Time for some 8 Bit Atari - 800XL Rambo 256KB upgrade

[rubber_jonnie]

So I found this on eBay recently:

Screenshot 2024-05-06 at 10.14.23.png

And given its low cost I decided that it was time for my spare 800XL to have a little upgrade action.

My other 800XL has an Ultimate 1MB and VBXE, as does my 65XE, and my 600XL has a 64KB upgrade, so the Rambo is a nice inbetweeny upgrade for the currently stock 800XL.

I have the necessary 256KB RAM chips sat in my parts drawer, so it's good to go. I don't think the 800XL is socketed, so I'll have to warm up the de-soldering gun, but first I need to gether the parts ready to go.

Pictures later :)

[HigashiJun]

Another upgrade !

What will the final result be...

:D

[rubber_jonnie]

Another upgrade !

What will the final result be...

:D

Successful I hope!

Will find out this afternoon 😁

[rubber_jonnie]

So, that was a nice simple upgrade :)

Well, it was simple in as much as it didn't need a lot of wiring up, but if like me your 800XL has U27, all the RAM and U23 (the PIA) all soldered in, then it was quite the mission as I had to desolder all 10 IC's and socket them, then test to see it all still worked, before I could then start the actual upgrade.

it looked like this when I'd finished, bar a few minor things, such as cutting the pins on top of the RAMBO board short and adding insulation to be sure that there was no danger of shorting with the top shield:

IMG20240506154846.jpg

I decided too, it was time to do a nice neat upgrade and I'm happy with the result.

It definitely works with 128K demos, I just need to find something 256K specific, but it's looking promising. I'm sure I have some sort of mem test software too, so I'll have to dig that out and let it run.

So, that's a nice set of varied Atari 8 bit upgrades I have.

[HigashiJun]

:bravo:

[smoore100]

I remember being excited about going to 48k!

[rubber_jonnie]

I remember being excited about going to 48k!

I know, 48k seemed to be so much back in the day. Seems so little compared to modern computers with their gigabytes of RAM, but so much was made of it at the time.