Atari 800 NTSC to PAL conversion.

[deffroe]

Hi guys,

I have spent the last week or so successfully converting my NTSC 800 to PAL.  A big thank you  to Beeblebrox for the full strip down instructions for the 800 in his Incognito installation guide.  As a first time owner of an Atari 800 it was a good send! They really were built/engineered to last.

Unfortunately I didn't take too many photos, most were for my memory🥴.  But will add what I did take.

One thing I'm still getting eecked at is the dirt that was inside. There was plenty of dust and dirt but also something, I'm sure is vintage stomach lining🤮.

So, following the guide I stripped the case from the internals, this was quite nervy as there were a few creaks and groans.  Reading on AA how the plastics are getting brittle, I was being as careful as possible, thankfully it came apart nicely.  Removing the keyboard too, with it's long spindly connector went well.

I had most of the passive components(resistors and capacitors) already in stock and Beeblebrox kindly sent me some colour burst crystals.  I was able to borrow a system clock from a 2600jr.

The only part I didn't have was a 74ls74 so while I waited for some to arrive I gave the case and keyboard a clean.  A pleasant surprise was how easy it is for the keys to be removed.  They were given a soapy soak and a scrub.  I was hoping to completely strip the keyboard so I could give the plastic housing a good clean to remove the, I'm sure it's🤮 but looks like every key needs desoldering to do so, so instead I opted for contact cleaner, IPA and cotton buds.  Made a difference but some of the orangey brown gunge remains...🤮🤮🤮.

I added extra solder to and then desoldered the areas to be worked on on the CPU board and the continued to add the components and socket(cardinal sin committed here, didn't have correct socket so used 2 small, although I used a spare chip to make sure everything was lined up).

 

The eject/cart cover button/mechanisms was a bit stiff/binding so gave the hinge a little spray with PTFE which has really loosened it up.

 

The day before the 74LS74 turned up I remembered I have a bundle of 800XL's that I could borrow from.  So was able to check that my soldering had worked👍.

 

I reversed the stripping down process and rebuilt my newly PAL converted 800 and took a big biiig sigh of relief.

 

Now to save some pennies for an Incognito board.

 

Phil