New Falcon a lemon?

[Steve]

... The images from facebook are too blurry, but I did notice there was a socketed pll ic chip under the PSU which isn't on Falcons I've seen before.

It's for a 68881/68882. FPU.

No I am aware of that, but I think there was another smaller socketed chip above the fpu, this is what I mean.

[Steve]

yeah, It says GERMANY on the bottom and also has the original SPEC of 50mhz. The board being even more different than that (given the painted keyboard). It's been changed and now I guess I need to reset the video to deal with NTSC?

The CF doesn't seem to be dos formatted and my pc cannot read it. Huge problem since the floppy on the Falcon isn't working. I have no idea how to get that done on my PC. I do have a copy of petri's 8-bit-chip HD driver partitioner for the ultra satan and it comes with an image that I might be able to write to CF. It's generally meant for an SD so I am not sure that this will work. Too bad the ultrasatan cannot be used here as it is asci not ide or scsci.

Without being able to write to this card I cannot put any diagnostic tools in.

Ideas?

Perhaps you can open Petri's HDD image in Hatari. Copy software to it, then write it to the CF. Even though it is CF and not SD it shouldn't matter. I think...
Try ctrl alt rshift and undo when you turn the machine on. This should clear the NVram.
Also - check the solder joints on the RGB connector. Do you have a soldering iron to reflow?

[derkom]

It's been changed and now I guess I need to reset the video to deal with NTSC?

PAL/NTSC is not a matter of just changing a setting. PAL and NTSC machines have different hardware. If this was born a PAL machine, it will always be a PAL machine.

But that shouldn't really matter, because nobody in their right mind is using the RF output for video anyway. PAL vs NTSC makes no difference for the monitor output, which is the only video output you're going to want to be using regardless.

[Gyrussfanx]

yeah, I'm just trying everything and there are things that are just not right. including the B&W

[bfollowell]

It has an ST keyboard (it seems)

I'm curious what makes you think it has an ST keyboard? No stock ST keyboard was ever dark gray like that. That is the normal color for a Falcon keyboard and I don't see anything obvious that would make anyone think that it is anything other than a U.S. Falcon keyboard. It seems obvious that the machine probably did not start life as a U.S. Falcon, but I see every reason to believe that the keyboard was swapped for a U.S. version of the Falcon keyboard.

[Gyrussfanx]

So when I received the item the return key was not attached to it's stabilizer bar so I used a key puller and removed it so I could slide it back underneath. That's when I noticed the keyboard was WHITE not GRAY underneath and also the key itself underneath is white. They are totally painted. They look fantastic though but I don't think this is a real Falcon keyboard. I could be wrong. Checkout the images below. The item number is pictured.

falcon-st-keyboard-model-c070777-022-revA.png (3.22 MiB) Viewed 3272 times

falcon-painted-gray-key-white-underneath.png (2.2 MiB) Viewed 3272 times

falcon-white-keyboard.png (2.33 MiB) Viewed 3272 times

[mikro]

How nice, you seem to have one of the first Falcons produced in the Y4 factory, wow.

[Gyrussfanx]

oh? how do you know this? my friend says he thinks this falcon is pre-production.

[bfollowell]

So when I received the item the return key was not attached to it's stabilizer bar so I used a key puller and removed it so I could slide it back underneath. That's when I noticed the keyboard was WHITE not GRAY underneath and also the key itself underneath is white. They are totally painted. They look fantastic though but I don't think this is a real Falcon keyboard. I could be wrong. Checkout the images below. The item number is pictured.

falcon-st-keyboard-model-c070777-022-revA.png
falcon-painted-gray-key-white-underneath.png
falcon-white-keyboard.png

Hmmmm...

Maybe. It's certainly possible I guess.

Still, why in the world would someone paint the inside wall of the key caps? I mean, I could see painting the outside of the key if they had an ST keyboard and wanted to paint the keys to look like a Falcon keyboard, but why would they go to so much trouble to paint the inside? And those look like real Atari fonts on the keys. If they'd painted the whole key caps, they'd have had to put stickers on the key caps afterwards. My eyes aren't what they used to be, but I don't see any evidence of any of that. It's possible though. If someone painted those, they did one heck of job on them.

I did look up that part number as well. I only found a few references to C070777-002, and they all seem to be point to that being the part number for the German Falcon keyboard. I that's the case, I think you may have a legitimate German Falcon keyboard, but someone painted the keys and relabeled them to match their U.S. version counterparts. I'm assuming that you can use a different country's keyboard and that the key mapping is controlled by TOS like it is in the ST line.

It's definitely an interesting mystery either way.

[czietz]

An original ST keycap is just the opposite: dark plastic on the inside, light plastic on the outside.

IMG_4387.JPG (49.51 KiB) Viewed 3252 times

I guess a Falcon keycap is just the other way around with light plastic on the inside? I don't think it's painted and you're therefore wrongly "accusing" the seller. Maybe a Falcon owner can confirm by posting a photo of a keycap of his?