exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

stephen_usher wrote: 17 Mar 2026 11:14

rubber_jonnie wrote: 17 Mar 2026 09:15 Well, I've managed to order a couple of 8255's for the princely sum of £7, so fingers crossed they'll fix this keyboard problem.

:crossed1: :crossed2:

Exactly!

Hurrah!!!

The replacement 8255's arrived today and the Atom is back in the land of the living :)

Full keyboard functionality is restored so clearly the poor old 8255 from Radio Shack had a short but brilliant life but is now dead as a dodo :(

Nice easy fix though and I now have a spare to hand just in case. I will however do a little more burning in.

Next I need to focus on getting the Atom sorted for AtoMMC so I can easily load games etc.

That will be coming a little later down the line, though I can get a ROM written in the meantime to make sure its ready :)

:girldance:

Just for fun I thought I'd seal the bad one back in it's package for the sake of nostalgia given how much time I spent in Tandy/Radioshack when I was younger


I bought a lot of Archer stuff when I was younger, though never one of these :)

rubber_jonnie wrote: 19 Mar 2026 09:22 given how much time I spent in Tandy/Radioshack when I was younger

Hmm, fond memories of another time...

HigashiJun wrote: 19 Mar 2026 09:25

rubber_jonnie wrote: 19 Mar 2026 09:22 given how much time I spent in Tandy/Radioshack when I was younger

Hmm, fond memories of another time...

And I'd argue a better time...

rubber_jonnie wrote: 19 Mar 2026 09:27 And I'd argue a better time...

Indeed.

:-)

£8.25 was a lot of money back in the 80s. Around £50-£60 now.

stephen_usher wrote: 19 Mar 2026 11:16 :-)

£8.25 was a lot of money back in the 80s. Around £50-£60 now.

I know, and certainly not the kind of money my younger self would likely have to spend on things I didn't know much about back in the day.

The date code on the Tandy piece is non existent, but the catalog number suggests around '83-'85. The new parts are '88 and NEC branded. Both worked fine, which was good for £7 for two :)

Quick lunchtime job, I fitted a speaker to the Atom :)


It works, if a little quiet. I'm using the same sort of speaker that I put into one of my Electrons and it was fine there, however I am wondering if I need to swap it out as it's 16 Ω (What the speakers in my Electrons are) but I think I should have opted for 8 Ω.

It can stay for now but I'm considering adding a small amp into the circuit as then I'll give myself sounf on/off and volume control.