NEW MIO production run.

[ClausB]

Ok. Got one of the new Boards assembled.. Heres what it looks like..

Wow, that's pretty! That's how a circuit board should look, not like that surface-mount $#!+ nowadays.

 

My big TV broke a while ago and I had to replace a microscopic diode on the power board. Even with a powerful magnifier, it took me nearly an hour to get it in the right place. And it's the first time I paid more than $10 for a grain of sand.

 

BTW, what's with the vertical stack of diodes near the regulator? Technical reason or just art?

[MEtalGuy66]

Ok. Got one of the new Boards assembled.. Heres what it looks like..

Wow, that's pretty! That's how a circuit board should look, not like that surface-mount $#!+ nowadays.

 

My big TV broke a while ago and I had to replace a microscopic diode on the power board. Even with a powerful magnifier, it took me nearly an hour to get it in the right place. And it's the first time I paid more than $10 for a grain of sand.

 

BTW, what's with the vertical stack of diodes near the regulator? Technical reason or just art?

 

Its a bridge rectifier circuit for the power supply. And its stacked like that for space and cooling considerations. If something was to get shorted out on the board, Id rather a diode burn up in "mid air" than burn a crater into the surface of the board. I also dont want them touching the heatsink for the voltage regulator, as that would decrease the cooling capacity of both. You can't really tell in the picture, but those diodes are "perfectly spaced" apart with about an eighth of an inch of space between them. Heh. Art? Well, it does look pretty kewl, as well...

 

The original MIOs had a big problem burning up the rectifier diodes. I used larger rated diodes, much thicker circuit traces, and much lower overall current draw devices(most noteably, the DRAM) to remedy this problem.

Edited April 25, 2008 by MEtalGuy66

[+bf2k+]

Ok. Got one of the new Boards assembled.. Heres what it looks like..

 

 

...

 

That really looks good... now I wish I would have ordered one.

[ClausB]

While I was waiting for the PCBs to be remade, I have been working on a Service Manual for the MIO.

It is about 90% complete at this point. 51 pages so far. This includes the following:

 

* Actual schematics of the MIO, incuding the changes made to the DRAM circuits.

* Parts placement diagram

* Parts list, including Mouser/Digikey part numbers.

* Logic diagrams for all ICs.

* Signal/Programming DATA for the 6551 ACIA (UART)

* Timing diagrams and waveforms for various diagnostic purposes.

 

When this is complete, I'll make it available to whoever wants it.

I'd love a copy!

[MEtalGuy66]

Ok. Got one of the new Boards assembled.. Heres what it looks like..

 

 

...

 

That really looks good... now I wish I would have ordered one.

 

Youll get your chance. Just gimme a chance to take care of these first 22 guys who up-fronted their money in good faith.. and when they are all taken care of, Ill be sure and make them available again to anyone who missed the first go-round..

[MEtalGuy66]

While I was waiting for the PCBs to be remade, I have been working on a Service Manual for the MIO.

It is about 90% complete at this point. 51 pages so far. This includes the following:

 

* Actual schematics of the MIO, incuding the changes made to the DRAM circuits.

* Parts placement diagram

* Parts list, including Mouser/Digikey part numbers.

* Logic diagrams for all ICs.

* Signal/Programming DATA for the 6551 ACIA (UART)

* Timing diagrams and waveforms for various diagnostic purposes.

 

When this is complete, I'll make it available to whoever wants it.

I'd love a copy!

 

Yeah its 99% done. i just dont want a bunch of diferent incomplwete versions of it circulating. wanna make sure its 100% complete before I "put it out there"..

[tjb]

Wow, those look really great! I'll likely purchase another one. As the old saying goes, "Good things come to those who wait".

 

tjb

[Roydea6]

Yeah its 99% done. i just dont want a bunch of diferent incomplwete versions of it circulating. wanna make sure its 100% complete before I "put it out there"..

 

Yes good stuff. I would like also to have a Manual and MIO remake. These are looking good.. Near time for a new pre-order for the MIO's.

[MEtalGuy66]

Yeah its 99% done. i just dont want a bunch of diferent incomplwete versions of it circulating. wanna make sure its 100% complete before I "put it out there"..

 

Yes good stuff. I would like also to have a Manual and MIO remake. These are looking good.. Near time for a new pre-order for the MIO's.

 

Yeah I wont be doing another "preorder" if I can help it. Id much rather build it and THEN sell it than take money for it in advance. The preorders were just a way to offset some of the enormous expense of "getting the ball rolling." At this point, I have invested as much or more money of my own on top of the cash I took in preorders.

 

I am really hoping that once these thing get into the hands of the end-users, there will be some software development for them that will be a benefit to us all.

[MEtalGuy66]

Not a big development, but this SIMM tested well with the MIO.

 

http://store.majormemory-com.com/16mb-30-p...arity-simm.html

 

I bought 2 of them, and both burn-in tested for several hours with no errors.

 

Ok.. School work is done for this semester.. So I am back on the MIO project "full time".

 

I should be able to report some substantial progress in the next few weeks.

Edited April 30, 2008 by MEtalGuy66

[MEtalGuy66]

Ok.. I have the 16meg upgrade built to a functional prototype, and it has tested 100% stable so far.

 

90% of the firmware enhancements for this upgrade are complete. We are currently just messing with some rom-banking/relocation issues, but we anticipate having these issues corrected any day now.

Judging by the apparant stability of the hardware, we know that the DRAM timing is pretty close, but we may need to make one more slight adjustment to the hardware spec before we commit the 16meg upgrade board to a production PCB. Once we have finalized the 16meg enhanced firmware and write a more comprehensive test program for all of the RAM, we will be able to make much better functional timing comparissons.

 

here is what the "wired" proto-board looks like installed in an MIO. This piggybacks under the 6551 UART and has 4 additional point-point connections that must be made to the board at this time.

 

Warerat and I were able to get together and spend several hours this weekend (mostly testing various MIO hardware configurations) and gain some insight into some needed hardware/firmware "tweaks." I also got to see his "MIO VGA/80 column" protoboard produce an actual output on a VGA montitor. Kewl stuff.

 

Also go the new rev 2.0 MIO PCB build-spec finalized and "torture-tested" pretty well, so we are all set to actually build and (gasp) ship-out the first pre-ordered units. I am much happier with this new PCB and I feel like I can reliably build these without any major issues. So this is perhapse the best news of all.

[MEtalGuy66]

Welp, I built 2 MIOs this weekend. Both tested perfectly. It seems the new PCB is pretty solid.

 

It took me about 12 hours, uninterrupted, to completely build two REV. 2 units, incuding the case-work. That's not bad at all, considering the time REV.1 was taking in assembly/diagnostics just to get it working..

 

I plan to build at least 2 units per week from now on, and will be shipping them as they are finished & tested.

They'll be shipped out in order of payment.

 

I'll be emailing each recipient to verify mailing address, etc.

 

I'm shipping these with the original firmware installed.

When the new firmware is complete, it will be available for download, or mail order (price of an eprom and postage) for those who cant burn it themselves.

[tjb]

My MIO arrived today!!!! Thanks Ken!

 

tjb

[MEtalGuy66]

My MIO arrived today!!!! Thanks Ken!

 

tjb

 

Yep. No prob. Thanks for the order.. and the patience...

 

Got two more shipping out tomorrow, and then I'll assemble two more this weekend..

 

 

These two are going to...

 

Dan Winslow!

[peteym5]

80 Column out to a VGA monitor sounds cool. Is this 80 Column Color and is it backward compatible with existing Atari graphics modes? It would be cool to be able to run stuff without switching between monitors/TV. However I am not sure if the output from the Antic/GTIA is piped through the expansion port. Of course nowadays, "80 Column" is kinda outdated with proportional fonts on screen and to printers.

[MEtalGuy66]

80 Column out to a VGA monitor sounds cool. Is this 80 Column Color and is it backward compatible with existing Atari graphics modes? It would be cool to be able to run stuff without switching between monitors/TV. However I am not sure if the output from the Antic/GTIA is piped through the expansion port. Of course nowadays, "80 Column" is kinda outdated with proportional fonts on screen and to printers.

 

Yeah it's color. No, it's not backward compatable to atari graphics modes. We may write a replacement for the XEP80 handler that uses it. There will also be a built in firmware based handler that simply allows redirection of E: or S: output to it.

 

It's not outdated. The Atari cant do a fast and readable 80 columns. This is a need that has gone unfilled for way too long. The XEP80 looks nice, but whoever decided to run it through the joystick port mustve been on some good drugs. This will enable us to have GOOD terminal programs and text editors, and will be fast enough for any application.

 

From the standards of Windows, it's outdated. PC's havent done anything (aside from the BIOS and BOOT diagnostic screens) in actual "Text mode" since the EGA days. Scalable fonts are nice. So are 16/32/64bit machines with huge cpu and graphics resources capable of doing all that scaling in realtime.. On an 8-bit machine, scalable fonts are something thats done for custom output, but not in realtime for general user interaction...

[peteym5]

I agree with you that the XEP80 design was really strange and the XEs had that expansion port on the back. If Atari built the 80 column device to use the expansion port, it would have very good throughput and probably sell more. I kinda figure it would not be able to do the Atari graphics modes, you probably need to combine something with the composite/chroma-luma outputs out of the back of the computer and loop it through the MIO. Need to convert it to something to display on a VGA screen because the rates are different. Not the simplest solution in the world.

 

I have not seen much on the PC text mode since MS-DOS days. Linux allows you to run the command prompt in full screen that is text mode screen. I was one of the people bought up with DOS and I do miss those simpler times.

[ClausB]

The Atari cant do a fast and readable 80 columns.

HEY!

[MEtalGuy66]

The Atari cant do a fast and readable 80 columns.

HEY!

Well, it's the truth.. A 3x8 font on a composite display is great for free, using existing hardware.. But its not exactly "easy on the eyes".. And the XEP80 is a neat little box, but slow as hell by comparisson to the native display and who wants to plug and un-plug your joystick cable all the time?

 

This would provide a fast soulution for working in 80 coumns, on a separate display that is totally transparent to the machine when not in use. And support enough colors to do a good ANSI-COLOR terminal emulation mode with no flickering or mapping of characters on a hi res graphics screen...

[+Allan]

.... and who wants to plug and un-plug your joystick cable all the time?

 

Do you think one of those ST Mouse/Joystick switchboxes might work with the XEP80 and a joystick on the 8-bits?

 

Allan

[peteym5]

If you do the 4x8 characters on existing Atari screens or loop a device through a joystick port, it wont be very fast indeed. However if you were to put something on the expansion port on the 130XE or the 800XL, you will be connected directly to the main bus and have more bits to send and receive information. With on the discussion about upgrading video, surprised there is little mention of interfacing something onto these expansion ports.

[Mathy]

Hello Ken, guys

 

And the XEP80 is a neat little box, but slow as hell by comparisson to the native display and who wants to plug and un-plug your joystick cable all the time?

 

The XEP80 is slow, because the software written for is doing nothing (waiting) most of the time. The hardware is pretty fast. Check out my special stuff page for a couple of articles on the XEP80 and why it appears to be so slow. (First three files at the top of where the links brings you to. Under "I dove ... ")

 

BTW your 80 column device for the MIO, could that (or something simular) be used either as a stand alone device or an add-on to the BlackBox?

 

Greatings

 

Mathy

Edited May 16, 2008 by Mathy

[MEtalGuy66]

Hello Ken, guys

 

And the XEP80 is a neat little box, but slow as hell by comparisson to the native display and who wants to plug and un-plug your joystick cable all the time?

 

The XEP80 is slow, because the software written for is doing nothing (waiting) most of the time. The hardware is pretty fast. Check out my special stuff page for a couple of articles on the XEP80 and why it appears to be so slow. (First three files at the top of where the links brings you to. Under "I dove ... ")

 

BTW your 80 column device for the MIO, could that (or something simular) be used either as a stand alone device or an add-on to the BlackBox?

 

Greatings

 

Mathy

 

Yeah, I realize that the software could be more efficient. But the limitations of using the joystick port as a serial interface are still there, even with the most optimized software. I never said the XEP80 was not a useable device, given the right software. But what I am saying is that a PBI 80 column device will be 100 times better and faster. The reason we are making the device for the MIO is because there is already an upgrade path in place on the MIo that was designed specifically for such a device. There is no limit to what could be designed to plug into anything..

 

The Blackbox is easily the finest PBI device ever made for the atari. It represents the "third generation" (The MIO being the second) of commercial multifunction PBI interfaces for the atari. It is so far beyond any other device in capability and configuration flexibility, it's not even fair to compare it. I have the utmost in respect for Bob Puff.. I will not be "cloning" the black box unless Bob Releases permission to do so... But if I did, the first thing Id do is redesign the layout to fit in some sort of "standard" enclosure and have actual DB9/DB25 ports for the serial/paralell mounted on the board. The second thing I'd do is provide some sort of expansion port and logic to decode some extra registers to control it. The source code for the blackbox firmware is unobtainable (according to Steve Carden it's on a crashed hardisk that Bob has yet to recover). If all of this were ever to happen, then maybe I'd be looking at the possibility of producing an 80 column expansion for the Black Box.

 

We did not set out here to create yet another video expansiuon device for the atari. But since the MIO is in a state now that we have completely taken it apart, adapted it to standard devices, completely analyzed it's firmware source code, and are in a position to continue to produce it in an improved form, it only makes sense (if possible) to also explore the possibility of providing the separate 80 column video output expansion that was originally intended for it (also updated to support a more modern & commonly available standard, VGA)...

 

At this point, we may or may not decide to actually produce the 80 column board. It is still in the very early prototype stages. There has been no firmware support added for it, and certainly no concrete plans for production/availability of it. There is a huge difference between even a fully functional prototype, and something that is concrete enough to pass on to end-users. I have an MIO sitting here that can adress 16megs of ram. But its not in a state that I wouild sell to anyone.

 

Here is the MIO project priority list again:

 

1) Get the current MIO design into the hands of the people who ordered it.

2) Fix the firmware to get the highest degree of SCSI compatability reasonably possible.

3) development of "upgrades" such as the 16meg version of the MIO, the 80 column expansion, and corresponding firmware changes/additions.

[+Allan]

Would it ever be possible for someone to clone the 1090XL? It would be great to have expansion slots like the Apple IIe/IIGS have. There are bunch of boards coming out for those machines that have been made easier to do due to the expansion slots.

 

Allan

[MEtalGuy66]

Would it ever be possible for someone to clone the 1090XL? It would be great to have expansion slots like the Apple IIe/IIGS have. There are bunch of boards coming out for those machines that have been made easier to do due to the expansion slots.

 

Allan

 

Yeah the 1090XL pics I have seen dont have any "custom" hardware on them. Its basically a backplane and a few bus transcievers.. But if that was gonna become a "standard" it would have had to do so back in the day when ATARI was producing and selling 8-bit hardware. Your not gonna see it become entrenched as a standard now. It makes no since to expect it to. Theres too wide of a range of interest-level and financial commital among users of the atari community now. In other words, unless you GAVE a 1090xl to everyone out there, you wouldnt see enough people adopt that "expansion card" as a hardware development standard, and lots of people will still be making cheaper "expansion hacks" which would be attractive due to the fact that they can be applied directly to the base machine without having the "expansion chassis".. If there was an existing base of support for the thing from stuff that was sold back in the day (like there is for devices like the MIO and BlackBOX) that would be different. Also remember the 1090XL is JUST an expansion backplane. It doesnt do ANYTHING without a) some hardware developer's card in it.. and B)appropriate firmware/software support for the devices plugged into it.. SO thats a LONG WAY to expect the extrememly diversified ATARI community to go nowadayze with no preexisting user/owner/software-support base for the thing..

 

So yeah its easiy as hell to clone that thing.. No, I dont think it would be worth doing... Yes, Id love to have one just to play around with... Yes I wish ATARI had sold it and established it as a standard back when it could have become one.