Hello from Poland... better late than never ;)

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tzok
Posts: 337
Joined: Sat Dec 30, 2017 2:27 pm

Hello from Poland... better late than never ;)

Post by tzok »

I'm on this forum since some time now, but I've never spotted this topic before.

So... my first contact with computers was Atari 800XL borrowed from neighbors in late '80s or early '90s, don't remember exactly... I was about 7 years old then. In 1992 I got my Atari 1040STE which I still have. It had a German (obviously, as it was bought in Germany) TOS 1.06. Only modification done then was replacing 4 256kB SIMMs with 2 1MB SIMMs. The setup consisted of Atari computer, Anitech MOD.84 color monitor later was added Atari SM124 hi-res monitor and a Star LC-20 dot-matrix printer. When I've finished primary school, my parents bought a PC... an IBM-PC 330 466DX2 (no, that is not a mistake - model name was 466DX2, not 486DX2), for some time Atari was still in use, but in early 2000s in went to wardrobe.

I that time I was using it mainly for gaming (Dogs of War, Midnight Resistance, Golden Axe, Silk Worm, Major Motion, Baby Jo, Metal Mutant, Vroom, Turbo Cup, Lotus I/II/III - these I remember), but I've also learn BASIC and do some text processing.

Thanks to my early contact with computers I've went to a technical secondary school, and gained electronics technician title, I've continued my education on university first gaining a title of IT engineer, and then Master degree in Computer Science. I still work at the university, currently almost finished my Ph.D. in computer science.

Few years ago I've started to rebuild my Atari STE (partially thanks to my colleague from work who has an impressive collection of Atari an other vintage computers). I wanted to make it up to full spec. as it could be at the date of production, and making any eventual mods fully reversible. First I added 2 more MBs of RAM, reaching maximum spec. in aspect of RAM. Next I have installed a switchable TOS 1.62/2.06 (on Flash EPROMs). Next I've got an Digital Data Deicke HD64 (basically a slightly modded Megafile 60). I had to make an ACSI cable for it, and replace the broken ST-277R drive (actually now it works again, but I had to open it to move the heads, and low level format it, so I was not able to recover its original contents). Having a "bad" DMA I've decided to swap CPU to MC68HC000. Of course I keep all the original parts I have removed (namely: ROMs, 0R resistor-jumpers, and original CPU). I've put these parts in an ESD-protective bag and keep it inside my STE. I've also bought a Gotek drive, but didn't want to remove the original, still working, Epson drive, so I've made an external case for it (try to get a DIN-14 plug/cable for a reasonable price), and added a switch to Atari to swap drives. I've tried both FlashFloppy and HxC firmwares, but stayed with HxC. As I no longer had the color monitor I've bough a Chinese SCART to HDMI scan doubler, and as I didn't have a HDMI input in my monitor, a HDMI to VGA converter. Next I've bought an SF314 in perfect visual condition... but it had broken head. Do I need to mention it came without the signal cable and power supply? So, again I had to make the impossible and find a signal cable, and I've also made a replacement PSU (actually this is a "full" ST PSU). To salvage a floppy, I've bought another STF, yet it came to have completely smashed floppy. Mechanically I was able to repair it, but I can't align the heads. So I had to buy another floppy, this time it was ugly yellow but at least working. Of course none of these 3 floppy drives have an interchangeable fascias.The STF itself had no PSU and was dead (it displayed only a white screen with 70Hz, now matter what monitor). It also came with an UK keyboard, but the computer had a label on the bottom in an unknown language for me (Danish/Swedish?), and the keyboard was clearly not from the set, yet it had a UK TOS 1.00. Keyboard had broken mouse/ports, but it was an easy repair, so I've put it in my STE, together with changing TOS to UK version (I don't know german at all). I didn't give up and try to repair the STF - after reseating all chips it booted... sort of - one time for dozens of tries. It usually ended up with 2 or 4 bombs just after a cursor appeared. I discovered that cold computer wouldn't boot, after few resets it started to boot with bombs, and finally it was booting ok, but if it worked for a while it hatred to hang up and/or reboot spontaneously. Surprisingly when it booted it could run YAART for a few passes without errors. I've recapped and re-soldered the board, I found some slight signs of corrosion and removed them. As I possible reason, I've decided to check the bus buffers - of course I've damaged a few traces when desoldering these chips :/ but the chips were ok. After several weeks I've found a reason - it was a weak contact in MMU socket (I wast putting it in and out for several times before). Bending pins in MMU chip and socket finally helped. It still has some problems (mono mode is very noisy, but color modes seem to be ok) but it is booting every time fine. I have no floppy drive for it so I've put a (another) Gotek inside it (this time FlashFloppy). Soon it will get an german 1.04 TOS (as it now has a german keyboard from my STE), and a (overpaid) MeanWell RT-65B PSU. I didn't think much and I've bought a 5/12V "brick", while STF needs 12V solely for the floppy drive... which it doesn't have (Gotek doesn't need the 12V rail, as well as many PC FDD drives). To be formally true the 12V is also present on the monitor port and is used to switch SCART to RGB mode (but my scan-doubler doesn't need that either).

I've made 3 attempts of retrobrighting: the floppy fascia/button for SF-314 came great, same my original SM1 mouse, but the STF case came... like zebra. It looks better than it was (at it was ugly yellowed but also not uniformly) and I believe I could continue to retrobright it, as the lightest stripes are just as light as inside of case, so the darker areas just didn't fully retrobrighted. I was using a 12% H2O2 cream and PVC bags method.

My latest project was the RTC clock in a form of an IKBD injector, but then I've discovered that no TOS until 2.06 is using IKBD built in clock :/ TOS 1.06/1.62 was kind of using it, but only after applying the STE_FIX.PRG.
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Cyprian
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 22, 2017 9:16 am
Location: Poland

Re: Hello from Poland... better late than never ;)

Post by Cyprian »

witam,
nice to see a fellow countryman here
Lynx I / Mega ST 1 / 7800 / Portfolio / Lynx II / Jaguar / TT030 / Mega STe / 800 XL / 1040 STe / Falcon030 / 65 XE / 520 STm / SM124 / SC1435
DDD HDD / AT Speed C16 / TF536 / SDrive / PAK68/3 / Lynx Multi Card / LDW Super 2000 / XCA12 / SkunkBoard / CosmosEx / SatanDisk / UltraSatan / USB Floppy Drive Emulator / Eiffel / SIO2PC / Crazy Dots / PAM Net
http://260ste.atari.org
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