exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Greetings,

The Atari ST was my third computer "back in the day". I loved to play Xenon, Virus and Starglider and I still have the disks. But I sold my ST. I bought another one a couple of years ago but have not spent the time fixing it. Now I am determined. I have the black screen with white border. I have had a look inside, which was really interesting, cleaned it up and have the same problem - which is good because it shows that I put it back together properly!

I am also into Spectrums, and have a lot of them, have a ZX81 that I fixed, MSX and more.

I am looking forward to getting on this forum.

Cheers,
popeymon :lol:

:welcomewave:

:swave:

Welcome on board!

There's a few topics on diagnosing and fixing these sorts of problems. IIRC that's often a memory issue.
I think @rubber_jonnie amongst others has done several posts about this kind of problem.

Will try and point you to some relevant posts when I am online from home later today.

:welcomewave:

Tom

Welcome!

Here you will get in shape your Atari

Greetings,

popeymon wrote: 06 Aug 2020 14:00 Greetings,

The Atari ST was my third computer "back in the day". I loved to play Xenon, Virus and Starglider and I still have the disks. But I sold my ST. I bought another one a couple of years ago but have not spent the time fixing it. Now I am determined. I have the black screen with white border. I have had a look inside, which was really interesting, cleaned it up and have the same problem - which is good because it shows that I put it back together properly!

White border and black screen generally means no memory, so I'd start off by removing the MMU and cleaning the contacts/tweaking the socket (https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... hilit=plcc)

I'd also get a datasheet for the RAM and check 5v and GND are good across the board, and there are no shorts. Buzzing out all the address/data lines etc is worthwhile too.

I'd also suggest getting a diag cartridge and null modem cable to connect to a serial port on a PC. If a machine doesn't boot, then you may well be able to see diag data across serial, which is a big help.

:welcomewave:

rubber_jonnie wrote: 06 Aug 2020 15:51

popeymon wrote: 06 Aug 2020 14:00 Greetings,

The Atari ST was my third computer "back in the day". I loved to play Xenon, Virus and Starglider and I still have the disks. But I sold my ST. I bought another one a couple of years ago but have not spent the time fixing it. Now I am determined. I have the black screen with white border. I have had a look inside, which was really interesting, cleaned it up and have the same problem - which is good because it shows that I put it back together properly!

White border and black screen generally means no memory, so I'd start off by removing the MMU and cleaning the contacts/tweaking the socket (https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... hilit=plcc)

I'd also get a datasheet for the RAM and check 5v and GND are good across the board, and there are no shorts. Buzzing out all the address/data lines etc is worthwhile too.

I'd also suggest getting a diag cartridge and null modem cable to connect to a serial port on a PC. If a machine doesn't boot, then you may well be able to see diag data across serial, which is a big help.

Thanks. I have ordered the Exxos diag cartridge. That is where I will start. I will also look at the MMU and the RAM.

Nice job 😁

How be on popeymon,

I think that makes at least 3 Wurzels now on this forum. :lol:

I am also in Somerset. We were all Amigas at school. Although some poor sod had a Dragon!
I also got most other consoles and computers, but only Atari I have is a Jag.