Here is some help for all you guys that want a decent drive to put 
into your ATARI either to replace a broken (dependable ATARI) 
drive or as an after market item to replace that overweight RF 
transmitting piece of dog snot ATARI calls a drive.

I'm not bitter it's just that I had (let me emphasize... had) an 
ATARI dealership at one time which ATARI has successfully 
emasculated with all their love and support.  As a matter of fact 
ATARI says they are just signing dealers right and left... is that 
why there are only two dealers left in the entire state of Utah 
that still actually sell ATARI hardware?

Anyway back to the drive.  You can put a nice bullet-proof TEAC 
drive in you computer one hell-of-allot cheaper than you can (or 
you dear can buy an ATARI boat anchor drive).  Your cost will be 
only $57.00 give or take a buck or two plus the shipping if you 
mail order (your dealer pays $135.00 for ATARI drive mechanisms... 
that's "Power without the price"???).

You can order these little beauties from several outlets listed in 
Computer Shopper or Byte or about any IBM oriented magazine.  
Shop the adds a little you should not have to pay more the $55 to 
$60.  Ask specifically for a TEAC 720K floppy drive (model FD235F 
if you really want to impress the salesman).

When you receive the drive all you have to do is pull the RDY 
jumpers from the drive and move the drive select jumper from D1 to 
D0.  Then you turn the drive over, heat up the old soldering iron 
and lift the inner tab on the high density select sensor box in the 
front left corner (check out the rad' DEGAS diagrams with this 
file on where to find these).

Now pop this drive into your 1040 or MEGA and fly.  On a 1040 you 
will have to flip the ribbon header over when you plug it to the 
drive.  ATARI couldn't even get the right way.  If you do plug in 
the drive and it doesn't work don't blow your kool.  Just flip the 
cable over and try it again.  It will go.

The only thing you have to be concerned about is that you do not 
cross plug the power connector.  The TEAC drive only requires 5 
volts to run.  Not an entire hydro generating facility like the 
ATARI drives.  Want to hear another funny?  ATARI put that same 
power sucking magnetic media spinner in STACY and they couldn't 
figure out why STACY eats batteries... can they add 2+2?  If you 
want to be really safe clip the 12 volt line on the ATARI drive 
plug.  That's the BLUE wire going to your drive (why not yellow 
like everybody else) that will keep the volt killers away.

You will have to either put spacers under the drive in the older 
1040's to bring these beauties up to height (ATARI fat drive 
syndrome) or do what I do.  Just remove some of the plastic stock 
from the lower portion of the case.  Cut a rectangle out with the 
bottom edge at about the bottom of where the old drive button was.

A little side note... these drives will step out to 83 tracks with 
no problem.  And if you have a hard drive that you boot from then 
you know how annoying it is when the drive A light stays on all 
the time (I wonder how long ATARI engineers had to stay up at 
night to figure out how to make a drive do that) the TEAC drive 
activity light turns off on its own.

There you have it. Have fun.  Course if you screw up doing this I 
will disavow any knowledge of your actions Mr. Phelps.  That's my 
disclaimer line.  You should feel quite comfortable though.  I 
have installed these drives in ALL of my machines and sold them to 
a bunch of others and have yet to have one fail (OK, I had one 
factory defect) but the rest are running like champs.

If you want to do this to your machine or have any questions feel 
free to call and I'll give you all the technical and moral 
support you need.  And allot more sympathy than ATARI's phone mail 
system... what a piece of sh_t that is.

Brad Bradley
Box 20
Manti, Utah  84642
(801)835-8441
Email:  BBRADLEY

PS:  If you put one of these in and it works, well, if you want to 
chip $5.00 for the info I won't be offended.  This is for you to 
enjoy your ATARI as much as possible cause if you got one ATARI 
aint gone bend over backwards to help you out and somebodies 
gotta.