Anyone having any idea what's going wrong there?

I have a modified C64 DTV with 2x joystik, 1x serial drive and 1x ps/2
keyboard connector. I put a 25 pin connector on the joystick where I
connect my own adapter for everything.

This used to work a while but from the beginning I had problems
accessing the drive. Since it sometimes worked better when I was bending
the cable I thought that there was some problem with the cable but
everything looked fine. Flashing with the DTVTrans cable (over joystick
port) never worked although joysticks ports work normal. Since the last
try I only have a blue basic screen now when switching it on.

Now I wanted to try again: Just the middle of the keyboard was working!
I tried two differnt keyboards, exactly only the same keys worked. After
leaving the joystick on for about 10 minutes, the cursor key started
flashing in normal tempo (before it was too fast) and also the keyboard
worked fine again. Unfortunately this does not happen always.

So what's wrong there?

>
> So what's wrong there?
most likely a wireing issue. I'd suspect a short between some of the
joystick lines since this would make parts of the keyboard unusable.
It seems to have never worked reliable, so please check your cable(s).
Andi

Andreas Meerbann schrieb:

>> So what's wrong there?
>most likely a wireing issue. I'd suspect a short between some of the
>joystick lines since this would make parts of the keyboard unusable.
>It seems to have never worked reliable, so please check your cable(s).
>Andi

Thank you for answering, I now checked my joystick again and found
something that appears strange to me:

I attached a picture of my joystick modification here:
http://picload.org/image/oglpcr/joystick2.jpg

=46or some reason my father connected one cable to that big metal thing
(marked with a big yellow ellipse). This part seems to have a connection
to the cable that goes to BAT+ (small yellow circle).

Could one of these things cause trouble?

> For some reason my father connected one cable to that big metal thing
> (marked with a big yellow ellipse). This part seems to have a connection
> to the cable that goes to BAT+ (small yellow circle).
That big metal thing is the oscillator. It's metal housing should be
connected to ground. so that's just an unusual way to connect a cable
to ground. Nothing to worry about.
It seems your DTV has a big connector to the outside world. There must
be some adaptor to connect to the DTV on one end and connect to
Floppy, keyboard, Joysticks etc on the other end(s). I think that
adaptor is causing the problem. Maybe it has some short circuit or
loose connection somewhere. Please check that first (disconnect from
DTV and beep it through with a multimeter).
cheers,
Andreas

Andreas Meerbann schrieb:

>That big metal thing is the oscillator. It's metal housing should be
>connected to ground. so that's just an unusual way to connect a cable
>to ground. Nothing to worry about.

Ok. But the ground shouldn't have connection to the red cable going to
BAT+, should it?

>It seems your DTV has a big connector to the outside world. There must
>be some adaptor to connect to the DTV on one end and connect to
>Floppy, keyboard, Joysticks etc on the other end(s).

You're completely right. :) I'll check that adapter too.

"Martin Brunner" <konigjh@tin.at> wrote in message news:71fa$4d7e6e2d$d4bace0d$15533@news.chello.at...
Andreas Meerbann schrieb:

>> That big metal thing is the oscillator. It's metal housing should be
>> connected to ground. so that's just an unusual way to connect a
>> cable to ground. Nothing to worry about.
>
> Ok. But the ground shouldn't have connection to the red cable
> going to BAT+, should it?

They don't go to the same place. The ground and BAT+ wires
go to 2 separate pins on the port. Have another look.   8^)

Bill

Bill Garber schrieb:

>
>"Martin Brunner" <konigjh@tin.at> wrote in message =
news:71fa$4d7e6e2d$d4bace0d$15533@news.chello.at...
>Andreas Meerbann schrieb:
>
>>> That big metal thing is the oscillator. It's metal housing should be
>>> connected to ground. so that's just an unusual way to connect a
>>> cable to ground. Nothing to worry about.
>>
>> Ok. But the ground shouldn't have connection to the red cable
>> going to BAT+, should it?
>
>They don't go to the same place. The ground and BAT+ wires
>go to 2 separate pins on the port. Have another look.   8^)

Yes I know but if i measure ground and BAT+ it says that they have
connection. But then I wonder why the DTV works at all...

On 14 Mrz., 21:49, Martin Brunner <koni...@tin.at> wrote:
> Bill Garber schrieb:
>
>
>
> >"Martin Brunner" <koni...@tin.at> wrote in messagenews:71fa$4d7e6e2d$d4b=
ace0d$15533@news.chello.at...
> >Andreas Meerbann schrieb:
>
> >>> That big metal thing is the oscillator. It's metal housing should be
> >>> connected to ground. so that's just an unusual way to connect a
> >>> cable to ground. Nothing to worry about.
>
> >> Ok. But the ground shouldn't have connection to the red cable
> >> going to BAT+, should it?
>
> >They don't go to the same place. The ground and BAT+ wires
> >go to 2 separate pins on the port. Have another look. =A0 8^)
>
> Yes I know but if i measure ground and BAT+ it says that they have
> connection. But then I wonder why the DTV works at all...

What did you measure? Oscillator case to BAT+? In that case you
measure the whole DTV circuit from + to - of the supply voltage. A
multimeter is likely to beep on this connection since it has quite a
low impedance. So you were following the german proverb "wer misst
misst mist" ("who measures measures crap").

Any clues after checking the adaptor cable so far?

Andi

Am 15.03.2011 09:48, schrieb Andreas Meerbann:

> Any clues after checking the adaptor cable so far?

I still don't think it's the adapter. Because the cursor is blinking
very fast even when I switch the Joystick on without the adapter
connected. So if that happens without the adapter, it means that there
is something wrong without adapter, isn't it?

On 31 Mrz., 13:31, Martin Brunner <koni...@tin.at> wrote:
> Am 15.03.2011 09:48, schrieb Andreas Meerbann:
>
> > Any clues after checking the adaptor cable so far?
>
> I still don't think it's the adapter. Because the cursor is blinking
> very fast even when I switch the Joystick on without the adapter
> connected. So if that happens without the adapter, it means that there
> is something wrong without adapter, isn't it?

yes, certainly.