+kheller2 Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Just now, reifsnyderb said: I think there's enough information available to create an SPC card. The biggest issue I saw was the need for RIOT chips. 2600s aren’t in short supply. Nor 850s. Or 1050s. 🤣 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 10 minutes ago, kheller2 said: 2600s aren’t in short supply. Nor 850s. Or 1050s. 🤣 I am not stealing RIOT chips from any of those. 🙂 In my opinion we need a RIOT chip alternative first. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geister Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 1 hour ago, kheller2 said: 2600s aren’t in short supply. Nor 850s. Or 1050s. 🤣 What's an SPC card? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geister Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 SPC =Serial/Parallel card...nevermind. I'd rather see a Sound card with mouse and/or keyboard support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 (edited) The 1090 section was not linked from the main museum, as I previously stated, so the archives and back ups didn't crawl to that 1090 section. As I said before, Curt had just about all of it, including a few cards, he just needed some help, he had the page almost complete with all the files etc going in and was going to formally link it before he was gone. The page was laid out very well including links and files. Who knows what if any of the other areas being added are now lost for a number of projects. Someone probably has more of it, so it's good you dug some of it up. The text indicates that's what the files/disks were for. Edited March 6 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 W65C51N6TPG-14 or W65C51N6TPLG-14 would be good candidates for the Serial aspect. And a couple of SN74HCT373N or SN74HCT373DWR would work in place of the Parallel aspect. Of course you would need some address decoding to pull it all together, but a small PLD would suffice for that. And as the links show, these are all available as new stock. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 7 hours ago, mytek said: W65C51N6TPG-14 or W65C51N6TPLG-14 would be good candidates for the Serial aspect. And a couple of SN74HCT373N or SN74HCT373DWR would work in place of the Parallel aspect. Of course you would need some address decoding to pull it all together, but a small PLD would suffice for that. And as the links show, these are all available as new stock. Thanks! The parallel/serial card is very well documented, too. It wouldn't take too much to put one together then. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeventura Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 On 3/4/2024 at 2:13 PM, reifsnyderb said: There isn't any bios that has been found. I believe the Atari would load it by bank switching in a bank, on the 64k RAM card, and load it then. Perhaps the ATR8000 BIOS would be a good jumping off point? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 1 hour ago, joeventura said: Perhaps the ATR8000 BIOS would be a good jumping off point? Looking through the disks that were posted, it appears BIOS files are now available. I haven't confirmed which CP/M card they are for yet. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Sorry for derailing this 1090 COM Card discussion once again, but just to add to the SPC Card chip info I posted, you'll need some sort of voltage level translation on the actual RS232 side of things which would normally be a MAX232. However that chip can get a bit expensive and this article goes into alternatives where cost is important: https://scienceprog.com/alternatives-of-max232-in-low-budget-projects/ 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 6 Author Share Posted March 6 1 hour ago, mytek said: Sorry for derailing this 1090 COM Card discussion once again, but just to add to the SPC Card chip info I posted, you'll need some sort of voltage level translation on the actual RS232 side of things which would normally be a MAX232. However that chip can get a bit expensive and this article goes into alternatives where cost is important: https://scienceprog.com/alternatives-of-max232-in-low-budget-projects/ A thought of mine, here, is would it be better to do a parallel/serial interface card or a USB interface card? I am leaning towards a USB interface card being more useful today. But, I could be convinced otherwise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 12 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: A thought of mine, here, is would it be better to do a parallel/serial interface card or a USB interface card? I am leaning towards a USB interface card being more useful today. But, I could be convinced otherwise. Since the joystick ports can be used in a pinch for parallel I/O, I personally think USB would be better to have. Well at least assuming someone can write drivers for it. Better yet if it has multiple USB jacks and can be used for printer, keyboard, mouse, and maybe even mass storage. Opps there I go with the feature creep 🙃 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DjayBee Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 47 minutes ago, mytek said: Since the joystick ports can be used in a pinch for parallel I/O, I personally think USB would be better to have. Well at least assuming someone can write drivers for it. Better yet if it has multiple USB jacks and can be used for printer, keyboard, mouse, and maybe even mass storage. Opps there I go with the feature creep 🙃 It could use parts of the USB cartridge from ABBUC. Ad-hoc I only found this link to AtariMax. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 Hello guys We only have five slots. It would be nice if the simpler stuff, like SPC, USB and maybe real time clock, maybe even MIDI could be on one card. Some of us might want to use an old printer or ... That reminds me, @pancio developed a bi-directional printer port for the Atari 8 bit computers. Would be nice if the SPC card would have a bidirectional printer port. One of the options for an SPC card could also be a dedicated port for SIO2PC/10502PC. Sincerely Mathy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 1 hour ago, Mathy said: That reminds me, @pancio developed a bi-directional printer port for the Atari 8 bit computers. Would be nice if the SPC card would have a bidirectional printer port. Printer port could go perfectly with the RAM upgrade - used as a print spooler. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) So this brings us full circle to a combined but updated ICD MIO/CSS Black Box type card with additional USB / Ethernet port. With modern day knowledge a few elements of U1M / incognito sprinkled in. Making an XL/XE able to be an 800 just like the 800 can be an XL/XE. Edited March 7 by _The Doctor__ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) 4 hours ago, reifsnyderb said: A thought of mine, here, is would it be better to do a parallel/serial interface card or a USB interface card? I am leaning towards a USB interface card being more useful today. But, I could be convinced otherwise. In this day and age, a USB card makes a LOT more sense than parallel/serial. Unless the goal of this project is to realize the 1980's vision of what this expansion bus was to be. Maybe parallel is useful for connecting vintage printers, but I can't think of too many uses for a plain serial port today. Edited March 7 by FifthPlayer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) The vision is to recreate the 80's vision, which in turn means making cards that are up to date and modern day. The 800 was to allow everything including the personality of the machine to be updated utilizing a dual floating bus. In a way the 1090 gives a bit of what was taken away back. Incognito took advantage of that 800 vision and the 800 becomes all things including a PBI connector. So the same for the XL XE series but in a form factor that allows people to make their own more readily is great. The 1090 allows for both the old and new. We don't need to pick all old or all new. Edited March 7 by _The Doctor__ 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+mytek Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 4 minutes ago, FifthPlayer said: In this day and age, a USB card makes a LOT more sense than parallel/serial. Unless the goal of this project is to realize the 1980's vision of what this expansion bus was to be. I agree, and when my brain fully engaged the SIO port popped into my mind which already has several perfectly acceptable serial to parallel printer port devices available. Not everything needs to be on a 1090 card. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FifthPlayer Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) 10 minutes ago, _The Doctor__ said: The 1090 allows for both the old and new. We don't need to pick all old or all new. Certainly not, but a USB card has the potential to open doors to modern computing, in much the same way as recent hardware projects like Fujinet have done. It could be a "killer app" for the 1090. Whereas a serial/parallel card will let you connect a vintage printer, and ??? (The big use case for a serial port that comes to mind is a modem, which isn't much feasible nowadays and gets lets so with each passing day). 9 minutes ago, mytek said: Not everything needs to be on a 1090 card. Agree. Edited March 7 by FifthPlayer 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 (edited) Probably the best option for a USB card would be to utilize something like a Raspberry Pi Pico for the USB I/O. This would permit existing libraries to be leveraged. Some USB interfaces would certainly allow for options. Writing a keyboard driver wouldn't be a problem. As with all of these options, however, any software would have to utilize the OS. Going straight to the hardware registers wouldn't be an option. Personally, I am in favor of this as it wouldn't be that hard to pull off. I actually think a 1090 FujiNet is one of the hardest options.....mainly because I'd have to figure out how to modify their firmware to make it happen. Edited March 7 by reifsnyderb 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeventura Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 Sounds like a multi-function card is desirable like the good old PC days: Serial Parallel RAM Clock and USB all on one board #Goals 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mathy Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Hello guys I'd put the RAM on a separate card, that can be accessed by all other cards. Otherwise you'd need RAM on (almost) every card. Sincerely Mathy 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 3 hours ago, joeventura said: Sounds like a multi-function card is desirable like the good old PC days: Serial Parallel RAM Clock and USB all on one board #Goals I'd say that it would be more reasonable to have USB, RTC, XE compatibility, NV RAM (for configuration settings), and maybe a SD card slot all on one board. However, I didn't notice an easy way to add multiple USB ports with a Raspberry Pi Pico and welcome suggestions on a cheap micro controller for such a purpose. I need to finish up the back side of the CPM card first, however. 🙂 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted March 8 Author Share Posted March 8 I think the Z-80 / CPM card re-creation is finished. Unless I figure out any more changes needed, I'll get 5 made when I order more boards. 🙂 7 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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