Atari 400 1056 K Axlon Compatible Board By reifsnyderb

[magnusfalkirk]

Thursday I dropped my Atari 400 off with -^Crossbow^-, on my way to St. Louis, so he could replace the 16k card in it with the 1056k card I bought. He worked on it on Sun, and kept in touch with messages through AtariAge. He sent pics of the soldering on the motherboard for the larger memory, the new memory card in place and pics of the amount of memory it shows when you do a PRINT FRE(0) with a basic cart in the computer. He tried using his FujiNet cart in the SIO port but it seems that the 400 isn't sending anything to the SIO port. Of course he discovered several of the pins in the SIO port were bent, but he thinks something is wrong on the motherboard. I stopped back by and picked up the computer on Mon on the way home from St. Louis. I bought an S-Drive MAX from the Brewing Academy and hooked it up to the 400 today, after I got it set up again. Unfortunately nothing happened when I tried mounting some games, so I guess the SIO port is dead. I'm going to look into getting a Ultimate Cart for it in a while.

 

-^Crossbow^- also took the time to clean up the computer for me. I got the 400 from a friend. It had been sitting in his father's attic for who knows how many years and of course it looked like it. When he was done cleaning it up the 400 looks like it did when it was brand new. I'm very thankful and happy with the work he did on the computer for me and will probably have him upgrade the video output in another month or two. Trying to decide if I want S-Video or the SCCC. I was looking back through this thread and saw reifsnyderb's post about S-Video being his preferred method and that he still had some S-Video boards for the 400. I've contacted him about that and will wait to see what I hear back.

 

The Atari 400 is my first Atari computer, I've been using Apple II's, and Macs, since 1981. I like the 400 and once I get the video upgraded and add a Ultimate cart to it it will be as cecked out as I need it, unless someone has any other suggestions for something they think is a must have for the 400.

 

Dean

[reifsnyderb]

@magnusfalkirk  It's good to hear your 400 is being brought back to life!  PM sent.   🙂

 

[JGRAHAM2]

I had a similar issue with an 800 that turned out to be the connector between the motherboard and the power supply board. I reflowed the solder on both boards and it fixed the SIO. 

[magnusfalkirk]

Thanks, I may mention that when I take the 400 to have the S-Video card I bought from reifsnyderb installed. I guess I'll hang onto the S-Drive MAX a while longer to see if that's the problem. If it's not I guess I'll put the S-Drive MAX up for sale on the Buy/Sell/Trade forum here.

 

Dean