Strange issues with 4160 STe, what?

[Randy]

This is the computer I got from the UK, so a UK machine with UK keyboard.  I have had floppy reading problems in that the floppy won't read sometimes, but with a quick IPA cleaning it's good.  I has been questioned here before if the ROMS in it could be causing the somewhat flaky floppy problem.  The ROMS are 2.06 UK, but not(?) original to the machine, there was a single 1.06 rom in the box, the other one is missing.  At any rate, I picked up some burned 1.06 and 1.62 ROMS from the UK (best price at Jay's Retro) and none of them AT ALL in the computer, the STe doesn't even get the load screen and just hangs on the floppy, doing nothing, very strange!  Put the 2.06 back in and no problems other than some software incompatibility and the damn floppy cleaning every so often.  But the other thing is the UK keyboard, when typing with it in 1st Word +, I get the US character set, not the UK character set, WTF?  Question is what is going on with the ROM, and why will the machine not work with the 1.62 rom set, double checked on the installation, but still no go, maybe bad roms?  I know I am going to get a set of PP's roms to try but right now it seems as though I got bad roms or the STe is set(?) to only run with 2.06.  Any ideas?

[snarkdluG]

Have you checked what kind of eprom it is and changed the  0 ohm resistors setting on the motherboard for it? 

Edited July 26, 2020 by snarkdluG

[ParanoidLittleMan]

If old and new EPROMs have 32 pins, it doesn't need setting change.

 

1st Word + may be using own character set and coding, so matters not what is in TOS .

[Randy]

9 hours ago, snarkdluG said:

Have you checked what kind of eprom it is and changed the  0 ohm resistors setting on the motherboard for it? 

Not sure what you mean here, the original (only got one) was a 28 pin, the ones installed in the machine were/are 32 pin, so what you are saying may be the issue.  Where are teh 1 ohm resistors located?  Just to restate, the STe came with the tos 2.06 installed so that maybe there were some changes made as you and Peter have noted that no longer allows the 28 pin roms to work?  Thanks!

[ParanoidLittleMan]

So, 2.06 is with 32 pin EPROMs, and 1.62 (what works not) too ? Then something is wrong with 1.62. Is Lo and Hi well marked ?

I posted pic about soldering pads for setting ROM type - so you can check it. There may be small resistors, or just solderings.

 

[Randy]

1 hour ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

So, 2.06 is with 32 pin EPROMs, and 1.62 (what works not) too ? Then something is wrong with 1.62. Is Lo and Hi well marked ?

I posted pic about soldering pads for setting ROM type - so you can check it. There may be small resistors, or just solderings.

 

Sorry, the 1.62 is 28 pin, the 2.06 is 32 pins, thanks!

[Randy]

12 hours ago, ParanoidLittleMan said:

If old and new EPROMs have 32 pins, it doesn't need setting change.

 

1st Word + may be using own character set and coding, so matters not what is in TOS .

I think I have this understood, the black squares would be shorted with the 1 ohm resistors to choose the rom versions.  The question now is what are the three 28 pin numbers mean, I would guess TOS 1.04, 1.06, 1.62?  Thanks!

 

[snarkdluG]

Generally:

TOS 1.00-1.04 is for ST(f,m) and is 192K large.

TOS 1.06-2.06 is for STe/MegaSTe and is 256K large.

 

Then you have TOS 3.xx that runs on TT (512K) and TOS 4.xx (512K) that is in Falcon. You also have Hades, Milan and accelerators like PAK and decoder boards to get other TOS to work on other systems and such but lets not go in to that.

 

The numbers to the right is the different combination of W102, W103 and W104 that makes what kind of chip you can use in the socket. Also how many pins they have. The black is the short made by a 0-ohm-resistor (as on the board from factory) or you can use a solder blob, piece of wire or jumper pins and jumpers. What you burn on the EPROMs is up to you or what you buy. Different EPROMs have different memory sizes.

Edited July 26, 2020 by snarkdluG

[Randy]

1 hour ago, snarkdluG said:

Generally:

TOS 1.00-1.04 is for ST(f,m) and is 192K large.

TOS 1.06-2.06 is for STe/MegaSTe and is 256K large.

 

Then you have TOS 3.xx that runs on TT (512K) and TOS 4.xx (512K) that is in Falcon. You also have Hades, Milan and accelerators like PAK and decoder boards to get other TOS to work on other systems and such but lets not go in to that.

 

The numbers to the right is the different combination of W102, W103 and W104 that makes what kind of chip you can use in the socket. Also how many pins they have. The black is the short made by a 0-ohm-resistor (as on the board from factory) or you can use a solder blob, piece of wire or jumper pins and jumpers. What you burn on the EPROMs is up to you or what you buy. Different EPROMs have different memory sizes.

Thanks, I sor of got that, but was unsure of how to change the jumpers around on the chart as I don't know what those C#### numbers mean, are they TOS versions? Are they chip numbers (although I don't see those numbers on any TOS chips that are numbered.  I bought a number of TOS chips, a 1.06, 1.62, and a US TOS 2.06 for my mega ste.  My 4160 has TOS 2.06 UK and had the jumpers arranged accordingly.  But if I were to replace that chip set with a 1.62, what would be the jumper config to use?

[snarkdluG]

The numbers corresponds to what type of eproms/chips they are. They can be used in many different computers/units. Not just Atari. You can program them with anything. 

 

The 1.06 and 1.62 are they original maskroms from Atari with 28pin or are they 32pin as the 2.06 chips? Did you place the right chip in the right socketcorresponds? You must place Hi ROM in the HI socket and Lo in Lo. 

 

If you lift the label on chips you should see faint markings and the type they are. 

[Randy]

Thanks, that helps.  I'm sure someone burned them as they are not originals from Atari, I'll try to lift the label and see what the eprom numbers are.  BTW, they are all 28 pins except for the 2.06 which is 32 pins.

[snarkdluG]

Here you can see 27C010 and the W102, W103 and W104 and that they need to be changed on the pic. 

[Randy]

41 minutes ago, snarkdluG said:

The numbers corresponds to what type of eproms/chips they are. They can be used in many different computers/units. Not just Atari. You can program them with anything. 

 

The 1.06 and 1.62 are they original maskroms from Atari with 28pin or are they 32pin as the 2.06 chips? Did you place the right chip in the right socketcorresponds? You must place Hi ROM in the HI socket and Lo in Lo. 

 

If you lift the label on chips you should see faint markings and the type they are. 

Just lifted the label, they are original Atari roms, C301165-002A for the 1.62 roms, how does that line up for changing the jumpers on the STe board?  Thanks!

 

[ParanoidLittleMan]

Of course they are original ROMs from Atari. Capacity is 1 Mbit (128 KBytes) per chip. EPROMs of that capacity have 32 pins (as said already). And can not be with 28 pins, because need + pins like VPP, write . I still have my original German 1.62 ROMs, what replaced with UK v. , later with switchable multi TOS in 4 Mbit EPROMs. And needed to set those W102 & W104 to opposite.

So, you need to set as is in row for 28 pin 27C1000.

Btw. I don't know why Atari marked it as 28 pin 27C1000. 27 is for EPROMs. Why support for 27C256 & 512 - that would be only 64KB or 128 KB for TOS.

Edited July 27, 2020 by ParanoidLittleMan
mistype

[Randy]

Thanks Peter!