These are some cool disc drives but we have some issues (Atari 810)

[@tekwiz0]

I was an Atari authorized warranty technician for 10 years (1985-1995) in Federal Way WA. The local school districts would send me all their Atari disk drives for service every summer, hundreds of drives, plus many hundreds off the street. Some things came to mind as watched this video. The early 810 drive (MPI mechs) came with no separate FDC daughter board, but it was found that the built in 1771 data separator was defective and so that outboard data separator daughter board was created. Spindle bearings can get grabby and this can cause issues. The PLL can't stay locked to the data clock when the disk speed momentarily dives. The disk head needs to be thoroughly cleaned. You can't just look at the head and say, "oh it looks clean" as the interfering filth is microscopic. As you saw, the analog board has no shielding and so strong magnetic fields from monitor yokes did cause problems, even though the head signals are differential. Your problem drive probably needs a new pressure (compliance) pad, after another thorough head cleaning with a cotton tipped swab (not the cleaning disk). The felt pads wear and stop pushing the disk evenly down onto the R/W gap. Some pads used an adhesive like rubber cement and could easily be damaged by bad disks or improper insertion / removal. Alcohol can soften the adhesive and the pad becomes misaligned or gets rolled up. Use a mirror to inspect the pad. Nearly all the pads on single sided drives of this vintage are going to be defective. One other thing comes to mind. The connectors and their pins often have fractured solder joints. Check the joints under a microscope or touch them all up to correct the fractured solder joints. On that old software for the 400/800, you'll need to load the "translator disk" to get the old software to run properly on the XL / XE machines. The MPI and 1050 drives had no adjustments for head azimuth, but the TM100 mechs did have an azimuth adjustment that needed to be performed using a scope with the alignment disk.

[@dunebasher1971]

Just a correction about the Translator disk - that's NOT necessary for ALL pre-XL/XE software. Probably about 75%-plus will work just fine as-is, the remaining 25% uses OS calls that were changed in the XL/XE revisions of the OS, and those are the ones that will need Translator booted first in order to run correctly.

[@tekwiz0]

@@dunebasher1971 Your percentage break down is spot on.

[@tekwiz0]

If you have never used an 8-bit Atari drive, you'll be surprised how the disk drive sounds. Unlike the silent Commodore 1541 drive, all Atari 8-bit drives provide a pleasant and distinctive beep on every sector read. Sector writes make a thup sound for each one.The sound comes through the normal computer audio output. The ASMR sounds give immediate feedback as to what the drive is doing or not doing. When there is a disk read issue, the read beeps will stretch out telling you of a problem. When a disk or any SIO bus command errors with a time out, the computer produces a long fart like sound.

[@prefeitobear9209]

Good to know.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

I'm wondering if you ever worked on the old PET 2031 single-drive which used GPIB communication? I'm asking because I was trying to use one of those quite some years ago and it seemed to work fine, except that the disks which it created became unreadable by the drive within a couple of days. You could revive the disk by reformatting it, but of course you'd lose everything you had stored on the disk. It did this with all disks, not just one or even one brand. Do you have any insight on what may have been wrong with the drive? Better yet, any insight on how to fix it? I still have it lying around and if I can fix it, that would be grand.

[@FranLab]

I gotta say.... those are some good looking drives!

[@nakfan]

Yes, and with a cast iron structure… btw really like your channel too 👍

[@Capt.Marco-Hawk-L.L.A.P]

hi fran you have a awesome channel

[@markfisher696]

Awesome that you're using the FujiNet, I'm one of the devs on the project. If you want to boot your disk from FujiNet with Basic disabled, hold the option key down when booting until you see the Blue Screen boot, otherwise Basic is left enabled. Same way you do when booting Gorf, as it's an Atari thing, not a FujiNet thing :D If you just "tap" the Option key, basic is still enabled, which can be a problem for some disks/applications. Happy FujiNet'ing!

[@c1ph3rpunk]

Awesome job mate, LOVE the Fujinet.

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

How do I use Fujinet with the SIDE2 Loader? I've never gotten it to work right. Is there some key combo or something at boot up?

[@newkillergenius]

Love the FujiNet!!!!

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

ohh this is perfect for me I also have 3 of these atari 810s that dont work! awesome

[@definitelycasualpcs8789]

yea Atari is so weird with the floppy boot thing....i honestly though mine was broken for a while and was about to bite the bullet and track down another drive until i found the owners manual and it said how to do it. Question...since the Atari isn't something I'm super knowledgable about and your a dev for Fuji...can it be used to make floppies? like access the images thru it and write them to floppies? Or am i overthinking it?

[@tschak909]

The early 810s like the one in the middle, use the mech from Magnetic Peripherals Inc. (MPI aka Control Data). The later 810s use a single sided mech from Tandon (basically a TM100-1 without its analog board) Original 810s had no data seperator (completely disregarding WD's technical note on the 1771 stating that data seperators were strongly encouraged), which lead to companies like Percom selling Data seperator boards. Later 810s had the Grass Valley modification, which included an improved analog board, an improved motor control board, and an improved ROM which changed the sector interleave to improve performance. The Atari disk drives also have a particular quirk that they are tach'd at 288 RPM, rather than 300 RPM. Also, thanks for the shout-out on the FujiNet :) -Thom from FujiNet

[@blauw67]

12:21 , as someone that worked in an injection moulding factory, yeah moulds are incredibly expensive, upwards of $100,000 so that's a major cost saver

[@AntneeUK]

👋 Hi fellow former mouldy 😁 I used to work for a company that made the mould tools. Mostly making the graphite tools for the spark eroders, also did some of the cooling and the assemblies. Very clever engineering IMO

[@gvii]

Makes me miss my 1200XL. I spent so many hours punching in code from old Computer Games magazines and saving it on cassettes. At least until I finally got a disk drive for it. Seeing these things just lights up all kinds of old memories.

[@tschak909]

To answer your formatting question: The FORMAT command itself in the drive firmware is expected to format the disk, then verify it, while returning the number of bad sectors it finds. If this number is 0 (and the command acknowledges as COMPLETE), then the disk utility package will write a filesystem to it. Otherwise, it will return the # of bad sectors, the disk utility package will re-issue the FORMAT command again. If this fails again, then an ERROR 173 (bad disk format) will be issued.

[@elbiggus]

The addon board was a fix released fairly early in the 810's life - the drive will work if you plug the 1771 straight into the socket but it'll be more prone to read errors. Also they used CPUs rejected from the 2600; the console ran the 6507 slightly overclocked, and any that failed to cope eventually ended up being repurposed. Also as a heads up, GORF and EP-CYG-4 are incompatible with XL/XE machines.

[@Mrshoujo]

In that case, run FIXXL.

[@bkbreyme]

Or get a copy of the "TRANSLATOR" disk. It would load the original 800 OS on the XL/XE and (usually) allow it to run incompatable software.

[@tschak909]

Atari was selling so many VCS game consoles, that they had an unbelievable quantity of 6507 and 6532s in their parts store, and were getting them for vastly discounted prices. It was heavily incentivized for engineers to build peripherals using those two chips.

[@ICanDoThatToo2]

Cool! So while a Commodore drive has a C64 inside, an Atari drive has a 2600 inside!

[@tschak909]

The top and bottom of the 810 are indeed the same, and was one of the nice touches that Kevin McKinsey made to make this thing easier to produce.

[@matthiaszenke3055]

I'm a Commodore guy but it's nice to see some different stuff. By the way these long videos are great and i love them !

[@nakfan]

Hear, hear 👍

[@cmjones01]

I still use floppy discs regularly, and have learned a few things about how to keep them working. Most importantly, old or unknown discs frequently shed dirt, mould or bits of oxide even after they've been cleaned. This gets straight on to the heads and not only clogs them up but then damages (by scratching) the surface of other discs put in the same drive. A cleaning disc with IPA won't remove all this dirt from the heads. The only way to get it off is to manually clean the heads with a swab and cotton bud with IPA or even a stronger solvent (I use brake cleaner to deal with the really difficult stuff). It's important to do this straight after using any disc which looks dirty or spotty or makes unusual scraping noises. The clogging of the heads can explain all sorts of strange flaky behaviour, drives which were working will stop working or only work intermittently. A really good manual head clean sorts out the problems and prevents damage to other discs.

[@tschak909]

In early 1982, Atari made a deal with Tandon. Atari would buy TM100-1's in large quantity to fulfill the 810 orders, and Tandon would design the replacement disk drive for the 1000 series (which became the XL systems), the 1050 (which used a Tandon TM50-1 mech).

[@adriansdigitalbasement]

Oh quite an interesting tidbit. Was that MPI mech found on earlier 810s before the deal with Tandon?

[@tschak909]

@@adriansdigitalbasement yup, and that was because the senior exec of the home computer division was hired away from Control Data (Roger Badertscher) .

[@eukat3ch]

The production of your videos has really stepped up Adrian! Ive been following you since the early years. Awesome !

[@manitobanmisanthrope2495]

Fun fact, the creator of the SIO interface used it as a basis for creating USB.

[@rawr51919]

which means passive adapters likely exist for SIO to USB

[@c1ph3rpunk]

@@rawr51919there are, my 800XL has a Fujinet on it and a connector that runs USB to a PC, you can then mount an image there and present it as a drive. SIO2PC.

[@Shifter-1040ST]

​@@rawr51919I don't think so. They took inspiration from the design, but electrically it's very different

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

@@Shifter-1040ST Yes, they do exist. They're called "SIO2PC".

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

And you can find them at r e t r o l e m o n in the UK.

[@networkg]

Adrian needs the well known Translator disk for 800 to 800XL compatibility.

[@dunebasher1971]

Only for a relative minority of titles, not for everything.

[@ArronMoore-u2g]

Adrian I've been watching your videos for the past couple months, thank you very much for the hours of entertainment you have provided me.

[@John-uc6gb]

Atari, about time. Thanks for changing it up. Love your videos.

[@porklaser]

This video was super fun! Listening and watching Adrian working through the diagnostic process is not only fun, but it helps me develop those mental processes and tools I use when working on my own old computers.

[@ashfive01]

Can you do a video about setting up a small lab such as yours. Equipment that you have, most useful tools, chemicals, brands, etc. There's like a million variations of DeoxIt & solder braid, which do you use? Perhaps more info on solder station wattage, solder diameter & type. Parts suppliers and what items do you use on a daily basis...

[@baronvonschnellenstein2811]

Hi Adrian, nice to see you tackle FDD servicing given your general stance on these. Brought back memories of doing same in the resurrection of a C64-SX - At least the belts seem to still be good on those 810s. - Hopefully the notes here in the comments kindly provided by a couple of people who serviced these units back in the day will get that flaky 810 back online! - P.S.: Finding that these Atari FDDs were actually more expensive than Apple's units at release cracked me up 🤣- With half the storage capacity, at that! 80K - That's the same or less than the Spectrum microdrive (tape loop) carts!!

[@colleton60]

Awesome, thanks for the Atari content! I enjoyed it very much!

[@rager1969]

I'm glad to see the Atari get some love. It just occurred to me that I didn't get any ads. Did you forget to monetize? Also, we were supposed to have a test today, teacher.

[@Robert08010]

Don't forget to remind him to give us homework!!! (LOL)

[@7alken]

you are magician :-) ... my dad entire life repaired tape/cassete recorders, lots of mechanics, belts, heads, etc .. this was very close :-)

[@8bitwiz_]

That "mod board" is the external data separator in the FDC socket. That was an "optional" thing with FDC chips that turned out to not really be so optional after all. And the CPU ("maybe that's the ROM") is the same 6507 as used in the Atari 2600. The 6532 RIOT is another of the three main chips from the Atari 2600. And yes, both chips are relatively common as long as there are junk 2600s to steal them from. The interesting thing about the 1771 chip is that apparently it's an inverted-logic bus version. So all the sector data on the floppy is inverted! Way back in '08 or so I was ripping all sorts of disks with a Catweasel board (PCI version in a Linux system) and found that you have to invert all the sector data when reading Atari disks. There's also the issue of the slightly slower motor speed which gave them one extra sector per track.

[@kaitlyn__L]

Oh cool, I hadn't heard of earlier *weasels

[@nakfan]

Super exciting video that showcases what I like so much about this (and the second) channel: Your excellent commentary (thinking out loud) and your use of split screen and sometimes the audio to bring us along. BR, Per

[@frozendude707]

31:00 I have seen those printouts from test equipment before, gear from APC usually came with validation results, but nowadays it is as rare as finding a paper schematic inside electronic equipment, you have to buy some really expensive stuff to get that kind of respect for the customer today.

[@pascalmelly2821]

Comment from France: Even if you didn't succeed yet, your troubleshooting methodology is very clever! 👍

[@RickThornquist]

Great video. My knowledge of the Atari drives is pretty limited - it's great to learn about them.

[@mfree80286]

Ah! (paused at 23:08 so if you cover this, sorry)... the CPU in the first drive is a Rockwell C010745, a 6507 made by Synertek. It looks to be a MOS 6502 type CPU with only 13 address lines and some other pins dropped to fit a 28 pin DIP. So it only works to 8Kb (the Hitachi chip is RAM), and the GI 9316B chip is mask ROM.

[@root42]

The CPU is the same as in the Atari 2600. This coupled with the RIOT 6532 makes it 2/3 a 2600. it's only missing a TIA and you would have a floppy drive that could run 2600 games. :)

[@PXAbstraction]

As someone who grew up with a 130XE in the house, happy to see the Atari 8-bit line getting more love. The 1050 was my daily drive(r) (huhuhuh) and the one we got for our machine kept having read issues and went in for warranty service multiple times at the local dealer. That wasn't common though I don't think. I just acquired a 130XE that's in mint condition, save a non-working Start key but i picked up a FujiNet and can't wait to mess around with it once I fix the keyboard.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Was it the 130XE or the 1050 that went in for warranty service? Did you ever get the later XF551 drive?

[@PXAbstraction]

@@TheJeremyHolloway The 1050. 130XE never had a problem. We got the XF drive as a service loaner and it was great, but didn't get to keep it. Wish I could find one now for sane money.

[@richardrudek01]

I know you said that no alignment is necessary. But this is a pet peeve of mine. The head alignment for these types if drives is supposed to be done by loosening the three allen bolts on the head mechanism, two on the bottom near the spindle (paint-locked) and the third on the top extreme rear, on the "hinge" plate. Then, and only after loosening the those bolts, can the eccentric head screw (also on the hinge plate beside that the third locking bolt) be used to perform an alignment.

[@elfenmagix8173]

The Atari Drives are similar tot he Commodore drives as in they are intelligent devices under a CPU Control. But as you seen there are differences. I used to work on them for almost over 15 years for the NYC School District 3 and surrounding community centers as they had various 8bit computers for their students and clients to use. As for the flakey drive, De-Oxit the rails. Its a Brass Bushing on the head sliding mechanism is sliding on a stainless steel bar; the lead from the Brass and Iron from the Steel will react with each other slightly, causing it to be 'sticky.' De-Oxit should clean this up. Then WD-40 to wipe and and clean it up and put some lube on the rails, what ever lube you like to use. Then drop a couple drops of oil into the shaft of the head motor to free it up. And that should fix that drive. It is rare for the head cable to fail or its connector to fail. Do the same with the other drives as preventative maintenance. When you formatted the disck, that freed up the rails a bit and got the drive working again. But puting that moldy disk into the drive mucked things up again. As I remember, sector size was 128 or 256 bytes per sector, the same as on the cassette drive. And formatted similarly to the Commodore Drive with track and sector info on the sector. Though the Atari 400/800 came out in 1979, it was already in the ending of the prototyping stages in 1977. Bush Nolan did not have the money to release it back them and when he sold Atari to Warner Communications is when he was able to release the 400/800 as planned though 2 years after the Trinity was released. So image how different things would have been if the Atari 400/800 came out with the Trinity! But instead he released the 2600 to make his money in the game industry. Good for him as he did well with that.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

Slightly off there. Nolan Bushnell’s sold Atari to Warner in 1976 to not only get rich but also to raise money to finish the VCS [the 2600]. But once it was completed, they started with the VCS replacement project with the aim of having it as a console to replace the VCS with in 1979 since memory prices dropped as the VCS hit the market. Ray Kassar changed the direction of the project into a full-fledged computer because he thought they could earn Apple’s Apple II margins off each unit sold as a computer as opposed to a console. It became the Personal Computer System (PCS) project which begat the 400/800 computers. A few years later, the 5200 returned that hardware back to its original intent… being the console successor to the VCS.

[@KAPTKipper]

The 810 can be upgraded to true double density with a Happy board, which replaced the 6507 with a 6502. Faster SIO too.

[@troyquigg4411]

They had those for the 1050s as well. Of course, getting DD was more of a side benefit to the Happy boards... having the ability to "recreate" most copy protection schemes was the real purpose. I still kick myself in the butt for selling off most of my Atari 8-bit back in the 90s... Happy 1050, 256K MIO w/ 30 MB HDD... ;(

[@KAPTKipper]

@@troyquigg4411 I felt the same for my C64 and Atari ST systems.

[@TheJeremyHolloway]

AtariMax sells reproduction Happy boards. And US Doubler repros. Let us remember the SIO Port speeds were deliberately limited originally by Atari themselves so it wouldn’t fail the FCC’s strict regulations on interference. It’s kinda a shame Atari Inc and Atari Corp - to a lesser extent - didn’t bring out a faster SIO2 or SIO3 standard. Then again, Atari zinc’s later intent was for Parallel Bus supporting parallel disk drive controllers via an expansion card for the 1090 Expansion Chassis that was ever released. Although there is a modern 1090 repro PCB project.

[@ericpaul4575]

The top tow drives at the end have their tops and bottoms switched between the drives. The front of the case is oxidized differently and you can see the difference in the color.

[@jjock3239]

Interesting and entertaining video. I always make the time to enjoy your i hour videos, that cover a topic from beginning to end. I was never an Atari guy, but found the discussion and repair of the drives was very worth while. Back in 1978, I bought a Vic 20, and as soon as they became available, I graduated to the C-64. I used the Commodore cassettes, until I bought an MSD dual drive (cost me over $800,00 Cdn back then), and an IEEE488 interface for the drive. The MSD dual drive, was not always able to work with the copy protection, but it loaded all the games I was interested in playing. (I wasn't much of a gamer). I keep wanting to forget the 8 bit computers, but you keep reviving my interest. (I still have my C-64 and the drive)

[@michaelstoliker971]

My first disk drive that I used with my 400 was an 810 with the latching door on it. It eventually broke and would not position the head. I was able to determine that the head would still read by manually moving the head. However, I never tried to repair the drive because I already had 2 1050 drives by that time with US Doubler kits that made them true double density and high speed I/O. BTW, if you hold down the Option key when powering on the computer it will bypass BASIC and boot directly into DOS.

[@pierremartel3552]

About time the Atari are now showed in here.. Those are the best 8-bit computer ever made imo.

[@doomslayerdave]

My dad had an Atari 800 with a couple of disk drives and a lot of other accessories. Full 48KB of RAM too. Now he bought it used from a yard sale around 1985 so it was already a bit out of date but I loved messing with it. 90% of it's usage was to play games of course.

[@d0cjkl]

1:01 oh my heart, ranasystems

[@jasmijndekkers]

Great job you did Adrian. Nice content. Greetings from Steven from the Netherlands

[@gbowne1]

I painted a stripe on the side of the spindle with the sticker and used a digital tach to read and adjust the rpm. kind of a hack but it worked.

[@bentboybbz]

I'm sure people will agree with me, the videos that you think aren't worthy of uploading or didn't succeed with your goal etc are really something that I would like to watch and follow along with, so I might learn from going down the wrong path or misunderstanding a system or doing something that causes other damage etc, it's not a failure if you and others can learn from it, and we can all talk about what we think went wrong or methods that might be better or easier, and much more, we might all learn more from a video that you think was unsuccessful, a failure, boring, or even embarrassed about, you could absolutely release it between scheduled videos and put them into a playlist for us turbo nerds, inexperienced, new techs old techs masters of diagnostic magic or the guys that just got their first used digital multimeter or oscilloscope, upvote this comment so he knows how many people are interested and supportive of the failures just as much as the successful ventures in repairs! I hope everyone is having a great day or night! I appreciate your time and effort! And as always much love and prosperity to all of my brothers and sisters!

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

I expect the concern isn't about whether or not we here in the comments might enjoy them. Rather, I expect it's because Adrian is relying heavily on YT's ad engine and recommendation engine for a large portion of his income. So, what he's really saying here, is that he has to balance what his core audience wants, with what the revenue generator wants, in order to keep making any content at all. And right now, the revenue generator wants shorter, more frequent videos. This is not a disparagement of Adrian. It's just an honest recognition of the pressures that go into playing the YT game.

[@MrJgsmith]

Amazing video as always. Just learned about Fuijinet from this video. Looking forward to getting one 🎉

[@nilz23]

We had a whole lab full of atari computers in middle school. Of course in typing class everyone turned the volume up all the way while loading the word processor off of disk all at the same time.

[@jandjrandr]

I would really like to learn more about the FujiNet. Sounds like a great project. I have had plenty of experience with floppy disk drives over the years and I do not have a great affinity for them even all these years later. Of all the files I have ever lost 100% were on floppy disks.

[@jhonbus]

I really enjoyed this one, not sure why particularly, but thumbs up!

[@simontay4851]

27:57 Yes, indeed they are very good quality. Nippon Chemicon are the best.

[@chubbyadler3276]

40:00 When doing where you're using software to control hardware, it may be helpful to swap the overhead camera and screen capture to where we can see the hardware itself (the floppy drive in this case, though this happens regularly in other videos for other things as well) better. Even when small, we should still be able to read the screen well enough to tell what is going on with it in the bottom corner.

[@PXAbstraction]

I'm surprised no one is making new SIO cables. Given cottage vendors are atound for just about everything now, I figured there'd be enough interest for it. I'd buy several!

[@ThomasTalbotMD]

The 800XL is not compatible with Gorf. There is a translator disk that loads the old 800 ROM image which might help. Same deal with the second title. You just had bad luck picking two (rare) XL incompatible games.

[@davidfaxon5923]

Also the Fix XL diisk, Fix-XL, The (19xx)(Belathiel) 😃

[@hadtopicausername]

Last night I dreamed that I found the Commodore 64 mum and dad bought for us back in the 1980s. I was so chuffed, and was thinking that now all I had to do, was find the old floppy disk drive, too. Then I woke up. Disappointed!!! This'll do as a substitute.

[@whochecksthis]

I have dozens… lemme know if ya want one…

[@_Agent_86]

I think “The Badge Man” is the go to for retro computer badges and stickers. Perifractic mentioned him in his Saturday video today oddly enough!

[@douro20]

Some Tandon drives do have a metal pin in place of the plastic pins on the loading lever. The one in my 5150 has one. Rana made a double sided drive for the Apple II called the Elite which could read MS-DOS disks.

[@sirxanthor]

Back in the 1980s, I made a lot when I was a kid, installing Happy Computing copy boards and write protect switches in the 810 disk drives, which sped up the drives read/write process, and allowed you to back up just about anything for it. The write protect switch allowed one to flip disks over and use the other side without having to punch them. I was forced to install radio Shack key locks into my schools drives after finding out the hard way, that some of their origional disks copy protection was mistaking the origionals as copys, because the software would send a format request, and if it got an error, would continue loading. With the switch on, it overrode the sensor, making it think it was a notched disk and format. Those would have a hard time selling today in California, because if you ran a search for happy chip today, you'd get a few k hits for pot dispensarys😂

[@pluscart7741]

If you like FujiNet for the Atari 8-bit you also might like the PlusCart for the Atari 2600.

[@haraldweinreich9522]

This was a great video. Please more Atari 8-Bit content! 🙂

[@magnum7978]

I had purchased an 800XL computer a few years back that came with a 1050 disk drive. Sadly the drive didn't read the disks but I found a refurbished one on eBay that came with a custom switch to tell the drive if I wanna copy, write or erase. I still have the non-functioning one, too. Boxes and everything!

[@mikb5165]

Without further ado, an upvote!

[@adrianobueno6984]

Atari machines were amazing, I miss them....

[@GerardPinzone]

I haven't seen any videos about the Atari Happy Chip for Atari Disk Drives. It gave the 1050 double density instead of 1.5 and allowed you to copy pretty much any disk including the copy protection. I had one for the 810 and the only title I had an issue with was Alternate Reality.

[@SomeMorganSomewhere]

FWIW the RIOT chip is reasonably available, you're thinking of the 6530 which was the mask-ROM based predecessor to the 6532 which was used on the KIM and such (and is now very rare due to failures, and you need the RIGHT one for your application because it's mask-ROM)

[@lscottex]

In high school I modded an 810 with a switch that would select a different speed control pot so I could write "bad" sectors. This was a fairly effective way to ... uh ... improve the reliability when copying some disks, if you know what I mean. :⁠-⁠) For normal calibration you need to test RPM with a disk formatted at the right RPM as I recall.

[@whochecksthis]

I remember back in middle school wanting he Atari, because apple was too expensive and the Vic hadn’t come out yet… just WAAAAY too pricy for us at the time… I hated the 400 keyboard, and the 800 was like 1200$ they wanted 1000$ for the 810 drive, and I wasn’t going to use a tape after learning on the apple II then commodore released the budget friendly 64, and I was hooked.

[@root42]

I have an ALPS mechanism CBM 1541 which measured fine regarding its heads, but wouldn't want to read or write. I let it sit for half a year and wanted to take it apart for parts, checking it one more time: and yeah, it started working! I think you have to threaten the drives to make them work again...

[@mkonji8522]

at 14:45 I actually also only had 3 screws in mine but was new in box. Figured I'd pull it out to inspect it as well while watching the video as you went through them and sure enough, only 3 screws!? This was a NOS drive with tape still on the box. Quite curious.

[@fattomandeibu]

Lost tons of Amiga floppy games, sadly. The issue is I had nowhere else to put them, so they just ended up under the stairs for 20 years until I decided to see if it still worked. Computer is fine, even the hard drive is still kicking, but a lot of the disks no longer work. Thanks to the internet, I haven't really lost anything, I can pull down images and write them to a new disk. I do still have all the original disks, though.

[@meltysquirrel2919]

Back in the day I used to leave the screws out of the case of my old 810. Why? No data separator and flaky speed control. So run speed testing software, pop the cover, and adjust then use drive. Another day another readjust. Later I got a 1050 that had no such problems. 🙃

[@kins749]

As an Atari 8 bit fan, I had to give up on my disk drive (800xl version) as it was too unreliable. Fujinet wasn't a thing back then so I have an SIO2SD, another great piece of kit

[@williampitt4997]

I had one of those - switched fromAtari dos to Sparta dos. Atari dos would only r/w to one side Sparta would r/w both sides so you got twice the capacity.

[@DiskWizard001]

Talking about WD FDC 17XX family, an error persistst into silycone, as it seems from 1771 up to 1793 at least, some (M)FM patterns are able to trigger MCU to repositing (not justMOVE) the HEADS

[@DiskWizard001]

Probably this is the answer - why NEC took over

[@colbertbd]

What oil do you use to lubricate the rails?

[@PeteWord]

Another great repair saga!

[@moshly64]

C010745-03 is the 6507

[@winstonsmith478]

On that wonky heads connector, re-solder the header on the board. If that doesn't fix it, check the signal levels and waveforms at the analog board's output connector and compare those with one of the working drives, then work backwards through the signal chain if theirs a problem. OR start the same comparisons after some of the first and subsequent active components on the analog board from the heads connector end. Even just some comparative idle voltage checks on transistor, diode, and ICs might identify a marginal component even without signal comparisons. These checks are to make sure your problem isn't due to low head signal amplification which thereby makes that connector so sensitive to perfect contact. If the analog board circuitry isn't the problem and there is no way to remove the female pins in the heads connector to make sure they aren't spread or that their possibly just crimped wire connections aren't defective, cut the connector off and replace it with the one from the parts Tandon drive.

[@deejayy3421]

That was a good video Ive never had any experiance with atari drives I was surprised that those units had so much logic onboard that was interesting. Once again thanks for the great content. ive learned a ton from your videos If I find anything rare I will email you Now if Mr Usagi could post a video on the Bendex my rare computer wishes would all be granted

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

oh man I have 3 of these that need repair, this is perfect for me! thanks🙂

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

i think i remember there were 2 different versions of the 810?

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

i broke those side rails on my ibm 5150 trying to swap write protect switches, wish i knew a better way

[@alisharifian535]

Techmoan boils misshaped belts in water for a few minutes so they restore their original shape.

[@IcyTorment]

Just a heads-up for future reference, the Atari XF551 360K DSDD drive for the A8 computers was 300 RPM. So if you end up with one of those at some point, be aware of that. I'm not sure if any of the third party drives ran at 300 RPM.

[@Renville80]

The MC6810 indeed is a very small RAM chip - 128 bytes, in fact. I find it absolutely comical that for as small as it is, it has no less than SIX chip select lines!

[@PaulHindt]

I've still got my Atari 800 and 810 disk drive. I need to get it set up one of these days and see if it still works too but I'm worried my disks will disintegrate, as they have been sitting in a box (indoors) for probably 20 years.

[@AK-vx4dy]

Marking is important, as i rember one version of 1541 had one connector reversed (i think heads) and puzzled my friend serviceman, at first he refused to believe my visual memory but after failed attempt he caved 😉

[@mbob4337]

That SIO cable looks very similar to what the famicom peripherals use.

[@Exciteonium]

Hi, not sure if already mentioned in the comments, the add on boards (In my case the Happy Archiver) basically replaced the original cut down system processor with a 6502 processor a 4K static ram and new operating system Eprom. The original Atari design could only read 1 sector per disk rotation (if memory serves, 18 sectors per track) and was therefore very slow. The the addition of 4k (Track buffer) memory allowed the whole track to be read in one revolution resulting in a big speed increase, I think then limited by the BUS speed.

[@dunebasher1971]

FWIW, Happy and Archiver were two separate hardware mods from different companies. Archiver was all about being able to duplicate (almost) any disk regardless of copy protection, whereas Happy was that, plus the "warp speed" enhancement and Compactor utility.

[@Exciteonium]

@@dunebasher1971 Yes your are correct, the Archiver chip was just a rom upgrade (Eprom), the Happy was a daughter board that plugged into the original CPU socket, thanks it was a long time ago 🙂. I purchased the Atari 400 when it first came out. I think for £299 and an extra £49 for the cassette deck Ouch! I upgraded the ram (to 32K) by soldering another set of chips on top of the original which was on a daughter board located under the big metal shield surrounding the cartridge slot, btw I still have my Atari 400, the extra ram was mapped to the same location as the cartridge slot enabling backup cartridge images to be played. I then built an eprom programmer which used the 4 joystick ports ( 8bit for the data and 8 for the address lines), I think from a project in Page 6 magazine, I adder an extra switches for the higher address lines to enable reading and programming bigger chips in 2 or 4 banks, I was then able to experiment with the system rom. I added an extra PIA chip to free up the joystick ports to make a built in parallel printer port, I was able to make room in the OS by removing the S: vector code (Serial printer) and adding some revers engineered machine code again from a Page 6 joystick printer port project into the system rom. I was at the time very popular with my fellow Atari enthusiasts 🙂

[@Exciteonium]

Correction:- The S:vector was for putting data on the Screen, the R: Vector was putting data to the serial printer>

[@BrokeDad1]

I still have my modified Atari 810 "Happy Drive" although it hasn't been powered on in over a decade.

[@jrherita]

1:13:09 - I think this game needs to run on an original Atari 800 (not 800XL), or via a "translator" disk on the 800XL. The ROM is a bit different between the two computers.

[@Aeduo]

I like that tower of C64 carts you have behind you at the end. What is that holder? Is it something made for that purpose?

[@Mikeywil0003]

I had an idea of how you could test for a head/alignment issue. Couldn't you connect the head to a scope so you could visually see what is being read off the disk. You should be able to save a known good waveform for each format, and compare a known good to the problem drive.

[@Tesseract95]

That the color of my old 1980 electrolux vacum ! Lol

[@Jody_VE5SAR]

Those Atari 810 drives always had a Star Wars motif to their case design. Tie-fighter shape with an X-fighter inspired logo? Although the logo more closely resembles the Batllestar Galactica Viper. Dunno. May the 4th was weighing on my mind. 🙂

[@volvo09]

I like the front face design of the drives, very cool!

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

The Atari logo is colloquially called a "Fuji", after the mountain. It's got nothing to do with Star Wars (or even Mt. Fuji). George Opperman (the designer) explained the origins of the logo this way: “Symbols are just visual nicknames that combine first letters and interpretive design elements. I kept trying to stylize the ‘A,’ then I looked at PONG, their big game at the time. PONG had a center line and a force (the ball) that kept hitting its center from either side. I thought that (force) would bend the center outward. And that’s what I designed." But George Faraco and Nolan Bushnell say, "It’s just a design. There was none of that linguistic, storytelling crap. That’s somebody’s invention. He gave me a bunch of doodles, so I said, ‘Use this one,’ and that was it.”

[@shmehfleh3115]

I have an 800XL and an XEGS, as well as the newer half-height drive, and even the cable to connect them. And I have never tried it out, as I have no Atari floppies.

[@genjii931]

FujiNet to the escue!

[@weedanwine]

1:00:57 - You need a dummy battery! Having to charge batteries for a fixed-position camera like that is no fun. I've got one in place for my GH5 for when I use it as a webcam and it makes life much easier. They're fairly cheap too.

[@patrickmcgee8556]

If u hold option down when you turn the xl on you bypass the built in basic and boot from the disk

[@gpizanok]

DOH! You have the top drive's cover on the middle drive and vice versa the middle drives top on the top drive! My OCD is screaming!

[@chadhartsees]

So as far as the Atari controller board with the stacked drive controller... I'm assuming the board with the bigger board with the 6507 is the same board they put in all the serial devices, and then they'd put a device specific controller on top of it?

[@definitelycasualpcs8789]

I have a 1050 drive with my 65XE. Its just a quirky system Atari uses for disk drives... its been a bit since i messed with it (since i dont have much floppy software) but its something like i have to power on disk drive first, hold reset or option and then power on atari for it to boot from the floppy...if i try to load floppy especially a game after its already on it tells me to remove the BASIC cartridge (which is me then powering off the atari and holding reset or option at power up). I need to tinker with the Atari more...might have to get the sio2sd and fujinet at some point to play with

[@erkl797]

Hey, some early software only works with original 400/800!!! TIA chip change ,I think...

[@IcyTorment]

The 6507 and RIOT are both readily available due to the huge number used in 2600s, so that wouldn't be a problem.

[@kevinzepp6838]

do you know about dummy batteries for cameras? I saw the part where your overhead camera battery died. the dummy battery plugs in to an ac adapter and runs essentially forever. my astronomy club told me about for long capture sessions. love your videos keep up the great work!

[@elishariedlinger559]

Even back in the late 80's I would copy all data/games onto my 30MB hard drive (which I thought was huge at the time) so I did not need to use disk drives much. So I don't have much nostalgia with old disk drives.