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1200XL Upgrade Unknown


Guitarman

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I will post a better pic once I receive the board. Got this on Ebay this week. The auction states the following upgrades:

 

Includes Rambo-XL upgrade, Video upgrade & Output upgrade.

 

Now, I do see the RamboXL board but I also see some sort of OS mod and it is also missing the RF box. I wonder if it has the Omnimon upgrade?? Any ideas??

 

 

post-6701-1175493588_thumb.jpg

Edited by Guitarman
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The omnimon original came on an open faced pcb with three IC sockets they called a ramrod board. Its shaped like an L so if its an omnimon its probably not an original.

 

The 1050 super archiver comes potted in a little module exactly the same way. I wonder if its the os upgrade from CSS?

 

Steve

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I will post a better pic once I receive the board. Got this on Ebay this week. The auction states the following upgrades:

 

Includes Rambo-XL upgrade, Video upgrade & Output upgrade.

 

Now, I do see the RamboXL board but I also see some sort of OS mod and it is also missing the RF box. I wonder if it has the Omnimon upgrade?? Any ideas??

 

 

post-6701-1175493588_thumb.jpg

 

It might be the CSS Ultra Speed Plus OS upgrade.

Edited by JR>
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Well I got the 1200XL MB today. Boy, someone was sure busy on it. The visible mods I could see and identify were the OS upgrade that has a 3 position switch attached (probably CSS), Dual Pokey with 1/4" jack attached, RamboXL 256K upgrade, Clearpic upgrade (notice the RF is removed, don't know why yet), SIO port mod and the most surprising one since it is not visible in the picture, a PBI port mod. I think there are probably others since there are a lot of stacked IC's on the board. I will take some good close pics and post them later. It is obvious that this system was owned by someone with a lot of modding experience. It doesn't have a built in Basic chip so I will add that and an internal SIO2PC adapter.

Edited by Guitarman
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I wonder why they bothered removing the RF modulator? I can see doing it if you need the space for other mods, I had considered removing mine to make space for my Dual-Pokey stereo board, but I found another spot instead. But since nothing has taken it's place on your 1200XL, I see no reason to have bothered removing it. I think I still like having the option of RF output anyway. Of course it makes it easier for you Guitarman, if you want to use the space.

Edited by Gunstar
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What I will probably do is put a mini stereo jack on the stereo pokey output instead of the 1/4" jack and use the hole in the case where the RF out would be to mount it. I could use the blank area for a MyIDE with CF adapter and cut a slot in the case for the CF card right below the jack for the pokey. Since this system is so heavely modded, I may take my 32in1 OS and put it in this system with the Basic C addition. That would pretty much round it out. With the PBI mod, I'll be able to use my MIO once it's done. Almost forgot, an internal SIO2PC!!

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post-6701-1175736021_thumb.jpg

 

I don't believe I have a copy of that particular version of MyDos in my collection. Any chance you could post an ATR of that?

 

Also I have some scanned images of the CSS Ultraspeed OS manual if you need them. If you do decide to replace it with a 32 in 1, I'd be interested in buying the Ultraspeed module from you.

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I don't believe I have a copy of that particular version of MyDos in my collection. Any chance you could post an ATR of that?

 

Also I have some scanned images of the CSS Ultraspeed OS manual if you need them. If you do decide to replace it with a 32 in 1, I'd be interested in buying the Ultraspeed module from you.

 

It is the Axlon version. It came with a lot I purchased that included a 800 with a Axlon compatible memory upgrade that was hand built by Scott Peterson. Find the ATR attached. And, yes, I would love to have the US+ manual. I actually just sent an Email to CSS to see if they had a PDF or electronic copy of it.

 

MyDosAxlon.zip

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And, yes, I would love to have the US+ manual. I actually just sent an Email to CSS to see if they had a PDF or electronic copy of it.

 

Here ya go.

 

Thanks for posting!! This will help tremendously in figuring out all the options in the mod!!

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OK. This is an opinion question. Should I keep the CSS UltraSpeed Plus in this system or replace it with my 32in1 upgrade?? I know the US+ has a built in ramdisk handler that's kinda nice. Not sure about the APE Warp+ OS. Anybody have ideas of advantages or disadvantages of switching??

 

Steve??? Does the APE Warp+ have a built in ramdisk handler??

 

 

EDIT: I guess I should preface this by saying, this opinion is not for practical reasons, just having the coolest mods in this system.

Edited by Guitarman
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  • 3 months later...
I wonder why they bothered removing the RF modulator? I can see doing it if you need the space for other mods, I had considered removing mine to make space for my Dual-Pokey stereo board, but I found another spot instead. But since nothing has taken it's place on your 1200XL, I see no reason to have bothered removing it. I think I still like having the option of RF output anyway. Of course it makes it easier for you Guitarman, if you want to use the space.

 

 

I think the modulator was removed in order to use the space on the back of the 1200XL for the 1/4" phone jack. They probably thought a 1/8" jack wasn't robust enough. That's what I did on mine.

 

Bob

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OK. This is an opinion question. Should I keep the CSS UltraSpeed Plus in this system or replace it with my 32in1 upgrade?? I know the US+ has a built in ramdisk handler that's kinda nice. Not sure about the APE Warp+ OS. Anybody have ideas of advantages or disadvantages of switching??

 

Well, one problem I found with my CSS OS+, is the ultraspeed routines seem to ignore the actual speed byte returned by the drive. As long as it ACKs the command, it assumes $0A. Could never figure out why the replacement rom I made up for my Trak to add ultraspeed, never seemed to work, until I found out (from Steve@atarimax) that this bug existed! Note, this also keeps APE from functioning at ultraspeed.

 

Does anyone have a dump of the OS itself, so that it can be patched? I miss a lot of the functionality of this OS, but with that bug, it's really unusable..

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Well, one problem I found with my CSS OS+, is the ultraspeed routines seem to ignore the actual speed byte returned by the drive. As long as it ACKs the command, it assumes $0A.

 

That was common practice, is not an unique behavior to CSS OS+. There was no device (in the US) that used a different value.

 

Many software/OS go even further. They don't ever ask the peripheral or use the '?' command at all. They just try ultraspeed. If it works, they use it, if not they fall over to normal speed.

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OK. This is an opinion question. Should I keep the CSS UltraSpeed Plus in this system or replace it with my 32in1 upgrade?? I know the US+ has a built in ramdisk handler that's kinda nice. Not sure about the APE Warp+ OS. Anybody have ideas of advantages or disadvantages of switching??

 

Well, one problem I found with my CSS OS+, is the ultraspeed routines seem to ignore the actual speed byte returned by the drive. As long as it ACKs the command, it assumes $0A. Could never figure out why the replacement rom I made up for my Trak to add ultraspeed, never seemed to work, until I found out (from Steve@atarimax) that this bug existed! Note, this also keeps APE from functioning at ultraspeed.

 

Does anyone have a dump of the OS itself, so that it can be patched? I miss a lot of the functionality of this OS, but with that bug, it's really unusable.

 

Can it be patched? It is inaccessible and must be installed with a "piggyback" 4051 chip and has several extra connections that are needed to get it working properly. (?)

 

About the Trak: Did you ultimately get the ultraspeed working in the Trak? If so, what did you have to patch in the rom?

 

Have you ever investigated getting the TRAK track buffer (sorry about that) ;) working with a Dos other than Dos 2.0? IIRC, the track buffer was set up to recognize part of Dos 2 boot code, but therefore wouldn't open the track buffer with other Dos' such as MyDos.

 

Likewise, someone was trying to increase the size of the track buffer so that it would at least hold a full DD track. Again, IIRC, the Trak had a (optional) max of a 16KB buffer to accomodate the printer feature as an option, but it looked like the rom needed to be patched so that it would recognize the larger buffer.

 

-Larry

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Can it be patched? It is inaccessible and must be installed with a "piggyback" 4051 chip and has several extra connections that are needed to get it working properly. (?)

 

About the Trak: Did you ultimately get the ultraspeed working in the Trak? If so, what did you have to patch in the rom?

 

Have you ever investigated getting the TRAK track buffer (sorry about that) ;) working with a Dos other than Dos 2.0? IIRC, the track buffer was set up to recognize part of Dos 2 boot code, but therefore wouldn't open the track buffer with other Dos' such as MyDos.

 

Likewise, someone was trying to increase the size of the track buffer so that it would at least hold a full DD track. Again, IIRC, the Trak had a (optional) max of a 16KB buffer to accomodate the printer feature as an option, but it looked like the rom needed to be patched so that it would recognize the larger buffer.

 

-Larry

 

I've basically re-written a whole new firmware for the drive. So, it isn't so much of a patch for ultraspeed, but I put that feature in what I made. But, since I could never seem to get it work, I figured I didn't understand exactly what was going on, and gave up.. :roll:

 

Now that I actually have it working, I'm back to working on the features I had originally planned. I didn't bother with the printer support in it, since I wanted to use the ram as a track buffer. It will work in single, enhanced, and double.

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