Have a spare Newell OSN and Fastchip?

[BillC]

Neither Canada Post/USPS is necessarily responsible for the delay, I have found with international shipments that customs is often at fault.

[+MacRorie]

Hopefully Trump will get elected and make USPS a private company like happened to UPS years ago. UPS is profitable now that the feds are out of it.

I am not certain to what you are referring to here. UPS was never owned and/or operated by any part of the US government. Indeed, UPS sued for common carrier rights that put them in direct competition with the USPS. You could argue that by winning those lawsuits, UPS actually brought about the decrease in revenue for the USPS. Moreover, when UPS expanded into the overnight letter delivery service, they further impinged upon the profitability ability of the USPS.

 

You may be thinking of Federal Express, but even they were not owned or operated by the US Government. They get their name from the fact that they got a contract from the US Government to reduce the "float" time between Federal Bank Districts. In other words, before FedEx, you could write a check off of an account in New York for products in California. That check would have to be transferred via the USPS (usually overland)before it would clear the bank. Theoretically, you could have about two weeks of 'float' time before you actually had to have the money in the account to make it good. FedEx offered the US Government planes to decrease that time. That was FedEx's sole business for some years before they, too, branched out to ship packages (partially as a result of UPS wins in court).

 

tl;dr: Your statement is incorrect. Neither UPS nor FedEx were impinged, operated, or owned by the US Federal Government.

[Kyle22]

I am so sorry for the error. I was told this years ago by a (so I thought) reliable person. They told me that UPS was the part of USPS that delivered packages and USPS delivered letters.

 

Again, I apologize. I strive to be correct in everything I say (or type).

[+sm3]

It actually made it through customs in the US rather quickly. It's "Out for Delivery" today!

[+sm3]

Received my programmer and UV eraser today.

 

My first attempt didn't go so well. After I burned the 3 ROMs and configured the DIP switches and plugged her in, I was greeted with just the blue screen with the cursor hanging, not the usual memo pad screen.

 

I took the stock ROMs from a good working OS board and placed them on my RAMROD, set the switches for stock OS and it worked fine.

 

I'm currently running the 3 EPROMS through the UV eraser. Will try again when they are done.

 

Here is a question, if you get a write fail, can you run the attempt again? Or is it only good for one time without erasing again?

[AtariGeezer]

If you get a write fail, that could mean that the eprom might not have been erased completely. Did you verify that it was erased before burning?

On my UV toothbrush cleaner, it takes about 20 minutes to do a complete wipe...

[+sm3]

If you get a write fail, that could mean that the eprom might not have been erased completely. Did you verify that it was erased before burning?

On my UV toothbrush cleaner, it takes about 20 minutes to do a complete wipe...

 

Hi, how would you verify that they are erased? I kind of assumed they were erased because the eBay listing of course said they had been erased and pins straightened etc. but I probably should have run them through the UV eraser first I suppose.

 

I will know shortly since this first batch is almost done.

[AtariGeezer]

 

Hi, how would you verify that they are erased? I kind of assumed they were erased because the eBay listing of course said they had been erased and pins straightened etc. but I probably should have run them through the UV eraser first I suppose.

 

I will know shortly since this first batch is almost done.

Your eprom programmer software should have an option to check it...

[+sm3]

Your eprom programmer software should have an option to check it...

 

Ah, OK. I'll have to take a closer look then. I was kind of excited to get cracking on this!

 

This second attempt seems to have faired much better, no failures this time after the UV erase run.

 

I've discovered 2 things:

 

1) OSN doesn't appear to have that "Atari Memo Pad" screen?

 

2) The FastChip.rom in this thread doesn't seem to work. When I put the stock math ROM on the RAMROD with the 2 OSN ROMs I'm able to use the BASIC cartridge and play Star Raiders. But the math ROM I created, no joy.

 

Does this mean my OSN ROMs are working? I'm not really sure at this point

 

One point to note if anyone is going this route, you'll need the external power supply for the GQ-4X to burn the ROMs. The software actually tells you as well when you select the chip type.

[+sm3]

At your eBay link you can click on the devices list and read which adapter is needed for what, plus the breakdown on the 2732 (25+), 2732A (21+), and 2732B (12.7+) chips, so it's a matter of buying 2732B and not buying a 2732 if your programmer doesn't do 25+ volt programming. That device list is quite informative.

 

So I can cook you up some FastChip rom code, turns out Bob Puff fixed it in his US+ OS release. I never noticed before this moment, but grabbed a segment out of omnimonXL OS and did the same with US+ OS to find one byte difference between the two segments. A little investigation at offset 1E0h shows good (Puff fixed) code is E9h - SBC #$09 and older bad code there is E5h - SBC $09. The first is subtracting an absolute value of nine, the second is subtracting what ever the value that is held at memory location 0009h, otherwise known as the BOOT flag which is usually one. And not too likely that 0009h (BOOT flag) holds anything of value that the math pack needs. Very common late night programming error to make leaving out the # sign, surprised no one said anything before this.

 

FastChip.zip

 

This code goes into a 2716 or similar sized 2K EPROM for the 800 only for life at D800h region. You can overwrite 1800h thru 1FFFh offset region to transplant this code into a standard 16K OS file if you want the Puff fixed Marslett FastChip code there too. I believe this should be called FastChip.rom as our own ClausB has done a better version which most are calling FastMath. Am I right here? Then I see a FastMath posted before ClausB even writes this one so I am confused some to say the least. Where is the source for that one?

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/124761-fast-math-rom/

 

It won't work on the normal 800 though because it has code residing also in the CC00h region as I understand it. But the normal 800 doesn't use code in that region so it might be made to work after all. A bit out of my comfort zone at the moment, but the linked to somewhere above 800 board appears to be doing just this, but with Omnimon code there which will probably not like being stepped on by FastMath code so we have gained nothing again? Other than maybe getting a clue on how to enable a larger rom in that region for FastMath to live and work all by itself? In the XE/XL this code replaces some international character set and most consider it a good switch out, Omnimon most likely set up shop in that same region on the 800 to make full use of the area so it's not going to want to play well with others as they say. Yet again I'm at a loss for all the Omnimon naming conventions, can't keep one straight with another and still don't know what one does over another similar named offering by the same company. View, 80 and other variants aren't helping my feeble mind to keep things straightened out.

 

My first attemp with FastChip.rom didn't work. Should I have specified an offset or just let it burn with the defaults? I used a 2716 EPROM for it.

 

I'm going to try the OmniMon now and see if that works.

[+sm3]

Fantastic! OmniMon provided by 1050 in this thread works just fine! I used one of the extra 2732 ROMs I had, placed it into the RAMROD and started it by holding OPTION and hitting SYSTEM RESET.

 

AtariGeezer, I did find a "Blank Check" option and it showed the chip was empty, but then I tried to program it and it still failed. I tried another, and it worked. Go figure.

[AtariGeezer]

Fantastic! OmniMon provided by 1050 in this thread works just fine! I used one of the extra 2732 ROMs I had, placed it into the RAMROD and started it by holding OPTION and hitting SYSTEM RESET.

 

AtariGeezer, I did find a "Blank Check" option and it showed the chip was empty, but then I tried to program it and it still failed. I tried another, and it worked. Go figure.

Cool, glad to hear one of them worked the one that failed is probably a bad chip...

[+sm3]

Thanks, yeah, excited to finally get some use from this board!

 

I played some Pac Man on it with the cartridge from Tep392. This should prove the OSN is working shouldn't it? The lack of the "Atari Computer - Memo Pad" on first power on has me concerned, but it may be normal for OSN.

 

Doesn't appear to be much information out there on OSN that I can find. I also need to figure out why the FastChip.rom provided by 1050 doesn't work. Maybe I'm doing something wrong with it during programming.

 

I appreciate the assistance and guidance everyone has provided while I worked my way through this.

[1050]

Great news, yes you can keep hitting the eprom with the same file if it fails the first time around. But some software will do a blank check first which often will fail causing the write portion to never take place again so only sometimes this approach can work. Options at this point are to read the eprom and see what is on it to compare that to the burn file as well. If it's a horrible match then you probably got a bad eprom there, but I like to erase them at double the normal time and try them again just to be very sure. Never forget that it gave you trouble though, they will pop bad again just because it feels like a tuesday somewhere. Only a perfect burn can be trusted and then only as far as you can throw it.

 

Is it new looking? Even bad treatment will ruin one of these too, but if it has a well used look to it then they are too often bad to start with. Bob Puff has sold me more replacement eproms for his toys than he cares to remember just because it's cheaper to use used eproms than buy new.

 

Other options I have found useful is to select another 2716 device variation to burn under if you have more than one to select from. This works too and I don't understand why either, an entire batch of eproms would not burn under their own exact number but device select for a similar number worked perfect.

 

No offset to use on that file, it should be as good as the earlier file I posted. Once the chip is locked into the socket wiggle it some and relatch it in combination with wiggles, sometimes the legs don't make contact like they should.

 

OSN pretty much HAS to be working - that's the OS right? You got nothing without that code running. But I wonder if it's doing illegal calls to the math pack? Have you tried it with stock OS code and the FastChip rom together? I'm just about as sure as I can get that the FastChip rom code posted is golden stuff. We'll get it - somehow.

[+sm3]

Yeah, OSN is the Newell RAMROD OS. I didn't try the FastChip rom using the stock OS ROMs, so I can give that a shot. It could be possible both of my 2716s (I only have 2) are bad. They are dated '77 but it programmed without an issue in this last run. They both are in great looking condition for 1977 EPROMs and are supposed to be NOS.

[+Larry]

Here's a trick I learned. Particularly if programming used eproms, the legs can be oxidized. Lay a sheet of printer paper on a flat surface and then stroke the eprom legs on the paper. You are "sanding" off the oxidation. It is true that since ZIF sockets on programmers mostly grip the legs on the small edges, you really need to do those, too -- carefully. That takes a bit of time, but worth it. I've gotten some pretty nasty looking used eproms, but hey -- the price was right. It is not unusual to get some programming failures. But on the plus side, you are dealing with small eproms, and they don't (usually) take very long to erase or program. "C" series don't take nearly as long as the older 25V early eproms. Use the "erased" feature of your programmer every time!

 

-Larry

[+sm3]

Hi Larry, thanks for the tip! I can't say I really looked at the legs on them before I attempted the programming. I did order a batch of CMOS 27C16s as well so maybe the 2 NMOS '77 EPROMs I have are not good.

 

Since this is the first time I've ever tried to do this, I was super excited when I found that the OmniMon worked as expected

[+sm3]

My CMOS 27C16's came in today, I programmed them with the FastChip.rom and still nothing! When I use the stock FP ROM, everything works as is expected though.

 

While searching for information on the Fast Chip I read a thread stating that the math package is a custom masked ROM. So I guess there is no use in attempting to swap an eprom for it. The stock OS math package is probably that same custom mask ROM.

 

I don't know. I will quite while I'm ahead. At least I have OSN now and Omnimon on my 800. I will just buy an OSNXL from B&C and put it into my 800XL At least then I know I have all 3, OSN, FastChip and Omnimon.

[1050]

Can you read the stock FP ROM? What does your programmer identify this chip as? Mask Rom can be set up as a standard eprom just as easily as not and this usually just means it has a plastic top so no erasing it can happen and then also maybe some pins were moved around some and also possibly the chip enable pins are reverse logic now. All of which can be worked around, but we need some sound information about what's in there right now to work from.

 

Only thing I got is the size of the file matches the size of the eprom - that part I'm sure is right. Everything else is outside my knowledge right now, but will attempt to see if the advice to use a 2716 in the first place was correct.

 

In the meantime here is another file to burn and try - it's the original FP rom package and it should work as per normal. We can hope.

 

RipFP.zip

[+sm3]

Hi 1050, OK, so this would test (in theory) if an eprom can replace the stock FP package?

[+sm3]

..

 

In the meantime here is another file to burn and try - it's the original FP rom package and it should work as per normal. We can hope.

 

RipFP.zip

 

No, didn't work. I get a green screen when I try to use it.

[1050]

Then it appears that a 2716 will not work in this slot without some work done after all. This is progress. Might not feel like it right now though. I'll pull what I got out of Fibber McGee's closet and see what I can find out about this mask ROM, later...

[+sm3]

Thanks for the effort. I'm sure there will be others in the future attempting this as well. I'm uploading the RAMROD MMOS document as well in case someone wants it (posted in another thread).

[1050]

Should have answered yes to post #49 question, this file will test to see if the 2716 can live in that socket as is. Turns out it needs some help.

 

I agree, others will follow given time and/or would do this NOW if someone would show them how. This should be done for posterity to say the least. Thanks for the upload, I'll read it when I can.

 

Short (ha!) reply is, I see where 'D' rom on personality board is using positive chip enable logic on two pins (18, 21) and eproms are negative logic for that function, so no wonder it doesn't fly right when put in that socket. 2516 is pretty much the same chip as the 2716 so we gain little by using that flavor where 2532 is supposed to do just this sort of trick for 2732 substitution - supposedly. Haven't looked into it because I never needed to, but I have heard that same story for ages.

 

Anyhoo, we need to invert the chip select signals on a couple of pins and re-wire another one. I'm thinking we use a pair of sockets to make this '2716 converter' so we wind up not having to rewire the personality board, AND we can just drop the eprom into the top socket without any solder work done to it such that we could also replace it slick willy. Otherwise we looking at a ruined personality board and/or dead bugs glued to the top of the eprom which can always go bad and then require another dead bug gluing/soldering job. If we use machine sockets for both sockets here, this will spread the socket holes on the personality board such that one really should put a machine socket there first so that socket isn't ruined for the possible return of original masked rom. Other alternative is to use a wipe contact socket for the bottom of the stack and spread it with the top machine socket which will never come apart again anyway so who cares? That way changing eproms won't wear out anything and this converter probably won't get changed often enough to hurt the personality board too awfully bad? Do we have enough room in there for two more sockets? Thoughts?

 

In between the sockets we glue in a logic chip to handle two into one select signal inversion and re-routing of wires, I'm liking surface mount chip here because it would be easier to mount inside the two sockets. Have ordered some and will have to wait for arrival, but can discuss further if wanted in the meantime. So far - wadda ya think?

 

And a few minutes later I have another idea worth considering. Mainly because I've got a hunch we don't have room for two more sockets anyway. On the 800 personality board I see one unused 74ls00 gate and it just so happens that's exactly the one we need. Two jumpers installed on the back side, one jumper to and from the eprom itself, lifted pin 21 to pin 24 and another jumper from lifted eprom pin 18 to the unused output pin 14 of Z402 gets it all done. Not a horrible ass rig either. And the board can be used for original mask rom by unsoldering the one front side jumper to lifted eprom pin 18. The two backside jumpers are from A402 socket pins 18 and 21 to Z402 pins 12 and 13 and it doesn't matter which go to which,

 

So your board is a custom deal, but I can see the component side well enough to see that pins 12, 13, and 14 are not connected to anything on the side I can see. How about you flip that puppy over and see what they do with them on the backside? On the 800 personality board they did ground both 12 and 13 inputs but left the output 14 floating. Two dremel gouges will take care of the ground real quick and allow our use for that gate there.

[+sm3]

Hi 1050, well, you certainly have a better grasp of what is going on than me. As far as room, there isn't much room between this board and the next RAM module really. The chips ride pretty high when they are inserted into the PCB.

 

I'm attaching a picture of the back side of the board. The FP math ROM is the 3rd from the right side (looking at the back).

 

At this point, if it's going to take a lot of jumper wires or modifications, I really don't think it's worth the effort to me though. The board works now as it is with OSN, the Stock Atari FP math package and Omnimon. That really is good enough for me.