RevEng Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Congrats on making hackaday LE! Unity looks totally sweet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brojamfootball Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 Very nice work - I like the way it works together with the Harmony cart. If you are doing another prototype, you could integrate the Harmony cart directly - either with or without the cart port? This would keep it to a nice portable form factor. I suspect batari would share the schematic with you for this purpose. It only requires 3 chips (ARM, EEPROM, and FTDI232) and a few passives, although the ARM is surface-mount, which would make it a bit more complex to assemble. Chris Just take the guts of the harmony cart and wire it directly to the cart slot connections on unity's pcb. Leave access to harmony's USB port directly or extend via a few wires. Sounds pretty good to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 26, 2010 Author Share Posted January 26, 2010 Very nice work - I like the way it works together with the Harmony cart. If you are doing another prototype, you could integrate the Harmony cart directly - either with or without the cart port? This would keep it to a nice portable form factor. I suspect batari would share the schematic with you for this purpose. It only requires 3 chips (ARM, EEPROM, and FTDI232) and a few passives, although the ARM is surface-mount, which would make it a bit more complex to assemble. Chris Just take the guts of the harmony cart and wire it directly to the cart slot connections on unity's pcb. Leave access to harmony's USB port directly or extend via a few wires. Sounds pretty good to me. This prototype is going to be that exactly. I have two of these PCBs. Both will be prototypes. The first one will have a harmony cart integrated. The second one will have a normal cart slot. The Harmony will be bought directly from the store as I don't want to steal others work (and I <3 the harmony cart so much) As for case design. Well yall will freak out when you see it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cd-w Posted January 26, 2010 Share Posted January 26, 2010 This prototype is going to be that exactly. I have two of these PCBs. Both will be prototypes. The first one will have a harmony cart integrated. The second one will have a normal cart slot. The Harmony will be bought directly from the store as I don't want to steal others work (and I <3 the harmony cart so much) As for case design. Well yall will freak out when you see it. I actually meant a new Unity PCB containing the Harmony circuitry directly - it wouldn't be stealing if you ask I'm happy for you to use the Harmony SD driver software that I wrote - batari would need to give the OK on the hardware side. Looking forward to seeing the case design. Chris Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pioneer4x4 Posted January 27, 2010 Share Posted January 27, 2010 Very impressive! How is battery life with that old high current ICUs? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 27, 2010 Author Share Posted January 27, 2010 Very impressive! How is battery life with that old high current ICUs? The whole thing including the screen and sound at max running the harmony cart...around .9amps at 3.7V (voltage for a single lithium cell). Not that bad. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pioneer4x4 Posted January 28, 2010 Share Posted January 28, 2010 Very impressive! How is battery life with that old high current ICUs? The whole thing including the screen and sound at max running the harmony cart...around .9amps at 3.7V (voltage for a single lithium cell). Not that bad. Not bad at all, 2-3 hours from good 3xNiMh AAAs if used. Off the top of my head, not sure how much MAH lithiums have. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 28, 2010 Author Share Posted January 28, 2010 its going to have built in lithium around 4000mAh worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carpenter Posted January 28, 2010 Share Posted January 28, 2010 its going to have built in lithium around 4000mAh worth. I wish someday we will have TIA and RIOT available in low power chips. We could build something really portable. Again, great project, Parker. As I said in the past, you have the spirit of a real engineer. If you need help, shout out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 29, 2010 Author Share Posted January 29, 2010 its going to have built in lithium around 4000mAh worth. I wish someday we will have TIA and RIOT available in low power chips. We could build something really portable. Again, great project, Parker. As I said in the past, you have the spirit of a real engineer. If you need help, shout out! Yah the chips are NMOS (N gate type) I think instead of modern CMOS. You could FPGA the whole thing. The 6502 FPGA is pretty much perfect. The TIA and RIOT..I don't know if someone has done a 100% accurate one but I bet you could. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted January 29, 2010 Share Posted January 29, 2010 Nice job, reminds me of what Kevin Horton did with the 5200 back about 8 years ago - http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/5200jr/index.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 29, 2010 Author Share Posted January 29, 2010 Actually there are plans (and a partial PCB design) of a 5200 portable. Just need the time (and money) to finish it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted January 29, 2010 Share Posted January 29, 2010 Yah the chips are NMOS (N gate type) I think instead of modern CMOS. You could FPGA the whole thing. The 6502 FPGA is pretty much perfect. The TIA and RIOT..I don't know if someone has done a 100% accurate one but I bet you could. The FB2 was done in FPGA for testing/design first, as well as the improved version of our chip that Curt did in Xilinx FPGA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 29, 2010 Author Share Posted January 29, 2010 Curt also probably has access to the design sheets of the TIA and RIOT as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retro Rogue Posted January 29, 2010 Share Posted January 29, 2010 Curt also probably has access to the design sheets of the TIA and RIOT as well But of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tetrode kink Posted January 29, 2010 Share Posted January 29, 2010 (edited) Very impressive! How is battery life with that old high current ICUs? The whole thing including the screen and sound at max running the harmony cart...around .9amps at 3.7V (voltage for a single lithium cell). Not that bad. Not bad at all, 2-3 hours from good 3xNiMh AAAs if used. Off the top of my head, not sure how much MAH lithiums have. Wow, I thought those old chips needed 5V to operate reliably. How low can you go on the voltage before it starts to fizzle? Pioneer4x4, are they making 2000-3000mAh NiMH AAA's now? I know AA's are up there, but last time I checked, AAA NiMH wasn't anywhere near that level. There may be a problem with using NiMH. During discharge, once a cell gets down to 1V it should not be discharged any further, for danger of shortening its useful life. Devices that were made from the start to use NiMH cut off at 1V per cell, i.e. 4V in a four-cell system, 6V in a six-cell system, etc. Longhorn, is there a provision for this on your new board? If not, using three NiMH cells might be OK if the reliable operational voltage of the system doesn't go much below 3V. If you used four cells, considering it will operate at 3.7, one might find themselves replacing their cells more often than expected. I'm less familiar with Li-Ion, but considering how volatile Li-Ion is (very intolerant of out-of-range conditions etc.), I would guess low-voltage cutoff would be built in to those cells if it's necessary. -tet Edited January 29, 2010 by tetrode kink Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted January 29, 2010 Author Share Posted January 29, 2010 The board has a built in converter that boosts the voltage to the needed 5V. The lithium batteries have to be paired with a protection PCB as this is not included on the board. They are like $2 to buy one on batterysupply so I am not to worried about that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carpenter Posted January 29, 2010 Share Posted January 29, 2010 its going to have built in lithium around 4000mAh worth. I wish someday we will have TIA and RIOT available in low power chips. We could build something really portable. Again, great project, Parker. As I said in the past, you have the spirit of a real engineer. If you need help, shout out! Yah the chips are NMOS (N gate type) I think instead of modern CMOS. You could FPGA the whole thing. The 6502 FPGA is pretty much perfect. The TIA and RIOT..I don't know if someone has done a 100% accurate one but I bet you could. There are tools that can translate C code to VHDL. I have used them to implement digital AGC in HW for a high end comm system (HDTV demodulator) and in that time (2006) they did a quite good job. They are not perfect tools but I believe it is possible, for example, to adapt Stella emulator code to compile on Impulse or Celoxica suites. The VHDL code generated is not optmized, of course, and timming issues would have to be debbuged but it would be a proof of concept. Once working fine, all code could be rewritten (or not) to fit in a smaller programmable device. Just a thought Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempy Posted February 5, 2010 Share Posted February 5, 2010 This sounds like a great idea, especially integrated with the harmony cart. I want to make my own portable one day. Got Ben Heck's book, looked at a lot of projects, but since I'm a beginner at electronics, it all seems very daunting. I eagerly await the day a Project Unity kit will be available. Been trying to find good instructions on hacking up a Junior board, but instructions I've found have only been for a four-switcher. Any suggestions for good 3-5 inch screens? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted April 13, 2010 Author Share Posted April 13, 2010 Hmm I picked up some of these in my last order. http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=CTX049-ND It seems they don't work. (The one I pulled off the Atari 2600 works but its to big). Now if I stick two of these in parallel the Atari will work. I am not familiar with crystals so does anyone know whats going on? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A.J. Franzman Posted April 13, 2010 Share Posted April 13, 2010 Hmm I picked up some of these in my last order. http://search.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail&name=CTX049-ND It seems they don't work. (The one I pulled off the Atari 2600 works but its to big). Now if I stick two of these in parallel the Atari will work. I am not familiar with crystals so does anyone know whats going on? What does your circuit look like? I'm no expert, but I know that this type of crystal needs a capacitor in circuit with it to work (not sure if it's series or parallel), and the consoles use transistors in their master clock oscillator circuits too. Maybe you could copy the oscillator circuit from one of the consoles (a Junior would probably be best, if they differ). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted April 13, 2010 Share Posted April 13, 2010 So...how much money will I be giving you for one of these, and will it be soon? Very cool!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted April 13, 2010 Author Share Posted April 13, 2010 What does your circuit look like? I'm no expert, but I know that this type of crystal needs a capacitor in circuit with it to work (not sure if it's series or parallel), and the consoles use transistors in their master clock oscillator circuits too. Maybe you could copy the oscillator circuit from one of the consoles (a Junior would probably be best, if they differ). I copied the circuit from the Atari 2600 4-switch. I got it working. Cold solder joint prevented it from working. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Longhorn Engineer Posted April 13, 2010 Author Share Posted April 13, 2010 So...how much money will I be giving you for one of these, and will it be soon? Very cool!!! Price point? Don't know yet. The plan is to make 12 Special Edition models. These 12 will have harmony carts built in and the case will be constructed out of solid Aluminum cut out on a CNC machine. Price point? I am aiming at $400 but we shall see. I will be selling the PCBs for around $15 so people can roll there own portable. There will be a how to guide on making the portables. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cebus Capucinis Posted April 13, 2010 Share Posted April 13, 2010 $400 for a fully custom-made limited edition is very reasonable for something like this considering all the work you've put into it. Again, very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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