kcarroll (02/03/83)
For some time, my 800 has had the characteristic that it would tend to crash, some time (usually about a couple of hours) after power-up. The time before crashing has recently been decreasing; it's rare that I can get the thing to work for an hour straight, now (thank the gods that I have a disk drive!). I suspect that the problem is due to a poor connection between one of the innumerable cartridges and the bus; however, sometimes the crash will come when I'm not touching the machine, and hence it wouldn't be due to a cartridge shifting in its socket. Question: do many other people have this problem with their machines, or is it time to bring mine in for service? Thanks in advance. -Kieran A. Carroll ...decvax!utzoo!kcarroll
reid (02/03/83)
My 800 crashes, too. The same symptoms, usually right after power-up. The screen will flicker in a very uniform way (within each pixel, the same pattern is visible when it flickers). Everything locks up, no keyboard handler, no nothing. I believe it has something to do with corrosion on the contacts between the Operating System and its corresponding slot, or possible with the CPU board and its contacts. I have spent a lot of time cleaning the contacts, but it doesn't seem to make a huge difference. After the unit has been on for quite a while, I guess when I turn it off, it must oxidize much faster, since invariably I have a problem when I turn it on again after letting it sit for a while. I can usually remedy the problem by cleaning off the Operating System contacts. Is there any way to keep this oxidization from occurring???? Glenn Reid
cutler (02/03/83)
You say it locks up when you aren't touching it. Sounds like there is a connector somewhere that is heating up. I had one of the first machines. In a very clever move, my keyboard used silver pins and the connector it plugged into was gold. When the machine heated up the two parts expanded at different rates and rubbed, causing a glitch that crashed my machine. Perhaps Atari has done it again. Does this just happen with one cartridge? Then try cleaning the cartridge pins and the cartridge sockets in the console. Use a pencil eraser. If this happens with no cartridges in the machine then it sounds like service time. Good Luck, Ben Cutler decvax!yale-comix!cutler
rasp (02/10/83)
Here is some accumulated lore about crashes and glitches on the ATARI: 1. When you clean the contacts, clean all of the contacts! This includes CAREFULLY removing the ROMs from their sockets, GENTLY erasing oxidation from the pins, and reseating them. 2. When you use an eraser to clean off the contacts, be VERY gentle. The precious-metal coating is extremely thin; and, when that gets rubbed off you're in for a lot of oxidation problems. 3. As a rule of thumb, with gold-to-gold conections, the problem won't be oxidation... just accumulated dirt. The clean-up period for this should be on the order of months. For gold to silver there is a mild oxidation problem that could require clean-up on a one or two month basis. If it is gold-or-silver to something else, like German silver or solder, the service interval may be days or weeks depending upon ambient temperature and atmospheric contaminants; e.g., if you live near a paper mill or a rubber plant with the resulting corrosive atmosphere you have got a real problem. 4. One other bit of unpleasantness is that some alternate sources for add-in memories had a problem EXECUTING code out of high memory. It turns out that the 6502 makes adjacent accesses to memory when fetching code while it makes less frequent access to memory on data fetches. This means that a memory test that only accesses data in memory won't detect the problem. What is needed is a test that moves a piece of relocatable code through the area under test and executes it. The only problem there is that it won't pick up pattern sensitivities. Oh well! The nice part about it is that the manufacturers own up to the problem when asked, and their warranties are still in effect. 5. Still another little mystery is the misbehavior of the system if you fool around with the joystick at inopportune times; e.g. during disk accesses, etc. I'm not entirely pleased with the explanation; but, it could be an electro- magnetic interference problem. Solutions are to avoid keeping your computer in a room with nylon carpets (static build-up) or any other insulating material. Of course, as far as diddling with the joystick while accessing the disk goes, it's simply a case of: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." ... " So, don't do this!" Good luck with your machines. Ron Perloff Burroughs Micro Components Group PO Box 28810 San Diego, CA 92127 (619) 451-4519