What hardware should I look out for?

[atariksi]

Yeah its direct plug in.. no it doesn't require soldering.. Its an MIO... as in the ICD Multi I/O PBI device.. The ram is kept alive by a separate power supply, so you can even boot from it..

 

Sounds cool, but in this project I'm reading 1K data at a time upto several megabytes so memory window size has to be at least 1K. Is your memory window size configurable?

[mimo]

Back to my question of hardware. Is a 65xe suitable for my needs? pretty much 100% compatible with 800xl?

 

 

Pete

Yes, totally compatible with the 800xl, but added advantage of s-video being available out of the box.

As for the keyboards, compared with many modern PC keyboards, the xe is pretty good IMO

Edited August 7, 2009 by mimo

[Beetle]

I use a 512k SRAM extension in my a8 machines. My 1250XLD has that 512k uprade modded for 1M. Works nice (but in 1MB mode i lose Atari-basic).

 

Memory expansions on a8 work by replacing a 16k block of the base 64k memory with the selected 16k bank of the mem-upgrade. You can easily select the bank you want. In case the extended memory is used as a ramdisk, DOS does the work automagically.

 

Yes, all XL and XE machines are compatible. The 1200XL and the XE Game System have no parallel expansion port (for connecting the TurboFreezer, MIO or a BlackBox).

 

A 16k 600XL can very easy be converted to 64k (replace 2 chips and solder 3 wires)

and is fully compatible machine also (but with nice small footprint). Note most US 600XL have the better of the XL keyboards (there were several different versions). US 600XL also lack the monitor jack (upgrade kits are available at best electronics).

 

Which machine is best for you? It depends on what you wanna do with it.

 

- classic games, textwork: any 48k will do. Only very little games need 64k

- almost any game, more demos: any 64k machine will do.

- almost any game, a lot of demos: a 128k XL/XE like the 130XE. Probably best solution if you don't know how to solder stuff

- classic games, but also the newest ports from other platforms and demos that kick ass: a PAL XL/XE with 256k expansion (or more) and Stereo Pokey upgrade

- Editing digital music with neotracker: XL/XE with 1088k, Stereo Pokey and COVOX

 

 

Or are you an early adopter? There are some very exiting upgrades in the works, that extend the abilities of our machines. Those machines will probably suffer from growing incompatibility to classic software. I don't need to explain those here, just search for them here in the forums. I don't recommend doing this upgrades to your main Atari 8-bit. But if you have a second one you might be tempted to convert it to a Frankentari

 

 

65816 @ 7.16 MHz CPU upgrade (Speed up your code)

VideoBoardXE (expand a8 GFX abilities a lot, runs in XL too)

SoundBoard (upgrade Audio to PC Soundcard - level)

[atariksi]

I use a 512k SRAM extension in my a8 machines. My 1250XLD has that 512k uprade modded for 1M. Works nice (but in 1MB mode i lose Atari-basic).

 

Memory expansions on a8 work by replacing a 16k block of the base 64k memory with the selected 16k bank of the mem-upgrade. You can easily select the bank you want. In case the extended memory is used as a ramdisk, DOS does the work automagically.

 

Yes, all XL and XE machines are compatible. The 1200XL and the XE Game System have no parallel expansion port (for connecting the TurboFreezer, MIO or a BlackBox).

 

A 16k 600XL can very easy be converted to 64k (replace 2 chips and solder 3 wires)

and is fully compatible machine also (but with nice small footprint). Note most US 600XL have the better of the XL keyboards (there were several different versions). US 600XL also lack the monitor jack (upgrade kits are available at best electronics).

 

Which machine is best for you? It depends on what you wanna do with it.

 

- classic games, textwork: any 48k will do. Only very little games need 64k

- almost any game, more demos: any 64k machine will do.

- almost any game, a lot of demos: a 128k XL/XE like the 130XE. Probably best solution if you don't know how to solder stuff

- classic games, but also the newest ports from other platforms and demos that kick ass: a PAL XL/XE with 256k expansion (or more) and Stereo Pokey upgrade

- Editing digital music with neotracker: XL/XE with 1088k, Stereo Pokey and COVOX

 

 

Or are you an early adopter? There are some very exiting upgrades in the works, that extend the abilities of our machines. Those machines will probably suffer from growing incompatibility to classic software. I don't need to explain those here, just search for them here in the forums. I don't recommend doing this upgrades to your main Atari 8-bit. But if you have a second one you might be tempted to convert it to a Frankentari

 

 

65816 @ 7.16 MHz CPU upgrade (Speed up your code)

VideoBoardXE (expand a8 GFX abilities a lot, runs in XL too)

SoundBoard (upgrade Audio to PC Soundcard - level)

 

 

 

--------------------

Reality is the place where the pizza guy comes from.

 

1500XL: not yet fully finished but already usable Laptop in XL series design, CF card reader, S-Video,

. . . . . 14,1" LCD screen, 4x OS, 576k (512k SRAM), battery powered, internal fast charger, Stereo upgrade

800XL: 576k (512k SRAM), 4x OS, Stereo upgrade, internal Turbofreezer 2005,

. . . . . internal SIO2PC, internal SIO2SD /w Display, GTIA keyclickspeaker, s-video, Scart, german keyboard

1001: CF card reader SIO2IDE based

1250XLD : 1088k (1024k SRAM) 4xOS, 4x Basic (Compyshop Ramtest / XRAMtest 0.21 / Galaxian / Basic C),

. . . . . internal SIO2PC, Clearpic 2002, B.Wooley PBI mod, internal CSS Blackbox w. 3.5" and 5.25" FD,

. . . . . SCSI HD 540 MB, internal switching power supply, Stereo upgrade

 

You have the schematic/URL for the GTIA keyclickspeaker upgrade for 800XL?

 

I would prefer 800XL with internal speaker for all audio if that's easily doable.

[MEtalGuy66]

Yeah its direct plug in.. no it doesn't require soldering.. Its an MIO... as in the ICD Multi I/O PBI device.. The ram is kept alive by a separate power supply, so you can even boot from it..

 

Sounds cool, but in this project I'm reading 1K data at a time upto several megabytes so memory window size has to be at least 1K. Is your memory window size configurable?

 

No.. Memory window size is 256bytes. The banking register is 16bits wide.. So its 65536 banks of 256 bytes each.. This makes it particularly well suited to disk-emulation/DOS-handler type appilcations..as well as anything that manipulates standard dos storage devices. You asked for a "RAM drive".

 

We also have a design concept for an internal 16meg expansion (for the 130xe) that uses a separate additional 8-bit bank-select register "under" the PIA shadow-adress space and gives you effectively 1024 banks of 16k each, and is thus 100% compatable with the 130xe, as it does not use any additional PIA PORTB bits for bank select. It uses a 16meg 30pin SIMM and a CPLD and consists of 2 small PCBs connected by a ribbon cable. .. one sits under the PIA chip, and a second one sits under the Freddy. I started building a prototype for it, but we put it on the "back-burner" in favor of MIO development..