Building & Testing the Re-imaged Atari 1450XL

[Bee]

Yes - However if you read Brads information he constantly finds things he didn't know he had.  14 years is a long time.  He will either laugh and say - nope still gone.  But on a rare occasion the answer might have changed.  It's just a phone call.

 

Thank you  

[+mytek]

BITD when I first saw the 1450XLD in that flyer, I too wanted one very badly. Because at that time it really did seem to be a system with everything one could ask for in an Atari 8-Bit. However now days compared to where we've come with all the upgrades it pales in comparison. From a purely nostalgic perspective and as a museum piece, an original 1450XLD would look great on a shelf in my office or better yet in a glass case to preserve it. A remake in all regards right down to the last detail would also be great. However something made to fit in a 1200XL case is going to be very difficult, or at least take great skills to pull-off where the PBI port is concerned, and even more so how would someone create the raised section where the dual floppy drive bay goes? 3D printing isn't going to cut it.

 

The only way in my mind that would do it justice in bringing this back to life is if an injection molded case were made based upon the original specifications. Anything less would probably look kinda janky. An exception to this was the reproduction that @Beetle created several years ago, and the photos of it looked very good. But I don't really think there are many people that could have pulled it off as nicely as him. To try to repeat that process would be extremely time consuming, take a lot of talent, and probably wouldn't be viable in making very many more in the exact same way.

 

Personally I moved on many decades ago concerning the fabled 1450XLD that never got released, but I do understand the desire by some to have a piece of this history recreated. I just hope that it can be done properly in all regards.

[Dropcheck]

6 hours ago, mytek said:

BITD when I first saw the 1450XLD in that flyer, I too wanted one very badly. Because at that time it really did seem to be a system with everything one could ask for in an Atari 8-Bit. However now days compared to where we've come with all the upgrades it pales in comparison. From a purely nostalgic perspective and as a museum piece, an original 1450XLD would look great on a shelf in my office or better yet in a glass case to preserve it. A remake in all regards right down to the last detail would also be great. However something made to fit in a 1200XL case is going to be very difficult, or at least take great skills to pull-off where the PBI port is concerned, and even more so how would someone create the raised section where the dual floppy drive bay goes? 3D printing isn't going to cut it.

 

The only way in my mind that would do it justice in bringing this back to life is if an injection molded case were made based upon the original specifications. Anything less would probably look kinda janky. An exception to this was the reproduction that @Beetle created several years ago, and the photos of it looked very good. But I don't really think there are many people that could have pulled it off as nicely as him. To try to repeat that process would be extremely time consuming, take a lot of talent, and probably wouldn't be viable in making very many more in the exact same way.

 

Personally I moved on many decades ago concerning the fabled 1450XLD that never got released, but I do understand the desire by some to have a piece of this history recreated. I just hope that it can be done properly in all regards.

I agree that from a purely original viewpoint, that at best I can only replicate the motherboard pcb and stay as close to original parts as possible.  The very idea of making the pcb is itself a huge investment of time and energy and money.  There is the huge impediment of not having a ready made case to put the pcb in.  Trying to modify anything close that does exist is not going to be for the faint of heart either.  With no real practical benefit, except as a working museum piece, but then the whole hobby is practically a practicing museum. 🙂

 

It's the challenge in and of itself to recreate a working 1450XL pcb that I want to take on just as it was all those years ago when @Vandal968 ignited the craze to build working 1450XL boards.  Maybe in the future also add the 1450XLD pcb.  It's likely to take six months or more, with more than a few missteps in between.  Not for commercial gain, I don't plan to sell bare or finished boards.  Like my other contributions, I plan to release gerbers and other support files to pd on my website.  There are far better skilled people who do injection molding/3d printing/sheet metal work/case modding than I who might be able to lend a hand in coming up with a case solution.

 

Call me crazy.  I probably deserve it.  🙃 

[Dropcheck]

13 hours ago, mytek said:

You might want to touch bases with @bob1200xl and @KLund1 on this project before you begin, because they both have 'real' 1450XLDs and specifically the floppy controller board that mated with it. I know Kevin really wanted to see the floppy board duplicated

I'll try to get in touch with @Klund1 and see if we can work something out.  I heard that @bob1200XL sold his a few years back.

[+kheller2]

I have to admit I'm not sure what the purpose of rebuilding the 1450 short board --- you need a hacked up 1200XL case, different cart/joystick plastic sides, and a custom power supply to make a finished product.  However, a "XL" board that fit into an existing 1200XL plastics with maybe a PBI header sounds interesting, although you still need cutouts for the modem.  I wish Curt was still around to publish the original 1200XL/1000XL films with the dual SIO ports... that would have been a sweet (hah hah - codename pun) XL.

 

As for the floppy board, I believe there are two version of that design for the 1450 short board.  Buried here at AA (And in some folder on my desktop) are pictures of at least one of them.  The floppy drive worked differently between the 1450 short and the TONG long boards.  I can repost some of those pics here if need be, or I'll try to dig up the original thread(s).

[reifsnyderb]

I've spent some hours looking at the information we have thus far and don't think we could do a proper job even re-creating a system board yet.  Whoever re-creates the system board, to an exact standard, will need a copy of a working system board.

[Dropcheck]

12 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said:

I've spent some hours looking at the information we have thus far and don't think we could do a proper job even re-creating a system board yet.  Whoever re-creates the system board, to an exact standard, will need a copy of a working system board.

The initial problem of getting the exact dimensions of the board seems to require a bare board that can be measured and the traces traced to verify any of the schematics we have.  Once we have the dimensions and verified schematic, we can then start with a proto type board and compare it with a working board.  Making the necessary parts move and substitutions and trace mods as we go. 

[Dropcheck]

21 minutes ago, kheller2 said:

I have to admit I'm not sure what the purpose of rebuilding the 1450 short board --- you need a hacked up 1200XL case, different cart/joystick plastic sides, and a custom power supply to make a finished product.  However, a "XL" board that fit into an existing 1200XL plastics with maybe a PBI header sounds interesting, although you still need cutouts for the modem.  I wish Curt was still around to publish the original 1200XL/1000XL films with the dual SIO ports... that would have been a sweet (hah hah - codename pun) XL.

 

As for the floppy board, I believe there are two version of that design for the 1450 short board.  Buried here at AA (And in some folder on my desktop) are pictures of at least one of them.  The floppy drive worked differently between the 1450 short and the TONG long boards.  I can repost some of those pics here if need be, or I'll try to dig up the original thread(s).

So there were two different floppy board designs for the 1450 short board.  I knew that there were different versions for the short and TONG boards.

[reifsnyderb]

4 minutes ago, Dropcheck said:

The initial problem of getting the exact dimensions of the board seems to require a bare board that can be measured and the traces traced to verify any of the schematics we have.  Once we have the dimensions and verified schematic, we can then start with a proto type board and compare it with a working board.  Making the necessary parts move and substitutions and trace mods as we go. 

A bare board would be best as long as it could be verified to be exactly the same as a working system board.  It's possible somebody may have a bare board in their possession as part of a collection.  The next best thing would be a working and populated system board that could be matched to one of the pictures we have of a bare board.  It would be possible to obtain very close measurements with such a board.  However, the measuring tools need to be exacting.  My recommendation is to use a surface plate and height gauge.

 

With the present information available, and with a huge investment of time and some money, I think a working schematic could be verified verified by making a close approximation.  However, if and when the opportunity were to arise to obtain a board for measurement, the entire working close approximation would need to be re-laid out.

 

I came to this conclusion after taking a high-res picture of the 1450XLD board and overlaying it with the measurements that were kindly provided by @AtariGeezer .  (I didn't double-check the lower right-hand hole and think it may be in error.)  However, I am sure the other holes are correct and they don't line up right.  The entire board picture also has a slight keystone issue that can be corrected for but I didn't bother as the two images won't line up exactly even when corrected for.  A low-res picture is below as the actual file is 44MB in size.

 

 

[+mytek]

1 hour ago, Dropcheck said:

It's the challenge in and of itself to recreate a working 1450XL pcb that I want to take on just as it was all those years ago when @Vandal968 ignited the craze to build working 1450XL boards.  Maybe in the future also add the 1450XLD pcb.  It's likely to take six months or more, with more than a few missteps in between.  Not for commercial gain, I don't plan to sell bare or finished boards.  Like my other contributions, I plan to release gerbers and other support files to pd on my website.  There are far better skilled people who do injection molding/3d printing/sheet metal work/case modding than I who might be able to lend a hand in coming up with a case solution.

 

Call me crazy.  I probably deserve it.  🙃 

Oh I really do understand the why. In fact that is what drives me to create the things that I do as well. For me, and perhaps for you, it is the ultimate adventure game.

 

1 hour ago, Dropcheck said:

I heard that @bob1200XL sold his a few years back.

That was one of his extra 1400XL systems, of which he had two. I believe he got around $4,500 for it on eBay.

 

I was over at his house with Kevin a while back where were going through a couple of 1450XLD systems figuring out the power supply requirements and trying to test the floppy controller. One of those I believe was the larger TONG board.

 

Kevin ( @KLund1 ) really wanted me to take on the project of recreating the separate floppy controller board used in the non-TONG systems, but it just wasn't something that resonated for me.

 

[Dropcheck]

1 hour ago, reifsnyderb said:

A bare board would be best as long as it could be verified to be exactly the same as a working system board.  It's possible somebody may have a bare board in their possession as part of a collection.  The next best thing would be a working and populated system board that could be matched to one of the pictures we have of a bare board.  It would be possible to obtain very close measurements with such a board.  However, the measuring tools need to be exacting.  My recommendation is to use a surface plate and height gauge.

 

With the present information available, and with a huge investment of time and some money, I think a working schematic could be verified verified by making a close approximation.  However, if and when the opportunity were to arise to obtain a board for measurement, the entire working close approximation would need to be re-laid out.

 

I came to this conclusion after taking a high-res picture of the 1450XLD board and overlaying it with the measurements that were kindly provided by @AtariGeezer .  (I didn't double-check the lower right-hand hole and think it may be in error.)  However, I am sure the other holes are correct and they don't line up right.  The entire board picture also has a slight keystone issue that can be corrected for but I didn't bother as the two images won't line up exactly even when corrected for.  A low-res picture is below as the actual file is 44MB in size.

 

 

I've been in contact with @kheller2 and we are trying to work out something as far as a bare 1450XL board loan.  He also has a populated 1450XL short board which I think is exactly the same as the bare one.  I don't know if it's the same as @AtariGeezer's or the other historical pictures.  So it's entirely possible there were several 'versions' of the 1450XL 'short' board.  These were after all still prototype boards and not retail boards.

 

I have both caliper and depth gauges and multimeter to measure with, so I should be able to make an exact electrical and dimension copy in pcb software.  Once that is done I hope I can get a working populated 1450XL board to compare against.

Edited December 4, 2023 by Dropcheck

[Dropcheck]

28 minutes ago, mytek said:

Oh I really do understand the why. In fact that is what drives me to create the things that I do as well. For me, and perhaps for you, it is the ultimate adventure game.

 

That was one of his extra 1400XL systems, of which he had two. I believe he got around $4,500 for it on eBay.

 

I was over at his house with Kevin a while back where were going through a couple of 1450XLD systems figuring out the power supply requirements and trying to test the floppy controller. One of those I believe was the larger TONG board.

 

Kevin ( @KLund1 ) really wanted me to take on the project of recreating the separate floppy controller board used in the non-TONG systems, but it just wasn't something that resonated for me.

 

Wow!  I guess sometimes the hobby does pay.  🙂  I would really like to get ahold of the TONG boards eventually.  Tease all the secrets from it. 

[+kheller2]

2 hours ago, Dropcheck said:

So it's entirely possible there were several 'versions' of the 1450XL 'short' board.  These were after all still prototype boards and not retail boards.

 

I have both caliper and depth gauges and multimeter to measure with, so I should be able to make an exact electrical and dimension copy in pcb software.  Once that is done I hope I can get a working populated 1450XL board to compare against.

 

There are only two short board branches: 1400 and 1450 (and they say so as such on the board themselves).  The 1400 board was, to my understanding, canned since it was the same as the 1450 board... then again no one at Atari back then would commit to 14xx being an active project, especially in late 83.  They were both killed.  Then the project was resurrected in early 84 as TONG.

 

Now, of the short board, there were probably different prototype versions, but the 1450 X3 was the last known release. That is what all the populated prototypes were built on and what all the bare boards are.  They are also individually numbered.  Mine is #78 if I recall, out of 150?

 

I plan on shipping out a bare 1450 board to DropCheck.

 

Karl

 

OH yeah there were two floppy drive designs too, the Epson vs Tandon .. although I THINK the Epson was only on the TONG, I do remember reading that there were two different controller boards for the 1450 short board.

 

Early 1450 board with one of the floppy board designs:  

 

1450 Schematics (R2?) with very interesting hand written comments.  These schematics are from Curt's collection:

1450XL Schematics.zip

 

 

 

1450XLD TONG (Rev A #8?)  vs 1450 in 1400 case, not my pic. I have so much 14xx adult material it's scary.  

 

TONG B board, from Curt's site:

 

 

 

800XLF+CGIA schematics: (let me know if you can read this, it's a 27MB PNG). BTW, I wouldn't count these dates on here to be accurate.  They look like the took the original 800XL schematics and just blended in the circuit changes w/o updating the dates.  These are VERY nice schematics btw.

 

 

 

Tong schematics with "parallel disk controller from 84" these are from Curt's site:

1450 TONG.zip

I had fun printing these at Staples on large sheets.  

 

Early 1400/1450 engineering sample, and then later my 1400XL sample (which I sold a long time ago and kick myself for):

 

 

1450 Floppy booting :

 

 

1450 bare board build thread:

 

Anything else before I go back to my day job?  You know I love this way more.

 

Oh, You'll need the gate array equations too.  I think they are in the build thread.

 

 

[+kheller2]

You know, in hindsight, a large portion of the 14xx boards are dedicated to modem parts.  Atari could have used that for a built in 850 or a real RS232/printer port at parallel speeds.  With less space.  

[reifsnyderb]

11 minutes ago, kheller2 said:

You know, in hindsight, a large portion of the 14xx boards are dedicated to modem parts.  Atari could have used that for a built in 850 or a real RS232/printer port at parallel speeds.  With less space.  

A printer port with a built-in printer buffer would have been great.

[Dropcheck]

With a bare board in hand, I am measuring about 38mm space for the two phone jacks on the back edge of the pcb.  Not quite enough for a RS232/printer port.  The pcb would have had to be a bit longer.  As far as space used on the pcb you may be right. 

[+kheller2]

Eh, I'm sure there is room for a DB9 and DB15.  The original 1000/1200 design had DUAL DB15(?) SIO jacks and a bus header.  Move the RF can left a bit and you can have something on the right side of the case.    Of course with today's tech, you can just stack the jacks.  But, easily you could have had a serial or printer port added no problem.  Then again, maybe Atari didn't want to do that since they were making a 1090 card with that.  Maybe Atari was thinking the 1450XLD it was a cute luggable and all self contained.  

 

I dunno, having years to think about this, faster dual floppy drives were a good but expensive idea.  Adding a voice chip? Sure why not.  Adding a 300 baud modem that takes up that much real estate? Not very practical.  It should have been self contained on its own module so you can upgrade to or buy a 1200baud version.  Heck, have it be empty and have a 1090 slot in there for whatever you wanted.  I can see the allure of an All In One computer with modem, speech etc..  But I would have preferred, at that time, real serial, parallel and an AMY.

 

[Dropcheck]

 FYI:

 

     Progress report:  I have about 90% of the 1400XL v5 schematics entered into my electronics CAD program Diptrace.  These are the clearest schematics I was able to pull down from the WayBack machine copy of the Atari Museaum website.  Once I am done I'll compare them against the 1450XL version from the same source and make any changes needed.  It's taking a little longer than I had hoped because there's a ton of parts that have to be created since they no longer exist in the modern electronics parts inventory.  But heck I'm retired.  🙂

 

     Along side that action, I received the loan of a bare board 1450XL from @kheller2 yesterday via UPS.  I immediately began checking the dimensions kindly provided by @AtariGeezer against it and making an alpha version board layout in the pcb portion of Diptrace.  I'll continue refining the dimensions, board cutouts/protrusions and mounting holes over the next day or two.  When I'm confident I'll start adding the external connector locations on the board.

 

     My goal is initially reproduce as exact a replica of the 1450XL board as possible.  Then and only then entertain making feature changes, ie swapping out the rather useless phone jacks and modem circuitry for more useful serial/parallel ports and/or more modern features. 

 

    As far as the TONG version @KLund1 has a fully populated 1450XLD(Tong) board with case and has agreed to do physical measurements of it.  If someone would volunteer to enter the 1450XLD(Tong)(Atari Museaum version) mainboard schematics into either Diptrace/Kicad 6/Eagle 6/7 I should be able to convert to Diptrace and then reconcile any changes between the various versions. 

 

   That should give us a ready for prototype board for both the 1450XL and 1450XLD(Tong).

 

   

[+kheller2]

Awesome news!

 

@KLund1 if you are up for it, the community would love some hi resolution pictures of the tong board, both sides!

[+kheller2]

As much as I love the idea of a remade 1450 board, I personally, would love a 1200XL form factor board that just plops into the case with a 50pin buffered PBI header.  100% 800XL instead of having to hack up the board.  99% of the chips and components would just swap over from the 1200 board.   The only hard thing would be the cart port unless we can source a place for those.  PBI floppy should be for the 1095 (I made that up) TI/99 PEB style box.   

[+bob1200xl]

I dunno...  What would you use for a PBI floppy? It takes you at least 8 seconds to read a 'real' floppy or less than 6 seconds to read an SIO floppy device (SIO2SD @ div0). 

 

Otherwise, yes! We can use the old 1200XL cart port, right? Use a 65816 and big memory at 7mhz. 80 columns... dual ANTICs...

 

Piece of cake.

 

Bob

 

[reifsnyderb]

7 hours ago, kheller2 said:

As much as I love the idea of a remade 1450 board, I personally, would love a 1200XL form factor board that just plops into the case with a 50pin buffered PBI header.  100% 800XL instead of having to hack up the board.  99% of the chips and components would just swap over from the 1200 board.   The only hard thing would be the cart port unless we can source a place for those.  PBI floppy should be for the 1095 (I made that up) TI/99 PEB style box.   

I know if I had a 1200XL, I'd be working on this.   🙂

[+kheller2]

I think the "Parallel Disk Controller" schematics are a draft or a different revision from the 1450XLD shortboard schematics.

I noticed today an old picture from facebook showed a real 1450 FD schematic.  sigh.

 

 

This one has at least one error, note that pin 16 on the floppy connector is used twice.  These schematics were posted previously, above. I think.

[AtariGeezer]

This is the schematic that I reverse engineered from the 1450xl short board Parallel Disk Drive:

 

Still has some incomplete traces...

 

 

 

 

And the Parts List BOM.

1450 PDD Proto Parts List.txt

Edited December 12, 2023 by AtariGeezer

[+kheller2]

I wonder how close that wire wrap board is to this: