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Atari SS1000 "Sylvia"


Curt Vendel

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Just found schematics and documents that correct several pieces of history regarding the Atari "Sylvia" console.

 

 

The Model was SS1000 (Super Stella 1000)

Codename: Sylvia

 

 

Did NOT have a 10bit processor which was previously thought.

 

Had the following chips:

 

STIA (According to a recent conversation with Steve Bristow of Atari - Super TIA)

FRANTIC (doesn't appear to be any different then ANTIC)

6502 Sally

6532

2K of RAM

Voltrax SC01 Speech Synthesiser

 

 

I will be updating the Super-Stella/Sylvia pages this weekend with information and scans of the schematic and a black box developer system for it.

 

 

Curt

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Sounds like an interesting machine: a hybrid of technology from the 2600 and the 400/800 computers. This certainly would have been a better successor to the 2600 than the 5200 was, since it would have allowed for compatibility with 2600 games and controllers while adding upgraded graphics with ANTIC. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like the kind of upgrade path that the 7800 and MARIA followed later, and it's interesting that GCC ended up thinking along similar lines entirely on their own.

 

I'm surprised to hear that it was difficult to program for, since Atari's programmers would already have been familiar with all the hardware listed here. Was it because of architectural/design issues, or because it was limited to 2K of RAM (SRAM, I presume)?

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When you say "limited to 2k ram" realize that the original 2600 had 128 bytes of ram, so that was a big upgrade for the system. I am wondering if it was for video display memory.

 

Curt

 

Sounds like an interesting machine: a hybrid of technology from the 2600 and the 400/800 computers. This certainly would have been a better successor to the 2600 than the 5200 was, since it would have allowed for compatibility with 2600 games and controllers while adding upgraded graphics with ANTIC. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like the kind of upgrade path that the 7800 and MARIA followed later, and it's interesting that GCC ended up thinking along similar lines entirely on their own.

 

I'm surprised to hear that it was difficult to program for, since Atari's programmers would already have been familiar with all the hardware listed here. Was it because of architectural/design issues, or because it was limited to 2K of RAM (SRAM, I presume)?

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When you say "limited to 2k ram" realize that the original 2600 had 128 bytes of ram, so that was a big upgrade for the system. I am wondering if it was for video display memory.

True enough. I was just thinking that, since that 2K would have been needed for both data and display memory, it would still be severely limited compared to even the 4K Atari 400. Then again, the Intellivision (which this machine would have competed with) also had only 2K of RAM.

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wasn't the 10 bit system atari were planning called something else , sara not sylvia

 

I am lead to believe that the team behind ataridos/basic etc (SMI/Shepherson Microsoystems Inc) were also involved in the atari 10 bit console project

 

So I am guessing that sylvia was just another system atari were looking at

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Huh!?!?!?!

 

What draw of dillusions did you pull that one out of Carmel?!?!?!

 

Do you just make this sh@t up as you go or do you actually sit down and concoct this nonsense ahead of time!!!!

 

 

 

 

wasn't the 10 bit system atari were planning called something else , sara not sylvia

 

I am lead to believe that the team behind ataridos/basic etc (SMI/Shepherson Microsoystems Inc) were also involved in the atari 10 bit console project

 

So I am guessing that sylvia was just another system atari were looking at

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Just found schematics and documents that correct several pieces of history regarding the Atari "Sylvia" console.

 

 

The Model was SS1000 (Super Stella 1000)

Codename: Sylvia

 

 

Did NOT have a 10bit processor which was previously thought.

 

Had the following chips:

 

STIA (According to a recent conversation with Steve Bristow of Atari - Super TIA)

FRANTIC (doesn't appear to be any different then ANTIC)

6502 Sally

6532

2K of RAM

Voltrax SC01 Speech Synthesiser

 

 

I will be updating the Super-Stella/Sylvia pages this weekend with information and scans of the schematic and a black box developer system for it.

 

 

Curt

 

Very cool :cool: Thanks for sharing! Do you have the tape out for the STIA? Also, is the developer system fuctional? Any software found?

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Just had a brief look at the schematic :-

 

The STIA has 4 luma outputs (compared to TIA's 3) but the same number of address lines as TIA.

FRANTIC has NMI and HALT connected to the 6502 (Sally).

RIOT is still being used.

VOTRAX (speech chip) not to be installed.

 

To me it looks like it could have been a very early version of the 7800. With the STIA and FRANTIC eventually being combined into MARIA.

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I'm looking through files to see what I may have on STIA and I'm going to go back to the engineering logs and see if I can sleuth out any additional details, scan them and post them up onto that page.

 

I'm very interested to know more about what they had in mind with STIA (Super TIA) and to see why they didn't continue working on it despite the console being canceled, this would've been the first major update to the TIA and it is important to see what Atari was trying to do.

 

 

 

Curt

 

Are there any tech specs to uncover or would this require reverse engineering to figure out what it could do?

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To me it looks like it could have been a very early version of the 7800. With the STIA and FRANTIC eventually being combined into MARIA.

 

I don't think so. The MARIA was developed outside Atari by GCC. Besides that, the 7800 uses a TIA chip next to the MARIA chip. Thus the MARIA is not a TIA with extra things, it a completely different beast. The TIA graphics is not even used in 7800 mode.

The 7800 is in my view a 2600 with an extra graphics chip (MARIA) while the SS1000 has an advance version of the TIA chip. The other improvements that a 7800 and SS1000 have in common are more RAM (both 2 KB) and a full 6502 processor instead of the "crippled" 6507 of the 2600. So in that sense the look similar but certainly not in the graphics department.

 

I wonder if the STIA also improves the audio and not only the video. If that was the case, it has a plus compared to the 7800.

 

 

Robert

 

 

P.S. Curt, why is the name of the "drawer" of the schematics made unreadable?

Edited by rdemming
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I'm looking forward to further infomation from Curt - My guess is something like 2xTIA in terms of players with Antic supplying playfield. That would give you 4 players ( each with 3 copies ) but still have the hmove hassle to complicate the lives of programmers.

 

Another option ( much cooler ) would be that FRANTIC + STIA are actually improvements over ANTIC+GTIA .. that would be cool :) - Maybe memory clocks from FRANTIC at 3.58MHz - higher res graphics and players coupled with a slower CPU? :lust:

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  • 3 weeks later...

When you say "limited to 2k ram" realize that the original 2600 had 128 bytes of ram, so that was a big upgrade for the system. I am wondering if it was for video display memory.

True enough. I was just thinking that, since that 2K would have been needed for both data and display memory, it would still be severely limited compared to even the 4K Atari 400. Then again, the Intellivision (which this machine would have competed with) also had only 2K of RAM.

 

If the modes used with SANTIC/FRANTIC and STIA are similar to those of ANTIC+CTIA/GTIA, then 2 kB would limited the graphics mode to a maximim of 4-color 80x48 or 2-color 160x96, otherwise text/character modes would need to be used instead. So, in that context, it is pretty limiting.

 

From the diagram, it's SRAM too, so a lot more expensive than DRAM (that 2kB probably more expensive than the 16 kB of DRAM the 5200 and later 400s used). Speed would definitely be an advantage if they were making any changes necessitating high-speed RAM (like crazyace's above speculation), but otherwise SRAM would be a bit of a waste, the other advantage being lack of refresh circuitry (which shouldn't have been an issue).

 

The speech synthesizer is kind of an odd choice at the time, interesting, but definitely a bit odd to include. (particularly as the Intellivoice wouldn't be released for another 2 years, so it shouldn't have been a response to that) More strange is the lack of POKEY, unless STIA added pokey-like audio functionaility. (and potentiometer reading capabilitiy as well, for paddles/analog joysticks)

 

 

In the later dated schematic, the 6532 is listed as PIA. I didn't know PIA was the same chip as RIOT? (or is it different, and the naming overlaps for whatever reason)

Edited by kool kitty89
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I'm probably asking a stupid question, but wasn't this when Atari changed CEOs? In it's own right, it sounds like a remarkable console. But, isn't it also possible that, since Atari sued GCC at one point, that GCC might have agreed to help with the console? Given the fact that Sylvia and the 7800 sound similar, it just makes since. Either that, or GCC picked up the project after it was put aside in favor of the 5200. Maybe at one point, GCC was attempting to enter the console market and found out that they didn't have the funds to go it alone? Just some food for thought.

 

If these chips could be recreated into physical chips that could be physically touched and experimented with, would it be possible to try and recreate this machine? It does kind of make me wonder just how much more difficult it was to program for. Also makes me wonder what kind of graphics it was capable of. Since Atari was going for an arcade-quality console, the chip might of been a custom IC to handle sprites similar to those found in arcades at the time...which is something that was unheard of at the time.

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