The Worlds Smallest Atari 8-Bit?

[+mytek]

18 minutes ago, wolfius said:

Can you please elobarate on this. Do you mean soldering the Palburst to the 40-pin socket or something else.

What I mean is that there is a 40-pin (machine pin style) socket that has a press fit into the PALburst PCB, and although it may feel secure and perhaps appear to have good electrical connection between it and the PCB - it doesn't.

 

On that 40-pin socket you'll see part of the shoulder of the machine pins sticking up past the PCB bottom surface. That shoulder needs to be soldered to the pads on the PCB. mind you only the shoulder and not the small pins that protrude beyond - those still need to plug into the GTIA socket on the mother board, so try not to get solder on them.

[wolfius]

Dear Mytek,

 

I did resolder contacts on the PALburst and soldered the board to the IC socket, like youu recommended.

 

Whatever was the reason, now i have color!

 

Thank you for your help!

I have another small question to which i didnt find an answer -  the recomended power supply for the system. The power supply I chose (meanwell gs18a12 (1.5a)) seems to be working ok. Would it be enough?

 

Best,

Serhii

[+mytek]

9 hours ago, wolfius said:

Whatever was the reason, now i have color!

Congrats 👍

 

9 hours ago, wolfius said:

The power supply I chose (meanwell gs18a12 (1.5a)) seems to be working ok. Would it be enough?

That's more then enough. I believe the last time I checked the load current was just a tad over 0.75 amps with an SDrive. Should be close to the same with a FujiNet as well. And if you have the Cart+FN board it would be determined by the cart being used, but 1.5 amps should still be sufficient.

[+SoulBuster]

Without reading this thread again, has there been a fix for NOT being able to boot Sparta DOS 3.2 disks? or any disk based Sparta DOS?

[+mytek]

3 hours ago, SoulBuster said:

Without reading this thread again, has there been a fix for NOT being able to boot Sparta DOS 3.2 disks? or any disk based Sparta DOS?

On my system, it doesn't seem to like being loaded with high speed SIO. Just locks up with a cursor sitting in the upper left corner of the screen. However if I set the SIO speed to it's slowest setting, it appears to run.

 

 

I haven't done any extensive tests, so I can't speak to its reliability.

 

EDIT: Apparently this isn't restricted to the 576NUC+, as can be seen in this other thread...

 

[+SoulBuster]

Thanks for the reply. That is what I needed.

 

[NISMOPC]

@mytek Got a question regarding the PS/2 port and PIN #4

A long while back I bought a new (old stock) PS/2 BTC 5100C Mini Keyboard to use on the NUC+ and to my amazement it did not work. Got bored tonight and revisited this.

 

I looked over the NUC+ schematics and see that it is set up for the PS/2 pin connections:

1 - DAT
3 - GND
4 - VDD +5 V Stand-By power (SB)
5 - CLK

 

I then looked at the tech data on the keyboard and this is what it is expecting:

1 - DAT

3 - GND

4 - VCC +5 VDC @50mA nominal

5 - CLK

 

I am not an expert on wiring and schematics. Just know enough to be dangerous. I read up on the differences between the two, but I am not grasping it technically.

 

Would the variance between the VCC signal and VDD signal be the potential reason for the incompatibility?

 

Next question: Is there a workaround to this to get the keyboard to work or do they literally mean the same thing in this case? VCC = VDD

[NISMOPC]

@mytek - Disregard above post...

 

...tested keyboard on my PC and it worked, then tried again on the NUC+ and everything works fine. NO idea what happened or why it works now, but I am good to go!

[wildstar87]

If anyone has some leftover 576 NUC boards, and in the US, I would be interested in purchasing one from you.

[+mytek]

On 12/1/2023 at 10:31 AM, NISMOPC said:

@mytek - Disregard above post...

 

...tested keyboard on my PC and it worked, then tried again on the NUC+ and everything works fine. NO idea what happened or why it works now, but I am good to go!

I'm glad you got it working

 

Something to keep in mind... hot plugging of the PS/2 keyboard doesn't always work properly (never was officially supported by the PS/2 protocol), and can be a particular problem on the NUC due to the TK-II chip always being powered ON. So for best results when unplugging and/or changing keyboards, first be sure to unplug the wall wart from the NUC, then plug in the keyboard, and finally plug the wall wart PSU back in. If all went well you should see the 3 LEDs on the keyboard flash momentarily shortly after the power is applied and then a 2nd time when the TK-II chip sends a reset command to the keyboard. After that keyboard reset, the keyboard and the NUC should now properly respond.

 

On 12/20/2023 at 11:25 PM, wildstar87 said:

If anyone has some leftover 576 NUC boards, and in the US, I would be interested in purchasing one from you.

Send a message to @MacRorie using the 'Contact Us' link on the bottom of The Brewing Academy website. He usually has individual boards available for sale.

[+MacRorie]

On 12/20/2023 at 11:25 PM, wildstar87 said:

If anyone has some leftover 576 NUC boards, and in the US, I would be interested in purchasing one from you.

Anyone that wants some, just drop me a line at macrorie@thebrewingacademy.com

 

To make it easier, I set up a separate page for bare PCBs and PCBs with just the SMDs installed:  Let me know if you have questions:  CLICK ME

 

 

-M

Edited December 26, 2023 by MacRorie
Added URL for ordering

[ataridns]

Greetings to all , I am new to Atari but very old to retro computers. They are excelent machines to explore. I took a problematic ATARI 800 XLF from ebay. This is its story...

 

I have an atari 800XLF freddie pal and I have a PROBLEM with frequencency at Y2. The Atari has no signal screen with blinking sound at vga out and garble - black screen at RF out. 

I measure the crystals out off board and they were as it should be, BUT in the board the Y1 is measuring ok and the Y2 measures 443Khz which is 4,43Mhz divided by 10.

Is it normal ? I replaced the two near to clock sn74LS... gates also but nothing.

 

At my attached pics are:   1-the Freddie Board     2-The Y2 hooked,    3 - Y2 measure,    4-Y1 hooked,   5 Y1 measure,   6 an other output frequency measure output for GTIA maybe

 

Could you recomend me any solution or what I can check or check ? 

 

Thank you! 

 

 

Edited March 17 by ataridns

[ataridns]

Also I forgot to tell you the machine came with missing 1st dram chip and I put a new MT4264 while the other 7 drams are KM4164 . 

I am intending to add sockets for all 8 drams and change them all for being sure soon. 

 

 

Edited March 17 by ataridns

[ataridns]

Also I changed the big caps and the DC voltage in board is 4,7

Edited March 17 by ataridns

[+mytek]

4 hours ago, ataridns said:

Greetings to all , I am new to Atari but very old to retro computers. They are excelent machines to explore. I took a problematic ATARI 800 XLF from ebay. This is its story...

 

I have an atari 800XLF freddie pal and I have a PROBLEM with frequencency at Y2. The Atari has no signal screen with blinking sound at vga out and garble - black screen at RF out.

Welcome to the AtariAge forums

 

However your first posts have definitely been made in the wrong topic. This topic is about a non-Atari produced product called the 576NUC+ (a fan based production), and not about the 800XLF. I would suggest you open a separate topic to discuss your unit and the issues it apparently has. After doing that, I would request that @Albert or some other moderator move your posts to that new topic.

[ataridns]

 

Please Admin or Mod's delete all of my posts in this topic. 

I made a new one at Atari 8 bit about my problem. 

 

Terribly sorry for doing this nonsence. That was because I was in a hurry... Sorry..

[+mytek]

33 minutes ago, ataridns said:

 

Please Admin or Mod's delete all of my posts in this topic. 

I made a new one at Atari 8 bit about my problem. 

 

Terribly sorry for doing this nonsence. That was because I was in a hurry... Sorry..

No worries. You're new here and it can take a while to navigate all the topics and forums, plus understand how things work. You should have seen me the first few weeks after I joined AtariAge

[+mytek]

I received an inquiry today...

 

Quote

I have recently got from the brewing academy my 567nuc+ plus fujinet/cart pcb.

 

Unfortunately i can only find assembly information like schematic and BOM for the regular fujinet without cart.

 

Hopefully u can point me in the right direction.

 

Well other than this topic, and what little information has been provided at my AtariBits website, I would recommend checking this out.

 

 

Hopefully that posted topic will help fill in some gaps for you from an operational point of view. However you will not find a BOM or assembly instructions for this particular variant on my website, or in these forums.

 

Keep in mind that the FujiNet/Cart daughter board for the 576NUC+ is actually the creation of @Mr Robot and is solely manufactured by @MacRorie of The Brewing Academy where you mentioned purchasing it from. Currently I'm not aware of it being an open source project.

Edited April 9 by mytek
Clarified what part of the system Mr Robot created

[Jfcatari]

7 hours ago, mytek said:

I received an inquiry today...

 

 

Well other than this topic, and what little information has been provided at my AtariBits website, I would recommend checking this out.

 

 

Hopefully that posted topic will help fill in some gaps for you from an operational point of view. However you will not find a BOM or assembly instructions for this particular variant on my website, or in these forums.

 

Keep in mind that the FujiNet/Cart daughter board for the 576NUC+ is actually the creation of @Mr Robot and is solely manufactured by @MacRorie of The Brewing Academy where you mentioned purchasing it from. Currently I'm not aware of it being an open source project.

 

Thanks for the notes on the FujiNet/Cart daughter board.  I asked but never got an answer if these designs are open source.

 

I am just about done with my Atari NuC board that I got from Brewing Academy and I will build the Sdrive board (Mytek design) to use with it and one of my Devkit based Fujinet's out the SIO on the back.

 

 

[+mytek]

On 4/9/2024 at 5:37 PM, Jfcatari said:

Thanks for the notes on the FujiNet/Cart daughter board.  I asked but never got an answer if these designs are open source.

The combo FujiNet/Cart board is not so much closed source, since the schematics for the various parts was shared a while back. But the PCB design and manufacturing files are closed source. Or in other words, it's only available as a purchase from TBA.

[Leor]

Thx for the helpful links.

I will try contacting Mr. Robot for this

 

Leor

[Mr Robot]

You mean MacRorie is selling the blank PCB's but not including the BOM's? I can't believe that, I'm sure the Cart BOM just got accidentally missed off the instructions you were sent. 

 

I've got your DM and I've replied with the BOM. I can't say whether it has changed since I handed over the design files, b ut it was correct at one point.