The Yorky 256K Upgrade review - By Dean Garraghty
(c)1993 Dean Garraghty
Please Note: This article was written in 1993. Since then, Richard no longer has the parts to make any more Yorky boxes. There may be some second user Yorkys kicking around, so this article may still be of use.
Many years ago in the good 'ol days of the Atari 8-bit, there was a product available called the Yorky upgrade for the 800XL. This upgrade gave the 800XL 256K of RAM without you even having to open up the computer. It did this by plugging into the 800XL's PBI socket. When the Atari started becoming a minority computer, the Yorky upgrade disappeared. Or at least until earlier this year, when some investigative research by Richard Gore paid off.
Richard is a student at York university, and he managed to find out that the Yorky upgrade was designed and sold by a lecturer in York. A bit more poking around, and he found that lecturer!
He also discovered that the guy has some parts left. Enough, in fact, to make a few complete units. He also has about 20 circuit boards ready for more to be made up.
OK, so that's the history, now some details. Richard brought me one to review one sunny Sunday afternoon in June! Here's what I found.
Cosmetics
The Yorky upgrade is a large grey box with 2 cables coming out of it, along with a switch. One cable is a ribbon cable to plug into the 800XL. The other is a power cable. The Yorky box needs power, so you actually plug your 800XL power supply into the Yorky box, and the power cable from the box into your 800XL. You then have to leave the 800XL's on/off switch permanently on. This is because you use the switch on the box to turn the computer on and off.
Fitting
One nice thing about the Yorky upgrade is that you don't have to open up your 800XL or do any soldering. The box just plugs in the back of the 800XL. However, we had terrible difficulty in fitting one to my 800XL. It is very fiddly trying to get the cable into the PBI socket. Too much pressure would run the risk of damaging the cable or the computer. We had to bend the metal clasps above and below the PBI socket very slightly in order to get the cable to fit. But, once the box is in there is no need to remove it again.
Usage
The switch on the box is more than an on/off switch. It's actually a 3-way switch. In the middle the computer is off. Push up for a standard 64K 800XL, and push down for a 256K 800XL. The 256K mode is Newell compatible.
Software
As well as the box, you also get a disk of software supplied. The Yorky Support Disk contains a digi demo of ALF but using all 256K. You also get the 256K version of the MTOS software. You also get a graphics demo using page flips, and some other bits to take advantage of the extra RAM. This support disk is also available in the PD from me as PD164. It is also useful if you have a 256K machine but not using Yorky.
Manual
You also get a nicely laid out manual, which describes how to fit and use the Yorky upgrade. The manual is nicely put together, but I spotted a few spelling and grammatical mistakes!
Compatibility
The Yorky upgrade works with any software for 128K or 256K+ machines. However, it is not fully 130XE compatible when using Antic mode. This may affect the running of some demos, but not likely anything else. But, there is a way to make Yorky 130XE compatible, but this involves opening up your machine and doing some soldering.
The Yorky upgrade works fine with SuperDos 5.x, where you get a massive RAMdisk! It also works with SpartaDos 3.2d, but my SpartaDos X cartridge refused to acknowledge it! It also works OK with the Happy software. MyDos also works OK with it.
Conclusions
The Yorky upgrade is great for those who want a 256K machine without the need to open up their computer and start hacking it with a soldering iron!
Originally published in The Atari 8-bit News-Paper.
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