exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

With regards to the sockets, @tzok is correct.

If you look at the sockets, one end has a notch in it, and the silk screen on the Atari has the same notch marked:

Silk screen:


Socket:


And the orientation is specific, as the notch shows where the notch of the IC goes, or pin 1 (in yellow) if there is no notch in the IC, as some just have a dimple to show where pin 1 is.

It's important to line these up correctly in order to make sure your chips are plugged in correctly and don't get killed when you switch on. It is important to understand these things to make sure you don't make any mistakes when plugging chips in. It's all there to help you.

Also, it shows a level of diligence that you have understood the reasons why it should be that way round, and taken the time and effort to make sure it all looks right.

In your case at least 2 of the sockets don't have the socket notch lined up with the silkscreen notch.

That's right, I've always been careful to put the RAM chips in the right way !

Why do you think SIO Drive Max load fail (boot error) ?

I always let the SIO Max boot from the internal ATR that brings up the on screen menu, never fails that way. If you choose from the touch screen, it'll forget which ATR you chose if you power off and cause a boot error.

I think you need to use external power to remember the last ATR loaded when you power off the Atari.

But SIO Drive Max doesn't work only with this motherboard !?

Trollbra wrote: 30 Dec 2020 16:47 But SIO Drive Max doesn't work only with this motherboard !?

If it's just with this machine then you may have a problem with your Pokey.