1050 Happy (or not?)

[spacedmonkeys]

So after all my machine troubles I’ve finally dug out the disk collection I acquired in 2015, and my own disks from the 1980’s.

 

Long since sold my original 1050 USDoubler, but what I do have is this 1050, with what I understand is the 1050 enhancement board for toggling io speed and write protect. 

however when I boot up the warp speed utility disk it shows Happy drives: none.

 

Is this normal?
 

The drive is definitely running double density/high speed as it is loading my old US Doubler / Alphaload menu disks at super high speed compared to normal disks. 
 

Unfortunately I can’t select any of the options as my XL keyboard not working (need to order a new membrane). 

[spacedmonkeys]

Forgot to add, I took a peek inside the drive and could see the enhancement board with the red “tamper” tape.

[_The Doctor__]

One of the switches is probably setting Un-Happy mode. So no happy detected.

Try other switch positions and other happy software.

make sure to have it as drive one to start out troubleshooting and a working disk in the drive.

Edited May 14 by _The Doctor__

[TZJB]

Hi @spacedmonkeys. You probably need a higher revision of Happy software starting with Happy 6.6.

 

 

See if these work.

 

[macsonny]

Can you take pics of the inside - that would help a lot.

[+Larry]

You are hearing the track buffer of the Happy, which by itself improves read speeds by about 40%.  One of the beauties of the Happy is the track buffer which results in no special disk formatting being required.  If you get a full setup for ~3X disk speeds (OS support and drive) it will sound faster still.  There are several OS that have built in UltraSpeed drives support.  But there are several utilities that can load the UltraSpeed driver necessary for high-speed transmission.  The best of these is from Hias:

 

https://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/

 

Look for the Highspeed SIO patch.  The one you likely will want is a .com file that can be loaded by many Dos versions.  If you happen to have access to an eprom burner, you can make a more permanent version. 

 

Edit:  Your drive has the Happy Controller upgrade.  Here are the docs for it. 

Controller.zip

[+DjayBee]

14 hours ago, TZJB said:

Hi @spacedmonkeys. You probably need a higher revision of Happy software starting with Happy 6.6.

 

 

Not "probably" but "certainly".

Older versions only support Happy for 810 drives.

[+CharlieChaplin]

Besides,

there are many Happy clones out there that can work with Happy ultraspeed and many Happy programs in high speed (e.g. Happy sector copy programs, ultraspeed drivers, gamedos versions, Alphaload menu versions and whatnot) - but these clones are still treated as "Happy drives = none!" by the Happy menu, since they are not original Happy drives.

 

 

[cwc]

[TZJB]

8 hours ago, DjayBee said:

Not "probably" but "certainly".

Older versions only support Happy for 810 drives.

 

Thanks. I wasn't actually sure which versions crossover to Happy 1050, but Happy 6.6 software runs on a Lazer 1050 drive so it should work on a real Happy 1050.

 

[spacedmonkeys]

Ok, downloaded all the ATR's. I used the 6.6 version of Happy tools, mounted on my SIO2SD (lotharek version) and loaded. It detects the 1050 as Happy now. Which is great. I had to mess about with the switch on the back of the 1050 though.

 

I am now not sure how am I supposed to configure the SIO2SD so that I can use both drives. I have the SIO2SD at the end of the daisy chain. Configured it to be "device ID 3". However whenever I power up with the 1050 and the SIO2SD connected, I just keep getting "boot error" and freezes on startup. Even with a disk in or out of the 1050.

Obviously if I have just the SIO2SD connected everything works fine. And if I set the 1050 to device 2 or 3 then it also works fine. 

 

Am I missing the point, with an SIO2SD connected, is the 1050 always supposed to be the secondary device? So I can't boot off a floppy unless I unplug SIO2SD?

 

Also I have 2 sets of disks... mine from when I was a teen (80% or so seem to be working, which is good) and a large set I aquired in 2015 of which 80% seem to be giving boot errors or have alot of difficulty reading. I wonder if it's because most of these disks were created and used with 810 drives? Anything I can do to improve the % that are reading? Drive head cleaning maybe or am I likely to make it worse?

[spacedmonkeys]

Update: Opened her up, cleaned the head, was alot simpler than I remembered. Very dusty inside and some grime definitely came off the head. Seems to read a few more disks now.

 

Pics of inside attached.

 

I managed to run the 1050 drive test utility, which gave some FAILS, but again not sure if these are to be expected when not using the authentic disc?!

No faults were mentioned when using the Happy drive diagnostic tool.

 

[+kheller2]

Atari 1050 diagnostics don’t work unless you use an Atari 1050 ROM.  Since you are using a Happy ROM they will fail.  
 

Could you share some pics of the auxiliary happy board?

[xrbrevin]

7 hours ago, spacedmonkeys said:

I had to mess about with the switch on the back of the 1050 though

yes, these can have a habit of oxidising-up over time. use some spray switch-cleaner or alcohol and operate the switches to clear out the crud

regarding your unreliable disks, check them for fungal contamination. it might just be why your drive head was mucky

 

ive never used my SIO2SD as part of a chain but i do use SIO2PC in a chain (its handy for creating real disks from .atr files). it sounds like it could be trying to boot from both devices at once - when you enabled D2, did you also disable D1?

[spacedmonkeys]

Fungal contamination - looks like this? Lots of my disks look like this and are having problems reading  they have never been stored anywhere damp, always dry storage.

 

I will get some pics of the Happy auxillary board over the weekend.

 

I don't think I can use the SIO2SD the way I intended, seems like it only wants to be device 1. I can work around that.

[_The Doctor__]

Please find the threads where we describe the cleaning process, be ready to invest as many hours as needed to clean and backup all of the disk that look like that one.

Your head and rabbits fur pressure pad a certainly soiled and will spread the 'disease'

I try to use a double sided drive to back these up since cleaning soiled heads is much easier than cleaning and replacing pressure pads.

[+DjayBee]

3 hours ago, spacedmonkeys said:

I don't think I can use the SIO2SD the way I intended, seems like it only wants to be device 1.

What is the problem if it is D1 instead of D2 or D3?

Boot from an ATR isntead of a physical disk.

 

Besides the above nitpicking, up to now I understood that you cannot have the SIO2SD connected to the SIO bus at the same time as any other SIO device.

 

Perhaps your device has the same problem, many SDriveMax' and FujiNets had at the beginning.

Mr. Robot describes a solution for the SDriveMax which probably will work for the SIO2SD as well:

https://atari8bit.net/projects/hardware/uno2sio/

[spacedmonkeys]

Here are the pics of the enhancement board (finally got round to it):