Atari 1040STF Restoration Part 2: Retrobrighting 

there is one rubber plunger missing, The enter key has 2 rubber plungers but only 1 is used. people always think they have a missing plunger when in fact there isn't. it also does not matter which spot the rubber plunger is on on the enter key as both work

This rubber dome under Return key is missing by default. After opening my first ST keyboard, I was looking it for some time, but now I know it is missing in every ST keyboard, and there's no point of looking for it on my carpet or under the desk ;) I won't let my head cut off for it, but STf had always double sided disk drive, only the first external drives for the original ST were single sided. It is worth to protect the badge with Kapton tape (or a good office tape) cut to the edges, before retrobrighting or using aggressive detergents. I have destroyed a badge on my 65XE during a chemical cleaning.

Happy christmas Jan and all retro thinkerers out there

It came out really well! Happy 2020! Yes, a lot of the STF came with a single sided drive! My cousin had an ST when they first came out and he had an external double sided drive to get around the issue with the latest games being released. He was super excited to show me Outrun - LOL!!!! At the time I was impressed!

The motherboard and keyboard PCB layouts and assembly methods are beautiful work by Atari.

Sit back, relax and watch JAN BETA! Merry Christmas to the Retro-Computing-Family!!! :-) Greetings, Doc64!

lovely restoration!

Love the Day of the Tentacle mug!

The thing looks gorgeous in the end. It's like a completely different device.

Lovely restoration. You've really nailed the retrobright tools and techniques. And I love the irony of Paula doing the Xmas Lemmings music for the end credits! AMIGAAAAH!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Jan!

that turned out very nice. awesome work!

Merry Christmas! 🎄

Frohe Weihnachten! Meinen ersten ST bekam ich auch zu Weihnachten, vor 32 Jahren!

That was surprising! I never knew before that the mouse and joystick ports were part of the keyboard and not the motherboard...

Merry xmas Jan ! Tks for another entertaining video!

There's meant to be 1 dome missing. I made the same mistake when i was working on my ST. The key in question has 2 contacts and it is held in place by the key itself so you don't need the 2nd dome.

Watching late Christmas day and nice to see Nice work!!!

My 1040ST needs some love and attention like this. Case is cracked in a few places, whole thing is cheese yellow. It still works, surprisingly, as it's been modded to hell and back by the original owner. Has a 'PC-Ditto' installed, which essentially converts the machine into an IBM PC-compatible. All the onboard system RAM had been hacked off and replaced with slots of 30-pin SIMM sticks, daughter boards and ribbon cables just flung around all over the place. Yours came out beautifully, great work as always. I'm surprised you only had one broken screw standoff, the plastic in STs tends to be super brittle and those things break like crazy.

Hi Jan, nice video as always. Merry Christmas 🎄 and happy new year 🎆 to you.

Nice! Happy new year!

Always great to see the retrobright processes that people do all over the world, always a different way to do it. I love that you have so many thin's placed around that you can find like easter eggs of past or future projects, saw the Amstrad logo in the box there near the retrobright box. Good as always, see you next year Jan and on stream when I can.

When cleaning that keyboard I lost a rubber for the key like that. Luckily a pc keyboard had a rubber similar to that and I solved it. Great video. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Merry Christmas, Jan. Always good to have a new video from you. I especially like that you solder properly, you're the only RU-vidr I've ever seen crop leads before soldering. :)

Merry Christmas and thank you for this Christmas present 😊

Interesting use of the Microsoft authorized rertro-brighting box, Cheers

Yes! 40:45 - I think you're the first person I've found that does this like me! I've done this "left to click, then right to install" thing forever for the exact same reason. But none of the people I work with get it...

Nice job on the case. Looks great! Looking forward to see how you get the floppy drive working.

Looks absolutely amazing! 😉

Good work :) new life for this great Atari :D

Turned out great look like you have a very nice refurbished ST. Merry Xmas!

I recently got an Atari STFM. One thing I've made recently for mine is a simple pair of ribbon cables DB9M-DB9F so I don't have to go under to plug in joysticks, and my DB9->PS2->USb dongle chain for my mouse actually fits.

Thanks for good content through the year of 2019.

Merry Christmas Jan, and as always great video :)

Merry Christmas Jan lovely video..

Happy New Year, great video as always. One of my absolute favourite channels! :)

Aww yes! I finally got round to watching part 1, love how you fitted the Meanwell power supply! She is a beauty with her new Gotek and those Atari MIDI ports are begging you to plug in an instrument/synth and load up something like Cubase for some music making action!

Jan, if you check out Odd Tinkering, he uses a 12% liquid for retro bright and his results are always really nice. Plus, you don't have to mess about with shrink wrap and rubbing the cream every 20 mins. Maybe it is worth a try sometime! Happy Christmas!

Great video Jan. Happy New year, 2020! We're living in the sci-fi future.

OMG! Love the DotT Purple Tentacle mug!!!

For removing adhesives just try paraffin (lamp oil). Its just the best and easiest way to remove glue and grease plus it appears to be gentle with plastics. ( I always try it inside the case before applying it in the front!).

I remember thinking about buying at ST but finally deciding on an Amiga 1000 which was a little more expensive but had better graphics and other things. I had a lot of fun with the Amiga, I finally gave it away in 2000. In retrospect I probably ought to have kept it.

Ich bin in Sachen Retrobrighting ganz deiner Meinung und nutze im Prinzip genau deine Taktik, Cream für die Gehäuseteile und Liquid für die Tasten. Auch die Kartons habe uch so gebastelt, nur für das Seifenbad nutze ich so ein Fettlöser vom Aldi und kein Cillit Bang 😏. Guten Rutsch ins neue Jahr und hofrentlich viele, neue alte und dank deiner Pflege wieder glückliche weil perfekt restaurierte Retro Computer w0nsche ich dir.

Thank You, Jan for your great Work. I wish you merry Christmas and a good start in the New Year 2020!

I believe there was a company that made replacement key domes for the keyboards for a while in the 90s - Called "keytoppers" or something. They were mainly marketed at improving the feel of the keyboard (which wasn't a high point of the ST), but maybe they could help for spares?

Thankfully I live in the southeastern US(western part of South Carolina), and in the late spring & summer time here it can be over 100F(38C), and I just use a clear plastic tub with a clear locking lid, liquid peroxide, oxyclean powder in a 40% to 60% hot water mix to cover all the parts, and leave it on my back concrete patio for most of the day which gets full sun all day, only going out to shake it up, and rotate them every couple of hours, and that works for me, but I guess for colder climates that don't get as much sun/heat this looks like a really great method, and I'll keep it in mind for Winter months if I'm working on something for someone else who needs it in a hurry. 👍

Merry Christmas!

Lovely computer now after that Retrobrighting. I really like your method of doing that. I think I will try the same way, but use the sun - we have that most of the time here in Tucson!

For sticker residue I use a product called Goo-B-gone. It works great!

A new video from Jan makes a nice retrocomputer Christmas present! BTW those rubber domes look like the same ones that were used in some VIC-20 keyboards... and they are just so mushy feeling when compared to proper springs. Blech! :( At any rate, I hope your Christmas was very merry, and may your channel have continued success into the New Year!

That's a good result and another fine video. Lovely of PCB Way to send those ornaments as well. Thanks for another year of excellent videos Jan. Enjoy your holidays and we will see you again in 2020!

Hi Jan, I think you don't need to worry about the black rubber feet, because both my Atari 1040STf have black rubber feet and they haven't been restored or modified. So it came with black rubber feet from the factory.

hey jan.danke für deine clips!.ich hab gerade auch so einen problemfall hier.. ;-) da helfen deine clips ungemein.dankeschön! lg und alles gute..

Merry Christmas Jan!

I've used WD40 for removing adhesive things and I've noticed that letting it soak longer generally makes it more effective. Paper type labels the WD40 soaks into quickly, mylar labels take a lot longer. generally, it slides off after soaking long enough. I don't make videos, so sometimes I let it soak for days. FYI

Nice one! I was lacking anything interesting to watch on Christmas day, and low and behold you made another video.... Perfect timing my man... Thank you! Also... Merry Christmas Jan..

9:38 I’ve done this very thing recently. Same model too!

The WD-40 you get in the US is different in composition from the one you get in germany.

My 1040stf also had that same key cap down, thought it was broken too but maybe it is for an extra key in a different region? idk

I need to watch your 1st video on this computer for the disk drive problems. I have these points: • Make sure your mech is rated for Double Density 720K disks. • If you have nothing but High Density mechs, there's a chip needing updated. I forget which one.

összerakás előtt érdemes lett volna a joy portokat újra beforrasztani, rendszerint megrepednek a forrasztásaik

Maybe it would have been more fitting to have used the music from the Atari ST version of Holiday Lemmings, it would not have sounded as good but seeing as you restored an Atari ST 🙂

Merry Christmas, Jan!

Frohe Weihnachten Jan und ein guten rutsch!

10:24 the Escape key tried to live up to its name...

Hi Jan Beta, really love your channel! And I'm really eager to start with the retrobrighting process on my C64 but I'm still a bit hesitant to do so because of the health related warnings all over the internet. Is this 12% h2o2 really that potent? How strong is the smell of the substance? Are the neighbors going to be ill when someone uses it in a densely populated area? Or can the odor be compared with cleaning vinegar? I see video's where people are advising this instead of regular bleach for cleaning so it can't be that bad can it? I would love to find a video on YT about retrobrighting focusing on this aspect as I can imagine that this is what's holding off people from actually going ahead with it... Thanks for all your videos, they are superb! edit: OK. Me being curious, I just went for it and bought all necessary equipment and started with the C64 keys. The h2o2 doesn't smell at all, doesn't sting your eyes, I did wear rubber gloves. The keys could be divided in three levels of yellowness and I stuck them on pieces of carton board using double sided tape. Then I used the cream version of the h2o2 and put the carton boards into zip bags. Those I placed in a plastic container, laid out with allu foil and placed the plant grow led device on top of it. I placed two pieces of carton board at each side to close the container off. Outside temperature 23.5 C, inside around 30. I worked wonders. It took two hours. Really cool stuff. The disk drive is next.

There should be no rubber dome in that location (second rod for return key). I had the same in my STE. And feet should be black :)

Perfect monitors

hi jan, kannste mir bitte sagen, was das fürn reiniger für potis ist den du da nimmst? danke :) ich müsst nämlich mal meine g27 pedale putzen.. warum nicht auch die potis dann reinigen :)

REALLY makes me wish I hadn't gotten rid of my 1040ST and monitor after I built my first PC.

Merry xmas /Frohe Weihnachten Jan

nice job Jan :O)

Merry Christmas, Jan! I always enjoy your restore videos, but you sounded a little unsure this time around. Make sure you're taking care of yourself as much as you're taking care of these retro machines!

Wonderful Video as Always. Noticed the taped together Amstrad MP-1 (as you know I love everything Amstrad) in a box @21:40. If you want a weird side project for a video, I think you can make them into a composite output. Can't remember where I read that... So I might be making it up.

Moin moin Jan! Did you fix the drive yet? Grüss!

I asume the Y key and the Z key is miss placed

The 1040STf came with a double sided floppy drive. The 520 STf came with a single sided one. Theoretically if it's the original drive, it's double sided.

"Let's go retrobrite, up to to the whitest white!"

Jan,48 hours for oxigen perioxide

Jan welche Lampe ist das, die zum Bleichen benutzt?

Hi Jan, please do not use the cream peroxide on case parts. It's the worst method, just try out the 12% liquid peroxide submerge methode also on bigger parts. It works like a charm if you put it in a bin into sunlight and water temperature around 50°C ... It's much better and less aggressive on the environment. And the results are much much better... I've tried this method now on about three ATARI ST and it was perfect.

what a trator cleaning a 1040STF and uv got a cbm screen on top trator

Also, the keyboard only having one rubber dome under the two plastic parts of the return key is perfectly normal - that's the way it is supposed to be and how it came from the factory. Otherwise, the key would require more force to press down. It confused me in the beginning, but later on I found out it's the same in other ST's as well.

hu: Gyárilag nincs benne az a gumi membrán. nem kell pótolni

The floppies on the ST's and Amigas were notoriously bad, and they really are a pain to fix. What makes it worse is that you can't really replace them because they were physically different then PC drives or really any other drive. You can make other drives work, but they'll never look right... If you can get the original to work, that's great.. but if not, i personally wouldn't bother considering the state of floppies these days. After endless attempts to fix mine (with Adrian repeatedly telling me to not bother), I ended up 3d printing a mount for a gotek and installed that on mine instead... especially considering NONE of my ST floppies had survived the 30 year storage anyway 😁

I still have my STE and an STFM and the FM is seriously yellowed like this, really do want to get it looking nice again :) Makes me wonder if the plastic was changed on the later models which causes them not to yellow as much as the STF/FM range

I also use a UV light to retrobright. You can't use the sun after dark/bad weather, and I don't like leaving my retro gear outside. Jan have you tried it without the box and cellophane? I used to do it that way, but I don't think the hassle is worth it. I get pretty good results. Maybe a little foil to sit on, to spread the light, but that's it. Video here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-e7h9kMDbVyg.html

So far I'm know is this not real retro brightening. To do it right you have to use hydrooxygen in combination with UV-light.

This doesn’t make the plastic extremely brittle just as is the case when leaving plastics in the sun?

How long did the retrobright process take? It must have taken hours and hours.

Have you considered using food grade or hydroponic peroxide instead? As a liquid I've found it far more consistent and lacking streaking.

Hey Jan, don't waste too much time on investigating whether the disk drive is single or double sided. 1040s were only shipped with double sided drives. Only 260s and 520 with external SF354 drives and some 520 STFMs with internal drives were shipped with single sided FDDs.

Why are the Z and Y keys in opposite places?

Jan, I need help with an Atari ST game in Hatari and was hoping you would have an idea. Wizard's Crown, and games like it, require that you make formatted disks from within the game, and Hatari fails when I try that. Do you have any idea how to get around the disk formatting issue?

I’m just about to do my keys and was wondering, do you use the peroxide neat or diluted?

It's unfortunate he didn't take the other keyboard totally apart because then he woulda seen it was missing on that too and figured out it was normal. :-(

Fröliche weihnachten Jan! Well done with the Atari, but I have to be honest, you have a dark sense of humour. Putting an Atari ST in a Microsoft authorised refurbished box? Atari is using GEM by Digital Research, you know the company that made the CP/M OS, and founded by a guy who thought that the birthday of his wife was more important than to talk with the guys from IBM about an OS for their PC's? IBM couldn't wait and talked with Bill Gates (who copied a lot of CP/M things for MS DOS) and the rest is history. But putting a thing which is running a Digital Research OS in a Microsoft box is dark Jan very very dark :P

43:13 Not true. I have over a dozen Atari ST computers and NONE have white feet. They are all black. So you are good!

ah wd-40 the part of the video I can always smell. hahahaha

Can the cpus on them Ataris be upgraded I ask because I've never used or own one before.