sideburn Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 On 5/16/2024 at 1:47 PM, reifsnyderb said: Attached is Atari's OS 3 with the bank fix: atarios3f.rom 16 kB · 10 downloads Here is the same but with the HIAS high speed SIO: atarios3f_hs.rom 16 kB · 11 downloads I got the EPROM today, pulled the Arabic ROM off (surprised it is a standard 27128 EPROM from the factory with an atari label covering the window)... Socketed the board and used the 3f ROM and it worked like a charm. PAL sure feels slow compared to the NTSC version... What is the HIAS SIO? does that make all read/writes fast like a Happy 1050? Any conflict with it? Fujinet etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 Fast SIO is only of use if your drive supports it, though of course practically all emulated devices do so making it worthwhile. The key repeat rate is annoyingly slow regardless of TV standard. In theory the Rom image could be patched to customize such things though it can also be changed by poking the Ram based variables. Custom Rom though would mean you need to recalculate the Rom checksums. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideburn Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 Are all 65XE boards a 130 XE board with half the RAM? I assume you cant simply add more RAM... Yeah, I just meant since PAL has aa slightly slower clock. If you are used to NTSC then you really notice it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 41 minutes ago, sideburn said: Are all 65XE boards a 130 XE board with half the RAM? Most PAL 65XE's are; you can tell by the presence of an ECI connector. 43 minutes ago, sideburn said: I assume you cant simply add more RAM... Yeah, you need the EMMU chip too, which supports bankswitching. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideburn Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 Wow the PAL image quality on the display is way better. Especially on an LCD monitor. Which works out for the better now since I am building a laptop / lcd... I didn't realize it was so much cleaner Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 10 hours ago, MrFish said: Most PAL 65XE's are; you can tell by the presence of an ECI connector. That's not strictly true - the C100455 "65XEN" mainboard has ECI but has space for only 64 KB. Coincidentally, AFAIK all Arabic 65XEs we've seen so far contained this board type. 11 hours ago, sideburn said: Yeah, I just meant since PAL has aa slightly slower clock. If you are used to NTSC then you really notice it. It's less than 1% slower, I doubt you would notice. The difference you see is probably caused by the slower frame rate. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 (edited) It is the frame rate - in fact with the default Gr. 0 screen in effect, a PAL machine is actually faster because less cycles are lost to Antic graphics and refresh steals, plus fewer VBlank NMIs leave some extra cycles as well. Edited May 19 by Rybags Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideburn Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 (edited) 57 minutes ago, Kr0tki said: That's not strictly true - the C100455 "65XEN" mainboard has ECI but has space for only 64 KB. Coincidentally, AFAIK all Arabic 65XEs we've seen so far contained this board type. It's less than 1% slower, I doubt you would notice. The difference you see is probably caused by the slower frame rate. Mine is the Arabic board. says 130 xe on it. I can totally notice the speed difference. Immediately. It was the first thing I noticed and thought wow it’s a lot slower. And I was surprised because I knew it wasn’t a much slower clock. when I powered up with a game in it, the music was slower and the game play is. It’s a pretty big difference with games. The ntsc version is zippier. **** oh. Yeah I’m sure you are right. It’s probly the frame rate. I was going to say the tempo is about 10 steps lower and that’s about the difference in Hz on the frame rate. also get a bit of letterboxing on top and bottom of the screen on the 4:3 aspect ratio. I can’t remember off hand what PAL is vs 640x480 ntsc Edited May 19 by sideburn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sideburn Posted May 19 Author Share Posted May 19 (edited) I’ve been doing conversions of old retro machines to “laptops” or portables (here’s a link to one I just did, a 1977 Superboard II - https://osiweb.org/osiforum/viewtopic.php?t=882 ) anyway now I’m doing an XE portable as my next one so I bought a 4:3 new LCD monitor off Amazon that can do PAL to take apart and pull the lcd out and to my surprise the whole LCD and speakers are all hot glued into place, no screws.. Crazy! I guess that’s how they do modern manufacturing now on low cost electronic stuff. should be a fun challenge with the dremel tool and hot air gun trying to get them out of there. Edited May 19 by sideburn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 2 hours ago, Kr0tki said: That's not strictly true - the C100455 "65XEN" mainboard has ECI but has space for only 64 KB. Coincidentally, AFAIK all Arabic 65XEs we've seen so far contained this board type. I thought that might be the case -- after I posted. Here's the board you're talking about. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TZJB Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 2 minutes ago, MrFish said: I thought that might be the case -- after I posted. Here's the board you're talking about. It would probably be easier to expand the memory in this type of motherboard using an SRAM solution. The 800XLF is similar in that there is no easy conventional upgrade path due to FREDDIE and no space for an EMMU. At least it has an ECI port! If the motherboard is of the 130XE type then going to 320KB conventionally is very straightforward using the 800XE320 EMMU design from Jurgen. I have done a few 65XE/130XE like that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 7 minutes ago, TZJB said: It would probably be easier to expand the memory in this type of motherboard using an SRAM solution. The 800XLF is similar in that there is no easy conventional upgrade path due to FREDDIE and no space for an EMMU. At least it has an ECI port! If the motherboard is of the 130XE type then going to 320KB conventionally is very straightforward using the 800XE320 EMMU design from Jurgen. I have done a few 65XE/130XE like that. On the other hand, if you're got an ECI, you can skip internal upgrades altogether and just get an AVG/SUB Cart, TurboFreezer 2011, or Sys-Check, etc. for extended RAM. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 34 minutes ago, MrFish said: On the other hand, if you're got an ECI, you can skip internal upgrades altogether and just get an AVG/SUB Cart, TurboFreezer 2011, or Sys-Check, etc. for extended RAM. 1090XL + ECI adapter + ECI pin A fix + whatever cards you want. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 19 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: ECI pin A fix What is that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 15 minutes ago, MrFish said: What is that? Connect ECI pin A to pin 16 of the MMU (U3 / CO61608) so as to provide the missing EXTENB signal required by some memory upgrades. (I've made a card that re-creates that signal on a 1090XL. But it's a lot cheaper to just add a wire, internally, to a 130XE.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 1 minute ago, reifsnyderb said: Connect ECI pin A to pin 16 of the MMU (U3 / CO61608) so as to provide the missing EXTENB signal required by some memory upgrades. OK 2 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: (I've made a card that re-creates that signal on a 1090XL. But it's a lot cheaper to just add a wire, internally, to a 130XE.) What's the difference in cost? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 Just now, MrFish said: OK What's the difference in cost? I've developed but haven't priced a card yet. It would probably be close to $30. If you can solder, it's much cheaper to just add the wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 23 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: I've developed but haven't priced a card yet. It would probably be close to $30. If you can solder, it's much cheaper to just add the wire. I don't have a problem with soldering; I was just curious about the difference in cost between the two approaches. So, you're saying without the ECI pin A fix, the cost would be $30 more for the same memory upgrade? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 (edited) 1 hour ago, MrFish said: I don't have a problem with soldering; I was just curious about the difference in cost between the two approaches. So, you're saying without the ECI pin A fix, the cost would be $30 more for the same memory upgrade? No. On an XE, an ECI is required to interface with the 1090XL. However Atari did not supply the EXTENB signal to the ECI but left pin A disconnected. So, in order to use a normal 1090XL memory upgrade, you need to either add that signal back to the ECI. (This would allow the ECI to PBI adapter to have the EXTENB signal.) Or, you need extra logic to generate the EXTENB signal on the 1090XL. Edited May 19 by reifsnyderb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 36 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: Or, you need extra logic to generate the EXTENB signal on the 1090XL. Right... so, I'm asking, what is the added cost for that? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 1 minute ago, MrFish said: Right... so, I'm asking, what is the added cost for that? To just add the wire? A piece of wire and some solder. The card hasn't been priced yet. Figuring normal markup.....probably $20 to $30. Bare boards cost $5, or so, with the shipping cost. The components cost at least another $5. Then there is chip programming, soldering, board cleaning, and testing. Also needed is the ECI to PBI adapter board. Adding the board also takes up a card slot. So, I recommend connecting the ECI pin A, if possible. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 4 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: To just add the wire? A piece of wire and some solder. I obviously wasn't asking about wire and solder, because my question was posed quoting your statement "you need extra logic to generate the EXTENB signal on the 1090XL". So, I was asking about the cost of that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 39 minutes ago, MrFish said: I obviously wasn't asking about wire and solder, because my question was posed quoting your statement "you need extra logic to generate the EXTENB signal on the 1090XL". So, I was asking about the cost of that. True. Maybe I should have phrased that differently. Adding the wire is the ideal solution. The board is the plug and play solution. But the board isn't ideal. It's a shame Atari never connected the EXTENB line to the ECI when they even had a pin available to do so. Instead, they added a /D1xx line...which added yet another incompatibility with the PBI. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+MrFish Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 21 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: True. Maybe I should have phrased that differently. Adding the wire is the ideal solution. The board is the plug and play solution. But the board isn't ideal. Yes, I get all that; adding one wire is a very simple addition for the benefits it provides. However, I would add that "ideal" is in the eye of the beholder; for some people, they're not interested in adding wires anywhere inside their machine. They may have different reasons for that, like, typically, they either can't solder at all (or don't have confidence in doing it, at least), or just don't want to modify their machine in any way (they want to keep it stock). There are plenty of memory upgrades using ECI that require no internal modifications, which are appreciated by a lot people for just that reason. 21 minutes ago, reifsnyderb said: It's a shame Atari never connected the EXTENB line to the ECI when they even had a pin available to do so. Instead, they added a /D1xx line...which added yet another incompatibility with the PBI. I know there are various complaints about ECI, and differences with PBI. Ultimately, they're pretty minimal; and I just appreciate the fact that ECI and PBI exist and can facilitate a host of various useful upgrades. The 1200XL, well... that's another story. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reifsnyderb Posted May 19 Share Posted May 19 1 hour ago, MrFish said: Yes, I get all that; adding one wire is a very simple addition for the benefits it provides. However, I would add that "ideal" is in the eye of the beholder; for some people, they're not interested in adding wires anywhere inside their machine. They may have different reasons for that, like, typically, they either can't solder at all (or don't have confidence in doing it, at least), or just don't want to modify their machine in any way (they want to keep it stock). There are plenty of memory upgrades using ECI that require no internal modifications, which are appreciated by a lot people for just that reason. I know there are various complaints about ECI, and differences with PBI. Ultimately, they're pretty minimal; and I just appreciate the fact that ECI and PBI exist and can facilitate a host of various useful upgrades. The 1200XL, well... that's another story. Agreed on all points. I have a 1200XL and really wish it had a PBI. I refuse to do the rat's nest mod to add a PBI to it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Twitter
AtariAge on Instagram
Watch us on YouTube
Chat on Discord
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.