Fixing an old atari 130xe
Invent-O-Doc
Posts: 768
Hi,
I've pulled all my old computers out of the chest and am setting them up. The Atari 800 is working and I suspect the 1040ST as well, but need to make a new monitor cable for that one.
My 130XE doesn't work, however. I get an empty orange screen, though the power LED works. I tested the power supply for voltage, which is correct. I also replaced the capacitors, some of which were bad - no difference. (3 of the caps were electrolytic appearing but non-polarized - never heard of those - I replaced two with electrolytics because they appeared to connect to ground and the third, which doesn't tested good so I put it back in).
Anyhow - what else is there to check? There is a 14.8MHz Crystal, do those go bad?? If nothing else is broken, then it is probably one of the chips and I'll have to give up.
Any thoughts?
I've pulled all my old computers out of the chest and am setting them up. The Atari 800 is working and I suspect the 1040ST as well, but need to make a new monitor cable for that one.
My 130XE doesn't work, however. I get an empty orange screen, though the power LED works. I tested the power supply for voltage, which is correct. I also replaced the capacitors, some of which were bad - no difference. (3 of the caps were electrolytic appearing but non-polarized - never heard of those - I replaced two with electrolytics because they appeared to connect to ground and the third, which doesn't tested good so I put it back in).
Anyhow - what else is there to check? There is a 14.8MHz Crystal, do those go bad?? If nothing else is broken, then it is probably one of the chips and I'll have to give up.
Any thoughts?
Comments
- Check the crystal to see if it is oscillating. If not try replacing it. If that does not work try replacing the cpu chip. BTW crystals rarely die unless physically abused.
- If the crystal oscillates see if the address lines are toggling.
- If the address lines are toggling it may be that the eprom is bad or has erased over time (common with early eproms).
- If there is any I/O activity (I/O chip select activity) the cpu and eproms are probably ok and the problem may be with the video.
Great machine...wish I hadn't tossed all my Ataris (7) a couple years back. Reference books and all.
...yup! I hacked my 600XL to be "130xe compatable" with an additional 65K of memory. Also populated the empty video out circuity for composit video and using a real monitor.
I was running ATARI Basic, ValStar Forth, and DeepBlueC.
Man...I loved that little machine!
Seriously. The tech oriented people there know these machines cold. You will fix it. I'm potatohead there too, if you need a friend to kick things off.
If you have the documentation (schematics) it may be possible to use currently available ram chips to replace the original chips. I have done that quite often when repairing or refurbishing old equipment and would be happy to assist.
Unfortunately that is not so easy to do with most custom chips. With those it's usually find an original or a clone chip.
I think they wanted $75 for the ST.