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Showing results for 'birdies' in content posted in Atari 8-Bit Computers.
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As someone who almost replaces the 74LS08 chip with the cheap and readily available 74F08 chip in any XL/XE machine I work on, (and playing devil's advocate here ), could you run through the benefits of the O2fixer over a standard and cheaper 74F08? Whenever I've had glitches on an XL or XE whilst running a Side3 cart, or if that machine has U1MB installed, a VBXE installed or a combo - replacing the 74LS08 with 74F08 normally fixes it. And in the case of getting birdies or crashes on the U1MB I install the 100nf cap on the back of the U1MB and that fixes it. I can buy 6 x 74F08s for around £4-5 pounds on Ebay with free postage. So I am curious as to the benefits of the O2fixer. Does it fix the instability caused by some 6502 CPUs for example as they is the other thing I find. If the O2 fixer both fixes instability in the same way as the 74F08 does AND also allows CPUs that cause instability to be used then that would be a great bonus for me. Edit: Incidentally for those who might ask - the reason I replace the 74LS08 by default is simply that I use my Side3 cart for all my machines. Plus a lot of my machines have at least U1MB installed, and or VBXE as well. The low cost of the 74F08 and a socket means I jsut have a batch of them to hand and socketing, etc is (in my case) a quick an easy job. I appreciate of course not all would want to do so. -
Atari with U1MB, SIDE3 loader boots into memory test
Beeblebrox replied to Nolium's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
@Nolium Ah yes, you appear to have the "Birdies" as they are known! Well covered on AA over the years: https://forums.atariage.com/search/?q=birdies&quick=1&type=forums_topic&nodes=12 Lots of different suggestions and fixes over the years, including the 74F08 swap-in (which I know you have already done). Others suggest swapping out the CPU and the Antic chips. Have a read from those posting in the various topics on the subject of birdies. I'd still personally also do the C109 cap mod to the U1MB I posted above - as can't hurt and is dirt cheap and easy to do. (Nothing to lose). -
Possible to Drop PAL 600XL Video Connector Into NTSC Machine?
Serpentor replied to Serpentor's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
I got it all updated today and am learning about various OS and other options to tweak. Foe those who have removed the tuner from their machine, what have you used the empty hole for? I figure there must be some way to make use of it. Also, does the Side3 loader page always have glitchy artifacts on the right hand side? I do not get them at any other time or any other part of the screen, so it’s not a case of the birdies.
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So here's a weird thing I noticed a couple days ago and decided to record tonight: Note that the weird graphical glitches ("birdies") are only on the second horizontal line of "a" characters, and are not consistent - they jump around from "a" to "a" on the screen. Some "a" characters exhibit this from moment to moment, some don't, and which ones are which cycle around. If I remove the SIDE3 cart, the glitches are gone completely. For background, this is a 1200XL that I rescued about 4 years ago, then stuck an Ultimate 1MB into it, and then a UAV. Along with my SIDE2 cart, it has been rock solid and completely stable. After getting my SIDE3 cart last fall, I started seeing some weirdness and instability. I replaced the stock vintage 74LS08 chip in the Phi2 clock circuit with a modern, faster 74F08, and added a small ceramic cap on the U1MB itself between the RESET and GND pins, per @tf_hh's posts elsewhere. The instability went away and the system returned to its reliable self. In recent months, the 1200XL hasn't been used much - I've been building, testing and playing around with my 576NUC+ beta board, plus my Incognito 800 for the most part. So this week I returned the 1200XL to the rotation and noticed these weird graphical glitches. What's potentially telling is that I left the system running for a couple hours while I did my usual weekly virtual Happy Hour with some widely-scattered friends over Zoom, and when I checked the system again after a couple of pints, the birdies/glitches are completely gone. No sign of them at all. My first thought is I might have an ANTIC that is starting to go bad, but works properly as the system warms up over time - the glitches appear to be related to one specific bit or something, for only one character (the lower-case "a"). However, as I noted above, if the SIDE3 is removed and the system boots to SDX without it, there are no glitches anymore. So ... is this an issue with my SIDE3 cart that goes away as it warms up? Is it related to my ANTIC or maybe my CPU when cold? Is it a power draw issue related to run time? I'm running the system off a vintage Atari 9VAC brick, though the two 7805's in the 1200XL are new as of 4 years ago, but the capacitors are vintage as well. I welcome your thoughts and suggestions.
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Atari with U1MB, SIDE3 loader boots into memory test
Nolium replied to Nolium's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Alrighty, I got a partial star alignment. 1. SIDE3 doesn't produce Birdies anymore. 2. SIDE3 version 0.39 actually works, it load games and was able to upgrade it for the first time from 0.39 to 0.69 on this machine 3. SIDE3 version 0.69 crash at load So Antic from 65XE works better. They are identical, both from Philippines, same model and same year. -
I just hooked up an IDE+2 to my 600XL with the Ultimate 1MB. Birdies! Not terrible, but definitely noticeable. Since this is an XL, the IDE+2 attaches with a 50-pin ribbon cable of about 4" in length. This particular XL has great video, having the Sumrall S-video mod + a second mod to add true chroma. (The Sumrall mod uses composite for the chroma, and by itself is not that great.) I've worked on birdies before by swapping Antic chips, and it typically can be reduced that way. But for grins, I just took off the ribbon cable and made a direct connect to the IDE+2. Birdies were GONE! Tried another ribbon cable, again producing birdies. So back to direct connect -- again perfectly clear. This XL has no RF shield -- no way that it would fit over the Ultimate, so that may be a factor. I'm going to try to modify the shield extensively and see if I can get it back on. Any thoughts as to how the ribbon cable is affecting this? More radiation back to the video section of the XL? Timing (seems less likely)? The worst birdies issue that I've had with the Ultimate was in a 130XE where the U1MB pcb was sitting right over the XE video section. So, presumably the U1MB is somehow "broadcasting." Sometimes moving the pcb slightly has reduced them greatly. -Larry
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I just received a new U1MB from Lotharek, and put it into the same 800XL that had a V2-Candle unit installed. It is the same computer, same everything, except for the new cables and PCB (and new one does not require the Dropcheck +5V MMU adapter). Even the rom is the same -- swapped it with the old one to avoid re-flashing, but it is the identical type SST 39SF040 that came with the new unit. The pcb's and cables are mounted in the identical position. When I powered it on, I was blown away by the severity of birdies. I know from past experience that I can affect the birdies by switching Antic's, but again, it is the same Antic used for both. Timing? Why would the timing be different? Was it altered for the updated version? That would be surprising. Can anyone shed any light on this. Clearly not happy with these results, and in fact, I've already put the old one back in the XL. -Larry Edit: I also have another V2 from Lotharek that I installed in an XE. It has a few birdies in the XE, but nothing like this.
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Seconded: 74F08 can improve things dramatically, but it can also create undesirable side-effects. Basically, the Phi2 timing (at least on the original machines) can be a tremendous balancing act, and by correcting one issue, you create another. I had a 1200XL here recently which was having problems with Sophia DVI. I replaced 74LS08 with a 74F08 and the problem went away - hurrah! But the machine developed 'birdies' on the screen with some carts with the F08. Replacing the chip with a different 74LS08 seemed to fix the Sophia problem without introducing birdies. So it's not necessarily a silver bullet.
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Yes - I recall you documenting some of these dramas (I certainly remember the aluminium foil). Of course you're absolutely correct regarding the exacerbation of the Phi2/bus capacitance issue we all tire of hearing and talking about. If you encountered issues after hanging more stuff off the bus (via the PBI), then I can empathise with that situation (the aforementioned pair of IDE Plus 2.0 units, one of which is blighted by birdies when hooked up to my 1200XL, while the other - older - unit is absolutely fine). The other occasions I encountered birdies were using a 600XL with a mangled Antic socket (poor connectivity or shorts on the address lines), and the Ultimate SD cart before Schmidt-Trigger Phi2 logic was implemented on the cartridge (itself designed to compensate for skewed timing). Heh... well, the only 1200XL to which I am able to connect an external PBI device is my own, since it's the only one I've had in my hands with a PBI connector. That's one machine which exhibits (slight) birdies with one IDE Plus 2.0 and not with another. The machine is bursting with internal upgrades aside from U1MB, however, so it's perhaps not surprising. Aside from my own four U1MB machines (all equipped with Candle-era boards) which are stable in day to day usage (as they must be, since the U1MB BIOS is now tested on these computers), my situation is perhaps unusual since all the rest of the installations were done for other people. Therefore giving up in the face of problems wasn't really an option, and in some dozen or more cases, those 3-4 installs which proved troublesome were certified working by the time I had found a fix. I never encountered birdies (even when testing these other, less heavily upgraded machines with IDE Plus), but I did encounter reset-line related problems which are dealt with by the 100pf cap fix dreamed up by Hias which is now hopefully near the top of the U1MB troubleshooting checklist. Birdies aside, SIDE2 perhaps offers some kind of bus termination (and my level of insight prevents me from speculating further). Perhaps any cartridge would do the same. Another fix (aside from IC swaps, as you mention) is to change the PLCC flash ROM in the U1MB itself. Every experience is different, and it depends how dogged one is in overcoming problems. I did not hear any complaints from those to whom the dozen or so U1MB machines were sent back after completion (aside from one 800XL finished some years ago whose problems were recently discovered to be completely fixed by replacing the Amic flash ROM with an SST), so for that reason I still hold the upgrade in a positive light. If my own machines or those I'd worked on were blighted by issues I'd be the first one to look for alternative memory upgrades. Being armed with a few fast-acting remedies (capacitor, 74LS chip swaps, etc) really makes life a lot easier when the odd problem does crop up. EDIT: Forgot to mention I'll be installing Antonia in someone's machine this week, so I look forward to a problem-free experience.
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With maximum bars, I don't think an external antenna would really do much more for me unless the distance were greatly increased from the WiFi router. Presently I am almost 30 feet away, but I could see people being in a separate room, or even downstairs from the router where this would be a great help. As for interference, I thought I saw some at one time, but that was due to my video cable loosing a shield connection on one of the wires. After I fixed that the picture looks crystal clear. Never heard any birdies (except the ones outside), and not being by a pig farm I haven't heard any squealing either . I should have the next round of NUC-FujiNet prototype boards arriving tomorrow. Be interesting and exciting to get one of those assembled to see if my SD card will finally work. I also ordered some of the ESP32-WROVER-E modules, so pretty soon I can stop modding the antenna connection.
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A real antennae can only make things better. Getting the pcb clear of stuff and allowing the fujinet to be shielded helps with killing the birdies and squeals a number of people have had. That also increases reliability. It's great that there is an internal one to get by with... though.
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A personal statement by tfhh - please read. Thanks.
_The Doctor__ replied to tf_hh's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Look at all this good history we have going on here! We get to learn about stamps! Mailboxes! Origins! People of note... and for a bonus (as usual) everybody did postal service first tf_hh, We've all been enriched at least in some part by the ongoing discussion of logistics, postal services, the mechanics of delivery and the differing services that are available. So there's that. I hope all packages arrive and are delivered to folks... Making this time as painful as possible is ending as is all that who will be in office stuff. I am certain deliveries will pick up now, little birdies that fed me history lessons are in the know. Who else but a died in the wool postal worker would know all those postal trivia and history points... The maximum pain campaign is over. Now that the hurt is over shall we thank the abusers? Not quite yet though... the practice of sending parcels around on passenger airplanes won't be back to normal until flights get back up to full swing. So we will continue to have one piece of the chain that's still broken... -
Video garbage on just obtained 1200xl
bob1200xl replied to Justin Payne's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
Your monitor and 1200XL don't like each other... but, that isn't causing the 'birdies' on your first screen. That's broke. Only with a cartridge? The 1200XL has bad cartridge karma, as well. Late versions of Congo Bongo and other carts fail spectacularly. You need to beef up ground paths and such to fix them. The system clock is asymmetrical, causing decoding glitches. On and on... Best path is to swap motherboards with one from BOB1200XL. Bob -
Birdies are cured! (With some experimentation.) I cut out a section ouf the RF shield that would allow the U1MB to co-exist with the shield, ending up with about 5/6th of the shield. The result was no change. Then I shortened the 50-pin ribbon cable to be as short as possible and still allow the IDE+2 to sit flat on the desk. Result: slightly better but still there. But I also noticed that if I moved the IDE+2 while in operation, the amount of birdies would change. Then I took a section of Aluminum foil duct tape (used for HVAC work) and stuck it lightly over the back edge and top of the bundle of U1MB connection cables and PCB (being careful not to short anything on the U1MB nor the keyboard). The result is that the birdies are totally gone. It ain't pretty, but it sure works! Note: The screen shots in this case don't tell the whole story. At first glance, the "Birdies..." picture appears to have no issues. But they are there -- look under the "k" in Lock and also the "i" in Pick Directory. And There are others, but not visible in this photo. Definitely enough to be annoying. The foil (ugly as it is) takes care of the problem. And once the keyboard is on -- well "out of sight, out of mind." -Larry
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Atari 400 power on successfully only now and then
Tea Party replied to slaanesh's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
I had one of the tynemouth boards in my 400 and was getting all sorts of random crashes, graphics corruption, collision detection and other problems including ‘birdies’. I installed one of tf_hh’s 48/52K boards and all of my problems disappeared straight away. -
Mea culpa -- I opened up my current 600XL, and I did not have to remove the RF modulator. The video jack fittings are just to the left of the modulator. This one is a bit "spaghetti-ish." The video mod accounts for part of that, but also this one is wired for the Ultimate 1MB. The U1MB never worked out in this XL due to screen interference in the form of "Birdies." I got rid of most of them, but some remained.
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So, most of the ridiculous bootup process is just from the STARTUP.BAT that has been included in the distribution ATR for some reason... (again, it seems to be a snapshot of his personal development environment or something) just press reset once the DOS is loaded to skip all that, it's all unnecessary. Like any other SpartaDOS, copy the .DOS file from that distribution ATR to a new disk along with whatever other commands you actually need, use the BOOT command on it and you have a much simpler startup environment to start with. The text birdies I think ony showed up once his ramdisk driver loaded. It seems Steve set 1 bit of the space character on to indicate bank switching for some reason... But then I use John K. Pickens Hyper-Speed Ramdisk. (which unfortunately does not support D9:) It's waaay faster than SDX's ramdisk. Another trick I figured out with RealDOS... it will not load a highspeed SIO routine by default, which can be enabled with one of the included utilities after the fact, but hold down select on boot and you'll get a menu where you can then press Start to engate the UltraSpeed handler.
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I don't think much of it was rewritten from the ground up at all except the externally loaded tools, whose verbosity is probably the sole device used to visually differentiate the system from prior versions of SpartaDOS. The core of the file system handler is functionally identical to that of SpartaDOS, and I don't see why or how one would go about reimplementing the same core file system, especially when the majority of development time appears to have been spent on re-branding. If the file system handler is 100 per cent compatible with SpartaDOS 3.3, there's a good reason for that: it's probably SpartaDOS 3.3. BW-DOS, meanwhile, though somewhat flawed, appears to be a genuine re-implementation of SpartaDOS 3.x based on the functional specification; it runs entirely outside of the shadow RAM, and certain things - such as the fact the VGETTD and VSETTD vectors are part of the COMTAB table, which they are not in SD 3.x - suggests a significant amount of reimplementation took place. My most recent experience of testing RealDOS latest about sixty seconds when I was testing my ULTD driver. After the 'wedge' loaded towards the end of the lengthy boot sequence (which resembled console output generated during the bootstrapping of a mainframe), every keystroke typed at the command line produced dots or 'birdies' all over the screen (presumably the result of bank switching the resident character set).
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I’ve got a PAL 400 with both tf_hh’s SCCC and RAM upgrade and it’s a great machine. The RF modulator started to fail on mine with drifting tuning so I sent it to FJC for a composite mod. I wasn’t happy with the result so I sent it back and Jon removed the mod and installed the SCCC for me. The output is amazing even over composite and looks better than my 800XL via the built in monitor output. However I was getting random crashes, failed loads over SIO2SD and ‘birdies’. I discussed this at length with Jon and reflowed tons of points on the board for the CPU, RAM, SIO sockets but it didn’t fix it. I took a gamble and installed tf_hh’s RAM upgrade in place of the other 3rd party 48K upgrade I had installed and all the problems went away. So that’s a rather long winded way to say tf_hh’s upgrades for the 400 are highly recommended
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RCA audio issue: forcing mono to both speakers..how?
_The Doctor__ replied to donjn's topic in Atari 8-Bit Computers
erm since we are being technical and literal , you can get ground loops humm and wowing ... or you can get signal loops obtaining neat signal squeals and birdies from harmonics and adjacent interference. -
Hi Jon- Lots of factors seem to be involved. But in all cases, the machines I used had no birdies prior to installing the Ultimate (U.) Right now, I have only one U. in service in an 800XL Perfect video all the time, regardless of what is connected to it. Worst of the lot was an otherwise excellent 130XE. Looked really bad with U. installed. Nothing fixed it, so I took it out. XL's have not been so bad. Sometimes, moving the U. pcb an inch or so cures the problem. Sometimes, re-routing the OS ribbon cable helps it. In one case, carefully covering the pcb and ribbon bundle with aluminum foil (sort of a make-shift RF shield) fixed it. In some cases, I have not found birdies until I've used a PBI drive -- usually the IDE+2, but BB/MIO also. In cases where there is a drive "hanging off"" the PBI, then the length of the 50-pin ribbon cable connecting them affects them. Generally, shorter is better. Direct connect with no ribbon cable seems to cure it 100%. Antic can affect it. Changing Antic can lessen the issue. What I haven't done (yet) is experiment with shortening the ribbon cables of the U. IMO, its the big board and ribbon connectors that causes it. I'm guessing that you did not connect a PBI drive (not a SIDE2) on the 1200XL's that you mentioned? Can the SIDE2 cure it? Yes, that or a MyIDE-II as a HD as opposed to an IDE+2, etc. eliminates it on marginal birdie machines. Anyway, that's what I've seen. -Larry
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I wonder if there's some undiagnosed issue with NTSC machines regarding U1MB, since I've installed about twenty Ultimates and never encountered the "birdies" problem (in fact the only hardware combination I own which has a birdie issue is one of my IDE Plus 2.0 devices when hooked up to an U1MB machine; my other IDE Plus 2.0 shows no problem at all on the same computer). In fact this includes a number of NTSC 1200XLs. Have you encountered a situation whereby the SIDE2 fixes your birdies issue? It's worth pointing out that the referenced cooperation between U1MB and SIDE does not solely depend on one's use of SDX. Ultimate 1MB when used with SIDE provides an OS compliant PBI hard disk which is not dependent on usage of SpartaDOS X in any way. Moreover, the combo has been tested with MyDOS and SpartaDOS 3.x, and you may boot either from the PBI hard disk.
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https://www.google.com/search?q=Birdies&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-ContextMenu&tbm=isch&imgil=s-9fTmL6lzwYZM%253A%253BUYCfTbkoliDgxM%253Bhttps%25253A%25252F%25252Fwww.popandlolli.com%25252Fshop%25252Fstickers%25252Fcutesy-characters%25252Ftweetie-birdies&source=iu&pf=m&fir=s-9fTmL6lzwYZM%253A%252CUYCfTbkoliDgxM%252C_&usg=__KEbA6zA8VnkpumC-Xa0BoHjUti4%3D&biw=1543&bih=841&ved=0ahUKEwjw-7io9OPMAhWJ6oMKHakrDdYQyjcIYg&ei=F4Y8V7CUB4nVjwSp17SwDQ#imgrc=s-9fTmL6lzwYZM%3A Screen glider, sparkles, etc...
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I have two IDE Plus units here, and one produces birdies with my U1MB 1200XL while the other doesn't. So I'm hesitant to blame the U1MB at all in this case. I guess it's a timing issue, since one of the other times I saw birdies was while testing the Ultimate SD cart (on an U1MB machine) before the Schmidt-Trigger Phi2 fix was applied to the cart logic.
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By the way... I remember when MyIDE ][ was developed I had a CPLD-firmware that caused those birdies on some of my XE's .... I told Tucker, and he came with a new firmware and the birdies were gone. So obviously in THAT case it was not just a hardware-thing, but a timing thing that could be cured with different logic-code. I'm not sure HOW he did it, but it worked.
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