Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-08, 18:38:

And yes, I'm aware that it incorrectly says that it is S-video. They seem to be producing cables without even knowing what they are used for.

I think they were maybe used in some early S-video applications, like for transfer off camcorders that were as big as a stinger launcher or had a separate minitower sized handbag for the deck.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 04:49:

Ozzuneoj wrote on 2026-01-08, 18:38:

And yes, I'm aware that it incorrectly says that it is S-video. They seem to be producing cables without even knowing what they are used for.

I think they were maybe used in some early S-video applications, like for transfer off camcorders that were as big as a stinger launcher or had a separate minitower sized handbag for the deck.

All I could find are cables that break out from that to a set of component cables. I'm thinking that's probably what they were most commonly used for.

In other news, the floppy drive on the 1040STf was not happy, and some quick googling told me that these are known to have bad caps. Sure enough, it has some of those evil way-too-early-for-their-own-good surface mount aluminum electrolytic caps. Not the ones used in the 90s, but the ones that usually have a little yellow label wrapped around them. Anyway, everything on the PCB had a bit of a corroded look to it, so I figured they were toast.

It ended up being a surprisingly time consuming repair (because the motor absorbs SO MUCH heat from the board and the solder had so much corrosion on it that nothing would melt), but I eventually got all of the electrolytics replaced. I did basically the same thing as this post:
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3147

Now, I'm happy to say that it works perfectly! The system boots up in seconds thanks to the OS being on ROM, and these STs are so stinking awesome that they read standard 720K IBM formatted floppies AND text files with nothing but the ROM loaded. I just popped an old 720K floppy into a Dell USB drive connected to my Windows 10 system, put some text files on it, put it into the ST, double "clicked" (I had to use alt+arrow keys and alt+insert) the floppy drive and there everything was...

I think I'm going to like tinkering with this machine.

Also, I had a friend 3D print a replacement key stem for one that was broken. I had to sand that down a bit, but it also works perfectly. It feels good to give a machine like this a new lease on life. I will post more pictures (and maybe a thread) once I am done reassembling it. After working on the floppy drive waaay too late and then cleaning up my work desk, I'm done for the day. 😌

EDIT: Forgot to mention, the monochrome VGA adapter cable it came with allows it to work on any of my CRTs as well as my Dell Ultrasharp 2001FP, as pictured. It is a little wobbly and has some lines on the LCD but looks perfect on a CRT.

... also, it turns out this 2001FP I was given a few years back is one of the unicorns that was made before they broke 15Khz horizontal refresh support... so I can either get a different adapter or rewire this one to use the ST's color video modes and it should work. 🙂

Woohoo good going.

One of the things I would be curious about if I had ST hardware, would be how much interoperability I could get going between the ST and Gem running on a PC. Might just be a limited set of file types and data and ancillary files that will cross. I guess if I get too curious I can find an ST emulator. The most tantalizing prospect would be getting familiar enough with the sameness and differences to be able to cross compile suitable open source stuff from the Atari side and have more than like 6 apps to run on Gem.

BitWrangler wrote on Yesterday, 14:40:

Woohoo good going.

One of the things I would be curious about if I had ST hardware, would be how much interoperability I could get going between the ST and Gem running on a PC. Might just be a limited set of file types and data and ancillary files that will cross. I guess if I get too curious I can find an ST emulator. The most tantalizing prospect would be getting familiar enough with the sameness and differences to be able to cross compile suitable open source stuff from the Atari side and have more than like 6 apps to run on Gem.

Arghh...

Well, things were going well... I was easily writing disk images to floppies on my Windows 10 PC, and then testing them on the ST. So far everything seemed to be okay other than the fact that most things expect low\med res color mode, which I cannot use currently. I accidentally left the disk for Another World in the drive when I turned the machine on and it started trying to load it. I didn't want to wait for that so I powered the system off... aaaandd... that was apparently a mistake. Now, the floppy makes normal pc-like "brrrnnn-brrnnnn" motor sounds at startup, which it wasn't doing before, and when TOS loads there are no floppy drives visible. 🤦

So, let me guess, I just toasted the floppy drive controller or something?

EDIT: Oh! I fixed it! The drive's head carriage was stuck! I looked in the drive and didn't see any movement when it was making the seek-test noises. I took the cover off and saw that the carriage was all the way forward. When I pushed it back it was kind of hung up at the front but came free easily. Now, the drive does a simple "blip" of the carriage motor and then proceeds to start right up. The floppy icons are back on the desktop.

Whew!

EDIT2: Bleh... after struggling to find a game to run on this in monochrome, I finally got Battlezone working and I find out that there is no way to get sound out of a 1040STf without a different video adapter that has an audio jack. I don't know why I was expecting it to have an internal speaker. I have had it apart multiple times and never seen one. -_-

The adapters are plentiful but only available from Europe... and now that I do some more research it sounds like the image quality on most of them will be bad and have lines on it. Some people have developed adapters with buffers to alleviate this (seems not always successfully without yet more mods), but those projects seem to all be long dead. Man, I was really hoping I could just wire up an adapter and use this thing.