chips or am I stuck with pulled ones (like these? - of which there are only 4 dangit) or shoudl I search for another 16k board off of eBay? What do most people do? (I am new to getting 40 year old things working ?) I have seen references to upgrading to more memory than 48k but I haven't looked at how to do this or where I would find such products. Please bail me out here! Cheers Dukester

Tried this and the drive responds but I get error 139. I also tried booting the DOS 2.6 or 2.8 that have the speed utility in it and it won’t boot. I did get DiskWizardII to load and I ran the speed utility on there, and it spun the drive and spun the drive and spun the drive... but it never reported a speed. So, is there a logic chip in there that is not passing the correct speed info?

Ok I have 48k in my 800. I narrowed it down to one of the 3 16k modules by swapping them around. Without it in there I get no weird characters. With it in there and a BASIC cartridge, BASIC will start but instead of a nice blue background, it is a weird teal color! Without that cartridge and a BASIC cartridge inserted I get the normal blue background. Now should I reseat each chip on that cartridge? I feel like I will bend one of the pins pulling them out knowing my klutsy self...

I tried this and it worked (letting me access the drive from DOS), and the drive responds to commands but the drive still won't read anything off the disks. BOOOO. DANG

Yes they just started and I was going to ask about them in a separate post. Dang, more problems! I guess I can pull each RAM card out to see if they go away?

DOS 2.6 that you attached wouldn't boot on my 800. Should it? I can boot 2.0 normally through RespeQt..however it will not talk to my 810 drive set as drive 2....agggghghh

Excellent, thanks!

Would I boot this using RespeQt and then use it to access the bad drive? It won’t boot anything on it’s own right now. ?

I think that is the one I have:

I think I can be careful and keep track of how many 1/4 turns or whatever. Do they drives typically slow down or speed up as they get older or either way?

So i am trying to archive my disks as described and helped by folks here in a previous post (big thank you) to .atr files. However I only got about 1/4 of the way through my old disks when the 810 drive has stopped reading disks. It powers up and the head moves etc. but it will not boot a disk at all. I read another post on here that described my problem to a "T" including the single beep that occurs I guess when the head rezeroes. I have cleaned the head with alcohol and dusted out the inside, and disconnected all the pin connectors inside to no avail (I tried several disks). In the other post the person says that by applying pressure with his finger to the head he was able to get the drive to read the disk. I tried that and it doesn't work. I am not sure how that person measured the RPM's by marking the spindle and filming it and counting..I tried that too but wasn't able to see the mark on the spindle in the video...maybe I need to watch the video on something other than my phone I am thinking of getting the Uno cart so I can load the 810 diagnostics cartridge as mentioned in the field service manual for this drive. Will that work? Any other ideas or suggestions?... Cheers

It installs 4.1.0 when I ran this.

Okay I missed that, thanks

Hey folks I am trying to get atari800 compiled on Ubuntu 20.04 but getting stuck. Can anyone help by looking at the make output and give me some direction ? Cheers configure-log.txt makeoutput.txt

Thanks for this, I ordered the connectors from that te.com site! BTW, do you know of any more places like this that sell electronic components (resistors, caps, chips) so cheap (and this one has free shipping to boot)? I have stuck with Jameco for years but I think they are probably high on a lot of things.

Ok, I have one drive working enough that I listed every file on every disk (on paper - booo) so I know what's where. I may be buying a second drive soon as well. The drive that I described as sluggish seems to have problems after I install a disk in it and close the drive door. The drive may or may not spin when I do a disk directory. If I fiddle with opening and closing the door it will usually work (usually). But it works enough now that I indexed everything and ready to move to the next step - so an SIO2PC adapter or cable? My PC is a Dell Vostro 3471 (Ubuntu 20) but I also have a Macbook Pro from mid-2010 running Mojave or High Sierra I think. I can solder and make a cable if that is cheaper $$!! Cheers to this forum! Dukester

Thanks, I will check the SIO2PC out! It sounds like a great solution except I am running Ubuntu and not Windows. I really really do not want to have to dual boot Windows just for this purpose... Is there a way to use APE in Linux? Cheers

I haven't lubricated it. Is there a guide on maintaining these drives? I literally just took it out of 25 years of storage. Seemed to work ok on first few then it doesn't seem to register any more floppies placed in it. Cheers

Hi folks, newb here. I read thru 8 pages of the FAQ but didn’t see this this answered. I have also read many posts related to this but there appears to be many directions to take. I have recently dug my 800 and 2 810 drives out and am browsing through the many floppies of games, programs I wrote and even term papers in high school (1983). The one working 810 drive seems to tire out after a while and so I would like to archive my floppies somehow. I currently run Ubuntu 20 although I also have a MacBook Pro; no Windows unless I install it under a VM. Is SIO2SD the best, current way to archive floppies? It appears from everything I have read most people are going the other way, from ATR files to floppies. I have also read about APE but it looks like it needs Windows. I also see things about SIO2USB but isn’t clear if I can use existing 810 with this. Pointers to other threads or recommendations welcomed. Thank you for any help! Cheers Dukester