ballyalley Posted September 14, 2021 Author Share Posted September 14, 2021 After carefully browsing through my email, I see that I have nine updates about Michael Matte's various hi-res Astrocade projects. I will try to post all of these updates in the next few days. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Monday, July 12, 2021 7:36 PM To: Adam, Ken and Lance Subject: Hi-Res Astrocade News I wanted to inform you guys (Ken, Adam and Lance) that I modified my third motherboard for low/hi-res operation. This motherboard has only 3 chips that are not in sockets. Two of those 3 chips are not even needed for my low/hi-res scheme and can be removed from the motherboard. To my surprise, there is some kind of incompatibility when connecting this modified board with my low/hi-res wire wrapped SRAM board. There is a Z80 screen RAM read issue, which seems to be related to the 74LS138 decoding scheme. This issue has been difficult and time-consuming trying to resolve it on a wire wrapped board. Since I was planning to build a quick connect breadboard for experimentation with my third (final) hi-res Astrocade, I have decided to try to resolve the read issue on the breadboard. This makes more sense to use a breadboard to investigate this incompatibility. A breadboard will also reduce setup time when using my logic analyzer to view logic wave forms during the experimentation process. I also have a new idea for decoding the direction and enable pins for the four 74LS245 Z80 screen RAM write/read chips, which I would like to experiment with. Hopefully, I'll be able to resolve the read issue. I also found out that I have a custom address chip that runs great in low-res, but has a hi-res mode issue. This chip was tested on my working hi-res DRAM Astrocade and my logic analyzer. The chip outputs extra, undesirable active-high RAS0 and RAS1 pulses. This is the second address chip I've seen that operates perfectly in low-res, but not in hi-res. I might modify a fourth motherboard for hi-res as a backup board and have also around 9 sets of custom address/data chips, all which could be utilized to check for compatibility. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Ken Lill replied to Michael with some advice: ---------------------------------------- To: Michael Matte From: Ken Sent: Monday July 12 2021 9:10:47PM Subject: Hi-Res Astrocade News Upon reviewing your DWG 5 I think that you can reduce the chip count by approximately 4-6. Using the A12-A14 addresses on the IC8 and tieing the data enables there, you'll only need one 245 and one 62256. ou may need a latch per 16 bit bus drawn here, I think. This may also help syncing all of those lines. The input data is all the same, so only one 8 bit buss is needed there. The outputs will coincide with IC12. If you want to consider this and have questions, either email me or we can make arraingments to talk on the phone, your discretion. Ken P.S. remember, the less circuitry you have, the less problems you typically will have! ------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Tuesday, July 13, 2021 11:56 AM Subject: RE: Hi-Res Astrocade News Thank you so much taking the time to email your feedback. I already experimentally determined the IC10 and IC3 gates in DWG 5 are not required along with the series 47 ohm DATEN resistor in DWG 3, which I removed. I would like to experiment with your suggestion for the hi-res screen SRAM option with NO multi-pager. I admit a fresh new look at the scheme is in order. Quick experimentation is the major reason I want to use my quick connect bread board (with a condensed area lay out) idea instead of wire wrapping a scheme. Could you possibly USPS mail me some kind of sketch to help me understand your recommendation described below? Your idea intrigues me. I used the larger SRAM package for screen RAM to keep the chip type identical with my multi-carted user SRAM scheme, which I am setting up for compatibility with optional user applications using specific EPROMSs or EEPROMs. However, for the final compatibility tested screen SRAM scheme, I could switch to the narrower package. With regard to a professional grade low/hi-res screen RAM pc board, how do you install (solder in) chips on your boards and how do you feel about installing pc sockets? Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Michael's next update that I will post is from July 21. I'll try to post that tomorrow. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted September 14, 2021 Author Share Posted September 14, 2021 Here are two email messages that Michael Matte sent on July 21 and July 30, 2021. These are related to his BalcheckHR breadboard hardware diagnostic tool. More information about that hardware is available here: https://ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/cart_images.html#BalCheckHRAstrocadeROMImage https://ballyalley.com/documentation/BallyCheck/BallyCheck.html#BalcheckHRUserManual https://ballyalley.com/documentation/BallyCheck/BallyCheck.html#BalcheckHRUserManualScans The following two email exchanges that Michael Matte had with Allen and me, is about working on an astrocade motherboard that fails. He designates this board as BD7. Whenever Michael refers to "you" or "your," he is referring to Allen. Michael talks about how he substitutes a Z80 that is not connected to the Astrocade motherboard and yet it allows it to run on the Astrocade motherboard. This uses hardware that is Michael's own design. He does not plan to create it for others, even though he has been offered the opportunity to, perhaps, have this is design placed on a professional-grade PCB. These two pieces of email give a behind-the-scene look at the process that Michael uses to diagnose a regular astrocade (a non-hi-res console) using a tool he originally designed for his hires unit. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2021 9:33 PM To: Allen S. and Adam T. Subject: ALLEN BD7 I installed a Z80 and 74LS367 in my upgraded BalcheckHR breadboard. This breadboard was shown on my first YouTube video. I checked all the applicable wiring on the breadboard and wiring to my connected working motherboard. My remote Z80 substitution idea works. I used my logic probe to confirm the motherboard Z80 was tri-stated off. I connected the breadboard to your failed Allen BD7, which will crash about 8 seconds after the menu powers on. Your board is now working great, when operated by the Z80 that's on my BalcheckHR board. How about that? The Z80 WAS acting up. The logic probe pulsing at the Custom Address RAS0 output line is now pulsing normally. My suspicion was correct about this irregularity when I compared my working motherboard with your failed motherboard. I'm finding out that my logic probe is becoming a very powerful diagnostic tool. I'm going to let you replace the Z80 because you have the proper tool and the skills for replacing such a big chip. I have an address chip that runs perfect in low-res, but has an issue in hi-res. I would like permission to test your address chip in ALLEN BD7 to see if it runs perfect in hi-res. If yes, I would like to swap address chips. I would of course test the swapped chip in your board thoroughly to make sure it runs perfect in low-res. I would also like to confirm both of those address chips you shipped me run perfect in low and hi-res before I ship your Astrocade back to you. If not, would you be willing to swap/ship me another one of your spare address chips? I'm thinking of having Ken create a pro grade PC board for my new upgraded BalcheckHR board scheme, which includes the new remote Z80 diagnostic option. Ken said he would be willing to create some pro grade PC boards for me. How does he work that? Would I have to install the components? Surely there would be some other Astrocade technical enthusiasts that would be willing to purchase such a board. That is so cool. If there is a functioning Z80 on a motherboard that is suspicious, it is not necessary to desolder and substitute a new Z80 to determine if the suspicion is correct. There is now a new and simple Z80 test diagnostic option. Just connect my new upgraded BalcheckHR board and flip a dip switch to tri-state off the motherboard Z80. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Friday, July 30, 2021 1:00 AM To: Allen S. and Adam T. Subject: Remote Z80 Diagnostic Board I finished hard wiring my new remote Z80 diagnostic prototype board. I'm testing it now. It's performing great, better than the breadboard, which had longer wiring and quick connect contact points. The hardest part of using this Z80 test board is remembering to press the reset button on the remote Z80 board instead of the Astrocade motherboard. This remote Z80 scheme was a cool idea! I'm likely going to someday hard wire this remote Z80 scheme together with the BalcheckHR scheme on one board so the remote Z80 can also run the 4 EEPROM diagnostic programs. Maybe Ken could create some pro grade pc boards. I also have a plan to build a multi-cart cartridge with 4 diagnostic programs. The intent of this diagnostic cartridge is to help you and I reduce the number of chips that are desoldered by guessing where a failure is. I'm planning to mail Allen BD7 back to you this coming Mon Aug 2. I want to document my new prototype board, including photos and also photo copy some documentation for you. This remote Z80 should save you time and grief. It's real easy to use. Just connect it to the motherboard and power on. There's no switches on the board. Your cost is to swap two of my custom address chips that run great in low-res, but not in hi-res with some of your spare address chips. You ship me some custom address chips so I can test them in low and hi-res. When I find 2 of your address chips that run perfect in low and hi-res, then you're paid in full. Any chips that you mail me that don't work perfect in low and hi-res will be mailed back to you. That's the deal. OK? Allen BD7 is working perfect using the remote Z80. Something is not quite right with the motherboard Z80. I ran the BalcheckHR Checkmate variation and the Fish Demo on BD7. They ran perfect. The Checkmate variation has no pizza break and will run 100 rounds nonstop. The Fish Demo is a very good test for motherboard perfection because it moves 10 fish around the screen using magic XOR graphic writes and has an elapsed time counter. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- The next two email messages that I will be posting here are both from August 5. I hope that people enjoy reading about how Astrocade motherboards can be diagnosed using software designed by Michael. Every time an astrocade motherboard is saved from the dustbin, I get a warm feeling inside me. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted September 15, 2021 Author Share Posted September 15, 2021 Michael saw this post yesterday and sent me some additional comments about it. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2021 2:11 PM To: Adam T. Subject: RE: Posted Hi-Res Astrocade Updates: July 21 and 30 Here are 4 photos of the remote Z80 CPU wire wrapped prototype board mentioned in the emails below. Allen now owns this cool diagnostic tool. I do have plans to add this tool to my current BalcheckHR board scheme. I would like to make this upgraded BalcheckHR board available as a professional grade PC board for any Astrocade enthusiast who is interested in using the board's various diagnostic programs to troubleshoot an Astrocade motherboard. I also plan to demonstrate the board's diagnostic programs on my you tube channel. The HR suffix stands for Hi-Res. The 8KB BalcheckHR package does include 2 hi-res diagnostic programs. There are 3 additional low-res diagnostic programs that are included with a multi-carted EEPROM. Browse the Balcheck section on the Bally Alley website for more info. My plan is to work on the above projects after my final hi-res Astrocade project is completed. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Great pictures, Michael! Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted September 15, 2021 Author Share Posted September 15, 2021 During the first week of August, Michael fixed a hard-to-find issue with an Astrocade board that he was repairing. Here are the two email that he sent to Allen and me about it. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, August 5, 2021 6:53 PM To: Allen S. Cc: Adam T. Subject: Allen BD1 Man, I've been experiencing Astrocade motherboard failures lately. My Allen BD1 had a failure recently. The board powered on with a black screen and the Z80 Check program wouldn't execute. I thought maybe I killed the Z80 when I was using this board to test my new Remote Z80 diagnostic board. Turns out there was no negated 7M clock. This clock was not present at the Kludge board pin 1. Since the regular 7M clock was ok, I knew the crystal and transistor Q2 were ok. I never worked in this area of the motherboard before this failure. - Found a way to remove all that RF shielding surrounding the Kludge board area. - Desoldered the Kludge board. - Desoldered U16. - Soldered in the two 8 and 16 pin pc sockets you gave me. These were really nice sockets in that they had metal contacts on their bottoms to help make contact with the top motherboard solder pads. Do you remember where you purchased these sockets? - Installed new SN75361AP and 74S74 chips. - Soldered in a new crystal since the original was very old. The motherboard works great again. Yippy! Now there are only 3 chips on this board with no sockets. Nice! I plan to use this board as a low-res test board and also as my final "modified for hi-res" motherboard. It's a dual-purpose board. Cool! Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, August 5, 2021 6:58 PM To: Adam T. Subject: Second Modified For Hi-Res Motherboard. Good news! My second modified for hi-res motherboard is up and running perfect in low-res. This board killed 2 custom address chips. Man, I hate losing a custom chip to a failure. That sucks. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- It seems that Michael has really improved his skills troubleshooting nearly ten of Allen's most troublesome-to-repair Astrocade motherboards. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted September 17, 2021 Author Share Posted September 17, 2021 In these two updates from Michael, he describes testing Bally custom chips to Allen. He also explains how his work is going on his hi-res boards. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Monday, August 16, 2021 9:47 PM To: Allen S Cc: Adam T. Subject: ALLEN CUST ADR CHIPS Some time ago, my hi-res SRAM Astrocade failed. The last several days, because I was making great progress in restoring the Astrocade, I decided to try and finish this project. I'm happy to report the hi-res SRAM Astrocade is up and running great again. I tested your first of 6 custom address chips you mailed me, per our agreement, and found it to be operating perfect in both low and hi-res modes. So you know exactly what I am doing with your chips, here is my detailed test procedure. - Enter hobby room with shoes off. - Touch metal light fixture before handling motherboard or components. - Check custom address chip for bent pins. - Clean dull pins using used 400 grit wet/dry sandpaper. - Carefully install chip in socket. Use fingers to align pins if necessary. - Make sure chip is all the way down into socket. - Visually check all 40 pins for a bent pin. - Double check 40 pins for good socket connections using an ohmmeter. Note: It is possible (low risk) during installation for the tip of a pin to be bent inward and under the chip. - Use Bally schematic and MCM large data chip diagram to check all 40 pins for a good (zero ohm) connection. It takes nearly 20 minutes to perform this test. MCM Design recommendation: Perform ohmmeter check test to confirm a perfect custom chip installation. Place MCM temporary custom black finned heat sink with Si grease on top of the address chip. This chip can heat up pretty warm when running in hi-res for a long period of time. Use 6" fan to help dissipate heat radiating at address/data chips and power supply components. This cooling option might extend the lifespan of the data chips, Q1 transistor or voltage regulators, which may not have internal thermal protection. I have seen in the past, the custom address/data chips cease functioning when they got too hot, then function again when cooled down. Run the following programs to test for a crash or graphic glitches. Do power on motherboard 2 or 3 times to run all tests. Any power on issues? HI-RES MODE - Original hi-res test demo* - Watch entire multi-page demo (19 minute program) - Hi-res 12 fish (magic writes) demo* - Hi-res screen RAM test (will stop running if RAM error is detected) - Test pattern variation (watch several passes) - Low-res Checkmate on a hi-res map (run a few rounds to see if it will crash) LOW-RES MODE - BalcheckHR Checkmate variation, 100 rounds nonstop (crash test only) - BalcheckHR fish demo** - Balcheck nonstop test ** (will stop running if RAM error is detected) * Run at least 60 minutes ** Run at least 30 minutes Label chip as an address chip and include MCM low and hi-res status assessments (GOOD or ISSUE). Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- From: Ken Lill To: Michael Matte Sent: Saturday August 21 2021 12:43:55AM Subject: Re: Hi-Res Astrocade News here's a preliminary sketch. tell me what you think. On Tuesday, July 13, 2021, 03:06:04 PM EDT, <Michael Matte> Hi Ken. It just occurred to me that your one SRAM chip idea may work if you wanted to multi-page the low-res mode. However, in the hi-res mode, at least 4 SRAM chips are required because of the way the hi-res mode map is fed into the data chip. Four 74LS166 chips are needed to serially feed the map into the data chip via the SERIAL 0 and SERIAL 1 inputs. Each of the 4 chips has 8 lines wired to screen RAM data outputs, totaling 32 lines for the data out serial feed. I still would like to see a sketch of your idea. Once I see your idea in my head, I might be able to use a variation of the idea. A new idea I have is to feed the output of IC6 in DWG3, which senses when all 4 RAS lines are high for the video scan feed, through an inverter and then to the four 74LS245 enable pins, which should disable the 4 chips from the 4 video data buses during the video scan. Then feed the DATEN line to a decoder to direct the appropriate video data bus for the Z80 screen RAM read or the magic OR, XOR function read. This idea is similar to the 74LS253 application in the hi-res DRAM scheme. I might have to tweak this idea. Anyway, this is an idea I will definitely experiment with. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2021 2:04 AM To: Ken Lill Cc: Adam T. Subject: Re: Hi-Res Astrocade News Thanks for taking the time to consider, then create a more simplistic SRAM scheme for the custom chip's hi-res mode and for emailing me your documented schematic. I can see you spent a good amount of time documenting your idea, emailing me a pro – grade schematic. It looks like the Z80 would be able to write to or read from your hi-res SRAM scheme. However, the scheme is not compatible with the custom chip hi-res video display scan (read). You should check out DWG 6, which is archived at https://ballyalley.com/documentation/hi-res_packages/hi-res_packages.html Scroll down near the bottom to view DWGs 1 thru 6. DWG 6 shows the entire video display scanning scheme with an overview commentary. There are also some DWG 6 comments just before DWG 1. The commentary will also point you to a doc with an in depth description of the custom address/data chip operation in low or hi-res modes, including the hi-res video display scan. The Nutting Manual system description also provides some info. I could hook up my Kingst LA and save a hi-res sampling that would show the video scan wave forms. I could run my short "Z80 Halt" program, so all you'll see on the sampling are the wave forms related to the hi-res video scan. This program will halt the Z80 so it will just execute NOPs. The Z80 will not write to or read from the screen RAM when halted. Apparently, the video scan also doubles as a DRAM row address refresh, so you probably wouldn't even see an independent refresh attempt in the sampling. I think, if I emailed the saved sampling file, you would be able to view it. Let me know if you would like me to email you a sampling of the custom chip's hi-res video display scanning. My failed hi-res SRAM Astrocade is now up and running great again. This is the Astrocade with the hi-res 128KB, 8 page multi-pager. I now have 2 working modified for hi-res motherboards with a 28 pin dual in line ribbon cable socket mounted on the bottom front of the motherboard. My hi-res DRAM Astrocade utilizes a 24 pin socket. I have begun work on my final hi-res Astrocade which will have 3 add under boards along with a provision for a 4th board. There will be a sliding horizontal rack for boards 2, 3 and 4. I'm utilizing a customized 7 x 8.5" quick connect breadboard first for board 1, so I can make quick changes to run various tests. The breadboard 1 will only have the screen SRAM and its interfacing. I am expecting to have this board running in low-res within a week. I have come up with a really cool building block wiring procedure. This should really help me isolate any incompatibility issues with my newly modified for hi-res motherboard, which appears to have a Z80 screen RAM read issue with my SRAM scheme as documented on the Bally Alley. I have 3 reasons to further investigate the Perkin's hi-res interface, which is also documented on the Bally Alley. I broke down the Perkin's interface schematic into 3 schematics so the interfacing scheme is easier to read. My quick connect breadboard 1 will be used to further my Perkin's investigation and run "Perkin tests". My DWG 5, as documented on the Bally Alley, is set up for a manual low or hi-res selection. A low/hi-res software selectable scheme will require additional chips. My now running low/hi-res SRAM Astrocade is software selectable and works great. In this case, the low/hi-res mode indicator latch is wired on the load side of the multi-pager data buffer. I ran an experiment and wired the D0 bit latch on the line side of the multi-pager 74LS245 data buffer, which was directly connected to the Z80 data D0 line. This simple change creates a black screen power on issue. I mentioned this issue to you previously and you recommended adding a pull-up resistor to this flip-flop latch input connection. I wanted to let you know I have not yet tested your recommendation, but plan to test the recommendation during my breadboard 1 project. I have also bread boarded and tested a simplified 4KB low-res only SRAM scheme that can plug into either of my two 28 pin modified for hi-res motherboards. This scheme works great. The low-res scheme was really created to be used as a diagnostic tool should my hi-res SRAM Astrocade fail in the future. This diagnostic low-res board should help determine if a failure is on the modified motherboard or on the low/hi-res SRAM board. Since there doesn't seem to be much of a hi-res interest within the Astrocade community, I'm debating whether I should spend time recording a video series on my YouTube channel that highlights the building progress of my final hi-res Astrocade. If I do record the video series, watch for a video of this low-res only board running with the modified for hi-res motherboard. I'm sending Adam a copy of this email because of his interest in MCM Design projects. Bye. MCM ----------------------------------------- I have just one more hi-res update from Michael to catch-up on and post here. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted September 19, 2021 Author Share Posted September 19, 2021 On September 10, I posted links in this thread to part 3 of Michael's modified hi-res Astrocades, which showcased his Hi-Res Multipage Test Demo. You can see that posting here: https://atariage.com/forums/topic/254592-hi-res-bally-arcadeastrocade-correspondence/?do=findComment&comment=4903283 Here is Michael's reply to me, which he sent the same day. Adam --------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 8:32 PM To: Adam Trionfo Subject: Re: MCMs YouTube Channel Thanks for the cool comments. I agree, the multi-pager has the potential for some really cool hi-res multi-scene games. I'm hoping to finish building my final hi-res Astrocade in say, 10 months? Most of the design schemes have already been tested, so building the final wire wrapped prototypes for boards 1 and 2 shouldn't take too long. All 3 add-under boards will be bread boarded first so I can make quick tests/changes when needed. The challenge will be the pattern transfer board 3, trying to determine precisely how it manipulates graphic patterns. This will be very time consuming. Documentation for the graphics application of this board is sadly very poor. I'll likely have to refer to chip data sheets, breadboard some of the chips separately and write short ML graphic programs to test my understanding, so I can determine exactly how this board utilizes its 5 (or 6?) control modes of bit manipulation. It is not yet clear to me if this board was also intended to write graphic patterns to magic RAM to utilize the custom magic functions. I may break down the machine code for the first graphics page of the Wizard of Wor. Once this 3rd hi-res Astrocade is built and fully tested, I can then focus on writing hi-res software. That will be fun. I think you already know I'm determined to write a hi-res version of the Incredible Wizard. What about a hi-res multi-scene game? Maybe, or at least a multi-scene demo with a lot of graphics. That would be cool. Bye. MCM ----------------------------------------- Ten months sounds like a reasonable time frame for Michael to work on this project. I like that he gives himself realistic goals. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted October 15, 2021 Author Share Posted October 15, 2021 Michael has uploaded another video about his hi-res machine. Here is the latest update he sent to me (with very slight edits): ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, October 14, 2021 12:19 AM To: Adam and Lance Subject: MCM Design's Modified Hi-Res Astrocades Part 4 My part 4 video is now available for viewing. The search criteria below should point you to my youtube channel. youtube channel MCMs Astrocades https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=higsVIfIS30 You will likely have to manually select the 720p playback option. YouTube seems to no longer allow the publisher to set up a video so the recorded video playback will automatically be set to the recorded video resolution. This video is "dry" but details the internal hardware. Sorry, there are no graphic demos in this video. I wanted to document on youtube the hardware for my original custom hi-res DRAM Astrocade. The part 5 video will be similar for my hi-res SRAM Astrocade, but much shorter in time length. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- I have not yet watched this video. I hope to watch it in the next few days. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted November 23, 2021 Author Share Posted November 23, 2021 I just watched Michael Matte's fourth video about his Hi-Res Astrocade. As a reminder, there is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=higsVIfIS30 I left comments on the video, but they're not being displayed. I'm posting them here too. Adam ---------- This video has been a treat that I've put off watching until I could view it and take notes. I have wanted to give proper feedback to accompany your labor of love that is this Hi-Res Astrocade project. I watched your video and my comments follow here. - The video quality at 720p looks superb. Thanks for offering these "skip to times;" it makes referencing the video easier. - It is fascinating to see your Astrocade with a full-size keyboard sitting in front of your Viper 1 case. With 54 keys (more than double of what's available using the 24-key keypad), you can do anything using your Bally Arcade system. Who says that we need 101-key and 104-key keyboards? - I turned on the automatic closed-captioning option that is available via YouTube while I watched this video. It works, but there are some textual errors in it. If you're interested, then I think that you can manually adjust the text and fix these errors. If you read the closed-captioning text, then you'll notice the many misspellings of the word "Astrocade" that are made in the text. It's rather amusing that YouTube found about a dozen different ways to spell that word. - The custom Astrocade vinyl dust cover, which you received from Allen for helping him troubleshoot some Astrocade motherboards, is a nice fit. It sits on top of your console, looking fantastic. Plus, it matches your whole setup very well. - The external 24-key keypad, which you have in addition to your 54-key keyboard, is wonderful. The idea that you can move it around freely on your desk, without having to move your whole system, makes it seem more modern to me. - Using the Bally's own power transformer by removing it from its original plastic housing in the "wall wort," as it was provided by Bally, is a nice solution for "easily" getting the unusual voltages required by this monster upgrade that you've created for yourself. - The Astrocade swinging on those hinges from the top of the Viper 1 cabinet is a wonderful method to rapidly get "under the hood" so that you can access your custom hardware quickly. You're like an expert auto mechanic, but rather than working on a 1960's muscle car, you're working on a 1970's classic game system. - You do a wonderful job of stepping a viewer through the setup of your upgraded console/computer. You point out the parts of the board that are important and I feel as if I'm being given a personal tour of a cherished child whom you've lovingly brought up from its infancy. - Do you still have your Epson LQ-850 dot-matrix printer? When was the last time that you used it? - Although you're using the Astrocade low-res model as you're starting base, you've really redesigned that console into a whole new computer model. I wonder what the original system designers would think of your current setup? - I laughed aloud when you said that you would understand if someone saw your upgraded system and said, "Man, that board sure has a lot of chips!" If I remember correctly, you have 32 chips just for the hi-res screen RAM alone. That's amazing! - It's fascinating to follow along with you as you talk about this project as it currently stands and as you talk about what might be possible in upgrades that you might make to it. An example is that you may add Perkins Engineering's Medium-Res mode of 160x204. - Your overview is put together so that someone who has just a bit of tech background can follow along quite easily. That's a skill that I appreciate; it's not simple targeting your audience and speaking directly to them. - That wire-wrapped board with the 50 chips on it gives me the shivers. For if there is only one small mistake, perhaps just a loose wire, then it all stops working. It takes plenty of guts to imagine a project like this one, and even more courage to embark on it and follow it through until it's complete. - I would love to hear the output from your Astrocade's amplified sound via the audio upgrade that you made. The Astrocade sounds great-- it probably has the best sound quality and range of any 1970's low-priced computer or game console. I can only imagine how much better it would sound if I could listen to the Bally's sound effects and music with quality speakers. - Seeing an Astrocade's motherboard missing its RAM chips makes it look quite desolate to me. - When you recapped the motherboard, did it help remove any RF interference or ghosting in the picture? Or course, you're using a composite upgrade, but perhaps the recap helped improve the picture there too. - Those tiny wires on the bottom of the motherboard; they're so itty-bitty and fragile. I hope that they last a long time. Michael, you've done some unbelievable work here! I absolutely adored watching your video. It's been such a treat to have you guide us all through your one-of-kind computer system. Thank you so much for taking the time to put together this video tour of a most unusual system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted November 24, 2021 Author Share Posted November 24, 2021 Michael sent me some feedback about six weeks ago. I've been trying to play email catchup and I'm only posting this one now in this thread (with very slight edits): ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Friday, October 15, 2021 5:41 PM To: Adam Trionfo Cc: Lance Squire Subject: Re: MCM Design's Modified Hi-Res Astrocades Part 4 Thanks Adam. I'm thinking my part 4 video is likely very boring unless the viewer is really interested in the possibility of an Astrocade (modified, FPGA based or emulated) that has the option to operate in the hi-res mode. This video was really time consuming for me to complete. Next time you upload a youtube video in 720p, let me know if you found a way to publish your video so it automatically playbacks in 720p. I can't seem to find a way to publish my 720p videos so you don't have to manually set the playback to 720p. Thanks. To save time, I decided to drop the part 5 video. Some of the hardware on my 3rd (final) hi-res SRAM Astrocade will be similar to my 2nd hi-res SRAM Astrocade. I will begin recording a new on-going video series, so there's no point for me to record the final part 5 video. My new youtube series will provide videos of my final hi-res Astrocade in the form of progress reports. Video 1 will really detail the modified motherboard. In the 2nd video, you will see the modified motherboard, screen SRAM breadboard, BalcheckHR breadboard, remote +5v power supply, my Astrocade power supply substitution board, plus the audio/composite video drivers breadboard, all connected together. I'm hoping I can include a portion of my 20" Toshiba CRT TV in the background. My plan is to give viewers a little taste of my upgraded Balcheck and the other three MCM Design low-res diagnostic programs. I'm hoping you'll be able to see even the dual 7-segment diagnostic display functioning on the BalcheckHR breadboard. With all these boards connected together and operating perfect, I feel this would be a real sight to see. I may have to break down the idea into 2 views (recordings), but even so, this idea would be an Astrocade first, a video to definitely watch. My screen SRAM breadboard has been wired for low-res operation and it works perfect. I didn't have to debug it. Nice! I'm hoping to publish the first video progress report in about 2 weeks. I am really excited about my final hi-res Astrocade project. My expectations are very high. The project will include an add-under stained wood, home-built console. In the end, I may even hire a professional wood worker to use my home-built wood console as a model to build a professional grade stained wooden console. I may do that for the full size keyboard holder. WOW! I am really a hi-res Astrocade fanatic. Along with the progress report videos, I'm hoping to complete this project within 12 months. Regarding a Bally Alley link to my Astrocade channel, insert the link in the hi-res Astrocade section that you devoted to my hi-res Astrocades. Thanks. Could you also insert another link there pointing to my hi-res PICS that you also posted separately on your website? That would be cool! Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Michael has already uploaded three hi-res Astrocade videos that I haven't yet mentioned in this thread. I'll probably post more about them after Thanksgiving weekend. Of course, you can view them on his MCMs Astrocades channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrzfQpfcDnZhkQs1oO3LVBA/videos Michael is always up to something interesting with his unique Astrocade setup, isn't he? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted November 26, 2021 Author Share Posted November 26, 2021 Michael sent me some more feedback about four weeks ago. I'm continuing to play email catch-up. Again, I'm only posting this email now to this thread (with very slight edits): ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Friday, October 29, 2021 12:53 AM To: Adam Trionfo Cc: Lance Squire Subject: New YouTube Video I decided to spend time recording some video progress reports for my final hi-res Astrocade project, which is already under way. The 1st report is now viewable on my channel. I am very pleased with the Astrocade motherboard hardware modification details in this video. I wanted to detail all the Astrocade motherboard modifications on the 1st video. My main reason for recording this particular video is because of the possibility, if there was any interest, that there could be a professional grade PC board available for the static screen RAM board 1 and an audio/composite video drivers board (replaces Astec RF modulator) sometime after this project is completed. There is another reason "on the table'' that might generate a hi-res interest, but I won't disclose it at this time. A part of my project is to also check if the Lil' White RAM can be slightly rewired to be compatible with a hi-res screen map. Ken gave me a recommendation. The 2nd video in this new series will definitely be more "show and tell". Someone might even want to watch this entire video. I've read of discouraged enthusiasts concerning the Astrocades over heating issue. This should not be an issue. The solution is so simple. Remove the Astrocade console top, place a small fan behind the console pointing at the 2 front most custom chips and turn the fan on "low". Just a little air blowing across the custom address and data chips keeps them surprisingly cool. Even the heated power supply components run cooler. I use a 6" fan, with no top RF shielding and 40 pin heat sinks on the top of the custom address and data chips. The custom address chip can heat up when running in hi-res for an extended time with no forced air or no heat sink. My Astrocades run cool. Cool! Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- The first video in this series is called "MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Progress Report 1." You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdAUzhYlFdM Here is the video description: MCM Design decided to drop the part 5 video in the previous video series 2 because of the hardware similarity of the 2nd hi-res Astrocade with the 3rd (final) hi-res Astrocade, now under construction. This new video series will be in the form of construction progress reports for MCMs final hi-res Astrocade. MCM Design wanted in this first video to detail all the Astrocade motherboard modifications as a YouTube video document. With that task out of the way, the upcoming videos should be more interesting bread boarding, operating and testing circuitry connected to the Astrocade motherboard that the typical Astrocade enthusiast has never seen before. SKIP TO TIMES 0:00 Final Hi-Res Astrocade Overview 2:49 Bally Schematic Error 4:01 Motherboard Modifications Overview 4:29 Top View Of Modified Motherboard 4:55 2 Modifications Near Cust Data Chip 7:13 RAM Area Modifications 8:31 Modifications By 28 Pin RC Socket 11:06 RAS0 Line Modification 11:48 R38 Modification 12:25 Bottom View Of Modified Motherboard 13:22 More Modifications By 28 Pin RC Socket 15:50 22 Taps To RC Socket 20:18 RAM Decoupling Caps Schematic ----- I haven't watched this video yet; I hope to watch it today. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted November 27, 2021 Author Share Posted November 27, 2021 9 hours ago, ballyalley said: The first video in this series is called "MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Progress Report 1." You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdAUzhYlFdM I just watched Michael's Hi-Res Progress Report video and I left these comments about it on YouTube. You've begun to document your newest Hi-Res Astrocade. I can't believe the work that you've put into your project so far. - This overview isn't for the gaming-only hobbyist. Yet, for anyone with a tech background and an interest in highly original and unusual classic gaming projects, then this narrated hardware overview is priceless. - Your handwritten notes called "MCMs Design Vision for Final Modified for Hi-Res Astrocade" look impressive. Your handwriting is incredibly neat. - I like the idea of using multiple boards for easier troubleshooting for this hi-res project which you have embarked upon now. - You're going to be adding a "Pattern Transfer Board." I presume that this is somehow based upon the board from the Bally arcade cabinets, like Wizard of Wor. - You will also be adding a "Cassette Cartridge Interface" (CSI). Will the CSI support both 300, 2000 baud rates or possibly even faster rates? I guess that nothing will be able to use the CSI without being specifically programmed to take advantage of it, right? - I used the closed captioning feature again to watch this video. While it isn't perfect, it does make watching these tech videos a little easier because the viewer can see your comments, such as memory locations, with ease. This makes the video easier to digest. - Your project isn't meant to replace the Astrocade's motherboard, and I'm not proposing that you do that for this hi-res upgrade, but there are projects that do replace the motherboards of the Atari 8-bit home computer systems. These are available in the Atari 8-bit community. One is called the MyTek 1088XEL. It uses the Atari computer's original custom chips, but it adds many features, which is why your hi-res project reminds me of it. You can read the Atari computer project, here: https://thebrewingacademy.com/products/mytek-1088xel - Since you're going to be using a horizontal rack to hold your boards, then this project seems to be getting closer to the arcade machines. As these use the Bally chipset and have the cage design. 2:49 - Bally Schematic Error - The error that you talk about that is located between the Custom Address chip and the Data chip is shown on your "Bally Schematic Error" correction sheet that you drew by hand. I don't remember seeing this on Ballyalley.com. Am I forgetting about this error you found, or is it one which you just came across recently? - The video description area for YouTube does allow for some links to websites. Maybe you can link to your own "Astrocade High-Resolution Upgrade" area: https://ballyalley.com/documentation/hi-res_packages/hi-res_packages.html - I like that you have hand-labeled your motherboard to make it clear to the Astrocade tinkerer how the motherboard needs to be modified for this hi-res upgrade. 5:30 - Your talk here makes me want to pull out my soldering iron! - About nine minutes into this video, my admiration for all the work that is required for this hi-res project made me appreciate that this video exists and that you took the time to create it. - Your socket mounting description is thorough and helpful. - As I watch and listen to your narration throughout this entire video (and the series as a whole), I feel as though I'm going to a live walk-through event of not just the motherboard modifications, but also of your thinking process. You don't just describe what you have done, but also you give reasons why you've done them and even talk about other possible changes that may later be required for this project. You have done great work beginning to document your project here. It will be fun following along with you as you continue to work toward your most advanced hi-res Astrocade that you've ever created. I hope others are inspired to follow along with you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted November 30, 2021 Author Share Posted November 30, 2021 Michael sent me some more hi-res feedback about a month ago. As is usual, I'm posting his email to me in this thread (with very slight edits) now: ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Monday, November 1, 2021 3:32 PM To: Adam Trionfo Cc: Lance Squire Subject: MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Progress Report 2 The 2nd progress report for MCM Design's final hi-res Astrocade project is now available for viewing. This report includes an introduction to 3 diagnostic programs, which are a part of MCM Design's 32KB BalcheckHR board package. The 3 low-res diagnostic programs are: Balcheck Z80 Check Remote ROM Here is a link to the " MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Report 2" video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXRYxHDpaQ You'll have to manually select the playback to 720p. I'm finally caught up on my YouTube channel videos. I will now wire "step 2" on my low/hi-res project breadboard. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Here is the video description that Michael included for this video on YouTube. ---------------------------------------- MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Progress Report 2 MCM Design previews its newly wired "low-res only" and low/hi-res project breadboards. MCM Design introduces 3 of its diagnostic programs which are a part of the 32KB BalcheckHR board package. The 3 diagnostic programs used to test the 2 breadboards are: Balcheck Z80 Check Remote ROM SKIP TO TIMES 0:00 Low-Res Only And Project Breadboards 0:49 Close View Of Low-Res Only Board 2:35 Board Test Set Up 4:44 Low-Res Only Board Tests 10:25 Close View Of Project Breadboard 11:00 Project Board Tests End Of Description ---------------------------------------- I watched the video today and I enjoyed it. Here are my comments on this new update. ---------------------------------------- This video really gave me a warm feeling. You manage to show that the Astrocade has the power to be more than it was when it shipped in 1978. Your hi-res upgrade quadruples its resolution. Plus, you show a diagnostic device called BalCheck that can help users track down hardware failures. Here are a few additional comments. - Once these two project boards were designed by you, how long did it take to wire-them-up so that each one worked perfectly? - Creating a low-res-only breadboard as a diagnostic tool to help isolate a future hardware failure, or maybe even to simulate an error, is a great idea. 2:35 - This low-res-only breadboard set looks like a scheme that Doctor Frankenstein may have had in his laboratory; I mean this as a compliment. Maybe you should add a Jacob's Ladder to your lab. This arcing "toy" might not be healthy for your Astrocade's delicate health, but it will look cool. - I forgot to switch the video resolution to 720p until quite a bit into viewing it. Once I did that, then the quality was much-improved. - The 6" fan used to circulate air across your Astrocade's motherboard and your prototype boards is a trick which I have used before when I have spent considerable time typing in a program or programming in BASIC. Just a little bit of circulating air keeps the Astrocade surprisingly cool, but I don't suppose that this is a surprise to anyone. - This hardware setup would have been the envy of the home computer club in the 1970s. I wonder what Steve Wozniak would think of this Hi-Res Astrocade project. Does he even know the Bally Arcade exists? He was a 6502 fan himself; maybe he thinks that the Z80 CPU is rubbish. - Watching BalCheck HR run on the TV while observing the 7-segment displays was a treat. Thanks for sharing this hardware diagnostic tool with us. - The Z80 Check Diagnostic Utility looks incredibly helpful. Astrocade power-up that give only a black screen when there is a hardware failure are incredibly common. This black screen can be traced back to many different hardware failures. Having the ability to easily check the function of the Z80 is probably a dramatic time saver. - The hi-res breadboard has 16K of screen RAM on it, right? - It was a good idea to simulate a RAM error to demonstrate the diagnostic capability of your BalCheckHR. The error report for the bad RAM is: 0 4 I 2 0 H E L P. This is clever. It's amusing that the Astrocade is, essentially, asking for HELP. Your breakdown of the error report displayed on the 7-segment display makes it clear how powerful this hardware diagnostic tool is for someone who is troubleshooting an Astrocade. It's clear that it can really speed up the diagnostic process. - With your "Remote ROM Program," you're able to disable the on-board ROM with, it seems, the flick of a switch. This is an idea that is worth its weight in gold, for it seems like the failure of the 8K on-board ROM happens from time to time. If that is the only failure of the motherboard, then this "Remote ROM" would be an easy way to figure out if that is the only failure of the Astrocade's hardware. - Your explanation of your entire hardware setup is thorough and meticulous. I was able to follow this hardware progress report with ease. - I would absolutely love to see this hardware setup in person. I enjoyed this video immensely. I hope this progress report will give some aspiring Astrocade hackers a reason to create some of the projects that are available on ballyalley.com. ---------------------------------------- I have one more video to watch and post about here in the next few days. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted December 2, 2021 Author Share Posted December 2, 2021 Michael sent me some more hi-res feedback about a month ago. I'm continuing to post his email to me in this thread with some slight edits now. This finally catches me up with Michael's most current emails to me and his most recent video posts. ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, November 4, 2021 2:00 PM To: Adam Trionfo Cc: Lance Squire Subject: MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Report 3 My "MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Report 3" video is now available for viewing on my YouTube channel (manually set the video playback to 720p): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yri86QLybo8 Some time ago, MCM Design accidentally discovered a secret relating to the Bally/Astrocade's custom address and data chip's hi-res video display scanning scheme. Watch this short video to see MCMs final modified for hi-res Astrocade, and the connected screen RAM breadboard, reveal to you a hidden secret, not known by anyone except MCM Design, until today. Bye. MCM ------------- I watched this video on December 2, 2021. Here are my own comments about it: Congratulations on finishing wiring-up your hi-res TV display scanning scheme. I like that you presented this video with a secret. There are no RAM chips on this hires breadboard, yet it still powers on properly. Well, not quite "properly," but it still does power-up with a display of sorts. You have an EEPROM on a modified cartridge board connected into the Astrocade cassette connector. Most people, of course, call the "cassette connector" the cartridge slot. As you explain, on that EEPROM there is a 37-byte Z80 machine language program that sets the custom data and address chips into the hi-res mode, sets-up the screen parameters, splits the screen and set colors and then ends, halting the Z80 CPU. Meanwhile the hi-res video-scan is still operating. You accidentally found out that you can simulate a hi-res TV display with vertical stripes, from top to bottom, by floating or grounding any of the 32 video data input lines at the four 74LS166 (8-Bit Serial-out shift registers) chips. You don't need any screen RAM chips to do this trick. You can program the stripes with a specific color. From left to right, there are 320 vertical stripes. When you arbitrarily removed a ground wire, I said, "whoa!" as the screen changed and some of the lines across the screen changed color. What causes this hires abnormality? Thanks for making a video of this strange effect. ---------------------------------------- I wonder what Michael has in store for us next? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted December 10, 2021 Author Share Posted December 10, 2021 Here is Michael Matte's latest feedback on his high-res project. He sent this email to me yesterday. ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, December 9, 2021 To: Adam Trionfo RE: No Links for Your YouTube Videos I think I have been intentionally shutting off the possibility of adding links to my videos during the YouTube upload processing procedure. I'm going to try to set up every new video, within the video description, with a link to the MCM hi-res Astrocades section on your Bally Alley website. Thank you so much for adding to your Bally Alley website those links to my YouTube channel. I thought I finished wiring my low/hi-res project breadboard. The hi-res programs seem to be executing perfect. I ran, for example, my original hi-res test demo for over an hour with no undesirable graphic glitches or crashes. However, there are some speckles and short horizontal lines appearing on and off on the hi-res tv display, but not the low-res tv display. I have reason to believe there is a dirty (noisy) line affecting the operation of the hi-res video scan scheme creating the hi-res tv display disturbance. This is an unexpected setback. Now I have to use a hit or miss approach to locate the cause of this disturbance. I'm hoping the empty 8 RAM and U23 sockets on the motherboard are not creating the dirty lines. The 4 RAM chips and four 74LS166 hi-res video scan chips are elevated on my breadboard (using wire wrap sockets) and might be creating noise. I'm thinking probably not because the low-res tv display operates perfect. This may take a long time to find this hi-res issue. I'm hoping I don't have to modify another motherboard for hi-res operation. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- Michael has hit setbacks on this project before now. He has always found a way to power-through them. Good luck, Michael! Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted December 17, 2021 Author Share Posted December 17, 2021 Michael has been steadily working on his Hi-Res Astrocade project. He has tracked down the intermittent trouble that he was having with hi-res screen RAM writes. Here is the update the he sent to me two days ago. ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Wednesday, December 15, 2021 8:08 PM To: Adam Trionfo Subject: Progress Report Progress Report MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade Dec 2021 Good news. The TV display disturbance issue I mentioned to you in my previous email has been resolved. My project breadboard 1 now runs perfect in low and hi-res. Yippy! The disturbance was not generated by a noisy signal line, but by some active low CAS lines (screen RAM chip selects) that were not remaining at logic 0 long enough to finish their intended purpose. A simple rewire fixed the problem. The hard part was to find the bug, which took hours to find. My early observation of running hi-res programs was suggesting a problem with reading screen RAM, but not writing to it. The TV disturbance did not occur in every hi-res program which would read screen RAM. This inconsistency was hard to diagnose. I checked the TV display scan scheme and some other things on the breadboard to see if the bug was there. Then I was really focusing on the four 74LS245 enable (on/off) pins because those chips were turning on and off a lot during a hi-res program. Not knowing any better, I thought this frequent switching might be creating a TV disturbance because the 4 screen RAM data buses were also connected to the TV display scan scheme. Running out of things to test, I was actually looking to do some kind of rewire to keep those 4 chips from turning on and off so much. Then a thought popped into my head that I might be risking a failure of this motherboard custom data chip because I was doing a lot of experimenting (rewiring) relating to the operation of the screen RAM data buses, so I decided to swap the data chip with a data chip I had that ran great in low or hi-res BUT displayed odd colors. Better to have this odd chip fail than my other perfect running data chip. I installed this odd data chip and noticed a big reduction in the TV disturbances, but now the low and hi-res programs were crashing. At this point, I was getting really aggravated at this whole scenario. What's going on here? A little later, a thought popped into my head. Today, I am still wondering if this thought came from above. This is not the first time I've experienced "out of nowhere" thoughts. The thought was that the 4 CAS_ signal lines (chip selects) for the 4 screen SRAM chips may not be remaining active low long enough to complete successfully all data reads from the Z80 CPU or all reads during the TV display scan scheme and there was an easy rewire to extend this active low signal another say 8nS. I just happen to have a spare "AND" gate on the breadboard. I wired it in where it needed to be. I powered on my project set up. There were NO more crashes and NO TV disturbances. What? Are you kidding me? I swapped data chips again. Now the perfect running data chip was installed. I powered on the project set up, ran the hi-res programs where the TV display disturbances were occurring. There were now NO disturbances of any kind. I ran into my living room jumping/speaking with joy. I found the bug. The hi-res issue is gone. I ran the hi-res programs for a long time. This breadboard now runs great in low and hi-res. My guess is that apparently the read operation for the CAS_signal lines was occurring at the very end of its active low cycle and creating some read issues in the TV display scan resulting in some TV display disturbances. I previously had 2 other issues, one which was a Z80 screen RAM read issue. I created a simpler, more accurate Dwg 4 decoder/filter scheme because my logic analyzer revealed an undesirable "logic 0 down tick" using the original Dwg 4 scheme. This new scheme fixed the Z80 read issue. Digital integrated circuits (chips) of the same type have operating output tolerances. The outputs of the same type chips do not perform identically. I'm hoping that my revised low/hi-res screen SRAM scheme is now tweaked so it will be compatible with any Astrocade motherboard. I would like to try my revised scheme on 2 other motherboards, but I will have to wait until my revised scheme is officially wire wrapped on a prototype board. I plan to record a video progress report for my YouTube channel with me playing around with my project board set up. You saw this setup in a previous video. This time I will be running the project board with low and hi-res graphic programs. That will be fun capturing on video this completed, perfect running project breadboard 1. This new video should be available for viewing in a few days. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- I adore reading Michael's down-to-earth explanations of of his Astrocade projects. I hope that someday there will be a few people who follow Michael's lead and upgrade their Astrocade systems to use hi-res mode. Heck, maybe someone might poke around in a similar area and program one of the Bally Arcade games that use the Bally custom chips (i.e. Wizard of Wor, Gorf, among others) to play around in the high-res sandbox. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 2, 2022 Author Share Posted February 2, 2022 Michael has been steadily working on his Hi-Res Astrocade project. He has experimented a bit with a medium-res mode. Here is the information that he send to me in mid-December, about six weeks ago. ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Thursday, December 16, 2021 7:08 PM To: Adam Trionfo, Lance Squire Subject: Perkins Medium-Res Mode Perkins Medium–Res Mode A Commentary By MCM Design Dec 2021 After I wired the hi-res TV display scan scheme on my final hi-res Astrocade project breadboard, I thought it would be a good time to see if I could generate a medium-res screen map using Perkins med-res hardware scheme. The Perkins interfacing scheme for his low/med/hi-res modified Astrocade is archived on the Bally Alley.com website. The link for Perkins interfacing schematic is provided below. https://ballyalley.com/perkins/Perkins_Hi-Res_Schematics/Hi-Res%20Astrocade%20Schematics%20(198x)(Perkins%20Engineering).pdf THEORY OF OPERATION I have studied and broken down Perkins interfacing schematic into sections so the scheme is easier to read. I can say that I have a fundamental grasp of the Perkins med-res theory of operation. The med-res hardware is simplistic but clever. At the upper right of the schematic are two LS00C and D gates. The 74LS00 chip was piggybacked on top of the U22 motherboard chip. Pin 2 of LS00D is wired to the motherboard PX clock. Pin 1 is wired to Perkins custom output port 08H, shown on the upper left in the Perkins schematic. The very top of the Perkins schematic is clipped off. Normally, bit 0 of the Astrocade output port 08H is used to set the custom address and data chips to low-res when bit 0 = 0 and hi-res when bit 0 = 1. A program must output this bit 0 request to port 08H plus set up the TV display screen parameters. Perkins used bit 1 to request a med-res screen RAM memory map. His custom output port 08H bit 1 was wired to pin 1 of LS00D. A bit 1 = 1 would pass the PX clock onto the pins 15 of the four 74LS165 chips, which were used to shift screen RAM video data to the motherboard custom data chip using the two Serial 0 and Serial 1 lines. Pin 15 on a 74LS165 chip is a clock inhibit (CI) pin. The four 74LS165 chips operate using the motherboard negated 7M clock present at the motherboard U32 chip pin 3 (actually U16 pin 6). Normally in hi-res, one byte (8 bits) from each of the 4 screen RAM banks is scanned (read) simultaneously. The 32 bits of video data are all wired to the four 74LS165 data input pins (8 inputs per chip). Timing is such that when the shift/load (S/L) pin 1 at the 74LS165 chips goes low, then all 32 bits of video data are shifted serially via the Serial 0 and 1 lines into the motherboard custom data chip input pins 11 and 12. Serial 0 is for "even" video data bits and Serial 1 is for "odd" video data bits. A pixel is defined by 2 bits. Four screen RAM memory bytes (32 bits) scanned (read) simultaneously sends 16 pixels to the 74LS165 chips. As stated above, the PX clock is passed onto the 74LS165 chips via an output of 03H to port 08H, where: bit 0 = 1 custom address/data chips to operate in hi-res bit 1 = 1 pass PX clock to 74LS165 chips at pins 15. When PX is present at all four pins 15, then every other 7M clock uptick is inhibited (turned off), so only 16 bits (instead of 32 bits) are shifted out to the custom data chip. Only the first 16 bits are shifted out, 8 bits from screen RAM bank 1, then 8 bits from bank 0. The med-res mode uses only screen RAM banks 0 and 1 for the screen memory map. Hi-res banks 2 and 3 are still active, but are not used for the med-res map. The Z80 CPU can still write to or read from banks 2 and 3 during the med-res mode. In the med-res mode, banks 2 and 3 can be used for storing data or programs up to 8KB. That is a med-res benefit. However, med-res has 3 drawbacks. As a reminder, the pixel resolution for the hi-res and med-res maps are listed below. hi-res map 320 x 204 pixels med-res map 160 x 204 pixels Here are the 3 drawbacks. 1. A med-res pixel is twice as wide as it is high. Some graphic patterns may look disproportionate. 2. The magic (pixel) shifter is likely, nearly useless, because of the med-res unorthodox memory map. This is a major drawback in my opinion. Magic pop, flop, OR plus XOR graphic writes are likely usable, but with a very limited magic shift capability. 3. The med-res screen memory map is unorthodox. Below is an example of the top left memory map line for the hi and med-res modes beginning at 4000H. Hi-Res (first 8 bytes) Each byte alternates being mapped from banks 0, 1, 2 and 3 repeating this map sequence thereafter. 4000 4001 4002 4003 4004 4005 4006 4007 Med-Res (first 4 bytes, double wide pixels) Each byte alternates being mapped from banks 0 and 1 only repeating this map sequence thereafter. 4000 4001 4004 4005 Med-Res (first 8 bytes) Each byte alternates being mapped from banks 0 and 1 only repeating this map sequence thereafter. 4000 4001 4004 4005 4008 4009 400C 400D Imagine trying to write a machine language graphic pattern write subroutine using this unusual med-res memory map. Possible, but very challenging. Note: I'm confident that the above theory of operation is accurate. MCMs BREADBOARD EXPERIMENTS I did attempt to run Perkins med-res scheme on my final hi-res Astrocade breadboard using 74LS166 and 74LS165 chips. I wired up two 74LS00 NAND gates and simulated an output port 08H bit 1 connection to pin 1 at LS00D using a pull-up resistor connected at that pin where: Bit 1= 1 med-res, float pin 1 at LS00D Bit 1 = 0 no med-res, hi-res instead, gnd pin 1 at LS00D Experiment 1 using 74LS166 chips My setup tried to display a med-res map. When switching from hi-res to med-res by floating pin 1, I could see a portion of the screen RAM area partially mapped in med-res. Using a negated 7M clock at the 74LS166 chips created major TV display disturbances. Why? I don't know. Maybe this is why Perkins chose 74LS165 chips instead of the normal 74LS166 chips. My data sheets for the 74LS165 and 74LS166 chips are pretty vague. The only differences I could see in the data sheets were the pin layouts and one pin with a different application. Experiment 2 using 74LS165 chips The setup was a complete failure. I double checked all wiring for accuracy. Experiment 3 using 74LS166 chips with an alternate 7M and negated PX clock option. Nothing happened when I floated pin 1. The hi-res map remained hi-res when pin 1 was floated. I hooked up my logic analyzer at the 7M and negated PX clocks. I wanted to see the PX waveform relative to the 7M waveform. I thought I might be able to shift the PX clock using some extra gates so it would inhibit the 7M clock properly to generate the med-res map. I was surprised to see that the PX clock was not symmetrical over time. In fact, some clock pulses were irregular at times. Why? Maybe because of the length of the clock lines from the motherboard to the breadboard. Perkins had shorter clock lines to work with. Maybe my Kingst logic analyzer is a low grade (cheap) test device and is not very accurate. Based on the LA sampling test, I could see why using the alternate 7M and negated PX clock combo option could not possibly generate a med-res map. FINAL THOUGHTS Well, I spent a good amount of time trying to generate a med-res map on my low/hi-res screen SRAM breadboard. I saw a portion of the med-res mode anyway. As an added note, Perkins used dynamic RAM. As I have stated and shown in one of my videos on my YouTube channel, you don't even need screen RAM to display a hi-res TV map. The same should be true for a Perkins med-res TV display, as long as you have a perfect working hi-res TV display video scan scheme wired on a breadboard along with a machine language program in the 2000H cassette slot which outputs a hi-res request to port 08H and sets ups the screen parameters. You can float or ground the 32 data inputs at the 74LS165 or 74LS166 chips to display hi-res verticals stripes top to bottom. You can also choose the width or color of these stripes by floating or grounding the 32 inputs appropriately. Even if I managed to get the med-res mode working perfect, I likely would not include this mode in my final hi-res Astrocade because of its unorthodox memory map with a very limited magic shifter capability. I would not want to support this mode spending time to create ML graphic write subroutines. I wanted to submit to you a final report of my investigation and experimental attempts on Perkins med-res mode in case you wanted to post this info in the Perkins hi-res section on the Bally Alley. If you're interested, I would be willing to redraw (cleanup) my sketch breakdowns of Perkins "hard to read" interfacing schematic, AFTER I finish my current hi-res Astrocade project. Someone might be interested and find this info useful in the future and use the info to generate the med-res mode successfully. Let me know if you would like to post the MCM sketches on the Bally Alley. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- This made-up Medium-Res mode seems neat, but it would certainly be hard to use. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris+++ Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Michael Matte definitely wins the Technological Persistence Award Out of Everyone in the Entire World for Every Year in Recorded History. You've got to admire the "because it's there" ethic, considering that in all the time he's been experimenting with getting various video modes to work on the Astrocade, he could have built a new Z80 computer from scratch containing a high-res display chip and all the necessary pins! So, good for him, contemplating Mount Everest and thinking, "Why not?". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 9, 2022 Author Share Posted February 9, 2022 24 minutes ago, Chris+++ said: You've got to admire the "because it's there" ethic, considering that in all the time he's been experimenting with getting various video modes to work on the Astrocade, he could have built a new Z80 computer from scratch containing a high-res display chip and all the necessary pins! Hey, welcome back to AtariAge, Mr. Chris++! (Although now it appears that you're triple threat! Umm, ugh?) Yes, Michael works hard on his Hi-Res project... which might now be better called, the Med-Res/Hi-Res Project. The Astrocade hardware project community isn't as lively as other classic systems, so it warms my heart to see Michael continue to plug away at his upgraded system while he continues to share his work with all of us. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris+++ Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 Thanks! Yeah, I figured I can just do what I should've done in the first place, and avoid Off-Topic! That way I don't let any of the sheep get under my skin (har) just because I continue, without really meaning to, to see things differently from how most everyone else does. It is indeed heartening to see such activity going on with the dear ol' Astrocade, as it poses some confusion to me that it's the most user-programmable system of its era, and yet it has seen, this century, a total of two homemade games. This makes it unique among the classics, as everything else seems to boast quite a library of latter-day "homebrews," even though I can't think of any platform contemporary with the Bally that was made so transparent in the programming sense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 9, 2022 Author Share Posted February 9, 2022 15 minutes ago, Chris+++ said: yet it has seen, this century, a total of two homemade games. This makes it unique among the classics, as everything else seems to boast quite a library of latter-day "homebrews," even though I can't think of any platform contemporary with the Bally that was made so transparent in the programming sense. It's true: only two new games have been released on cartridge for the Astrocade. Recently, there have been re-releases of very rare cartridge games that were released in the 1980s. Yet, there have been a few new homebrew demos and demonstrations that can be run from cartridge and are currently available as cartridge ROM images. For instance, here is an 8K cartridge ROM that can be used by someone with a hi-res Astrocade (for now, just Michael, I guess): https://ballyalley.com/emulation/cart_images/cart_images.html#AstrocadeHi-ResMulti-PageTestDemoROMImage There are more like this one that Michael has created. There is also the RAM expansion, the Lil' White Ram, that is almost always available for sale from Allen S. Here is one for sale now for $125: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185269521528 The Astrocade multicart is nearly always available too. Here is one for sale from Allen for $120: https://www.ebay.com/itm/185273762896 This multicart holds this software: https://ballyalley.com/documentation/multicarts/multicart_(GaMBITS)/Program switch settings UM 3_2_Added_Sloshed.pdf The "Astrocademo" was released in August 2019. It was written by Genesis Project for the Bally/Astrocade. Programmers: Code: Shadow, Graphics: Illmidus, Music: MCH. This demo won first place in the "Wild / Animation" category at the Xenium 2019 demoparty. Permission was given to release this demo on a cartridge, but that hasn't happened. You can watch the demo running here: It can also be watched here, as it was shown at the Xenium 2019 demoparty: There is also other Astrocade software that has been released as cartridge ROMs, but none of those ROMs are machine language games. Some of it is utility software. Some software are BASICarts (BASIC games that can run from cartridge). It would also be neat to see some new BASIC games that either run from AstroBASIC on a stock system, or which use Extended BASIC to take advantage of the 16K of RAM and additional colors and commands available to languages such as ViperSoft BASIC. I guess I'm derailing this thread away from talking about Hi-Res. To bring it back, I'd love to see a Hi-Res demo, such as the above "Astrocademo" written by Genesis Project. But who would run such software? I guess when MAME supports Hi-Res mode for the Astrocade, then that might be possible. Adam 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris+++ Posted February 9, 2022 Share Posted February 9, 2022 A great run-down! That will be helpful for anyone seeking multicarts or RAM expansions. I remember watching that Astrocademo with you, and being very impressed with the "wavy" effect, and how it changed the colors behind it in what appeared to be a high-res fashion. It also contains a lava lamp-looking segment that looks like it should be impossible! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 19, 2022 Author Share Posted February 19, 2022 On 2/2/2022 at 4:59 PM, ballyalley said: Michael has been steadily working on his Hi-Res Astrocade project. He has experimented a bit with a medium-res mode. I have added Michael's med-res mode document, called "Perkins Medium-Res Mode: A Commentary" to BallyAlley.com, here https://ballyalley.com/documentation/hi-res_packages/hi-res_packages.html#PerkinsMediumResModeMCMDesign I've meant to add this for a few weeks; I'm glad it is online now. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 19, 2022 Author Share Posted February 19, 2022 Michael continues so still work on his Hi-Res Astrocade project. Here is his latest video. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 2:04 AM To: Adam Trionfo, Lance Squire Subject: MCMs Final Hi-Res Astrocade - Report 4 Progress Report 4 is now available for viewing. Here's the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC8mJUs-96M I visited the help section in my youtube channel last night to see if could default the auto playback to 720p. Couldn't seem to find an option to do that. I might have to edit the video in a 16:9 aspect ratio to get youtube to auto 720p my videos. I've been intentionally editing at 4:3 to keep the video playback area restrictively lower. The larger the area of playback, the more out of focus the video looks. I have a 20" HP monitor with 1600 x 900 pixel resolution and at full screen, even with the restricted playback area, the video is beginning to degrade. I added in the video description, 2 Bally Alley links to the MCM hi-res Astrocade info/photos. Thanks Adam for the idea to do that. This video is short just to demonstrate quickly that the project breadboard 1 works really great. You will see some extra scrambled graphics when trying to execute certain hi-res programs. That's a result of having only a manual select switch for hi-res. Having a software select for the hi or low-res modes eliminates a lot of scrambled graphics when switching to a different mode. I hope you guys don't mind the darkness around the TV display. I record the TV videos like that intentionally to keep reflections and other TV display issues down to a minimum. When the camera is at sharp focus, you'll see swirls in the TV display. The low-res programs were intentionally slightly out of focus to reduce swirls. The hi-res programs were near sharp focus so you will see swirls at times. I wanted a sharper focus for the hi-res programs because there's more detail in that mode. I find it really difficult to capture on my Canon Rebel T6 what I see on my 20" Toshiba CRT TV, which can really display some awesome looking graphics. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- This is more nice work from Michael! Adam 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 19, 2022 Author Share Posted February 19, 2022 This is Hi-Res update was originally sent to Ken Lill regarding an idea that Ken had at the end of 2021 of creating a for-personal-use-only Hi-Res Astrocade motherboard drop-in replacement project. I don't think that Ken has decided to pursue this idea, but this update is important because Michael does discuss some of the issues that he had while he was working on his hires project lately. Adam ---------------------------------------- From: Michael Matte Sent: Tuesday, December 21, 2021 5:10 PM To: Ken Lill, Adam Trionfo Subject: Revised Hi-Res Screen SRAM Astrocade Schematics Hi Ken. Some time ago you informed me that you were considering adding a hi-res screen SRAM provision for your motherboard drop-in replacement project. I just finished wiring my low/hi-res screen SRAM breadboard for my final hi-res Astrocade build project. This board runs perfect now. To my surprise, the motherboard that I modified for hi-res for this project apparently is not quite compatible with my SRAM scheme DWG 3 and DWG 4 as posted on the Bally Alley. There was a Z80 screen RAM read issue. I replaced the 7 gate 74LS138 decoder scheme on DWG 4 with 2 "Exclusive OR" gates (74LS86) and 1 NOR gate. There was also a hi-res TV display scan (read) issue. The hi-res programs were executing perfect, but there were undesirable TV display disturbances present, which apparently were created by a screen SRAM scan issue. I added a spare AND gate at the DWG 3, IC 7 clear pin 1 input, to extend the hi-res active low CAS lines (chip selects) logic 0 cycle a little longer. I also made a few minor scheme changes. I am hoping this SRAM scheme tweak will now provide compatibility with any modified for hi-res motherboard. I am planning to test the revised scheme on 2 other modified motherboards. I am planning later to revise the drawings DWG 1 thru DWG 6 to be labeled as Revision 1. The DWG 6 will be an 11 x 17" redraw, relocating the scattered hi-res TV display scan circuitry on DWG 2, 3 and 5 all on DWG 6. It makes more sense to me to show the entire scan scheme on just one drawing. I guess I will have to consult with Adam regarding the 6 original drawings already posted on the Bally Alley, some of which could be considered as not compatible with all Astrocade motherboards. I hope this news hasn't inconvenienced you with your motherboard drop-in replacement project. That would be understandable if you decided to drop your hi-res screen SRAM provision because of a possible incompatibility issue. Bye. MCM ---------------------------------------- I have the itch to try to contact some people in the astrocade Mame community to add some features to support Michael's version of the hires mode. Is there anyone here who has an "in" with that group? Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ballyalley Posted February 20, 2022 Author Share Posted February 20, 2022 Michael Matte has joined the Astrocade discussion group. He made his first posting there a few days ago. I'm posting it here to keep this thread current. Perhaps he will join AtariAge and post in both places to let us all know how his hi-res project is coming along. ---------------------------------------- From: <ballyalley@groups.io> on behalf of Mister HR <Michael Matte> Sent: Wednesday, February 16, 2022 9:34 PM To: ballyalley@groups.io Subject: MCM Design Hi-Res News Over 50% of MCM Design's wire wrapped (WW) prototype Board 1 is wired up for MCMs final low/hi-res Astrocade. The clock generation, static RAM (SRAM) control lines along with the Bank 0 SRAM chip and its required transceiver (74LS245) are in place. The low-res scheme was tested for execution perfection on 2 of MCM "modified for hi-res" Astrocade motherboards. The low-res scheme runs great! The hi-res TV display scan (read) scheme was also wired and tested for hi-res graphics perfection with just one active screen Bank 0 SRAM on Board 1. Some time ago, MCM discovered the Bally custom address and data chip's hi-res scan scheme can be set up to display limited graphics with no RAM banks present or complex graphics with just 1, 2 or 3 RAM banks present. Normally, 4 RAM banks are utilized for the hi-res mode. This discovery allows MCM Design to wire up the screen SRAM Board 1 using a building block approach, wiring just one SRAM chip (bank) at a time. An 8 pin jumper testing socket on Board 1 allows the low-res active low CAS0 line, which is used as the screen SRAM chip select (CE), to be rerouted to any one of the 4 SRAM chips to run tests. So, when a SRAM chip is wired up on Board 1, that chip can be tested to run in low-res or hi-res. However, for example, if 2 SRAM chips are wired up (are active), MCM has the option to test both of those chips simultaneously for hi-res operation. Besides utilizing MCM Design's BalcheckHR board for low or hi-res tests/diagnostics, additional hardware development/diagnostics, in the form of machine language programs, exist in 2 additional 32KB EEPROMs for both the low and hi-res modes. These 2 EEPROMs are installed in a custom multi-carted Astrocade cassette cartridge (compatible with 32KB EEPROM or EPROM) to run the additional tests. A new Board 1 feature that was added is a 4 - position DIP switch. This feature allows Board 1 to be manually set to the low or hi-res scheme and also manually set to the hi-res NO multi-pager scheme simply by flipping the correct DIP switch. It's a great feature when running diagnostics on Board 1 by itself (no connection of Board 1 to Board 2). The WW screen SRAM Board 1 is 8.5" square and will have 26 chips on it. Four chips were relocated on the board because it made more sense to place them there. The board will be able to display on the TV any one of eight 16KB hi-res screen RAM pages, totaling 128KB of screen RAM. The "prepunched for WW sockets" Vector Board 1 is likely the size that would be required for a professional grade PC board. Because the board was so roomy, many of the chip sockets were spread apart. Board 1 will be mounted on the bottom of the Astrocade console. The board has supporting legs so it can be swung out and laid in front of the Astrocade console to run tests/diagnostics. The board has NO 50 pin expansion provision. This 50 pin provision is not necessary since all the required 28 signal lines for the low/hi-res screen SRAM are provided by a 28 pin dual in-line ribbon cable socket connection. The board will also utilize a 14 pin dual in-line ribbon cable socket connection to interconnect the necessary multi-pager and low/hi-res mode software select scheme lines (7 total) from Board 2 to Board 1. The Astrocade motherboard 50 pin expansion will be connected to Board 2. The remainder of the wiring on Board 1 for the 3 other SRAM chips and their required transceivers (74LS245) should be completed fairly quickly, being less complex. Hopefully, the testing of each scheme add-on will be bug free. Will Board 1 be tested and fully functional in say 3 weeks? I'm hoping so. End Of MCM Design Hi-Res News Final Modified For Hi-Res Astrocade Project Report 1 MCM Design Feb 2022 ---------------------------------------- I'm always thrilled to read updates from Michael. Adam Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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