ScuzzBlog: Diaries July 2018 Entry 11th July 2018: Post 02: Atari 1040ST FM Atari 1040ST FM - I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing I guess the whole Amiga hatred for Atari started with Atari trying to acquire the Amiga technology by using the old ' pound of flesh' technique. Those that lived through those events probably will recall that Atari loaned Amiga money and if they didn't pay up pretty well got the Amiga for next to nothing. Fortunately the guys at Commodore stepped in and saved the day and the battle lines were drawn up. Didn't help that Atari went on to try and replicate all that Amiga was doing and even half inching the bouncing ball to try and seduce users into buying their platform. The consequence of all of this was to create two distinct sets of users with pretty much a declared hatred in each other. Anyway, all water under the bridge now, though I do feel a little odd whenever featuring the Atari as I can but not compare with the Amiga, and for me always find the Atari failing. But that is probably cus the Amiga is the superior platform. So in trying to work out what is wrong with this specific Atari I sense the old good bad thing and find myself quoting Dr. Peter Venkman and 'I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing here. What do you mean, "bad"? All that aside I acquired this 1040 a very long time ago and it always has been kinda busted. The image on screen is ' fuzzy '. The guy that sold it me provided me with two floppy disk drives as compensation, though they were hardly ever going to fix it. So I decided to venture over to the dark side and enter the pit. Wish me luck ... or not. Atari 1040ST FM That fuzzy screen. Strange booting sequence on the ST which is pretty slow without the disk in the drive. Ports on the base which is a poor idea. In German which is interesting. I removed all the screws from the base as I couldn't establish what was for what. The top cover game off with a little gentle easing around the disk drive area. Pretty mucky as never been opened before. Similar arrangement as the A500. Keyboard connector.. Only goes one way. The mouse port attached to the keyboard. I got stuck removing the shielding as I couldn't remove the power supply and the shielding runs behind at the back. Atari use these twist style clips which I released using a pair of grips. Unclipped the floppy drive. There are these long black sleeves that support the drive and they tend to fall off the motherboard so needed to keep those safe. In the end realised that I needed to pull the motherboard completely out of the case to release the power supply and the top shielding. I do like having the power supply in the main case. The Amiga brick is a real pain. I'm assuming that that is the memory. Seems a bit over the top. Two of these .. Not sure if original. One of my spare floppy drives. Appears to be different. Strange 'goo' below the clear plastic. It hasn't run from anywhere that I can see. OK time to reassemble. Pretty straightforward. Twist back all those metal tangs. Odd little lights on the 1040. Gave the computer a bit of a clean. So will I be editing my previous note. I should co-co. Looks like I may just have made it worse. Never mind. It's only an Atari after all.. Sorry for that !!

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Last updated 11th July 2018

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