Atari 7800 ProSystem (NTSC) Repair.

Defect:

• The console doesn’t power on.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x Push Button. Recovered from a PCB of an Atari 7800 that lying inside the box of the spare parts.

I must thank my friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

For this donation i thank: Andrea Pierdomenico, Paolo M.R, Paolo Cognetti.

The items listed below are in poor condition and they are not working.

Donated items:

• 2 x Atari 800 XL
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2
• 2 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k
• 3 x Commodore 6499
• 1 x Joystick Spectravideo
• 1 x Joystick Suncom Slik Stik
• 1 x Joystick Competition Pro deluxe version (PC)
• 1 x Commodore VIC-20 RF Modulator
• 1 x Commodore VIC-20
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8020
• 3 x Commodore 64 Power Supply
• 1 x Commodore Amiga 500 Power Supply
• 1 x Philips NMS 800 Data Recorder
• 1 x SVI Spectravideo 904 Data Cassette
• 1 x SVI Spectravideo 728 MSX Home Computer
• 1 x Commodore 16
• 1 x Commodore Floppy Drive 1541
• 1 x Apple IIc
• 6 x Sinclair Spectrum Microdrive (only the drive)
• 1 x Motherboard XT Clone
• 1 x Motherboard XT IBM 5150
• 1 x Power Supply Clone XT 5150
• 1 x MDA Graphics Card ISA
• 1 x Floppy Controller ISA
• 1 x Motherboard Amiga 600
• Some Floppy Disk.
• Some Tape Cassette.
• Some cables.

I must thank my friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

Donated items:

• 2 x Sega Dreamcast
• 1 x Sinclair 128+
• 2 x Amiga 500 Memory Expansion
• 1 x Amiga Powersupply
• 1 x Philips Multi Voltage Power supply
• 1 x Commodore CBM/PET Power supply (complete and working)
• 1 x 8088 Motherboard (Clone)
• 1 x Floppy Drive Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x MDA/Parallel Controller (ISA Card)
• 1 x PC Clone (8088) Power supply
• 6 x Unknown Adapter/Interface
• 1 x Atari 7800 Motherboard
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k Motherboard
• 1 x Pong Clone Motherboard
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464 Motherboard
• 1 x Commodore 6499
• 1 x Power Supply C64/VIC20 (Clone)

Atari 2600 Repair

Defect:

• The second joystick port doesn’t works properly.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x 6532 RAM-I/O-Timer (RIOT)

I must thank my dear friend Andrea and all friends which have contributed to the growth of my Repair Laboratory with donations of spare parts.

Donated items:

• 1 x Commodore 128
• 2 x Sinclair QL
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +
• 1 x Spectravideo SV-318
• 1 x Sinclair ZX Spectrum +2
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8010
• 1 x Philips MSX VG-8020
• 1 x Olivetti Prodest PC 128
• 2 x Olivetti Prodest PC 128/S
• 1 x Amstrad CPC 464
• 1 x Amiga 600 without Floppy Drive
• 1 x Commodore CDTV
• 1 x Atari Floppy Drive 1050
• 1 x Atari Tape Recorder 1010
• 1 x 512k Expander Ram from Miracle for Sinclair QL
• 2 x Floppy Disk Drive 3.5″ for Sinclair QL (*)
• 1 x QLFDC Floppy Disk Drive Interface v5.1 from Miracle for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Floppy Disk Drive 3″ + Interface for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Centronics Interface for Sinclair QL
• 1 x Power Supply for 3.5″ Floppy Disk Drive
• 2 x Cables

(*) Needs to be made a Aesthetic Restoration.

SNDH archive v4.4 released – 4261 SNDH files (total 8268 tunes)

Ever since the birth of the Atari ST, different chip music formats have had different ways to use them. If you are coding a chip music player for the Atari ST you would have to use dozens and dozens of special ways to replay music.

But in the mid 90′s, BDC of Aura crew became tired of this inelegant system and decided to fix the issue once and for all. He then created the ‘SNDH’ file format. SNDH is actually the original songfile and replaycode with a header bolted on top of the music and replayer. The header has a unified calling interface no matter what type of chip music is hidden beneath it, and it has extended datas about the music.

Download: SNDH Atari ST YM2149 Archive v4.4 (1501)

source: sndh.atari.org

ASAP is a player of 8-bit Atari music for modern computers and mobile devices. It emulates the POKEY sound chip and the 6502 processor.

The project was initially based on the routines from the Atari800 emulator, but the current version has a completely new original emulation core.

Changelog ASAP 3.2.0 (2014-06-23):

• Reduced amplitude by half to avoid clipping on loud tunes.
• Silence detection regarded GTIA and COVOX sounds as silence.
• asapconv supports conversion to one WAV/RAW/MP3/XEX file per subsong.
• File Information window in the foobar2000 plugin.
• Updated the XBMC plugin for the new XBMC.
• OS X VLC plugin no longer requires OS X 10.8.

Android changes:

• Android 4.4 can now read the memory card.
• Switch to the next song when the current one ends.
• Playback couldn’t be resumed after a while of pause.
• Search files using on-screen keyboard.
• Removed HTTP playback.
• Files with duplicate titles were lost in the details view.

Download: ASAP v3.2.0 (1507)

source: asap.sourceforge.net

AspeQt is a cross-platform, free and open source Atari 8-bit serial peripheral emulator. The name is an acronym for Atari serial peripheral emulator for Qt, Qt being the cross-platform application development framework used by AspeQt.

AspeQt emulates various Atari 8-bit peripherals like disk drives and printers via an SIO-2-PC cable. If you are familiar with software like Sio2Pc, APE, Atari810, AtariSIO etc., you probably won’t have any problems getting used to AspeQt.

Even though AspeQt is not fully mature yet, it is easy to use and, despite its shortcomings, has many features that you may find useful, the highlights being:

• Cross-platform GUI with drag and drop support.
• 15 emulated disk drives with support for 512 bytes per sector disk images.
• High speed operation up to 6 times faster than the normal speed (With compatible OS / DOS)
• Ability to use PC folders as emulated disks.
• Disk image explorer for viewing and modifying disk image contents.
• Ability to run Atari executables directly without using disc images and Doses.
• Printer emulation with preview and ATASCII support.
• Cassette image playback with custom baud rate.
• Ability to save and restore AspeQt sessions with its UI settings..=
• Normal and mini UI modes.

Version 1.0.0 Preview-6 (May 23, 2014) (Ray Ataergin):

• Windows registry entries for AspeQt are now stored under “atari8warez.com” registry tree, the program will automatically migrate settings on the next run. Existing AspeQt session files storing session settings are not affected by this change
• Code needed to compile AspeQt under Mac OS X is added (David Voswinkel – optixx) (see compile.rtf file included with the source archive)
• Folder images are now emulated in DOS 2.5 disk format rather than DOS 2.0 This gives more unique sector numbers to work with before they are re-used in a circular fashion.
• Fixed the “Not a binary file” error loading certain executable files.
• Text conversion is now OS platform aware (Win, Linux, OS X)
• Explorer Window Stay-on-top feature is now user selectable and persistent across sessions.

Download:

• AspeQt v1.0.0 Preview-6 (1283)

source: aspeqt.sourceforge.net

Gallery:

The Gotek is a USB Floppy Drive emulator very cheap, you can buy it from eBay at €24.00 €20.00 including the shipping cost.

Let’s start by saying that this Floppy Disk Emulator with the original firmware is totally useless for our purpose, like to connect it to an Amiga and in the near future to a Atari ST or Amstrad CPC. The new firmware written by Herve Messinger replaces the original firmware, to do this you need a simple converter from USB to TTL Serial Interface to program the STM32 ARM Cortex MCU.

I would add this thing; this Floppy Drive Emulator is not absolutely comparable to the HXC Floppy Emulator of Jean-François DEL NERO (Jeff) where in addition to supporting dozens of Floppy Formats/Hardware and the Firmware is in development from several years but it’s a nice and inexpensive alternative.

For more information, firmware and programming tool you need to go here the official blog of Herve Messinger.

Video:

source: cortexamigafloppydrive.wordpress.com

Atari Disk Drive 1050 #1

Defect:

• SIO bus unresponsive.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x LM3086N (U1)

Atari Disk Drive 1050 #2

Defect:

• SIO bus unresponsive + no reset cycle of the Disk drive on poweron.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 1 x RAM-I/O-Timer (RIOT) 6532 (U7)

Autopsy Apple IIgs / Keyboard (A2S6000W):

1234►

Autopsy Apple 3.5 Drive (A9M0106):

Autopsy Apple 5.25 Drive (A9M0107):

12►

Autopsy Apple IIgs Mouse (A9M0331):

Autopsy Apple IIgs RGB Monitor (A2M6014Z):

The Apple IIGS (stylized as IIGS) is the fifth and most powerful model in the Apple II series of personal computers produced by Apple Computer. The “GS” in the name stands for Graphics and Sound, referring to its enhanced multimedia capabilities, especially its state-of-the-art sound and music synthesis, which greatly surpassed previous models of the line and most contemporary machines like the Macintosh and IBM PC.

The machine was a radical departure from any previous Apple II, with its true 16-bit architecture, increased processing speed, direct access to megabytes of RAM, wavetable music synthesizer, graphical user interface, and mouse. While still maintaining full backwards compatibility with earlier Apple II models, it blended the Apple II and aspects of Macintosh technology into one. Keeping with Apple’s “Apple II Forever” slogan of the time, the IIGS set forth a promising future and evolutionary advancement of the Apple II line, but Apple paid it relatively little attention as the company increasingly focused on the Macintosh platform.

The Apple IIGS was the first computer produced by Apple to use a color graphical user interface, as well as the “Platinum” (light grey) color scheme and the Apple Desktop Bus interface for keyboards, mice, and other input devices. It was also the first personal computer to come with a built-in “wavetable” sample-based synthesizer chip, utilizing technology from Ensoniq. The machine outsold all other Apple products, including the Macintosh, during its first year in production.

Apple IIgs booting from Iomega Zip Drive:

source: wikipedia

Javatari is a multiplayer Atari 2600 emulator written in pure Java with no external libs.

Features:

• Client-Server multiplayer mode. Runs great in low-latency networks such as LANs.
• Drag&Drop and Copy&Paste of ROM files or URLs. Very easy to try ROMs from websites!
• Scanlines and TV screen emulation modes.
• Real Atari console user interface.

Changelog:

• New concept: Savestate Cartridges!
• Store emulator state as Savestate Cartridge files to disk any time (press F8)
• Savestate Cartridges can be distributed and loaded as normal ROMs.
• Savestate Cartridges can also be embedded as auto-load ROMs.
• Support for Starpath/Supercharger Tape ROM format.
• Bugfixes and improvements.

Download: Javatari JAR v4.1 (Needs Java 6 or greater) (1056)

source: javatari.org

I thank my dear friend that gave me the Atari Touch Tablet.

Autopsy:

The Atari Touch Tablet was a well designed and brilliant idea. Giving the user the ability to use a virtual sheet of paper and pen, they could draw, drag and drop, paint and erase images with the included Atari Artist program.

Perhaps given more time, the Touch Tablet could have been used for many other innovative ideas and perhaps vertical market applications. The Atari CX-77 Touch Tablet was designed by Tom Palecki formerly of Atari’s Industrial Design group.

source: atarimuseum.com

Autopsy:

12►

The Philips Monitor CM8802/00G is an excellent RGB monitor 14” suitable to use with Amiga and Atari ST.

Electronically is identical to the monitor Philips CM 8833, but compared to the latter one we can’t find the TTL RGB (DIN) input and the switching for Color/Monochrome, but is always present the composite (RCA) and Audio which makes it perfectly for computers with this type of output.

Cleaning comparison (before / after):

Defects:

• Missing RED Color.
• Out of focus.
• Convergence and saturation of colors.
• The monitor turns off by itself.

Works that have been made:

• Redone cold solder joints on PSU and CRT PCB.
• Focus, Colors and Convergence Adjustment.
• Cleaning.

Download:

• Philips CM8802-CM8833 Manual (4629)
• Philips CM8802-CM8833 Service Manual (1923)

Autopsy:

The HS2 is a joystick adapter to improve the playability (like a Arcade/Coin-op). The adapter is compatible with the consoles ColecoVision & Atari 2600.