Atari 800 Service Manual

CHAPTER 5 - MAINTENANCE
5.1 INTRODUCTION
The following paragraphs provide instructions on the proper care and
maintenance of the 400/800 Consoles. Included will be a section on
preventive maintenance, covering normal cleaning and inspection; a
section on troubleshooting the 400/800 Consoles to detect an error
causing component; and a section containing disassembly and assembly
instructions.
NOTE
Printed circuit boards containing integrated circuits can be
damaged by static charges in their plastic packaging or by
handling in normal work environments. It is necessary to establish
a static free work station. A work station for assembling static-
sensitive materials should consist of an anti-stat poly table
cover that is grounded to the metal on the table. In addition, the
worker at the station should also be grounded, with a wrist strap,
to the metal portion of the table. Note that the wrist grounding
straps affect only the body of the service person, not the
clothing. Therefore, short sleeves are preferred. If long sleeves
are worn, they should be covered by an antistat gauntlet.
On static-sensitive work surfaces, all plastics except anti-static
ones should be forbidden. Vinyl or mylar shop carriers pulled from
a stack and laid casually on a board can destroy it. Styrene
desoldering devices generate large static charges, particularly
when triggered. Practically all plastic and plastic related
materials generate tremendous charges and should not be permitted
in the same room where static-sensitive devices are being
assembled or stored.
5.2 PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE
Preventive maintenance on both the 400 and 800 Computer Consoles con-
sists of maintaining a dust free environment for the Consoles when
not being used (wrapped in packaging material) and cleaning and
lubricating the printed circuit board (PCB) contacts.
Many of the troubles encountered with both the 400 and 800 Consoles
consist of loose or corroded contacts on both the CPU and memory (ROM
and RAM) printed circuit boards.
ATARI Personal Computers 5-1

Atari 800 Specifications

General

Processor	MOS Technology 6502
Processor Speed	1.79 MHz
ROM	10 KB
Graphics	ANTIC and GTIA chips
Release Year	1979
Display Resolution	up to 320 x 192
Colors	128 colors
Sound	4 channels
Storage	Cartridge, cassette, floppy disk
Ports	Cartridge, serial, monitor
Operating System	Atari OS