Atari 800XL Buzzes On Startup

[banner]

Hello All,

 

I'm new to Atari computers and have just got an 800XL. When I power it up the screen comes up on the display but the cursor and 'READY' don't appear for a couple of seconds and the system makes a buzzing sound. It all works fine and passes all the self tests.

 

I thought the system only played the buzzer if it was booted with the start button pressed.

 

What's going on?

 

Thanks

 

John

[Fox-1 / mnx]

Wild guess...

 

Your start button is locked?

[banner]

Wild guess...

 

Your start button is locked?

 

That was my first thought, but it works fine.

 

I can hold the option key down on startup and go into the keyboard test and it works fine.

[spookt]

Erm, when you say it makes a 'buzzing' sound before the READY prompt appears, could it just be the normal sound all XLs and XEs make when booting to BASIC?

[Rybags]

Farting sound is a more accurate description.

 

A buzzing sound is either TV not tuned properly, but is also one symptom of a power supply that's gone bad and is outputting too much voltage.

 

In that case, the buzzing will be continuous, though, and you should stop using that PSU.

[+bob1200xl]

I take it that it stops 'buzzing' once READY comes up?

 

The OS queries all the SIO devices for drivers to load and such, whether there are actually any devices on SIO or not. This SIO activity, like most SIO, can be heard in the speaker.

 

Could that be it? The START key sound is quite a different 'buzz'.

 

 

Bob

 

 

Hello All,

 

I'm new to Atari computers and have just got an 800XL. When I power it up the screen comes up on the display but the cursor and 'READY' don't appear for a couple of seconds and the system makes a buzzing sound. It all works fine and passes all the self tests.

 

I thought the system only played the buzzer if it was booted with the start button pressed.

 

What's going on?

 

Thanks

 

John

[Bryan]

Yeah, it's probably the phthtphtpphtphphttphpthptthptptpphtph sound of the system looking for something to boot from.

 

If you hear continuous buzzing or humming from the speaker, your power supply is probably failing.

[banner]

Yeah, it's probably the phthtphtpphtphphttphpthptthptptpphtph sound of the system looking for something to boot from.

 

If you hear continuous buzzing or humming from the speaker, your power supply is probably failing.

 

It probably is normal operation as it does stop once the 'ready' prompt appears and it is more of a farting rather than a buzzing! It does it for a couple of seconds or so.

 

As I've never owned an Atari 8 Bit before it just didn't seem 'normal' to me!

 

I don't have any SIO devices attached if this makes any difference.

 

John

[atariksi]

Yeah, it's probably the phthtphtpphtphphttphpthptthptptpphtph sound of the system looking for something to boot from.

 

If you hear continuous buzzing or humming from the speaker, your power supply is probably failing.

 

It probably is normal operation as it does stop once the 'ready' prompt appears and it is more of a farting rather than a buzzing! It does it for a couple of seconds or so.

 

As I've never owned an Atari 8 Bit before it just didn't seem 'normal' to me!

 

I don't have any SIO devices attached if this makes any difference.

 

John

 

I wouldn't call it "farting" sound. It's more of a disgruntled sound of someone not getting what he wants. So let's agree to call it a disgruntled sound or some better word. I don't want to research fart sounds to compare it with.

 

Oh, you can boot up faster if you have some boot block on disk that exits to BASIC rather than wait for the SIO device search.

[atariksi]

Here's code that will eliminate SIO device look-up when booting into BASIC or other cartridge which do SIO device search:

 

ORG $600

DB 0,1 ;# of sectors to read

DW ORG

DW Start

RTS

Start:

LDA #0

STA 580

Jmp ($BFFA)

 

In case you don't have an assembler, you can write in debug on PC and make a disk image. Compiling the above, you get the following bytes in decimal:

 

0,1,0,6,7,6,96,169,0,141,68,2,108,250,191

 

In hex:

 

0,1,0,6,7,6,60,A9,0,8D,44,2,6C,FA,BF

 

Now when you boot with this disk block, you'll hear just one small blip which is some alien sound for "Thanks." and your boot-up time will be minimal.