"Hugh_E._Wells.ElSegundo"@XEROX.COM (12/01/88)
11/30/88 Some of the early 800's had solder instead of gold on the board edge connectors. An attempt was made to slow the oxidation period by placing Lubriplate grease in the connectors. Starting and other intermittant problems have been traced to oxidation on board contacts. To alleviate the oxide problem, open up the computer and look at the contacts to determine if they are solder coated. That includes the CPU board which is buried under the casting. Whether solder or gold coated contacts, scrub the contacts with a dry facial tissue and re-insert the boards. If the problem is not related to oxidized contacts, then try a couple of things in an attempt to isolate the problem. I will assume that 64K of memory chips is installed. Pull the two high memory boards and turn off the disk drive. Turn on the computer with BASIC installed and type in a simple program to set up a "RUN" routine. If everything goes well, install the next memory board and repeat the test. If the first test failed, switch the memory board with another and repeat the test. Should this test fail the problem lies in one of the following areas: CPU board; 10K ROM; BASIC cartridge, or chips on the main board. Each would have to be checked by substitution with others. Parts for 800 machines are available from sources listed in Analog and Antic. I hope this discussion leads you to a solution to the problem. Hugh Wells
at1r+@andrew.cmu.edu (Angelo Trivelli) (12/08/88)
Thanks to all who responded about my broken atari 800 !!!! I will follow your suggestions. ---Angelo Trivelli at1r@andrew.cmu.edu