Today I had a delivery of an Atari 800XL from eBay. I got it for a really low price because it was described as "For parts or not working" and "No cables, so sold as spares". I plugged in the power supply I already had, which may have come from another 800XL, and it worked first time, booting up to the BASIC Ready prompt. I carried out various tests, including the self diagnostic (which seemed to pass on all counts), plugged in a game cartridge and ran it, as well as connecting my SIO2SD unit, booting from there and running various software from ATR files, including BASIC programs I'd written myself.
Some potential problems I noticed are as follows. The on/off rocker switch feels very stiff compared to my 65XE, so I have to press a lot harder to turn it on. The screen sometimes flashes red, but then quickly clears and boots up. The Atari/inverse video key doesn't work all the time, but that's obviously not as serious as the other two faults.
I see that someone has uploaded an 800XL service manual, but obviously there will be a lot in it and it may be too technical for me. I hope someone on here can advise me about the potential problems above.
Some potential problems I noticed are as follows. The on/off rocker switch feels very stiff compared to my 65XE, so I have to press a lot harder to turn it on. The screen sometimes flashes red, but then quickly clears and boots up. The Atari/inverse video key doesn't work all the time, but that's obviously not as serious as the other two faults.
I see that someone has uploaded an 800XL service manual, but obviously there will be a lot in it and it may be too technical for me. I hope someone on here can advise me about the potential problems above.