dmlloyd Posted March 20, 2008 Share Posted March 20, 2008 An aside: Your logic traces show AN0-2, the ANTIC to CTIA mini bus. Have you decoded their meanings? I tried once, without a scope, by lifting one pin at a time and seeing how the display bit batterns changed, but it got too messy. Have a look at these pages: http://jindroush.atari8.info/atanttim.htm http://www.xmission.com/~trevin/atari/gtia_pinout.html Also there's copies of the ANTIC and GTIA data sheets floating around out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClausB Posted March 21, 2008 Share Posted March 21, 2008 An aside: Your logic traces show AN0-2, the ANTIC to CTIA mini bus. Have you decoded their meanings? I tried once, without a scope, by lifting one pin at a time and seeing how the display bit batterns changed, but it got too messy. Have a look at these pages: http://jindroush.atari8.info/atanttim.htm http://www.xmission.com/~trevin/atari/gtia_pinout.html Also there's copies of the ANTIC and GTIA data sheets floating around out there. Cool, thanks. Guess I've gone off topic. Sorry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted July 28, 2008 Author Share Posted July 28, 2008 Any more updates on this? Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+warerat Posted August 8, 2008 Share Posted August 8, 2008 Any more updates on this? Tempest Somewhat. I've been mired in reducing the external connections required outside of the personality slot as I can't expect everyone to be adept with an soldering iron. And I like the idea of having less wires inside the card cage. OK, so at the expense of additional logic, I implemented an internal register at $D301 that can be read/written and doesn't require a physical connection to port B. But so you get an appreciation for how something that is seemingly simple turns into something insanely more complex, consider this: it didn't turn out to be a simple 8-bit register and tri-state buffer as one would assume (well part of it is). Rather than bore everyone with an explanation of the PIA initialization sequence and how to write-protect the internal $D301 register with a state machine until it's ready, I'll say it works now without any physical connections to the real PIA. I'm assuming all the custom OS ROMs for the XL/XE initialize PORTB a similar fashion. The state machine is not tied to a specific number of reads from ROM after reset, it actually waits until PBCTL is initialized. So all this work as well as a few other optimizations reduces the amount of external wiring from 20, to 10. Whew. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted August 8, 2008 Share Posted August 8, 2008 Any more updates on this? Tempest Somewhat. I've been mired in reducing the external connections required outside of the personality slot as I can't expect everyone to be adept with an soldering iron. And I like the idea of having less wires inside the card cage. OK, so at the expense of additional logic, I implemented an internal register at $D301 that can be read/written and doesn't require a physical connection to port B. But so you get an appreciation for how something that is seemingly simple turns into something insanely more complex, consider this: it didn't turn out to be a simple 8-bit register and tri-state buffer as one would assume (well part of it is). Rather than bore everyone with an explanation of the PIA initialization sequence and how to write-protect the internal $D301 register with a state machine until it's ready, I'll say it works now without any physical connections to the real PIA. I'm assuming all the custom OS ROMs for the XL/XE initialize PORTB a similar fashion. The state machine is not tied to a specific number of reads from ROM after reset, it actually waits until PBCTL is initialized. So all this work as well as a few other optimizations reduces the amount of external wiring from 20, to 10. Whew. Wow things have changed a lot since the earlier prototypes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+warerat Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 Late night update.... Hard thing about these projects is finding the time to work on them while keeping your other obligations. So I've trimmed down the external connections as much as I could, and made sure no cutting or jumpers would be required except for soldering a few points on the CPU board and the top side of the motherboard. Some of you were concerned about soldering, so I've taken pictures of what you can expect to get into if you do this. The bulk of the connections go to the backside of the CPU board. I'm trying to see if there's enough clearance to stick small piggyback PCBs on the CPU board so it could be a completely solderless install. It may be possible, but it will be a tight fit between the CPU board and the metal shield. While I could take most of the signals from another part of the board, there's a couple that I absolutely need off of ANTIC. I switched my glue logic from the larger 5V CPLD to a tiny 64-pin 3.3V in the same family as this was the original silicon I had planned to use when I started all this madness. I've used every single pin on it, so I can't add anything else to it unless I remove a feature. There's some wiggle room left inside in the event I need to make some small design changes, but other than that, it's completely utilized. There's provisions for the 32-in-1 OS, and the rest of the missing PBI signals. The three unused memory slots can essentially be used for plug-in PBI devices as 90% of the signals you need are already there. I made a PBI pass-through card that has a 50-pin edge connector similar to the XL and have run my MIO on it successfully. Here's an interesting artifact with this design-- while the directional parts of joystick ports 3 and 4 are dead (you can never read/write the real PORTB as that goes to the CPLD), the trigger and paddle inputs on port 3 are still active and usable. Same goes for port 4-- except you can't use the trigger because that's what the cartridge port interlock is connected to on the XL/XE. Between the logic coding and simulating, soldering was the worst part. There's at least 150 wires on that protoboard. The fun part was loading up all different kinds of software to see what worked and what didn't and playing games that you'd only expect to run on newer machines. Lots of life still left in the old 800. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
doctorclu Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 The third picture looks really clean... nice design. What is up with the processor looking board plugged into the top of that one board? Wild. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+warerat Posted August 18, 2008 Share Posted August 18, 2008 What is up with the processor looking board plugged into the top of that one board? Wild. That's the guts where the glue logic for the static rams and the signals for rest of the machine are generated. Lots of stuff inside there to make this a single board upgrade and generate the missing features from the XE. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MEtalGuy66 Posted August 20, 2008 Share Posted August 20, 2008 The third picture looks really clean... nice design. What is up with the processor looking board plugged into the top of that one board? Wild. That's an AMD Athlon 2600 XP+ running Atari800win, loaded from flash-rom... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralphy Rocket Posted August 26, 2008 Share Posted August 26, 2008 Those SCHMART Boards are the BOMB!!! I cant see prototyping a project like this with out them. GREAT WORK SERG!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 sorry to bump again, but is there any news? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 3, 2009 Author Share Posted February 3, 2009 Any updates on this? While I love my modded 1200XL, I'd dump it in a heartbeat for my 800. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FastRobPlus Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 Same here. This is the Atari 8-bit holy grail as far as I'm concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+warerat Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 OK, I won't deny it. I'm guilty of being lazy on this. The design is finished and I have yet to find any XL/XE software that doesn't run on it (ANTIC mode, extended RAM, etc). Best way to go on this I think is to finish laying out the board and get an estimate for the parts. Ideally I'd like to make a run of 30-50 so the price point isn't high for everyone. And maybe offer some kind of installation service for those who don't want to open up their machine and solder wires. You could of course go back to stock by unplugging the connector and using the original 800 cards again. I'd just need a show of hands as to how many I need to make. PCBs would be provided fully assembled and tested-- you'd just have to solder in the wiring harness for those of you DIYers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+bf2k+ Posted February 3, 2009 Share Posted February 3, 2009 OK, I won't deny it. I'm guilty of being lazy on this. The design is finished and I have yet to find any XL/XE software that doesn't run on it (ANTIC mode, extended RAM, etc). Best way to go on this I think is to finish laying out the board and get an estimate for the parts. Ideally I'd like to make a run of 30-50 so the price point isn't high for everyone. And maybe offer some kind of installation service for those who don't want to open up their machine and solder wires. You could of course go back to stock by unplugging the connector and using the original 800 cards again. I'd just need a show of hands as to how many I need to make. PCBs would be provided fully assembled and tested-- you'd just have to solder in the wiring harness for those of you DIYers. I'll take one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mimo Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 me for one, ship to the UK (it is for an NTSC 800 as I sold my PAL one) Going to be an expensive year for me this year Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 me for one, ship to the UK (it is for an NTSC 800 as I sold my PAL one)Going to be an expensive year for me this year Definitely one, small chance of two depending on price. Stephen Anderson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+poobah Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I'll take at least 2 depending on the price point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tempest Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 I'll take one. I've been waiting for this. You might want to a make a new thread about this so more people see it. Tempest Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+remowilliams Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I'm good for two as long as the price point isn't too high. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JR> Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 One for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a8isa1 Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 (edited) Hell Yes! Edited February 4, 2009 by a8isa1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FastRobPlus Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I want one. But I'll even buy 5 or 10 if it helps to get them produced quicker! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sl0re Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 OK, I won't deny it. I'm guilty of being lazy on this. The design is finished and I have yet to find any XL/XE software that doesn't run on it (ANTIC mode, extended RAM, etc). Best way to go on this I think is to finish laying out the board and get an estimate for the parts. Ideally I'd like to make a run of 30-50 so the price point isn't high for everyone. And maybe offer some kind of installation service for those who don't want to open up their machine and solder wires. You could of course go back to stock by unplugging the connector and using the original 800 cards again. I'd just need a show of hands as to how many I need to make. PCBs would be provided fully assembled and tested-- you'd just have to solder in the wiring harness for those of you DIYers. I want one! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sl0re Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I've asked this before, but I figured I'd ask again just incase some has thought of something new in the past year or two. Is it possible to hack an Atari 800 so it is compatible with Atari XL/XE software that requires 64K+? Tempest Yeah, I'd consider more than one if the price is in the right range. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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