PBI’s ECI’s, 800 expander port and XE Mobo’s

[sup8pdct]

I also have a PBI experimenters board. It has a decoding chip, 6520 and some dip switches to change the address where the 6520 appears in memory

and a small power supply. it has a proto area and provision for a 25 pin socket.

I have used this to interface to a judging box along with a cart that I programmed.

 

James

 

James,

 

Sounds like the same one I have. Wasn't it made by some company called MicroXL or something. It's been so long since I looked at it. I tried to interface a GI AY-3-8910 programmable sound generator with mine. Never did work out bugs in it. But I still have it in my mess of stuff. It definitely was a neat board for those who wanted to experiement with the PBI connector and build their own PBI devices.

 

One thing I did build some years later was a Nintendo development board interface. It was based on plans ordered out of Nuts and Volts magazine. The plans were based on a C-64 interface and I adapted it to use the two joystick connectors on the 800XL to communicate with the Nintendo. Other than going as far as building it and getting it to work, I didn't do anything else with it.

 

Glenn

 

Glenn.

 

I dug out mine and took a pic

 

 

As you can see, it is a microport xl made by MPP © 1984

Maybe the first available PBI device? tho not a real device as one would call it.

I'm not going to show the underside as it is a rats nest of wires.

The 3 74LS244 chips buffer the 6821 lines to protect the Pia.

The small 8 pin chip, I found in a trs-80 and it drove a reed switch in a coil also from the trs-80.

It broke about 6 years ago and I replaced it with a 5V reed relay in that D31A3100.

The 9 resistors are there to make sure the 9 input lines are pulled to 0v when they are low which is the default state.

power for the board comes in via the 25pin sub D.

It is used to interface to 3 hand pieces and a number display build in the early 70's.

the control program gets the 3 numbers, adds them and displays the result.

The real good bit is the stats also kept by the program for the application this is used for.

I got it from Best electronics

 

James

[bobkat2769]

Ha! I like the "White Ink Printer", that's as good as the user who thought that the CD-ROM tray was to hold a Styrofoam coffee cup, and the other user who thought that the mouse was a foot-switch pedal, like on a sewing machine!

= )

 

Funny you should mention that. =^.^=;;

 

I have an old Kraft trackball for the PC that you can hook an optional foot pedal to it for the primary mouse button.

 

This trackball also has a locking primary mouse button in between the left and right buttons and in front of the middle button. Coolest trackball I've ever had. Not sure where the pedal has wandered off to as it's not in the rodent box where it belongs. I suspect that it's in another box with the ISDN modem and other assorted 90-93 era PC components are in.

 

But if anyone wants to see this strange beast I can track the pedal down and post some pix of it.

 

BobKat

[atarifan49]

As you can see, it is a microport xl made by MPP © 1984

Maybe the first available PBI device? tho not a real device as one would call it.

I'm not going to show the underside as it is a rats nest of wires.

The 3 74LS244 chips buffer the 6821 lines to protect the Pia.

The small 8 pin chip, I found in a trs-80 and it drove a reed switch in a coil also from the trs-80.

It broke about 6 years ago and I replaced it with a 5V reed relay in that D31A3100.

The 9 resistors are there to make sure the 9 input lines are pulled to 0v when they are low which is the default state.

power for the board comes in via the 25pin sub D.

It is used to interface to 3 hand pieces and a number display build in the early 70's.

the control program gets the 3 numbers, adds them and displays the result.

The real good bit is the stats also kept by the program for the application this is used for.

I got it from Best electronics

 

James

 

That's it. I'm currently in Colorado visiting with family. But when I get back home I'll have to take a picture of mine. I think I got mine from Best Electronics also.

 

Glenn

[UNIXcoffee928]

I happened upon my original 3-Ring binder of the Hardware Manual, including the 400 & 800 schematics, today.

 

The first thing to take note of, with regard to the card edge connector in these machines, is that the pinouts are different. The 400 & 800 don't appear to have the same pinouts, based on the original Atari schematics.

 

I then took a look at the schematics prepared by Jerzy Sobola, which are floating around the web somewhere, on a Polish site. The test points for the 800 (page 1) are not labeled on his drawing. Page 1 of the 400 is, but I haven't cross-checked it with the Hardware Manual yet. Page 2 on the Sobola schematics lists the test points on both the 400 & the 800 as being identical. In the Atari manual, they are not represented as being identical.

 

A great deal of signals are accessible on the card edge connector on both machines. I'll have to get a magnifying glass to decipher the tiny blotchy print, then type them out. Not doing it right now though.

 

I would hazard a guess that these "Test Points" ended up as the basis for a good portion of the later expansion buses. Once I do type it out, I'll do a comparison graphic for the 400/800/XL/XE buses; should be useful for future hardware interfacing projects.

 

 

L8R.