exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

After a very long hiatus, a house move and finally some free time I resurrected a project I started way back in 2017. It's a set of upgrades to an Atari 1040STF. The host motherboard is a C070859, similar to Exoss's recommended C070789. The main difference is the surface mounted Glue and MMU which does make one of the upgrades a bit difficult.

So, without further ado, here's the list of upgrades:

• Exxos v1.5 16MHz CPU booster (I mucked this up slightly - see my other post, but managed to recover with a bodge wire)
• Exxos fast ROM with TOS 1.2 and 1.4
• Exxos PSU
• Exxos 4MB SIMM upgrade - required careful soldering of a wire to the surface mount MMU.
• Blitter + Socket
• Bus pull-up resistor packs as per the mandatory fixes list
• Exxos 4700uF cap replacement board.
• CosmosEx with USB wifi, wireless joysticks, mouse, and keyboard. Floppy, ACSI HDD and IKBD injectors all connected.
• RGB2HDMI with panel mounted HDMI socket
• Mono audio out jack (not visibile - under HDMI socket)
• 3 toggle switches
  - 1/4MB RAM
  - Colour/Mono
  - 16/8MHz
• DC to DC converter (12v to 5v USB power cable for RGB2HDMI)

Major thanks to Exxos for designing some great kit!

Now that that's done, I'm going to work on upgrading another machine with a TF536. Parts are on their way now :D

Just a quick FYI, can you please add any future photos inline using the attachments tab. I've fixed this one for you 😁 Looks good BTW.

rubber_jonnie wrote: 21 Mar 2022 20:58 Just a quick FYI, can you please add any future photos inline using the attachments tab. I've fixed this one for you 😁 Looks good BTW.

Thanks for that!

Wow v1.5 booster, 4mb simm kit etc, things come a long way since then :lol:

:bravo: :2k2:

That is really beautiful work, well done :)

Nice! :dualthumbup:

Hey Atari ST fam..

Is there any value in upgrading the Blitter Chip? I have the pads waiting for a socket ;-)
If I do upgrade, will it allow me to use higher ROMs / make TOS think it's a STe ? Since (I believe) they only check for a Blitter Chip ..


Thanks

WilsonB wrote: 28 Oct 2024 01:49 Hey Atari ST fam..

Is there any value in upgrading the Blitter Chip? I have the pads waiting for a socket ;-)
If I do upgrade, will it allow me to use higher ROMs / make TOS think it's a STe ? Since (I believe) they only check for a Blitter Chip ..


Thanks

The Blitter doesn't turn an ST into an STE, it's just not that simple. Sure the STE has a Blitter by default, but it also has an extended colour palette & stereo sound, and the Blitter doesn't add these.

You can upgrade the ROM to 2.06, but this requires an additional decoder circuit as the Blitter plays no part in this, something thats for sale in the store IIRC. That still doesn't make it an STE though, but it does give TOS a number of useful upgrades and features.

The Blitter is a worthwhile upgrade IMHO as software that can use it will use it, but they aren't cheap, so it's a balance between cost and additional functionality, and it isn't a necessity.

I only just noticed this, but I wonder why he used: 'DC to DC converter (12v to 5v USB power cable for RGB2HDMI)'

I use an RGB2HDMI in my machines too, I just simply power it from the 5v.

Steve wrote: 28 Oct 2024 15:45 I only just noticed this, but I wonder why he used: 'DC to DC converter (12v to 5v USB power cable for RGB2HDMI)'

I use an RGB2HDMI in my machines too, I just simply power it from the 5v.

Same here...