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Atari ST with Floppy Drive or just a working Floppy Drive (USA Preferably)

rittwage

Veteran Member
Joined
Mar 6, 2012
Messages
974
Location
Augusta, Georgia, USA
I have a 520ST and an SF314, but the floppy drive is not recognized anymore. I don't know if the ST or the drive went bad.

If someone has a working drive, or a replacement ST (E/F?) with working internal drive, please let me know.

I am in the USA, SouthEast.

Also, does anyone make a cable for the crazy monitor port on these to go to RGB on a Sony PVM? Why did Atari use these crazy ports...
 
There are some things you can test yourself:

1. Have you plugged the floppy cable tp the IN plug of the drive? (If not, you did it wrong)
2. Check the voltage of the SF 314 power supply. It should have 5V and 12V.
3. I already had a few of these drives where the internal powerswitch was broken, so it was not switching on.

You can find service manuals on www.dev-docs.org.
 
Thanks - my voltages look fine, even on the connector to the drive. I've actually already tried to replace the drive with a Gotek/FlashFloppy and it doesn't respond at all either.

I fear the ST itself may be bad, but I can't easily tell 100% unless I try another drive.
 
Did you check the floppy drive cable for continuity? And the SF314's power supply for proper voltages?
 
I finally fixed this. My drive seems to have suffered some kind of corrosion... Not sure how, but there were many connections from the floppy cable inside on the drive interface board, to the floppy ribbon cable, that no longer were connected. I patched about 5 of them, and re-soldered the 12v line on the power connector. Now it's working again!
 
The monitor connectors can be found on eBay, just search for '13 pin DIN connector'

If you want to make a quick hack:
three strips of 4 pole 2.54mm pin strips also fit, just need to add a single pin for pin 13, glue them together.
 
I bought an ST to composite cable, it works but is blurry and has ghosting, so I ordered a new one that is ST->DB15 VGA style. I have several Sony PVM's and VGA to RGB BNC adapters, so I should be able to adapt it pretty easily to that.
 
I bought an ST to composite cable, it works but is blurry and has ghosting, so I ordered a new one that is ST->DB15 VGA style. I have several Sony PVM's and VGA to RGB BNC adapters, so I should be able to adapt it pretty easily to that.

Yeah, the ST to composite cable (which only works on machines with RF) is pretty horrible. I have one I have in my test area that is barely good enough for that but I don't like lugging around the CRT. As well, what works great if you don't have the CRT (or in my case, hate CRT's) is the following two items:

https://coolnovelties.co.uk/coolnov...ality-rgb-scart-video-cable-070569350477.html
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Scart-HDMI...ter-Monitor-Box-For-HDTV-DVD-STB/253580480913

(those are just a couple links, I used the coolnovelties cable because they make the best cables with the resistors, etc., however I purchased the other box from a different seller but it needs to be that box... there are other "converter boxes" that don't work as well.

Similar to the composite cable, it didn't seem to work on the original 520ST but worked great on the STFM. Don't know if it's the similar RF requirement, or not.

Heres a video of the same setup:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZrTISByUb4&t=353s
 
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I bought an ST to composite cable, it works but is blurry and has ghosting, so I ordered a new one that is ST->DB15 VGA style. I have several Sony PVM's and VGA to RGB BNC adapters, so I should be able to adapt it pretty easily to that.

Try to get a NEC TFT Multisync 1990nxp/sxi or NEC LCD 1970nx, these ones can display all three video modes of ST series. Here you find a VGA adapter which is capable to switch between color and monochrome mode: https://centuriontech.eu/product/st2vga-black/
 
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