PGram+ Card --- Loading up the DSR

[Gary from OPA]

Just now, Ksarul said:

Digi-Key stocks various ACT chips. I just looked up the 74ACT244 and they have several hundred of the DIP version in stock.

Ok, I will check them out. But, timing wise speed needed on the pgram is all the chain of decode logic to generate the RBENA signal, it's a complex series of 138s, 139s, OR gates, AND gates, XOR gates, that is the area that needs improvement, changing just the 244s doesn't do much.

[+Ksarul]

3 minutes ago, Gary from OPA said:

Ok, I will check them out. But, timing wise speed needed on the pgram is all the chain of decode logic to generate the RBENA signal, it's a complex series of 138s, 139s, OR gates, AND gates, XOR gates, that is the area that needs improvement, changing just the 244s doesn't do much.

I looked further. They have 244, 245, 161, 138, 139, 00, 08, 259, 32, and 74s available. . .at a minimum. The only one I checkd that they didn't have were 367s.

[Gary from OPA]

4 minutes ago, Ksarul said:

I looked further. They have 244, 245, 161, 138, 139, 00, 08, 259, 32, and 74s available. . .at a minimum. The only one I checkd that they didn't have were 367s.

Thanks. At least digikey has oniy a $8 shipping charge on orders under $100, compared to Mouser with $20 shipping on orders under $100.

 

I still miss the days when this big Toronto city had various Active Components retail stores, you just walk in, cruise the place with your shopping cart and walkout with everything you need. Those days are long gone. Everything has to be ordered online now and you wait for parcels to arrive.

Edited August 15 by Gary from OPA

[Tursi]

12 hours ago, Gary from OPA said:

Thanks. At least digikey has oniy a $8 shipping charge on orders under $100, compared to Mouser with $20 shipping on orders under $100.

 

I still miss the days when this big Toronto city had various Active Components retail stores, you just walk in, cruise the place with your shopping cart and walkout with everything you need. Those days are long gone. Everything has to be ordered online now and you wait for parcels to arrive.

I've ordered a lot from both... Mouser shipping is pricey but they'll cross-border overnight it for that $20, which is surprising to me.

[Gary from OPA]

I had enough "end of the month" funds, to finally place my Mouser order for just over $100 CAD to get the free shipping, which included all the 74 logic chips for TWO PGRAM cards (mine, plus a broken one from @arcadeshopper , but the faster 74ACT versions (except for the the '367 / '259 / '21 chips, those I can only get in DIP HCT versions, the ACT ones are all SMT now for some reason).

 

I also added to my list the few parts ('139 / '32 / '374 / '125) I need to convert my 3-slot cartridge Widget to an automatic "review module library" design (no more physical switch), and the 2 extra chips needed ( '374 / '125 (plus using existing onboard spare '139 / '32 / '74) plus the (two per card) 512K memory chips (the middle 32k, gets the previous 128k from the left) needed to convert the two PGRAM cards to "PGRAM-Super" design having 16 banks of GROM with 16 banks of 32K >6000 space! (original PGRAM+ only allowed 4 banks GROM with only one shared 16K >6000 space, which is useless now to even run RXB 2024)

 

I also received from @dhe some wonderful DC converter pieces which replace the overheating 7805, with a new drop-in replacement, so that will be done as well to both of the PGRAM cards.

 

Once, I get the parts in from Mouser, they always claim "order will ship today", even with me placing it 3 hours before the cut-off on Friday, but it never does, and its a long weekend, so most likely it will not get processed until the 3rd, and then ship out on the 4th, and even tho its overnight UPS, it always ends up taking 3 to 5 business days, so at this rate, I will not be able to get to enjoying the new parts, and seeing if the ACT re-built fixes the "timing issues" until at best next Friday, or at worse on Sept. 9th.

 

Stay tuned, once i get the parts, i will post pictures, and details on how it all went, and the info on how to upgrade to PGRAM-Super, then of course once the "timing issues" are confirmed solved, I will get to work on v3.0 of the DSR to support the increased amount of banks, and the new 32k of >6000 space, which as a side-effect also increases the DSR space from 16k to 32k as well, since the paging system is shared, so that will give room for a bigger DSR with more features, like including a "power-up" menu and other features, I am also going to look at changing the CRU Base to >1B00 from >1700, the reason for that is it will enable to include the XGPL debugger software that our /4A console ROM supports, and allow to add new GPL instructions as well, because what is the point of having 16 banks of GRAM if you can't even extend the GPL lang. as well, like TI originally designed it to be!

[Gary from OPA]

Amazing enough for the first time ever, mouser infact shipped my order out the same day as I ordered it, never seen that happened before.

 

I guess they want until you are a good customer, the first few orders they dragged their feet with me, even tho each time it was over the $100 min. amount for fast shipping.

[Gary from OPA]

I been trying to troubleshoot another PGRAM+ card, that is giving even more data compare errors than my own and that is in a single PEB system.

 

Today, during our weekly ti99 zoom meeting, I replaced all the 74 logic chips with the faster ACT versions and all 3 ram chips and still having data compare issues.

 

My next step is to de solder all the sockets and replace them with machined ones, as the current sockets are old TI low profile solid frame ones, like used during the apple 1 days, and are totally junk, just looking deeply at the 3 74/244 sockets it looks like all the socket pins are rusty brown as well.

 

I going to have to grab some better de soldering equipment next week to attempt this repair, I need better equipment anyway, as I have 4 original horizon 1000 boards that need the same treatment, total strip down and rebuild with new sockets.

[Gary from OPA]

Today, on my own personal PGRAM card, which works great when on single PEB setup, not on DUAL PEB setup, I replaced all the logic chips with the much faster ACT ones, and it now behaves better on a dual PEB setup, no issues with bank 0 and bank 2, but still timing problems with odd banks 1 and 3, strange when top address bits are 00 and 10 its ok, but not when 01 or 11, weird, at least the faster chips helped a bit, now most likely when it comes to DUAL PEB setup, is the slowest of the firehose itself as well, so next step once i get my desoldering tools, is to redo the ti original flexcard and firehose with faster 244 and 245 chips, and hopefully that will be the end to timing issues on a DUAL PEB setup.

 

i also need to redo the voltage regulator as well, my current soldering tools should be good enough to desolder those on both pgrams, and try the DC converter modules finally that I got from @dhe -- I hopefully, will have time to do that tomorrow, depending on how crazy my monday is, i do sadly some paying work to do on a client's website, we will see how long that takes tomorrow to clear up, then i can get back to doing some cool ti99 diagnostic work.

Edited September 8 by Gary from OPA

[Brufnus]

Having been using my two Geneve's only for a very long time, today I finally found a 3rd working PEB in my way too crowded storage room (and two PEB's in which the PSU's are completely dead; need to examine that at some point) - then I had one of my TI consoles fired up with an Atronic disk controller, 32K memory expansion and even my old GRAM card, which hasn't been used for decades! c".)

 

I've completely forgotten how to use the GRAM card, but having found the utility disk and PDF's here on atariage were definitely very helpful - thanks! 

Hopefully I'll soon be dumping all my cartridges to diskette.  

Edited yesterday at 03:55 AM by Brufnus

[Brufnus]

Okay, this is a Mechatronic GRAM Karte and, thus, works somewhat different of course. 

 

Anyway, I just found the manual on whtech, fired it up with "CALL GRAM1", dumped my E/A module, loaded it into the GRAM Karte from disk - and voila, it worked! So now I should be able to dump my cartridges even without the special dsr's found on Myarc controllers, etc.

 

This is also the first time I've had the Atronic disk controller put to use (inherited that one from Stefan as well), but it's working just fine it seems.

 

This is definitely pure nostalgia - I haven't used the GRAM Karte since I purchased my Geneve in the mid 90's. But now it's finally being put to good use again.  What I DID remember was that it was so extremely helpful with the TI... and now it will be once more!

Edited yesterday at 03:53 PM by Brufnus