The Saga:
I recently exhumed my Atari 8-bit stuff, including one 1050 drive. I’d heard about the Happy upgrade for many years, but I always figured it was either too complicated or too expensive. It turns out neither is true, at least nowadays. So I order the upgrade from Atarimax (thanks, Steve!) and it arrived today. Hooray!
I dutifully and meticulously follow the instructions: open the case, take pictures of the connectors so I know how to put them back, remove the drive mechanism, remove the PCB, remove the RF cage, replace the PCB, remove the CPU and PROM chips and get ready to install the upgrade board. I’m looking at all the pictures, making sure everything is aligned the correct way, lining up the pins with the CPU socket…
Hey, what’s this tall black thing right next to the CPU socket? It's blocking me from inserting the Happy upgrade board! I’m not seeing anything like it pictured in the installation instructions. It has some letters on the top, let’s see… ICD. I wonder what...
D ’ O H !
I’m guessing this thing already has an ICD doubler installed, although I haven’t been able to find any pictures of one installed for comparison. I’ll have to find a blank double density floppy and see if I can format it. Come to think of it, my stock 1050 died ages ago and I got this one second hand from a friend that was getting rid of all his Atari stuff in the early 90s. He must have done the ICD upgrade himself.
So I put everything back together and it no longer works. The light comes on, the drive spins a bit, but my 800XL gives this shrill boot error and doesn’t seem to be communicating with the drive at all. Sonofa…
I take it apart and put it back together a few of times, making sure the chips are well seated and the connectors are correct. I go through a cycle of giving up and trying "one more time". I'm just about to write a eulogy and start digging a grave when I see that one of the wires in the front right connector has popped out of its housing. I push it back in and…
Hooray! My 1050 is working no worse than when I started this project. In fact it’s working a little better because I cleaned the drive head; it had a little schmutz on there.
The Questions:
1. Are there any good pictures available of an ICD doubler installed on a 1050? I'd like to verify just what's in my drive.
2. What’s the difference between an ICD doubler and a Happy upgrade for the 1050 drive? I figure I’ll pick up another 1050 eventually since I don’t want that Happy upgrade to go to waste. Is one better at anything than the other? Does one work better as drive 1 or drive 2 than the other?
3. I wasn’t bothering to replace the RF cage every time I reassembled the thing, so it wasn’t on there when I got everything working again. How important is having the RF cage installed in this drive? I’m kinda reluctant to take it apart now that I got it working again, but I don’t want to get busted by the FCC either.
I hope you find my story entertaining. Any and all information is greatly appreciated.