calfranklin0598 Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 Are there any "Plug and Play" Ram Memory upgrades available for the 1040STFM? I'm not interested in attempting a solder job on my 1040ST motherboard and was hoping that someone has created a plug in RAM memory upgrade for the ST similar to the AVGSubCart upgrade for the 8-bit Atari computers. Thanks, Cal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted March 2 Share Posted March 2 1 hour ago, calfranklin0598 said: Are there any "Plug and Play" Ram Memory upgrades available for the 1040STFM? I'm not interested in attempting a solder job on my 1040ST motherboard and was hoping that someone has created a plug in RAM memory upgrade for the ST similar to the AVGSubCart upgrade for the 8-bit Atari computers. Thanks, Cal It would be great if that happened, but no. Soldering is always required for an Atari STF/STFM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zogging Hell Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 I suspect if you have an original 1040STFM you may not need to solder anything to upgrade and could get away with just snipping some resistor legs for 4mb, but it depends if you have surface mounted MMUs or video shifters (those tend to come in later when Atari was cost cutting). The Marpet Xtra ram does not necessarily require soldering and I don't think Exxos's one does necessarily either. The install is not without some risk/ effort though as you have to dismantle the machine and press one part into the MMU socket and then remove the shifter chip from its socket and plug the other part in. Although to get you to 4mb you have to disable the onboard ram, which involves 'pulling up' resistors which most people solder wires to for reliability. The original Marpet Xtra ram came with a jumper cable(s) that clipped onto the resistor and then 5v, however, so it is totally possible to leave the soldering iron in the box. It is totally doable for most people if they are patient and follow the instructions, however, and most ST owners in the 90s would have done this themselves. A lot of people slag the Marpet one off for damaging the MMU socket, Exxos's upgrade works the same way, and yes it does, but if you're not going to pull it out ever again and are not in the habit of throwing your ST about, it is totally reliable (I've had one in an ST working fine, after several house moves, for about 25 plus years without a blip). It was also the only way to get an upgrade with no soldering back in the day, which is the reason it was so popular. Unfortunately, the ST can't really have any plug in ST ram (as opposed to TT/ fast ram) in the way an Amiga can for example, it just isn't designed in the same way and isn't physically possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EJRS Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 See here inexpensive RAM upgrade if you look in the comments there are links to the project. it seems to be somewhere in between "plug and play" and "expert" which you may be able to handle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted March 3 Share Posted March 3 STRam works well (I installed one in my 520ST) but it is the direct opposite of easy and plug and play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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