Wanted: ICD RAMBO XL Schematic

[+x=usr(1536)]

9 hours ago, kheller2 said:

There should be traces on the top side and then all routed to R32 then to +5, which is why this is lifted for standard 256K upgrades.  

Got it, and that is definitely appreciated.  That may explain why R32 was never lifted on my machine, which I've been wondering about for some time.

[TZJB]

15 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

OK, another two questions

 

1) If U4 and U5 are populated but J3 is set for the CO21697 ANTIC, are U4 and U5 effectively ignored?  I have three PCBs to build but a mix of both ANTICs in different machines.  I'd like to be able to build them all fully-populated if possible in case I ever need to swap them around.

 

2) In the following picture, each RAM IC has a continuous bodge wire running chip-to-chip on pin 1 (A8).  Is this required for the RAMBO II-XL, or can I safely remove it?

 

 

I'm also not sure why that pin 5-to-pin 5 jumper is there, either - it's A0 to A0.

I suspect that there may be a damaged trace on the top side of the board between pin 5 (RAS) of the two DRAM chips caused when they were socketed (I assume) and RAS was restored with that bridge. Hopefully there is no trace damage to the pin 1s!

[ClausB]

On 10/3/2022 at 7:21 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

 If U4 and U5 are populated but J3 set for the CO21697 ANTIC, are U4 and U5 effectively ignored?  I have three PCBs to build but a mix of both ANTICs in different machines.  I'd like to be able to build them all fully-populated if possible in case I ever need to swap them around.

Yes. And you don't need the wire to U7 pin 8.

[+x=usr(1536)]

Finally got the first one installed in the 800XL tonight.  Ran into three small things, none of which were a serious problem.  I'm mentioning them here in case someone else runs into them, however.

 

Using the 30cm jumper wire set specified in the BOM, I found that with the right-angle header pins for connections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 pointing to the outside of the board the jumpers were barely able to reach the PIA.  I turned those five pins to face inwards and, boom, problem solved.  I didn't measure the wiring before using it, so it may have been a little undersized compared to what Jameco said it should be.

 

 

 

The second item involved C50, which is the capacitor located between the lower-left corner of the UAV and lower-right corner of the RAMBO II-XL.  It had to be canted over very slightly to the right as the RAMBO board was about 1.5mm into its space.

 

 

 

The last item was removing the flashing on the right-hand edge of the RAMBO PCB so that it would fit next to the UAV.  Without doing that, only one or the other could seat in its respective socket at a time.  A sanding block took care of that nicely.

 

And disregard that J1 is a little melty - there was a misfire with a heat gun before assembly, but I decided to use it anyway since it was still working

[+mytek]

My RAMBO XL remake was pretty much a direct copy of the original board, albeit I did allow for the A,B,C,D jumper wires to be incorporated into the same header as the PIA connections. So other than that small change the clone board has the same footprint, IC chips, capacitor, and configuration jumper locations --- and all the limitations/capabilities of the original board produced by ICD. Since the original board was made before such a thing as UAV existed (way before), it's no surprise that there are clearance issues when installing this in an 800XL with a UAV. Since my reason for creating the clone was for use in a couple of 1200XLs I own, I was unaware of the UAV clearance problem.

 

About the wire lengths --- sorry about that, but that was a good solution on your part. Once again these wires worked fine in my 1200XL installation, but obviously for an 800XL longer wires should be sourced.

 

The RAMBO XL clone was very much a design meant to satisfy a personal need of mine at the time, hence the reason it never showed up on my website and was only discussed here on AtariAge. I still have no plans to add it to my website's offerings, so hopefully this AA topic will continue to be that source of information, and updates.

[ivop]

13 hours ago, x=usr(1536) said:

It had to be canted over very slightly to the right as the RAMBO board was about 1.5mm into its space.

Luckily you were able to do that! Sometimes they are soldered so close to the PCB that not much wiggling is possible at all.

[+x=usr(1536)]

2 hours ago, mytek said:

Since the original board was made before such a thing as UAV existed (way before), it's no surprise that there are clearance issues when installing this in an 800XL with a UAV. Since my reason for creating the clone was for use in a couple of 1200XLs I own, I was unaware of the UAV clearance problem.

Totally understandable.  In all honesty, I never have any expectations of different modifications being able to coexist in the same place since there's just no way to know what will or won't be in a given machine when designing them.  The fact that both the RAMBO II-XL and UAV can fit in their respective sockets at the same time is, in my eyes, fortuitous good luck

2 hours ago, mytek said:

About the wire lengths --- sorry about that, but that was a good solution on your part. Once again these wires worked fine in my 1200XL installation, but obviously for an 800XL longer wires should be sourced.

Not a complaint at all.  I get it - things work differently in different machines.  Now I know that when the next set of machine headers arrive and I move on to installing one in the 1200XL, the cabling is already there to do it

2 hours ago, mytek said:

The RAMBO XL clone was very much a design meant to satisfy a personal need of mine at the time, hence the reason it never showed up on my website and was only discussed here on AtariAge. I still have no plans to add it to my website's offerings, so hopefully this AA topic will continue to be that source of information, and updates.

Sounds good.  FWIW, it's a really nice design, and assembles easily.

 

On a related note: it looks as though I'm going to end up with one spare fully-populated board.  Once I've got all of the 800XL's various maladies sorted out (so that I can test these things), I'm planning on offering that board to someone who could use it.  It'll be a freebie and include everything necessary to do the installation except for the 256K DRAMs.  The plan had originally been to upgrade the 600XL, 800XL, and 1200XL, but for the effort involved in doing this on the 600XL I'd rather just do a U1MB instead - hence why there will be an extra floating around at the end of all of this

[Ricky Spanish]

Here's my RATS NEST install in a 1200XL.. I guess I could make it neater... But hey, it works great ! 

 

[TZJB]

10 hours ago, Ricky Spanish said:

Here's my RATS NEST install in a 1200XL.. I guess I could make it neater... But hey, it works great ! 

 

That is a very neat rats nest if I may say so. The wires are traceable and I can barely notice the bent out PIA pins. I notice also that your 1200XL has the older C012296 ANTIC and consequently required the additional wiring, but I believe this is normal for this model. Incidentally, the ICD Rambo manual also advises that R63 be replaced with a jumper in order to provide full power to the SIO port. I don't know if you would need that mod for your S-Drive Max? Great work!
 

[Ricky Spanish]

8 hours ago, TZJB said:

Incidentally, the ICD Rambo manual also advises that R63 be replaced with a jumper in order to provide full power to the SIO port. I don't know if you would need that mod for your S-Drive Max? Great work!

Thanks ! I seen that R63 mod too.. my S-drive runs off a 9volt PS, and I prefer to have the Drive on before the computer

[TZJB]

23 hours ago, Ricky Spanish said:

Thanks ! I seen that R63 mod too.. my S-drive runs off a 9volt PS, and I prefer to have the Drive on before the computer

I agree. The S-Drive needs to be on before the computer. I am using an old 12V hard drive psu for mine. Although I seem to use the S-Drive less now that I have a Fujinet as ATR disk image creation is very much easier, and it networks! I am still looking for a modern sector copier that uses the Rambo XL memory for faster backups. Happy 7.1 sector copier does use the Rambo XL memory, but it sometimes does not see the drives mounted in Fujinet and not many copiers will go beyond drives 1-4. Determining disk density in order to create a correct sized ATR is also a problem.

[ClausB]

23 minutes ago, TZJB said:

I am still looking for a modern sector copier that uses the Rambo XL memory for faster backups.

My RAMdisk driver turns that memory into a numbered drive so you can use any sector copier.

Edited October 23, 2022 by ClausB

[Ricky Spanish]

20 minutes ago, ClausB said:

My RAMdisk driver turns that memory into a numbered drive so you can use any sector copier.

Yes, I have one of MAT*RAT's ramdisk that does the same, among other things.

[TZJB]

On 10/21/2022 at 5:58 PM, x=usr(1536) said:

On a related note: it looks as though I'm going to end up with one spare fully-populated board.  Once I've got all of the 800XL's various maladies sorted out (so that I can test these things), I'm planning on offering that board to someone who could use it.  It'll be a freebie and include everything necessary to do the installation except for the 256K DRAMs.  The plan had originally been to upgrade the 600XL, 800XL, and 1200XL, but for the effort involved in doing this on the 600XL I'd rather just do a U1MB instead - hence why there will be an extra floating around at the end of all of this

Regarding the 600XL, a 64K upgrade is straightforward just by replacing the two 4416 RAM chips with 4464 RAM chips and adding three extra wires. Alternatively TFHH has a very nice Atari 600XL 576K SRAM memory upgrade for 35 Euros. http://www.van-radecke.de/STUFF/tfhh_HW_info.pdf It is Compy Shop compatible with Antic banking I believe. I upgraded my 600XL with just the 64K as I have a TFHH Sys-Check 2.2 should I need more memory for the 600XL, but I did fit a 512K SRAM to one of my 800XL, but it prevents the shield fitting correctly as it raises the ANTIC chip which sits under the keyboard in this model. I tend to remove the top shielding anyway so not a huge problem.

[+x=usr(1536)]

3 minutes ago, TZJB said:

Regarding the 600XL, a 64K upgrade is straightforward just by replacing the two 4416 RAM chips with 4464 RAM chips and adding three extra wires.

Yep, already have that one in there

 

I'm holding out for parts availability to make the external U1MB a reality.  That'll take care of the 600XL, and will probably be how the 800XL ends up as well.  The 1200XL can remain a 256K machine for the foreseeable future; could do an internal U1MB on it, but with the other two having that upgrade I don't see myself feeling pressed to do the same on that machine.

[reifsnyderb]

For my personal 600XL, I just use either my own 64k PBI upgrade, my own 320k PBI upgrade, or a 1090 board with my 320k upgrade installed...depending upon what I have put together at the time.  My personal 600XL still has the original 16k of RAM installed.  However, S-Video has been added by using the normally unused component footprints on the system board and swapping the RF switch for a 5 pin DIN connector.  I also upgraded the OS to V4 and BASIC to Rev. C.   🙂

 

[+kheller2]

Just for stupid giggles, was there ever a RAMBO hack to use 4x4464 chips in the 600XL or was/is there a 44256 chip?

[TZJB]

1 hour ago, reifsnyderb said:

For my personal 600XL, I just use either my own 64k PBI upgrade, my own 320k PBI upgrade, or a 1090 board with my 320k upgrade installed...depending upon what I have put together at the time.  My personal 600XL still has the original 16k of RAM installed.  However, S-Video has been added by using the normally unused component footprints on the system board and swapping the RF switch for a 5 pin DIN connector.  I also upgraded the OS to V4 and BASIC to Rev. C.   🙂

 

Well we all agree that the 600XL memory upgrade is necessary in one form or another. Atari made a 64K PBI upgrade of course, but I have never seen one. I originally had a QMeg PBI upgrade that gave 256K total memory but it's stopped working and is potted in sealant so probably not repairable. Strangely instead of using the PBI power it has a 7 pin DIN cable tap. I thought that maybe it would also work on an 800XL. It does, but then you can't plug the monitor in as it overlaps. Incidentally, the european 600XL has a standard DIN monitor socket already but no channel switch. I wasn't sure what OS version 4 was but it looks like it's 32K for XEGS with built in BASIC and Missile Command. Does it work in the 600XL?

[TZJB]

2 minutes ago, kheller2 said:

Just for stupid giggles, was there ever a RAMBO hack to use 4x4464 chips in the 600XL or was/is there a 44256 chip?

As it happens, there is a 44256 DRAM chip, but it has 20 pins so would need a fair amount of hacking, together with the additional MMU. If you are going to do that then I think the Hias 512K SRAM upgrade would probably be easier. https://www.horus.com/~hias/atari/#sram512k. This is a picture of the installation in a 600XL:-

 

[+kheller2]

Boo. Hiss.  Would be easier to create a plugin board with 4x4464(4164)s  I was just doing a mental exercise on what would have to be modified on the RAMBO board to drop into a 600XL in U6 especially since the address decoding is slightly different.  

[TZJB]

21 hours ago, ClausB said:

My RAMdisk driver turns that memory into a numbered drive so you can use any sector copier.

Thank you for the suggestion of your RAMdisk driver. I have the one that comes with Sys-Check 2.2 for MyDOS, is that it? I am not sure if I am using the correct tools, but I am really looking for something like a version of Happy 7.1 sector copier which sees a Rambo XL as a Brent 256K (anyone heard of that?) and uses the whole memory to buffer the disk data. When I copy a physical disk to an ATR file on a Fujinet or Sdrive-Max I would like the copier program to indicate the current disk density (before the copy) and to use all available RAM for a 1 pass copy. Any suggestions of a copier that does that and supports D1 - D8?

[TZJB]

1 minute ago, kheller2 said:

Boo. Hiss.  Would be easier to create a plugin board with 4x4464(4164)s  I was just doing a mental exercise on what would have to be modified on the RAMBO board to drop into a 600XL in U6 especially since the address decoding is slightly different.  

I mentioned this before. The THFF 600XL 576K upgrade just plugs into the ANTIC socket and the ANTIC chip plugs into the board, so is a good to go drop in board needing just 2 wires connecting to the MMU, 1 wire to GTIA and one wire to 74LS08. Not sure about the top shielding though as it probably won't fit after....

Reading the instructions it provides either a 512K Rambo upgrade, a 256K Compy Shop upgrade, or can be disabled. And you won't need the original RAM.

[reifsnyderb]

1 hour ago, TZJB said:

Well we all agree that the 600XL memory upgrade is necessary in one form or another. Atari made a 64K PBI upgrade of course, but I have never seen one. I originally had a QMeg PBI upgrade that gave 256K total memory but it's stopped working and is potted in sealant so probably not repairable. Strangely instead of using the PBI power it has a 7 pin DIN cable tap. I thought that maybe it would also work on an 800XL. It does, but then you can't plug the monitor in as it overlaps. Incidentally, the european 600XL has a standard DIN monitor socket already but no channel switch. I wasn't sure what OS version 4 was but it looks like it's 32K for XEGS with built in BASIC and Missile Command. Does it work in the 600XL?

OS V4 works great on the XLs.  If I have a 320k memory upgrade installed, the self test shows some of the extra memory as bars in the lower part of the screen.  

 

 

This is on a 320k 600XL with OS V4.

 

 

[reifsnyderb]

9 minutes ago, TZJB said:

I mentioned this before. The THFF 600XL 576K upgrade just plugs into the ANTIC socket and the ANTIC chip plugs into the board, so is a good to go drop in board needing just 2 wires connecting to the MMU, 1 wire to GTIA and one wire to 74LS08. Not sure about the top shielding though as it probably won't fit after....

Reading the instructions it provides either a 512K Rambo upgrade, a 256K Compy Shop upgrade, or can be disabled. And you won't need the original RAM.

The top shielding probably won't fit as it's way too close.

 

I've done something similar by adapting my 320k PBI upgrade to an internal upgrade except I do it with the CPU.  Also, I have a special board made for the 74LS08 chip so that PBI /EXTSEL still disables the internal RAM.  In this picture you can also see the DRAM chips are removed.  The OS and BASIC changes are visible as well as the S-Video conversion.

 

[+kheller2]

53 minutes ago, TZJB said:

I mentioned this before. The THFF 600XL 576K upgrade just plugs into the ANTIC socket and the ANTIC chip plugs into the board, so is a good to go drop in board needing just 2 wires connecting to the MMU, 1 wire to GTIA and one wire to 74LS08. Not sure about the top shielding though as it probably won't fit after....

Reading the instructions it provides either a 512K Rambo upgrade, a 256K Compy Shop upgrade, or can be disabled. And you won't need the original RAM.

I completely understand there are much better ways to upgrade a 600XL.  But as long as we are doing old school upgrades, I was curious if anyone back then had modified a RAMBO for a 600XL.