The end of the road for the Atari 800XL

[@flashjazzcat]

Note: contrary to what I said in the video, the 640x200 bitmap graphics mode on the VBXE actually has 4-bit colour depth, so supports sixteen colours, not four.

[@jrherita]

Whoever is paying for this computer - thank you for prompting FJC to create amazing videos like this (seriously) :). That's a work of art!. Of course now I'm thinking I want VBXE in my Incognito 800...

[@sonnyfoster9340]

Always enjoy watching your videos . Love how you keep the 8-bit dream alive!

[@user-nd8zh3ir7v]

I love that thing, great video as always

[@flashjazzcat]

Thanks! For how long, though. :)

[@kyledain4175]

Hi Jon. I'm not on AA like I was before. Do you know the best way in 2024 to build an U1M 1200XL with internal hard drive and open cart port? Great videos 💯 keep up the good work. The best is yet to come.

[@flashjazzcat]

Hi Kyle. I wondered where you'd been. My approach these days would be to simply use SIDE3 (you'll have to sand the sides of the casing down a little, however). The need for an unoccupied cart port goes away when the cartridge providing the HDD can simultaneously emulate almost every known cartridge banking scheme and run CAR images straight off the SD card.

[@alainaramnidtin5653]

Must get these upgrades. Would be really cool. Any good games made for them? Can make arcade accurate Star Wars or Tempest.

[@flashjazzcat]

There's a nice version of Popeye especially for the VBXE that was published recently. I'm generally the worst person to ask about games, however, since I never play them.

[@pfcrow]

I'm wondering if you did any measurements of how much power this draws? Do the upgrades make a significant difference?

[@flashjazzcat]

I haven't, but I imagine 2 Amps still offers a bit of headroom. SD cards are quite hungry, so it's possible SIDE3 draws more current than anything else.

[@megatech1966]

Will they bring back the rapidus board.

[@flashjazzcat]

I imagine so. I thought the arthritis in my left wrist and my sensitive teeth issue had both gone, but they eventually came back.

[@waltciii3]

Did you install capacitors to the left and right audio out wires? If so what size? I wired my Pokeymax audio out directly.

[@flashjazzcat]

10uf as per the PokeyMAX manual, although you may well have no issues at all if they're not there. Someone simply reminded me about them so I put them in.

[@TheWoj76]

Still watching, so maybe the answer still comes up, but I noticed that the SRAM module ended up back in there, did you find the way to make it behave stable? What was the culprit?

[@flashjazzcat]

Good question, and no: I don't mention it later. Initially I thought I had observed a correlation between the presence of SRAM and the occasional lock-up during warm reset when Rapidus is taken off the bus (by pulling its GND connection high), but eventually I managed to observe the same thing with the DRAMs back in the machine (after filming the prior video), so at that point it became a toss-up whether SRAM went in or not. The other (PAL) Rapidus 800XL I had on my desk at the time had SRAM soldered to the Adaptus board and was reasonably stable, so I ended up following suit with this one. The board had been purchased, in any case, and since it did no harm to install it and the DRAMs in the machine were 256Kbit (for the discarded RAMBO upgrade), I deciced to install it. So: culprit for unpredictable behaviours was - as usual - Rapidus when installed in an U1MB/VBXE system (removing Rapidus entirely results in a completely stable and dependable system). The other change I made since filming the prior video was taking Phi2 (for U1MB) from the buffered via near the PBI connector instead of from the header on the Adaptus (and therefore direct from the CPU). This ensured that U1MB ran off the same buffered O2 clock as the rest of the system (with response time improved by the earlier installation of 74F08).

[@TheWoj76]

Thanks@@flashjazzcat! This still does not answer the question why my non-Rapidus 800XL has clear issues with the SRAM board. I guess I will just have to live with it...

[@flashjazzcat]

@@TheWoj76 Yes - I remember you mentioning that last time. I remarked in past videos that I am reluctant to replace the stock DRAMs with SRAM for this exact reason (potential issues), but in both cases (both Rapidus 800XLs), the machines didn't have the original DRAMs anyway. I take it CASINH and EXTSEL are properly connected? Is the original DRAM still physically present, or did you remove it when installing SRAM?

[@TheWoj76]

@@flashjazzcat I did everything by the book, I think, DRAMs out, both CASINH and EXTSEL lines connected, tried with both O2 fixer and 74F08. Problem was only with SIDE3 along U1MB, everything else worked fine. Surprisingly, using the Mexican CPU made things better, but in the end that also occasionally crashed IIRC. The SRAM module found a comfortable place in my box with spares for the time being ;)

[@flashjazzcat]

@@TheWoj76 There was initially a bit of confusion about the CASINH/EXTSEL connection points, I think, but the suggestion was to simply follow the VBXE installation guide. I haven't yet encountered an SRAM board bringing the system to a halt on its own, but then again I've had fairly limited exposure to the SRAM board in general (just these two recent 800XLs, basically). Most likely - as is typically the case - the device was primarly tested on XEs (devices equipped with FREDDIE), so whether I've just been lucky with the two XLs or not, I'm not sure.

[@donpalmera]

It's a shame after all that work that it'll get powered on for 5 minutes once every 2 years when the owner remembers he has a bling bling Atari 800XL.

[@flashjazzcat]

Quite possibly, LOL.

[@Mind-your-own-beeswax]

Hello again Jon. It’s mick here with the a600 and ST currently residing at yours lol. Hope you’re getting through your backlog ok. Give your lovely cat a stroke for me.

[@flashjazzcat]

Thanks Mick. I'm filming the next job in the queue (the first since this machine left on Tuesday), so it's slow and steady so far. The cats say hi!

[@Mind-your-own-beeswax]

@@flashjazzcatone job at a time kidda. Hopefully the next few jobs won’t be as much of a ball ache for you.

[@flashjazzcat]

@@Mind-your-own-beeswax I'm taking your advice and doing the 'easy' ones first. I think it's a good plan.

[@Mind-your-own-beeswax]

@@flashjazzcatgood lad. It eases the stress as they go out of the door quicker so the backlog drops much faster.

[@fragalot]

So does the channel select switch in the back do anything? also... Do any of these addons work in an old Atari 800, or even fit?

[@flashjazzcat]

The switch is purely decorative. PokeyMax should work in the 800. Incognito is more or less equivalent to U1MB and SIDE, and it would be a fear of engineering to fit Rapidus in the 800.

[@as...4307]

why side #3? use ide+

[@flashjazzcat]

Why IDE+ and not SIDE3?

[@as...4307]

this is joke ?@@flashjazzcat

[@flashjazzcat]

​@@as...4307IDE+ a joke? I wouldn't go that far :)

[@tonycosta3302]

Maybe it’s cheating, but wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper to just replace it all with a Raspberry Pi and emulator?

[@flashjazzcat]

Easier? Without a doubt.

[@Synthematix]

This isnt really a 800xl any more

[@flashjazzcat]

The character of the machine is heavily altered when the 20MHz 65C816 is turned on, but at the end of the day, if you switch to 1.79MHz and disable SpartaDOS X, the system behaves exactly like a stock 800XL. Of course the question then becomes 'why install the accelerator at all?' :)

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

FFS! £700 in hardware, and £500 in labour! For that price, you could have just purchased a modern Intel laptop and EMULATED the Atari! Along with emulations for A DOZEN OTHER KINDS OF SYSTEMS. At what point, does this stop being a retro hobby, and become something else? This Frankenstein of a machine is NOT an Atari. When you hack away the CPU, the memory, the sound chip, the video bus, and even the serial I/O, what are you left with? Some sort of macabre modern pastiche of retro computing that occasionally resembles Atari, but whatever it is, it's NOT an Atari.

[@flashjazzcat]

I'm not sure. I wonder also at what point it stops being fun. The (subjective and arbitrary) cut-off point for me is pretty much a RAM/ROM upgrade, hard disk, stereo audio and nicer video output. I don't feel I've altered the personality of the machine, therefore, by installing U1MB, VBXE, PokeyMAX and SIDE3, but Rapidus and a 20MHz 65C816 is kind of pushing things over the edge for me. I'm not going to spend time writing software for the 65C816 (although I have written a PBI BIOS plugin which exploits it), primarily because a) the user base is tiny, and b) I enjoy the constraints of 1.79MHz and 64K of linear memory. When those challenging limitations are lifted (the need to keep code tight and small, and save every possible cycle), I'm not incentivised to write code for it. I do agree, also, that emulation would be an ideal path for many users, but who knows at the end of the day what motivates people to spec up these crazy machines. :)

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

@@flashjazzcat My more or less subjective line is ram and video. Ram, because ram upgrades existed as far back as the early 1990s, and Video because (let's face it), the television and the retro monitor are becoming incredibly rare and expensive treasures. I also have relented to using disk drive emulators, because (after three expensive tries) I can't find a working 1050, and 5-1/4" floppies are INSANELY expensive. Also, I'd make an exception for the new "DecentXE" keyboard, because Atari already proved they could do mechanical correctly, with the 800, and just chose to cheap-out (disappointingly). So, that's a sort of "in period" mod that doesn't destroy the character of the machine. I love the work you do, and learn ALOT from you (and a few other retro repair channels here). But all throughout this project, I just kept asking myself: why isn't the client just getting an Atari ST or Amiga 1200?? He'd get his 16 bit processor, his stereo audio, his infinitely expandable ram... and what's more (at least on the ST), there's TONS of music software that takes great advantage of it's MIDI capabilities! The other problem, is that you can't even really use this thing to develop any new software. Anyone who were to use your software, would have to have one of these ridiculously tricked-out 8-bits for it to work! Unless you build your project in stock mode, at which point, why not just leave it stock? These sorts of upgrade projects, remind me of the kit-car fad of the late 90s and early 2ks, where you take something like a Ford Mustang, and completely rework it with a bigger engine, a different suspension system, a tricked out drive train, hydraulics, and all manner of other things, to the point where the only thing recognizably Mustang about it, is the front grill and headlights :D

[@flashjazzcat]

@@VideoEnjoyer-m3z Yeah: if I could have gotten RGB out of the A8 back in the day, I would have jumped at the chance, and of course RAM upgrades and hard disks existed forty years ago, so it really does come down to which upgrades change the 'character' of the machine. My U1MB+VBXE+PokeyMAX+SIDE3 600XL looks just like it would have in the 80s (although I want a 'Decent XL' keyboard for it), and most of the functionality would have been achievable then - just a lot more expensive and with a bunch of PCBs and wires hanging off the parallel port. But then again, 65C816 upgrades aren't necessarily anachronistic, and I understand there were (abanonded) plans at Atari to equip 8-bits with that CPU. I definitely turn to the Amiga when I want the 16-bit experience, though, and all the software I develop for the A8 is resolutely aimed at the 6502 running at 1.79MHz. Thanks for the kind comments, anyway, and I'm really glad you enjoy watching the videos. :)

[@VideoEnjoyer-m3z]

@@flashjazzcat No worries, man. Keep up the good work!