Task: Replace Rubber Feet
Needed: New Rubber Feet
Time: 5-10 minutes
Introduction
I have had several problems with the little rubber feet on the bottom of Atari hardware. First, some of the feet degrade over time and the chemicals damage the finish on my desk where I do a lot of Atari work (see photo below). This is really annoying. I have noticed that it tends to happen with some of the later hardware such as the 1050 floppy drive. I have not had any problems with the 400/800 series of computers or the 810 disk disk drives. Second, it is not uncommon to receive hardware with one of more of the rubber feet missing. These issues led me to seek out and purchase new feet. The good news is that these are readily available.
Instructions
3M makes new rubber feet. These are available in sheets of 50 of more from different sellers on Amazon. I remove my feet with a very small flat-head screwdriver. Note that some pop right off and others require some work.
Comments
This size of rubber padding was used on numerous pieces of Atari hardware. I have replaced feet on items ranging from the 1200XL and 130XE to the 1050 floppy drive (shown below) and the 850 interface module. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to fit my three 800XLs. The 800XLs come with a smaller size pad. I suppose it might be possible to remove those and place the bigger one over the hole such that the adhesive sticks to the case around the hole. I haven’t tried this and am not sure how secure they will be. Let me know if you have another solution for the 800XL.
