Atari2600PAL

Shirley Temple?

Have stripped out the innards of the broken recorder, but cut the leads to the pause switch & condensor mic near the circuit board to give me plenty to work with when putting in the good innards. Hopefully will give it a go tomorrow

This old dog is too old to learn new tricks 😃 EDIT: To be fair though my soldering has been getting better (recently unsoldered a C64 chip and replaced with a socket which I'd of never of attempted a few months ago) so I may just desolder/re-solder the pause switch rather than risk damaging it trying to get it out

True, but it's also a good way for me to break it... But I'll keep the broken one and maybe revisit in the future I did get it fully apart and back together apart from the pause switch

Started taking the donor apart and decided discretion was the better side of valour as I couldn't work out how to remove the pause button and didn't fancy taking the soldering iron to it The donor is not as "tatty" as I thought so, after a clean, that's now my main recorder as it's my only UK version Have 3 now, so I think I'll strip the faulty one down for spare parts box

Have received the switch. It shows as 250v which seems ok and has the same part E-42153 on it (but I don't know if this is all there is to it) Biggest issue seems to be that it has terminals on both sides, which won't work well with the switch mount plate in the PEB Not sure how to test the switch to see if the terminals are all connected the same as the one in the PEB as I don't know what wire is what. This is going to be fun, not.

It seemed a shame to have an immaculate recorder that wasn't working (have retried cleaning the switch multiple times) and the donor device I purchased was too good to break up for parts (so have been using this) I now have a "tatty" but working recorder coming to be a new donor, hopefully it won't be too much of an issue switching the insides

Just received and tested the PHP1240 FDC and it seems to work fine. Will keep it as a spare and for my collection of original cards (not a bad find for $35 I hope) or I may get a 2nd PEB in the future when I have room for it. (Would like to get a p-code card but not seen one on eBay since I got the PEB)

Sounds like a v2.2 / QI console?

Thanks, will have a look at it again in the future

Have managed to desolder the connector from the buzzing board and re-solder it onto what was the spare power board and I now have an NTSC system ready for the F18A with no buzz (I say "managed" because my soldering skills are pretty minimal, but getting better slowly)

Just tried a pull and reseat and it's completely failed now, just a totally random display and continuous tones That mobo is now off to the spares box, but going to look at modifying the cabling from the power board to make it compatible with the NTSC board, rather than fitting a modern PSU

Thanks, will give that a go (have ordered some thermal grease as I'm out) Have decided to use the F18A in the NTSC board as I have no use for an NTSC output machine and the motherboard is in immaculate condition (looks factory fresh) The only issue with it is a buzz from the internal power board which I don't get from the PAL machine ones BUT the connectors between them and the motherboard are different so can't swap one of those in without some rewiring so may as well buy & fit a modern PSU?

Not having much luck with all this I decided to swap the NTSC board into the case to test it, as I know the keyboard is good, but the NTSC still doesn't respond to any key presses So as far as I can work out so far I can short the NTSC keyboard pins and it responds to the correct key presses, but attach a working keyboard and it doesn't Will open it up again tomorrow and make sure the connector didn't come off as the cable is very short on this one EDIT: Decided to take a look and sure enough the connector had slipped off (should of guessed, as the first time I put it together I managed to forget to fit the grom riser too...)

I tried running Parsec. As expected the graphics are pretty glitchy However, the sound was also bad with random tones playing, is this still likely to be just the VRAM and/or VDP please? Or something else as well please? Many thanks

That's good to know, will give it a try thanks I guess I better get cleaning and doing some more testing to make sure that the display is the ONLY issue with it Many thanks

I've just received a PAL unit I picked up off eBay (the PSU, PAL Modulator & double cassette lead are all good and I would happily of paid what I did just for those) But the PAL unit has a display issue (as per images) though the case is in reasonable condition and the keyboard works (though needs a clean!) I'm now torn between trying to repair the PAL motherboard or just swapping in the good NTSC motherboard ready for the F18A and keeping the PAL mobo for spares I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on what might be wrong with it and/or what I should maybe do (swapping motherboard seems the simplest!) please? Many thanks The following was just me testing the keyboard

I made this in the end, because I'm about as artistic as a limp carrot

I’ve read the FAQs multiple times, including today, and couldn’t see the answer to this particular question. I’ll take another look thru thanks

Thanks for the info

Many thanks, will give it a go then when it arrives

I picked up a cheap (sold as untested) PHP1240 disk controller, which I realise is single density, and was wondering if anyone can confirm whether I can at least test it, when it arrives, with my existing double density floppy drives please? A web search suggests an SD controller can use DD drives (as SD) but I'm not 100% convinced yet Any thoughts please? (I just picked it up as it seemed cheap and I'd like one in my collection. I have a replacement CC9900 on order with arcadeshopper that will be my main controller) Many thanks

Many thanks for the comprehensive explanation. I'm not sure if the old screen I'm currently using (due to lack of space and wanting a 4:3 format) will support PAL60 so will keep an eye on eBay for a PAL version for now Many thanks

Oh, thanks for checking. I'll see what I can do creating one for myself in affinity Many thanks for the offer though

It's the editor/assembler one a few posts up that I wanted to edit the text on I can open and print the file but can't edit it Will take a look for the GIMP, thanks