Help me troubleshoot my 800.

[Laner]

So I dug out my 800 last night after years of sitting in the closet. Unfortunately, I cannot get it to recognize my 810 drive, or the SIO2USB, and while my AtariMax flash cart will boot, none of the games will load.

 

I've tried multiple SIO cables, no luck.

BASIC and AtariWriter carts seem to work OK.

 

With no cart installed, I just get the Memo Pad. If I have BASIC inserted and type DOS, same thing.

 

With the Atarimax flash cart, I have Rich's Multi-Cart installed, and I can browse through the titles, but launching them does nothing.

 

Any ideas? Is this fixable or am I up a creek?

 

I don't have any other systems to test on, other than a 130XE that I can't find the power cord for.

[Roydea6]

Most probably an OS problem does your 800 have Rev OSB or Rev OSA. and most cartridges similar to Atarimax would need an 800XL/XE because most converted XEX files require Rev 2 OS. Do you have game cartridges for the 800 most of the earlier ones will work with the 800.

 

Reflash your Atari Max Cartridge with only OSB compatible games and set the Cartridge to OSB mode.

 

AS for the SIO and Disk drives It might work to leave power plugged in and turn on for several hours to normalize all the electronics..

Edited November 23, 2013 by rdea6

[Laner]

OK, one mystery solved. I needed to get the 64 bit SIO2PC drivers. I'll check on OSB games for the atarimax cart as well - thanks.

[Roydea6]

Some 8bit game dumps I got off the Atari Max site. It is an 8mb file but a you need the studio file to flash into a Cart. It is a zipped workbook for the Cartridge programmer..

 

Mitch 8bit Dumps.bin

Mitch 8bit Dumps.zip

Edited November 23, 2013 by rdea6

[Kyle22]

Atarimax 1M Flash + MyIDE cart with SpartaDOS-X on it works on my unmodified 800. Not enough memory for the IDE driver to load, but other than that, it works.

Edited November 23, 2013 by Kyle22

[sup8pdct]

There could be one of seversl things wrong. Pokey isn.t working properly, pia (same thing) or the chips and connectors need to be re seated. Getting replacemrnt chips isnt too hard. Reseating everything is easy and only costs a bit of time so is the first plsce to start.

 

James

[BillC]

Atarimax 1M Flash + MyIDE cart with SpartaDOS-X on it works on my unmodified 800. Not enough memory for the IDE driver to load, but other than that, it works.

It depends on the version of SDX whether it works on the 800. The original ICD versions do, v4.42 doesn't, v4.46 does, I don't know about the others.

[Kyle22]

SDX 4.46. Check your C012294 POKEY. I had one go out (for no apparent reason) on my 1200XL.

 

It is unlikely to see a PIA go out like that.... Possible, though.

[Panther]

I just had to replace the PIA chip in a 1050 drive today. Anything's possible!

[1050]

It is unlikely to see a PIA go out like that.... Possible, though.

While I have had three 800s with bad PIAs and good POKEYs. Same symptom, disk drive access is a no go until the PIA is changed out for a good one. Hitachi 68B21 is an exact drop in replacement for the 6520 PIA, Jameco has them among others, even FleaBay though I haven't looked recently myself for any.

[Rybags]

Insert Basic, type

? FRE(0)

 

Let's verify first that this thing actually has a decent amount of RAM installed and is seeing it.

 

Games and the like - the bulk of games out there should work fine on a 48K 800, regardless of OS A or B.

[Kyle22]

While I have had three 800s with bad PIAs and good POKEYs. Same symptom, disk drive access is a no go until the PIA is changed out for a good one. Hitachi 68B21 is an exact drop in replacement for the 6520 PIA, Jameco has them among others, even FleaBay though I haven't looked recently myself for any.

If it is the PIA, WDC also makes a nice one W65C21S.