The Worlds Smallest Atari 8-Bit?

[+mytek]

21 hours ago, ZuluGula said:

The difference between you guys is that Candle/Lotharek partnership was business oriented from the beginning (with exception for SIC!), and your project started as fully free to anyone and became commercialized with time (1088XEL - gerbers, 1088XLD - pcb and 576NUC+ - fully assembled only). I don't say that it's anything wrong with that, only the comparison to Candle/Lotharek is wrong.

In the beginning you would be 100% correct, but things as they are now make us very similar to the Candle/Lotharek relationship. Just because our relationship took time to evolve into what it's become today doesn't change that. So I choose to agree to disagree.

 

And most importantly it has no bearing on what I chose to do with this particular project, no matter what other people say, do or wish for. Especially considering that I made this clear from the get go at the start of this topic. However with that said, I do appreciate the interest and enthusiasm expressed from people that want to do this for themselves.

[ajacocks]

Completely understood, mytek!

 

The work that you and the other folks involved have invested in the project is obvious. I completely understand and respect your choices WRT the release of any and all sources, of any kind.

 

- Alex

[+mytek]

5 minutes ago, ajacocks said:

Completely understood, mytek!

 

The work that you and the other folks involved have invested in the project is obvious. I completely understand and respect your choices WRT the release of any and all sources, of any kind.

 

- Alex

Thanks .

 

I don't know if people know this about me, but I do not ever make any kind of licensing fee or kick back from the manufacture and sale of these products. This has always been the case and by my choice. I do however incur a considerable amount of R&D debt which has to come from my pocket. On the plus side I use it as a tax write off for my business, so I do see some compensation for that.

[ivop]

As long as the schematic is free, it's all good IMHO.

Here's how I have redrawn the 1088XEL schematic in KiCad: https://github.com/ivop/1088xel-kicad

 

Gerbers are a work of art. Specifically when they are routed manually. Whether to share them or not is a personal choice.

 

But if you do, you can be surprised one day, years later, by somebody that sends your gerbers to a Chinese PCB manufacturer

 

 

Edited December 7, 2020 by ivop
wether is a castrated ram :)

[+orpheuswaking]

Didn’t expect to see a Zager and Evans reference in this thread. 

[+orpheuswaking]

576NUC family grows

 

[Mr Robot]

Hoping this is the final board revision for a while. FujinetNUC+ v1.3

 

[+Stephen]

11 hours ago, orpheuswaking said:

576NUC family grows

 

I hate to be "that guy" - but I have to yell at you for what you have displayed here.  4:3 Atari content on a 16:9 screen?  Please no.  The "screen people" should be tall and thin, not short and fat.

 

Hmm - upon closer look, maybe it is in 4:3 - I see the obrder.  I know - you are testing VGATE.  You get a pass.

[Mr Robot]

Now I can get on with finishing the case designs  

 

[+orpheuswaking]

15 hours ago, Stephen said:

I hate to be "that guy" - but I have to yell at you for what you have displayed here.  4:3 Atari content on a 16:9 screen?  Please no.  The "screen people" should be tall and thin, not short and fat.

 

Hmm - upon closer look, maybe it is in 4:3 - I see the obrder.  I know - you are testing VGATE.  You get a pass.

You are correct, vgate testing. For now this is my test monitor but once the Nuc is completed I’ll likely pair it with my pvm 

[Mr Robot]

Now that the Fujinet daughterboard is done, I was able to use it to finish the case models so I can now show off the designs for the NUC cases.

 

Here are the four designs I've gone with. There are two XL cases, @MacRorie has a cool new printer with dual extruders so I have been playing with a two colour version that prints as a single part but doing this involves not using the second extruder for supports like normal so it may not be possible to produce it reliably in which case the single colour case will be the XL option.

 

The backs all share the same panel and all cases have the Skull motif on the bottom. I'm doing lid versions with the skull on as well for those that wanted it.

 

These designs are all still in flux, I'm toying with the idea of adding ventilation to the bottom of the cases as well at the lids for example but this is more or less what we will end up with. 

 

[Mr Robot]

Early beta version of the XE case before the Fujinet was added the current case is only 6mm taller.

[ajacocks]

Looks pretty fantastic. Very neat design!

[chevymad]

Love the 2 color XL design! Wasn't planning on one of these, but that's almost enough to make me.

[BillC]

On 11/5/2020 at 10:19 AM, Mr Robot said:

The NUC+ is going to have an optional Fujinet daughterboard. It will fit inside the case with all required buttons and sockets exposed. This is going to make the NUC+ a nicely self contained machine. 

 

Here is the first beta of the daughterboard, there are a few wrinkles to iron out but the final board will be almost identical to this, minus the dodgy hand soldering of course.

 

 

 

 

I realize the Fujinet board is a beta, just thought I would mention that I think it would look more appropriate if it used a rocker for the power switch instead of a toggle. I know low profile is wanted so a vertical switch isn't desirable, perhaps a horizontal one like used on the 1050.

[Trailbrake]

Coming to this thread a bit late, but I am very interested.

 

Any ideas on pricing?

 

[+mytek]

3 hours ago, BillC said:

I realize the Fujinet board is a beta, just thought I would mention that I think it would look more appropriate if it used a rocker for the power switch instead of a toggle. I know low profile is wanted so a vertical switch isn't desirable, perhaps a horizontal one like used on the 1050.

It's a good quality mini toggle switch, and being that it's on the back of the unit, I don't see it detracting from the looks of the unit in the least bit. Also works rather well when doing the blind finger feeling aspect when reaching over the top of the unit.

[+mytek]

2 hours ago, Trailbrake said:

Coming to this thread a bit late, but I am very interested.

 

Any ideas on pricing?

 

Nothing yet we're still finalizing various bits of the overall design, and need to get it out of the BETA test stage first.

 

[BillC]

2 hours ago, mytek said:

It's a good quality mini toggle switch, and being that it's on the back of the unit, I don't see it detracting from the looks of the unit in the least bit. Also works rather well when doing the blind finger feeling aspect when reaching over the top of the unit.

It's fairly easy to find/operate a rocker switch by feel, just thought it looked more like an ATARI with a rocker power switch even if it's for a sub-board. The XF551/SX212/XEP80 had the power switch on the back and it was still a rocker.

[Mr Robot]

It was originally going to be a slide switch but I went with the toggle at the request of @mytek who hates slide switches  I love the authentic 1050/800XL style switches and I've got a few here so I could have used one but they cost ~$8 each and that seems too much to add to the cost of a fujinet board that has an alternative available with a ceiling price we have to be able to come in close to.

 

Here's how it looks on the back panel, ignore the failed lid print

[+mytek]

It does look a bit busy with all the labeling around the switches, perhaps it would be cleaner without. I'm pretty sure that the meaning and functionality would still be apparent to the user in short order. Or maybe revert to ON and OFF icons instead. However I do realize you are limited resolution-wise as to what can be done.

 

6 hours ago, BillC said:

It's fairly easy to find/operate a rocker switch by feel,

True.

 

6 hours ago, BillC said:

just thought it looked more like an ATARI with a rocker power switch even if it's for a sub-board. The XF551/SX212/XEP80 had the power switch on the back and it was still a rocker.

As Mr Robot pointed out the cost of that switch is rather high, and in the grand scheme of things we already have a non-Atari style SIO jack, as well as an unheard of PS/2 jack. And lest I forget, the audio/video jack in the final configuration will be an 8 pin DIN instead of the normal 5 pin version. So we've already veered considerably from the Atari standard in this design, no reason to focus on a switch that won't be seen in normal use (remember it's on the back of the unit).

[Mr Robot]

16 minutes ago, mytek said:

It does look a bit busy with all the labeling around the switches, perhaps it would be cleaner without.

It going to be a 1 and a 0, VIDEO is going to say MON as its a monitor and audio outputs. 

[ivop]

27 minutes ago, mytek said:

It does look a bit busy with all the labeling around the switches, perhaps it would be cleaner without.

Haha, I was about to suggest adding more For example, there's room above the power connector to display the polarity.

 

Looking at the shadows, they seem pretty high in relation to the back panel. Perhaps you can print them only a few layers high, or a few layers deep?

[pseudografx]

14 minutes ago, Mr Robot said:

It going to be a 1 and a 0, VIDEO is going to say MON as its a monitor and audio outputs. 

I'd go for A/V on that.

[Mr Robot]

2 hours ago, ivop said:

Looking at the shadows, they seem pretty high in relation to the back panel. Perhaps you can print them only a few layers high, or a few layers deep?

I made them that high so they match the height of the markings on the front panel which are printed on a vertical plane and need to be 1mm or they don't hold their detail well. 

 

2 hours ago, pseudografx said:

I'd go for A/V on that.

Perfect, thank you!