Hello from Belgium

New user? Tell us about yourself!
wanman
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:35 pm

Hello from Belgium

Post by wanman »

Hello everyone,
During my holiday break at the end of '21 I stumbled upon some repair videos on Youtube, related to fixing an Atari ST.
Watching the machine working again brought back memories from years past.
I was so intrigued that I searched for more videos related to the Atari ST, and was positively surprised there is quite an active community.
Found the atari-forum site, looked around and signed up ... and then later I found this place.

Hi, my name is Daniel, proud owner of an Atari 520STFM.
In the late 80s, as a student, I bought the machine with money earned from my first job during the summer-holidays.
Had it upgraded to 1MB the next year. Then, yet another year or so later, purchased a Megafile 60.
Had loads of fun playing around mainly with STOS and all kinds of magazine cover disks.
After graduating in '92 I got side-tracked into the PC world. Probably like so many others.

All my Atari stuff was gathering dust at my mother's house. Until I was bitten by the nostalgia bug from watching the Youtube repair videos.
During one of my visits to my mother I took the opportunity to gather all the Atari material. Wife was not thrilled me taking all this "garbage" home.

In the meantime the 520 has been switched on. All seems to be working. Floppy drive spinning and reading old disks with no issues.
The mouse needed some cleaning. As for the monitor, a Philips CM8833 (original, not Mk2) isn't displaying properly.
It shows a white image, but you can't make much of it as it seems to have trouble with horizontal and/or vertical sync.
It probably needs some solder joints being reflown, maybe some recap, or its flyback replaced ... or all of the above.
As of writing I am in the process of replacing the flyback and the HOT, and the notorious broken power switch.

As it took quite a while to get replacement parts shipped and delivered I have purchased an OSSC, ST2VGA and scart cable.
From few short attempts using the scart cable it seems the STFM suffers from a video issue, as the OSSC looses sync when screen displays mostly white image. No problem with regular desktop, and the issue also doesn't occur using the ST2VGA and VGA input of the OSSC.
Recap of the video output of the STFM is next on my list, I guess.

To my surprise the Megafile started up, and after being greeted with the typical sound of the inititalization sequence, powering up the ST brought me into a desktop with all hard disk partitions available.
I have ordered an ACSI2STM and a PARCP-USB in order to transfer and backup all files from the megafile before it dies ... or before hearing-loss. I cannot remember the megafile used to be that loud, back in the days.

Anyway, glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

regards,
Daniel
User avatar
rubber_jonnie
Site Admin
Site Admin
Posts: 10472
Joined: Thu Aug 17, 2017 7:40 pm
Location: Essex
Contact:

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by rubber_jonnie »

:welcomewave:
Collector of many retro things!
800XL and 65XE both with Ultimate1MB,VBXL/XE & PokeyMax, SIDE3, SDrive Max, 2x 1010 cassette, 2x 1050 one with Happy mod, 3x 2600 Jr, 7800 and Lynx II
Approx 20 STs, including a 520 STM, 520 STFMs, 3x Mega ST, MSTE & 2x 32 Mhz boosted STEs
Plus the rest, totalling around 50 machines including a QL, 3x BBC Model B, Electron, Spectrums, ZX81 etc...
User avatar
PhilC
Moderator
Moderator
Posts: 6016
Joined: Fri Mar 23, 2018 8:22 pm

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by PhilC »

:welcomewave:
If it ain't broke, test it to Destruction.
User avatar
stephen_usher
Posts: 5580
Joined: Mon Nov 13, 2017 7:19 pm
Location: Oxford, UK.
Contact:

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by stephen_usher »

:welcomewave:
Intro retro computers since before they were retro...
ZX81->Spectrum->Memotech MTX->Sinclair QL->520STM->BBC Micro->TT030->PCs & Sun Workstations.
Added code to the MiNT kernel (still there the last time I checked) + put together MiNTOS.
Collection now with added Macs, Amigas, Suns and Acorns.
User avatar
JezC
Posts: 2081
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 11:44 pm

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by JezC »

:swave:

Welcome to the forum!
Steve
Posts: 2570
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2017 11:49 am

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by Steve »

I know what you mean when someone calls something you care about 'garbage'. I know your wife probably doesn't mean it so seriously but you know, it actually hurts my feelings when someone says such a thing.

I'm sure she has lots of stuff that you don't see a 'utility' for, but you wouldn't go calling it garbage to hurt her feelings =)
wanman
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:35 pm

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by wanman »

Update:
All ordered spare parts for the Philips CM8833 have arrived and I finally was able to replace the power switch, flyback and HOT.
After adjusting the screen and focus on the flyback I now have a working CRT.

The PARCP-USB adaptor has arrived as well, but I cannot seem to get connection between the ST and a PC. Tried 2 different cables and 2 different PC's. Asked from some support and was informed that the Atari's parallel port might be bad.
Any other solutions to backup the content of the Megafile to PC ... apart from copying to dozens of 2DD floppy disks i don't have?
I have looked into the hardware and software sections of the forum for a backup solution, but couldn't really find one.

Next on the list is to open the Atari and have a look if PSU or mainboard needs recapping.
Will also check for the video caps. And in the meantime check if parallel port has some visual defects.

This is a 520STFM with azerty keyboard and french TOS 1.02, but have no idea if it has 2 or 6 ROM chips. Maybe thinking of installing1.04.
If I remember correctly, the store I had this machine upgraded to 1MB told me they replaced the motherboard with one of an 1040, as the original 520 motherboard was difficult or impossible to upgrade ... or something.
Never opened it before, so this will be my first look into the internals, and check on their story.
User avatar
alexh
Posts: 698
Joined: Tue Oct 17, 2017 4:51 pm
Location: Oxfordshire

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by alexh »

:welcomewave:
wanman wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 3:36 pm Any other solutions to backup the content of the Megafile to PC
I *think* I connected mine to a PC using a PC SCSI card and then dumped the contents using a tool from PeraPutnik.

https://www.8bitchip.info/atari/drimus.php

But I think that mine had a SCSI drive (Megafile 44?) whereas normal Megafiles have MFM/RLL drives.

Perhaps buy a Satandisk or UltraSatan or equivalent and chain it via the Megafile expansion connector as another ASCI device? Transfer files to SD card?
Principal ASIC Engineer - SystemVerilog, VHDL
Thalion Webshrine - http://thalion.atari.org
STf,STfm,STe,MegaST,MegaSTe,Falcon060
A500+,A600,A4000/060,CD32,CDTV
wanman
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:35 pm

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by wanman »

alexh wrote: Fri Feb 25, 2022 3:40 pm Perhaps buy a Satandisk or UltraSatan or equivalent and chain it via the Megafile expansion connector as another ASCI device? Transfer files to SD card?
I have the new ACSI2STM on the way, but that one cannot be daisy chained with the Megafile.
Not sure if the UltraSatan can. Could not find details about that.
I sure wouldn't want to order an UltraSatan and find out the hard way it also cannot be daisy chained to the Megafile.

Hence the reason I ordered the ACSI2STM and PARCP-USB. Unfortunately, I cannot get the PARCP-USB to work.
wanman
Posts: 11
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:35 pm

Re: Hello from Belgium

Post by wanman »

Dismantled the ST to find a C070789-001 Rev F motherboard.
Looking at the RAM it definitely is 1MB factory installed. The shop has indeed replaced the entire 520 motherboard with a 1040 one.
520STFM-C070789-001REVF.png
520STFM-C070789-001REVF.png (1.53 MiB) Viewed 2245 times
Post Reply

Return to “INTRODUCE YOURSELF”