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avatar_beaker

My new old Atari ST

Started by beaker, 19:28, 15 September 13

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beaker

First, big thanks to Bryce for doing all the hard work on this one  :D

I know it's been done before but I thought I'd share with you :)
It's been a bit of a long project this. I bought an Atari ST in June last year in a pretty grubby state

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I didn't really want to start a new collection so shoved a HxC into it (of course me being me I opened the ST up with the SD card still in the HxC slot and damaged the SD slot  :'( )

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To try and bring it back to the right colour I BBlonded 3 or 4 times (probably due to the crap Irish weather it needed so many goes)

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I then cut out the screen for the HxC and drilled some holes for the buttons (completely plagiarizing what someone has done already)

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And then sprayed a clear coat of paint on it to stop it turning brown again

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Knowing how badly I suck at soldering, Bryce kindly modified the HxC so I could place the screen on the bottom of the keyboard and have the keys on the top of the ST, all of which detaches from the main HxC board. He also shortened the cabled but me being me, forgot pin 1 is reversed and gave Bryce a duff measurement (sorry  :-[ ) and now the ribbon cable is under a bit of tension...

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So all that was left for me to do was mount the screen and keys with some hot glue, file a slot for the SD card slot that Bryce kindly changed over for a new one :D and use an old DVD case to blank the slot where the old drive went using hot glue so it can be reserved...

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And now over a year after I started (I am really getting used to the Irish pace of life lol), I now have a fantastic ST (well in my opinion) :D

Right, now to unplug it and play some more Repton 3 on the BBC master :D :D :D (thanks for that as well Bryce and Badstarr :D :D:D)


beaker

Here's some pictures of my other new toy  :P I just gave it a small cleanup and installed a Turbo MMC so I could play all my old favourite games :D

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steve

Quote
..... using hot glue so it can be reserved...


Maybe you could reserve a couple of letters in this sentence. ;D

beaker


Bryce

Nice work... although most of it is from me :D No really, looks good. Did the TurboMMC installation go well? I haven't had time to try mine out yet.

Bryce.

beaker

Well you did all the important stuff like make it work  ;D I'll buy that surround you emailed me the link to as I noticed some light bleeding from around the edges of the hole which is a little annoying.

Turbo MMC was a doddle if you know what you're doing with the Beeb :D Thankfully I had a lot of patient people like you and TC :D

Hook it all up, install it in slot 8 (I originally installed it in slot 6,7 and it turned out a couple of games like Repton 3 don't like losing the sideways RAM) and either configure it to boot up with Rom 8 so Turbo MMC ROM is automatically loaded, or type *card followed by *DBOOT 0. TC mentioned it was designed for the BBC B in mind so a couple of games like Elite won't run because of some filesystem changes implemented in the Master but if I eject the ROM and run it from the HxC I'll be fine. Also games like Alien 8 won't run at all on the Master which isn't a great loss as I can play that on the CPC.

So that's the next job after the Xbox HDD I bought off Amibay turns up, try and make a cable without messing it up to connect the HxC  :laugh:

TC also suggested I also disconnected the internal speaker and run the sound out of the RCA audio connector which I can control and sounds a lot less harsh  :D

Oh, and the Voltmace joystick.... Bloody horrible!!!  :laugh: I am going to keep an eye out for the Competition Pro released for it  ::)

Bryce

Nice to see you're keeping busy :)

Nice MGB too by the way, is it running or also a work in progress?

Bryce.

beaker

Oh yeah, completely running :D I've had her about 12 years now although the paint is beginning to get a little tired so I'll get her completely restored in the next couple of years if I can find anywhere over here to do it. I'll let them try the MR2 first as the red is going on that as well. According to Mike, my local mechanic, "mechanically she's sound but she's got no paint!". It's all breaking down and I am getting white spotting going on. Never buying a red car again!  :laugh:

Bryce

That'll be all that Irish sun, the paint just blisters in the heat :D

Bryce.

Gryzor

Oh what a beaut! I'm referring to the ST of course. My first reaction was "I must install an HxC thusly!". Then I remembered I don't have a ST set up and use the MiST these days (shame it doesn't have a cool screen like that)...

beaker

Quote from: Bryce on 08:44, 16 September 13
That'll be all that Irish sun, the paint just blisters in the heat :D

Bryce.

lol, well you know I could have emigrated to Australia but I said, no, Ireland has the cleanest air and the best weather :)

Quote from: Gryzor on 15:55, 16 September 13
Oh what a beaut! I'm referring to the ST of course. My first reaction was "I must install an HxC thusly!". Then I remembered I don't have a ST set up and use the MiST these days (shame it doesn't have a cool screen like that)...

Thanks :)
What's the MiST like? Do you have accelerator boards with it?

Gryzor

I can't recommend the MiST FPGA enough. No accelerator boards for it (not sure the FPGA is large enough to accommodate them...), but it does go up to 68030.


The Amiga core is the well known Minimig core, so it's pretty damn good and can handle everything I throw at it. The ST core is not as good yet (a few bugs and not perfect compatibility), but it's getting there; the developer is pushing core updates pretty often. Pretty soon we're supposed to have STe support (so compatibility will go up too).


The strange thing is, I have this little (and very nicely made) box here connected to my PC monitor and... it feels like I have a real ST or Amiga. I can't explain it, but it's true. It's not cheap (had to sell a couple of things to make up for it), but I don't regret it the least! Wish someone ported an Amstrad core (or others!) to it...

Bryce

Quote from: Gryzor on 07:08, 17 September 13
Wish someone ported an Amstrad core (or others!) to it...

Ralferoo is your man for that :)

Bryce.

Gryzor

Quote from: Bryce on 08:41, 17 September 13
Ralferoo is your man for that :)

Bryce.


Hey Ralf, how can I bribe you mate? :) 

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