Hi - my first post here and I'm already asking for help!
Here's what I'm up to:
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The board on the left is a machine I'm building from new parts. It's an NTSC version and works perfectly. There is a picture on the monitor but the camera didn't get it.
All it needs now is a nice clean case which I'm having problems sourcing. Any ideas where I can find one?
I'm also in the process of restoring a recently purchased 800 that was in a really horrible state.
I've given the whole thing a good clean and now it feels safe to handle :-)
Although it's clean, the case still looks rubbish and might be a good candidate for a retroBrite experiment.
I have two major issues with this one which I'm hoping someone can help with:
The CPU board is dead.
It's a PAL version. I don't know yet which IC is at fault - need to get a 'scope on it and do some checking.
I get a solid black screen after power-on and that's all. No speaker output - tried holding 'Start' on power up for the long beep but nothing.
Swapped in the NTSC board from my other machine and it seems to work fine.
Does anyone know where I can get spare ICs or am I stuck with waiting around for a whole new board to come up on ebay?
I know that Best Electronics may have a PAL board but the guy there doesn't seem to want to deal with the UK.
I don't want to spend much money as I've forked out far too much on this lot already.
Second issue is that the keyboard is missing two keytops - '< Clear' & '> Insert'.
Anyone have spares knocking around that can part with for a reasonable sum?
The other issue with the keyboard is that the spacebar switch has lost a pin leaving a hole in the solder pad. This is the mechanical version of the keyboard -
not the membrane.
This seems to have been caused by the plastic frame being very slightly raised from the surface of the PCB and so there's a small amount of movement
when the key is pressed. Over time this has put pressure on the pins and fractured the joints and one pin has just fallen out.
Now - I was hoping that removing the screws in the bottom of the board would release the frame and allow me to get at the individual switches but no joy.
It seems that the keys may be fixed into the frame and then soldered - which means I have to unsolder all of them before I can get to the spacebar switch... groan.
Can anyone confirm this? I can't find any information on this type of keyboard anywhere.
Also I was thinking of swapping the broken spacebar switch with the Atari logo switch - is the logo key ever used for anything?
If anyone can help with any of the above I'd love to hear from them.
Cheers.
Here's what I'm up to:
The board on the left is a machine I'm building from new parts. It's an NTSC version and works perfectly. There is a picture on the monitor but the camera didn't get it.
All it needs now is a nice clean case which I'm having problems sourcing. Any ideas where I can find one?
I'm also in the process of restoring a recently purchased 800 that was in a really horrible state.
I've given the whole thing a good clean and now it feels safe to handle :-)
Although it's clean, the case still looks rubbish and might be a good candidate for a retroBrite experiment.
I have two major issues with this one which I'm hoping someone can help with:
The CPU board is dead.
It's a PAL version. I don't know yet which IC is at fault - need to get a 'scope on it and do some checking.
I get a solid black screen after power-on and that's all. No speaker output - tried holding 'Start' on power up for the long beep but nothing.
Swapped in the NTSC board from my other machine and it seems to work fine.
Does anyone know where I can get spare ICs or am I stuck with waiting around for a whole new board to come up on ebay?
I know that Best Electronics may have a PAL board but the guy there doesn't seem to want to deal with the UK.
I don't want to spend much money as I've forked out far too much on this lot already.
Second issue is that the keyboard is missing two keytops - '< Clear' & '> Insert'.
Anyone have spares knocking around that can part with for a reasonable sum?
The other issue with the keyboard is that the spacebar switch has lost a pin leaving a hole in the solder pad. This is the mechanical version of the keyboard -
not the membrane.
This seems to have been caused by the plastic frame being very slightly raised from the surface of the PCB and so there's a small amount of movement
when the key is pressed. Over time this has put pressure on the pins and fractured the joints and one pin has just fallen out.
Now - I was hoping that removing the screws in the bottom of the board would release the frame and allow me to get at the individual switches but no joy.
It seems that the keys may be fixed into the frame and then soldered - which means I have to unsolder all of them before I can get to the spacebar switch... groan.
Can anyone confirm this? I can't find any information on this type of keyboard anywhere.
Also I was thinking of swapping the broken spacebar switch with the Atari logo switch - is the logo key ever used for anything?
If anyone can help with any of the above I'd love to hear from them.
Cheers.