Piotr D. Kaczorowski

There are several ways to approach this... I won't insist that NCR has 4Mhz. In my opinion, and that of a few others, it definitely heats up less and that's the most important thing. If we want to test how fast it can run, we can probably do that too.

Well... hard to say... It has "C" at the and as well. In fact temperature is much lower. I could check if it works stable at 4 Mhz You can also consider next chip: Either way, it can be seen that at that time, the manufacturers of 6502 processors were also producing processors with a 4 MHz frequency. They exhibit less heating and more stable operation.

https://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/650x/MANUF-NCR.html And that's fantastic! WDC sells two versions of PIA. Both are produced using new technologies. One of the versions is signal-compatible with NMOS, but inside there is no NMOS, of course :)))

I believe this is very good news because converting Atari to a "modern" Atari, equipped with VBXE, additional memory, or a faster processor and Fujinet card, will extend its life. If this doesn't happen, we will be relegated to neo-replicas, which I am personally not a fan of, as they are not a space for designers of new hardware.

To be honest, it seems unnecessary to me, as Atari is not airtight anyway, and if you look at the cartridge/eci port or PBI, it's a place where a lot of dust can get into Atari. I treat this topic somewhat as a decoration, although it may turn out to be part of the mechanical protection of the socket against damage. Such a decorative element is rather the last phase of preparing the device. Currently, I also don't have a 3D printer, and as a so-called "functioning perfectionist," if I buy one, it will probably be a top-of-the-line model, and the costs will be added to the product, so... I need to check to what extent this makes sense in terms of mechanical safety, incurred design/production costs, and how it will relate to the final product price. Despite everything, I confirm that this topic will be considered.

Well, indeed, over the years VBXE was perceived more as a card for Atari for the European market, since it was suggested to connect monitors and televisions with Euro SCART. What's more, no other proposition was presented other than cutting the casing. That changed in December 2022 when the SAVO board - (Sega) Saturn Atari Video Output, developed by me, appeared on the market.

I'm using THT (Through-Hole Technology) for mounting Sega Saturn sockets on SAVO. I will do the same with Micro HDMI.

The SAVO and HAVO cards are compatible with the RGB signal from VBXE. The VBXE card, as the standard video for modern Atari, is required.

HAVO will provide video + audio over HDMI. Resolutions: 720p/50/60 and 1080p/50/60.

Actually, here in Poland, when @xxl writes a game, his best friends from Atari Demo Scene legally convert it to be compatible with U1MB and distribute legal patches... What can I say? It's like kids...

Heh... Sure... My friends and I had a Turbo Freezer in the early '90s, but now, more people use Altirra to hack the Atari. As I wrote earlier... 1. I don't think that a new update to U1MB for FPGA, adding those 2KB, will appear now. 2. There are enough U1MBs on the market to consider it a standard - definitely more than the Freezer. 3. If someone has 1088 KB, then 2KB is of little importance to them. 4. A developer should take market conditions into account, and if they are introducing a product to the market, it should be compatible with popular solutions. If you start a statement with 'you are wrong as usual,' you undermine what you write next, because it's already untrue from the outset.

HAVO - (Micro) HDMI Atari Video Output - the project is already in the testing phase. HDMI licensing issues have been secured. The product will be available in the fall of 2023. More information is planned to be presented in the second half of September.

HAVO - (Micro) HDMI Atari Video Output - the project is already in the testing phase. HDMI licensing issues have been secured. The product will be available in the fall of 2023. More information is planned to be presented in the second half of September 2023.

1. W65C21N6TPG-14 works, because it is 14Mhz NMOS PIA by WDC. In addition to this, since it is designed in the current (new) technology, it surely reduces the parasitic capacitance on the BO2 line. The Atari will be more stable. 2. Replace "red" with 470R and remove "blue". 1. The change will not affect stability, as the 3.5MHz clock will still be divided further into 1.7MHz. 2. The signal will be a little less square (not as sharp as CMOS), which will result in it introducing less interference. Why? Because in the Fourier series, a square signal is an infinite number of sines (sine, half-sine, one-quarter sine, one-eighth, etc.), so it has a broad spectrum that can interfere with other circuits. If you reduce this squareness, you will have less noise distributed across the board. Remember, this square has a peak-to-peak of 5V or more, not 3.3V or 1.8V as in newer circuits.

I grew up (since 1986) programming Atari, but I've matured. I finished a very good mathematical school and studies (Computer Science, Automation, Electronics at Warsaw University of Technology). Until the late '90s, we had the "art of programming." Since 1997, with the introduction of the Java language and UML, we have been dealing with software engineering - so for over a quarter of a century now. Maybe it's time for others to grow up too and understand what software design patterns are, because even though we use retro computers, that's what it's all about. If someone wants to create applications for Atari: - If they have a stock machine with 64KB, they can do whatever they want. - If they have a stock machine with 64KB and want even more memory, they can create a cartridge version that will have additional memory banks. - If they have a stock machine with 64KB and want even more memory, and don't want a cartridge version, they can make a floppy disk version. - If they want the application to run on modern Atari with popular extensions, they should compile (or develop a version of) the application that will not take MapRAM into account, and will include an additional 1024 KB of memory. Creating an application that uses MapRAM, and not allowing the market to have an application that will work on the popular Ultimate1MB, is simply talking nonsense and trolling. IDE Plus works well with Ultimate 1MB. Hahaha... How do you want to call it? Escape into childhood or away from wives? You can believe what you want, but this is definitely the IT world. The truth is that we also have many hobbyists and very talented people here, but without design patterns, designing software or hardware only causes frustration, and that for years. Perhaps if Candle had approached the subject more from a project perspective, there wouldn't even be a topic of compatibility with MapRAM, as it would have been taken into account. At the moment, however, the situation is that he didn't take it into account, and another principle comes into play. What counts now is not engineering, but mass product and its availability. Maybe it's worth doing a Kickstarter then, gathering those tens of thousands of dollars for R&D, and developing a newer version of Ultimate1MB. But seriously. There is much more dark matter in the universe than what we know, yet we ignore dark matter on a daily basis. Here you talk about a mass of hardware that lies in closets and attics, or is turned on for two hours during family Christmas meetings. Active users use popular extensions. Sure. I understand and respect that. Many people also have several Atari computers. Some are stock machines, and some are extended. I'll remind you that the subject of the entire discussion is MapRAM. 40 years ago, nobody probably made a fuss about this address space. Today, there is a fuss about 2KB when there are extensions on the market that provide an additional 1MB of memory. So maybe there's no need to make a fuss, no need to push hardware developers to add changes, and no need to persuade thousands of users to do a special update. It's enough to write software in such a way that you can use a flag or directive during compilation and build two versions. This is entirely normal, and everything else is pathetic trolling of others. In conclusion, I'll add that one can spend many years discussing why people mainly use the memory extension in the RAMBO profile, when Atari itself in the 130XE model introduced a profile that we today call Compy Shop. Nobody makes an issue out of this, because there aren't two personalities trying to promote themselves through such a conflict.

Sure. Both of them are modern complex devices that use PBI technology. I'll emphasize that in the case of U1MB and AVG users, MapRAM only appears if some oddity brings up the topic of 2KB out of 1088KB available again. Which amuses me greatly. The number of users of these devices is currently negligible.

Dear All, 1. If you don't want to have problems, choose NCR. These processors have a 4MHz specification. 2. If you have many internal extensions and external add-ons, forget about 74F08 - it's not about the speed of the gate, but problems with the parasitic capacitance of the BO2 signal line. Use more O2/Fixer, which I've been working on, and is already available from Lotharek. 3. If you don't want to have interference, then: - replace 470uF with 1000uF low esr (or polymer super low esr) - just like in Atari XEGS - replace all 22uF with new ones - replace DRAM with SRAM - insert VBXE and remove Freddie and connect on the XE board 3.5Mhz with VBXE - replace PIA with new NMOS WDC PIA - on the XE board, you can replace the ferrite bead and capacitor with 470R - XE board variant - then the clock signal will be more rickety.

Sure. It's great that everyone is doing something. For now, the facts are: 1. I have a stack of things at home for Candle: several VBXEs, several U1MBs, a few SpectreAVs - among them 2 VBXEs, 2 U1MBs, 1 SIDE3.1, 1 SpectreAV - these belong to me. 2. The number of VBXEs and U1MBs on the market is several thousand copies. 3. I have one thing from Simius. I don't use Sophia 2, but it's in my desk for testing. 4. I have one thing from TMP - it's the AVG cart. It's very good, but I use SIDE3.1 with U1MB. 5. I don't have anything from XXL. Other than hearing that he wrote some games, I simply don't have anything that he made. 6. How many real PBI devices are there and how many people have them? Not many... So... having been in the IT world for several decades, I choose popular things, not some ideologically correct or something.. I take the MapRam story with a laugh.

I agree with you. To be honest, I even prefer the screen aspect ratio, and 60Hz makes the image smoother. I'm trying to find contact with the authors of VBXE, who might also recompile the cores to have the NTSC palette right away.

I catch myself thinking locally. Right. If we take the whole world into account, then 48KB... should be enough for everyone

As someone who has recently entered the community, I can only say that I've met Candle (who also lives in Warsaw like me), and he is a brilliant personality with vast knowledge. Like all of us, he has his private and business life, successes, and failures. Let's remember that he designed the U1MB, SIDE, and probably a few other things. While working on new projects, it's hard to fend off attacks from users if the projects have such wide distribution. I disagree with the assertion that U1MB introduces incompatibility. In Atari 8-bit, compatibility essentially ends at 64KB. Some may speak of a standard for 128KB, which was introduced by 130XE. All other extensions are third parties, and developers should care about creating software for the largest number of computers/devices. U1MB is one such extension, and it has its pros and cons. The thread about the 2KB out of 1088KB has been going on for several years... I admire that people have so much time for this... Can someone design a badge with the inscription MapRAM OUTSIDE? I'll stick it on the U1MB in my Atari

Since I returned to Atari only in 2020, it seems I've missed out on a lot. Unfortunately, stirring up pointless sh*tst*rm in Poland is practically a national trait, or perhaps we do it for sport. One of the amusing stories is that a game was written that specifically doesn't work on U1MB and uses MAPRAM. Talented programmers immediately made a fix, which reportedly caused another storm. The truth is that, of course, one cannot distribute a modified version of the game, but what are entirely legal are: 1. the distribution of a patch that modifies the original product, and 2. running this patch by a person who legally possesses the original product that doesn't work with their computer, and the author does not provide a solution that corrects this situation.

As can be seen in the picture (but everyone in Poland knows this too) you have a unique version of Antonia with a 6502C processor, not a 65C816. It's nice to have 4MB, but in reality, it's known that only in linear access in 16-bit mode does this make more sense, unless you're using it during development. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to talk in person, although some time ago I spoke quite a bit with your brother Rafal about the game Tony. For several months, I've been working on various extensions for Atari. As for MAPRAM, I know that it is available in Antonia. I talked about it with Candle, who, as is known, is also capricious and takes personal matters related to his projects seriously, and it's not always the case that he's right. Nevertheless, I believe that those 2KB, which let's be honest are a certain addition not resulting from Atari standards, could stop being a bone of contention. A large number of people have Ultimate 1MB, and there are probably thousands of them currently (what it does is an unofficial standard), so it would be bad to create software that will have a problem with those 2KB of memory. As I understand it, Candle keeps the U1MB settings in this area. I don't know whether it's due to time constraints, hardware limitations, financial restrictions, or testing time issues, but it may not be possible to create a U1MB that could provide those additional 2KB. So perhaps it would be worthwhile to respect popular technology and focus on other more interesting things. As you know, we say locally here, 'Is this really what Atari wanted?'

On the Atari 8-bit Computers group on Facebook, you can see more positive implementations of O2/Fixer

I hadn't thought about that. Although it might be easier than a keyboard and joystick/pad/mouse, since those devices use the HID profile.