#ATARI800MACX WONT EXPAND SERIAL#
#ATARI800MACX WONT EXPAND SOFTWARE#

Unfortunately, some of these images do have a few bad sectors, but thanks to ProSystem's logging these are all known. As long as the 800XL remained unused no additional data was transmitted on the SIO bus and the disk images were available intact.Ītari 800XL booting via SIO2PC from Ape, displaying on a Dell flat panel.

#ATARI800MACX WONT EXPAND SOFTWARE#

Then the floppy drive was powered on, and whatever software was used on the PC (in this case ProSystem) was started and used. The 800XL was powered on and allowed to boot to BASIC. To do this I connected the 800XL to one port of the 1050, then the SIO2PC to the other port of the 1050.

#ATARI800MACX WONT EXPAND SERIAL#

Because the neither the 1050 nor the SIO2PC (via serial port) provide this power, I used the Atari 800XL as a power injector. The SIO2PC adapter is powered from 5V of the SIO bus. They are also ideal for my purposes, which is archiving the images to prevent them from being lost as the magnetic media they were stored on ages. These image files can then be used with emulators, peripheral emulators (such as APE), or written back to floppies. Using Atarimax's ProSystem I could then image each floppy directly to an image file. After removing the retainer nuts from the DB9 connector I was able to plug it directly into the back of my laptop, cutting down on cable clutter. Other SIO2PC interfaces are available, but the Atarimax's Universal SIO2PC/ProSystem Interface seems to work with all SIO2PC software and ProSystem without reconfiguration, which made things very easy for me.

I chose to use Atarimax's Universal SIO2PC/ProSystem Interface which allowed my Atari 1050 to connect directly to my PC. In order to connect the floppy drive (or any other SIO peripheral) to a PC a number of devices, commonly known as SIO2PC adapters, have been designed.

The terminals are fairly thick to begin with, so this is easy to do.Ītarimax Universal SIO2PC/ProSystem Interface Universal SIO2PC/ProSystem Interface To make them fit I ground the terminals thinner using a Dremel and a small grinding stone. † The snap-in terminals on the 6800μF capacitors were too large to fit in the holes on the Atari 1050's PCB. Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 50V 1.0uF 105C Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 50V 2.2uF 105C Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 50V 47uF 105C Hi-Temp Radial Electrolytic Capacitors 50V 4.7uF 105C Snap Mount Aluminum Electrolytic Capacitors 6800uF 35V † The following components were used as replacements: Except for making a mistake and accidentally lifting a trace on the board (which was easily remedied) the capacitor replacement went great and afterwards the drive was working like new. As this type of capacitor will occasionally fail with age, I wanted to extend the life of the drive the best I could, so I replaced them all. Specifically, the problem was with C69 and either C42 or C43, which had failed and become conductive, shorting the 5VDC and 12VDC rails to ground.Īfter identifying parts which would fit, I ordered ~$10 worth of electrolytic capacitors from Mouser and replaced all of them. As I had first expected, the problem was in some of the electrolytic capacitors. Thanks to Stephen on YakYak I was able to get an Atari 1050 schematic and get everything working. After a bit of thinking I'd narrowed the problem down to the main PCB in the 1050. However, there wasn't a short between +5VDC and +12VDC. Unfortunately, when I tried to power it up as a test, it wouldn't turn on.Ī bit of digging into the problem (and my smelling some rather warm components) led me to find a short between ground and the +5VDC rail and ground and the +12VDC rail. As this drive was the only one ever used with our set of floppy disks it was perfect for imaging the floppy disks. With the purchase of the Atari 800XL my parents also acquired an Atari 1050, which is a 5.25' single-sided dual-density floppy drive. Inside of the Atari 1050 after replacing the electrolytic capacitors.

Atari800macx wont expand