Looks like I'll be getting a Mega ST4 soon

[rubber_jonnie]

They did arrive pretty quickly, so youd better get cracking :lol:

Have you got a spare sound chip or would you like me to send you one?

Offer much appreciated, but I have a spare and a socket too.

Planning on cleaning the PCB today and getting the sound chip in and making sure it boots afterwards. I'll also likely give the case a good scrub too. I'm not concerned about retrobrite, the case can stay battle scarred 😁

I'm on leave the week after next so hopefully it'll be up and running pretty sharpish and I can have a play with it properly.

[stephen_usher]

Planning on cleaning the PCB today and getting the sound chip in and making sure it boots afterwards. I'll also likely give the case a good scrub too. I'm not concerned about retrobrite, the case can stay battle scarred 😁

Bah! Just spray it with this stuff from B&Q:

IMG_1589.jpg

[rubber_jonnie]

Planning on cleaning the PCB today and getting the sound chip in and making sure it boots afterwards. I'll also likely give the case a good scrub too. I'm not concerned about retrobrite, the case can stay battle scarred 😁

Bah! Just spray it with this stuff from B&Q:

That's not great timing, I just scrubbed the case :)

[stephen_usher]

It needs cleaning before you paint it anyway!

[rubber_jonnie]

It needs cleaning before you paint it anyway!

Lol, I was thinking something similar TBH :)

[rubber_jonnie]

Ok, good news bad news time.

Good news is that the replacement sound chip is in, as is a Blitter, though not having a keyboard means that testing either is problematic, and since I want to run through the diag cart tests I really kind of need one. However I have ordered an Eiffel adaptor which should be on the way soon, so I can get down to proper testing.

Bad news is that with a floppy connected, I never booted to desktop (Just white screen, and the floppy seek sounded wrong), though on removing the plug to try another floppy, the damn thing disintegrated on me, so I'll fit a proper 34 pin header in place of Atari's ridiculous one, and then use a new cable to connect up. If it doesn't work after that, then I will see if an external floppy works, and re check the connections on the sound chip in relation to drive 0/1.

One final weird thing is that sometimes when I boot with the diag cart connected it shows 2M installed, sometimes it shows 4M installed, so I'm hoping that the Eiffel arrives pretty soon so that I can get some diagnostics run.

Still, seems like progress to me.

[stephen_usher]

Can't you just solder some wires onto the keyboard socket and connect a standard STFM keyboard in the meantime?

[rubber_jonnie]

Can't you just solder some wires onto the keyboard socket and connect a standard STFM keyboard in the meantime?

I can, I have 4 spare keyboards, so yes, just have to get round to it, and I have other stuff to do as well.

EDIT: details found right here on this forum: https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =23&t=1346

So time permitting I may have a go later. Will probably see if I have any old RJ11 cables in my big box 'o cables that can be sacrificed.

Better get back to the stuff I'm supposed to be doing.....

[PaulJ]

Without a keyboard for now use a serial connection to test with the drag cart.

[rubber_jonnie]

Sadly been stuck fixing the central heating tonight 😞