exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Just a final question about stability. Is it reasonable to expect the Atari to never crash? Do you guys have machines that never ever crash? Just need to know where my expectations should be.

Cosmic Puppet wrote: 16 Oct 2019 22:40 Just a final question about stability. Is it reasonable to expect the Atari to never crash? Do you guys have machines that never ever crash? Just need to know where my expectations should be.

I've run machines for days constantly while testing boosters and such and never had them crash. Of course this depends on if your talking about a hardware malfunction causing a crash, or just buggy software causing a crash.

Or in some cases, mains brownouts etc can cause a machine to crash.. Plugging in hardware with the power on can cause a crash.. Overheating of the PSU can cause a crash..

Keep your machine serviced and up to date with current mods and fixes and it shouldn't ever crash.. in theory.

exxos wrote: 16 Oct 2019 22:47

Cosmic Puppet wrote: 16 Oct 2019 22:40 Just a final question about stability. Is it reasonable to expect the Atari to never crash? Do you guys have machines that never ever crash? Just need to know where my expectations should be.

I've run machines for days constantly while testing boosters and such and never had them crash. Of course this depends on if your talking about a hardware malfunction causing a crash, or just buggy software causing a crash.

Or in some cases, mains brownouts etc can cause a machine to crash.. Plugging in hardware with the power on can cause a crash.. Overheating of the PSU can cause a crash..

Keep your machine serviced and up to date with current mods and fixes and it shouldn't ever crash.. in theory.

Thanks. After having a break from all things Atari I thought of a thing last night to test. Basically I could not format a floppy disk with the Ultrasatan plugged into the hard disk port (It would say it was corrupted but would work fine if I unplugged the ultrasatan). So...I have just fired up the Atari and successfully formatted a floppy disk with the Ultrasatan on. So basically having the psu recapped has fixed this fault! Does this mean the devices weren't getting the correct power? Literally just punched the air like Flash Gordon lol

Cosmic Puppet wrote: 17 Oct 2019 14:58 Thanks. After having a break from all things Atari I thought of a thing last night to test. Basically I could not format a floppy disk with the Ultrasatan plugged into the hard disk port (It would say it was corrupted but would work fine if I unplugged the ultrasatan). So...I have just fired up the Atari and successfully formatted a floppy disk with the Ultrasatan on. So basically having the psu recapped has fixed this fault! Does this mean the devices weren't getting the correct power? Literally just punched the air like Flash Gordon lol

Have you done the DMA and floppy fixes as mentioned in earlier posts ? with so many faults going on its hard to keep track. but you should do them anyway to make sure you don't have such issues again. The PSU needs a proper recap, having inadequate caps in the PSU will likely kill your ST after a while.

exxos wrote: 17 Oct 2019 15:12 Have you done the DMA and floppy fixes as mentioned in earlier posts ? with so many faults going on its hard to keep track. but you should do them anyway to make sure you don't have such issues again. The PSU needs a proper recap, having inadequate caps in the PSU will likely kill your ST after a while.

I can't find the DMA and floppy reference, but haven't done them as I don't know what they are. Just had the PSU recapped. Don't forget it's a 110v. If you think I can improve it further I may do more in the future. What does DMA stand for?

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =17&t=1585

parts 1,3,4 at least.

exxos wrote: 17 Oct 2019 16:03 https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =17&t=1585

parts 1,3,4 at least.

Thanks Exxos. I've bookmarked that page. Pretty exhausted for now.

JezC wrote: 14 Oct 2019 12:58 Probably not the issue but don't forget about the MIDI thru functionality on the MIDI OUT socket (the two unused pins?).
I have some vague memories of some odd problems with some MIDI leads due to this... some cables worked fine in any configuration but others only worked on the MIDI IN socket of the ST.

Read the MIDI section of my keyboard manual today and it states MIDI thru set off by default. I switched it on to see what would happen and it crashes the Atari when Notator loads. Switched it off again and Notator loaded normally. MIDI OFFLINE! message still present in both cases.

This is what the manual has to say about it: Since I've used these cables for over 20 years. I'm going to replace them next week (can't hurt.)