Conference 7.286::atarist

    
    Great,
    
    I rang Atari U.K They havnt got a clue what Roms are let alone when
    they are going to release an upgrade!
    
    Now who do I know who is a registered developer ??
    
    Pat K.

Being a registered developer (who doesn't really do much developing), I
ordered a set to try out. They came about a week ago. As the documentation
says, they are actually PROMS, and come in ceramic packages. A document of
about 10 pages also comes with them.

I only got to install them several days ago. Now I don't have to give up
all that 192K of memory that the RAM version of TOS 1.4 required. So far,
operation seems smooth, but I haven't given much of a workout. But there
were a few quirks I notices so far.

   1) When you click on the desktop to see what version of TOS is running,
      you get the letters TOS filled in with a moving rainbow. Cute. But
      it doesn't say which version of TOS it is! I guess this means that
      Atari may still make a few tweeks before the real ROMs are available.

   2) When I run UNITERM, I no longer get a cursor. I think I got one with
      the RAM version of TOS, but I'm not sure. Is this a UNITERM bug? It
      sure makes editing nearly impossible on a host system.

   3) Booting from my hard disk caused two bombs. I at first suspected my
      ICD driver, but some experimentation showed the clock time setting
      program to be the source of the problem. A call to ICD confirmed this,
      and I was able to get an updated version that worked fine.

As part of the new set of ICS software, there was a sample program that
checked a disk for all sorts of problems, such a orphaned files, twisted
sectors, etc. Since I had been running under RAM TOS 1.4 for several months
with my hard disk and had filled up about 20 megabytes, I tried the program
to see if the new TOS garbled anything. But, surprise, everything checked
out fine, except for several bad sectors at the top of the highest
partition (which were probably there initially).

I don't know when the real ROMs will be available, nor their cost.

    -Don

    TOS 1.4 is available to dealers for private individual orders per
    GENI conference. See NOTE 583. for the transcript of the conference.
     

    Hi,
    
    I again rang ATARI UK, They have no intention of selling or getting
    their dealers to fit the Tos 1.4 roms yet. The best I could get out of
    them is that they MAY do something before Christmas. (However their
    support person said that they are really spending ALL their energy in
    running down the 1040, and running up the sales of the STE. 
    The product line will be 520stfm, mega 1,mega 2, mega 4, STE. The new
    megas and the STE will of course have the new TOS.
    
    Does anyone know how to get to mail or talk to Sam Tramiel. The "old"
    user base is being pissed on again. 
    
    Regards
    
    Pat Keane.
    

I received my TOS 1.4 EPROMS a while back as a registered developer.  After
installing them in my machine, it started crashing randomly.  So I took
my machine to RF MicroTech where they replaced a DRAM chip for $65 and
said it was OK now.  Well it still crashed, rather than risk throwing
away more money to have someone else fix my machine (Mega ST2), I decided
to buy a desoldering iron and replace a chip next to the one that I had
to desolder to convert from a 2 ROM Mega to a 6 ROM mega.  I then socketed
that chip, but it still crashed.  Then I put the 2 ROM chipset back in the
Mega and found that it would run for days.  So I had Atari send me a new
set of ROMS and found that they also caused the machine to crash.

While debating my next move I recieved the A.B.A.C.U.S. newsletter with
the reprint of the article from STZMAG describing problems with ROMS and
cartridge ports.  So I replaced the SGS (SCS?) 74LS373 chips in my Mega
with TI parts and my Mega and me are now happy campers!

Conclusions:

1) RF MicroTech is sufficiently out of the Atari repair loop that they don't
hear about common problems.  I don't know if they are an authorized Atari
Service Center, but I would doubt it.

2) It is worth joining A.B.A.C.U.S. simply for that one article that solves
a problem.  (I will rejoin at the next meeting that I attend.)

3) Atari should have socketed U12 on the Mega motherboard, it is a pain to
remove without proper desoldering tools - I recommend a desoldering pump/iron
that Active Electronics sells, it has a spring loaded pump (you can then
use a standard soldering iron on the other side of the board and make quick
work of desoldering a chip).

4) It would have been nice if Atari had put berg-type jumpers in the jumper
slots used to select the type of ROMs being used.  Install them yourself and
you can use the pushon jumpers that Active also sells.  You can make a long
one by soldering a piece of wire cut from an old 1/8 watt resister to connect
two pushon jumpers together.

5) Here is a picture of the long version of the jumper that I made for the
Mega to make it easy to jumper for 2 or 6 ROMS.

         _  _                _  _
        |    | <--pushon--> |    |
        |    |    jumper    |    |
         |  `----------------'  |
         |   ^wire from res.^   | 
                                
         ^--berg-style jumpers--^

							Thanks Buzz!
							-Dave

    Re: .5 1)
    
    When I originally wrote that note, I think I was THE FIRST one to go
    to RF MicroTech with TOS 1.4 EPROMS.  It might very well be that I had a
    bad memory chip, and never saw a problem with it.  Since my going there,
    Bob has done a lot of upgrades, and I am sure he is more aware of
    common problems.  I gather that he is also an authorized Atari repair
    center.  The problem I had is probably more likely that Atari didn't
    keep him informed as to the problems with the 6-chip ROM installations,
    I don't know that Atari ever "officially" admitted that there was a
    problem.  So please take my previous note with appropriate grains of
    salt.
    
    						-Dave

	OK.  Thanks all, especially .5 for clearing the air.  I'll be calling
	him when I can dig up the money... :^)

	Dan

    In case anyone in the UK hasn't noticed, TOS 1.4 is finally available,
    although it isn't being advertised yet.
    
    I ordered mine from Ladbroke Computing (0772-203166), price 44 pounds +
    3 pounds postage, and received it 3 days later.
    
    The kit consists of 6 ROM chips. Period.
    
    Putting both my brain cells to work, I managed to overcome the lack of
    documentation by deduction.
    
    The supplied chips were labelled L0, L1, L2, H0, H1, H2 which lines up with
    the board overlay markings adjacent to the 6 ROM sockets on the main board.
    My ST (Version 2 main board, TOS 1.2, circa 1988) only had 2 ROMs to
    remove. Guessed correctly that these were 1M chips and that the new
    ones are 256Ks. Desoldered three board links close to the ROM sockets 
    labelled "1M" and soldered up three labelled "256K". Reassembled the
    ST.
    
    Bingo!
    
    BTW1: I also took a pair of tin snips to strategic points on the big
    screening cover inside the ST so that in future I can get to the main
    circuit board without removing the internal disk and power supply board
    and associated screening covers.
    
    BTW2: Reading old notes on the subject, I note that it has taken a year
    to go from beta-test to general US release, and a further year for UK
    release. Obviously a rush job.
    
    Rgds, Brian.
    

Does anyone have directions for converting a Mega 2 ST from 2 ROMs to 6? I
have a TOS 1.4 6 chip set that I would like to install in my Mega, but it
currently has a 2 chip rom set in it. I recall that there are some jumpers to
install some where and in .5 Dave Weaver mentioned a chip to be removed. But I
don't know which jumpers, what has to be done where the chip is removed, and
if there is anything else to do. On top of that my 1.4 roms are labeled
differently than my 1.2 roms, so I'm going to have to try a number of
permatations to find the right way to install them.  So if anyone has any
helpfull information on this, it would be realy appreciated!

  Thanks,

	Ray

	Ray,

	here comes the answer...

	ROM	Jumper 	W2	W3	W4	Chip U12

	256k		1-2	1-2	yes	no use
	1Mx2		2-3	2-3	no	use
	1Mx6		2-3	2-3	yes	no use


	Jumpers W2 and W3 are 3-pin jumpers. Connect either pin one to 
	pin 2 or pin 3 to pin 2. W1 is a 2-pin jumper.

	Chip U12 is needed only when you have 1Mx2 ROMs. If it is soldered
	in in your case just cut it out. You can insert an empty socket
	so that you later can go back to 2 ROM chips by simply inserting
	the needed chip (btw: cost of that chip is around $1, it is an
	74LS11)

	As for the location of the jumpers and the chip: look for them 
	near the ROMs towards the front of the pcb.

	Have fun

	---markus---