danwinslow Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 So, in an incognito equipped 800, there are 3 slots open. Is there a possibility for other hardware boards to go in there to further extend capability, or are they forced to remain unused? I'm thinking of maybe a co-processor board like Veronica, or a card with additional CF slots, or an ethernet card, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 Ram slot 3 provides the D6xx signal which by design was intended to support such expansions. The others, nothing really other than part of the address bus. Doesn't Icognito require some modification before install anyway? So it's not like modifying the vacant Ram slots would be outside the spirit of the thing. Does it have facility to support more addons (thinking here like a header block which could passthru needed signals. If anything at least the Ram slots could provide the accomodation and power for extra upgrades. Interfacing doesn't necessarily have to use the edge connector as well. Maybe some sort of multi-IO card for the modern day. Thinking SD card, Bluetooth. Maybe throw USB in as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 You could put almost anything in there. You have all the signals on the card slots available to you, and also the PBI via a very short ribbon cable from the Incognito board. That's something I would love to see happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted February 4, 2016 Author Share Posted February 4, 2016 Wow. Possibilities. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 I aim to try hooking Turbo Freezer up to the PBI connector, although obviously this isn't an internal, slot-mounted solution. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted February 4, 2016 Author Share Posted February 4, 2016 I was thinking of sticking a 3.5 in HD in there...with an adapter to the larger IDE size. That's just convenience, though, it wouldn't really be taking advantage of the PBI or the slots. I really think this opens up a lot of possibilities for PBI stuff, though, bluetooth, USB, ethernet, co processors, etc. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 The IDE signals are not present on the PBI connector. You'd have to provide a second controller board for the HDD. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 4, 2016 Share Posted February 4, 2016 There are adapters that plug into IDE and provide a CF slot. What we need here is the opposite. A CF card size/shape adapter that plugs in a CF slot and has an IDE cable coming out of it to connect to a drive. This would be a passive adapter, only adapting to a larger size connector. I have never seen such a thing, but it seems to me that it could be useful. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I can see the point of the former device (replacing noisy, power-hungry spinning hard disks with flash media), but doing the opposite conversion seems... Niche to say the least. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Am I missing something here? I have a CF card plugged into my Incognito already. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I can see the point of the former device (replacing noisy, power-hungry spinning hard disks with flash media), but doing the opposite conversion seems... Niche to say the least. Yeah, I know. That reminds me: Any progress with the reversed bytes problem on that CF MicroDrive? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 (edited) Great idea Stephen! Re: Microdrive - no progress at all I'm afraid. Getting the thing to work may be beyond what I can do in software. Edited February 5, 2016 by flashjazzcat Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Am I missing something here? I have a CF card plugged into my Incognito already. I also have a CF card. I would like to try a CF MicroDrive, but there is a problem with reversed bytes. danwinslow wants to use a 3.5 drive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 If someone wants to run a real HDD on Incognito, the IDE+ 2.0 works just fine off the PBI port... Havent tested my BB or MIO yet... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Since we already have a CF for a hard drive, I think we should concentrate on things like high speed serial ports, 80 column video, ethernet, etc. I'll say it one more time, maybe someone will appreciate my idea: I'd like to see a replacement CPU card combining Rapidus and VBXE. We would still have the three slots behind Incognito available for other things. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Problem is, this stuff becomes very niche market. It's been hard enough just getting VBXE established. And I doubt installs of that have even hit 300 yet despite it being available for probably 6 years now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Problem is, this stuff becomes very niche market. It's been hard enough just getting VBXE established. And I doubt installs of that have even hit 300 yet despite it being available for probably 6 years now. Sad, but true... I guess I'm going to have to save up money (very difficult), and buy a VBXE and some 40 line ribbon cable and connectors. I already have a 65802 in there, but only at 1.79 Mhz. One jumper wire on the CPU card allows an 816. But... High RAM presents another problem: We must prevent the $Dxxx area from being decoded at $1Dxxx, $2Dxxx, etc. by the chipset. Therefore, the decoding logic (and RAM) would have to be on the CPU card, between the CPU and the address bus. (I think). Ideas for high RAM on an 800 anyone? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Incognito and a CPU replacement card, it becomes a new machine really. The address decode you'd just take care of yourself. Address <= $FFFF goes the conventional way, anything over that would obviously be extended Ram assuming no extended Rom will be in use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 The lower 16 address lines are the same if the address in question is $D301 or $1D301 or $xD301. We must "turn off" the chipset and ROMs for all addresses above $FFFF. That means, as long as the upper 8 address lines are all 0, then chips and ROMS are active, but they must be de-selected if any of the upper 8 address lines are active. Otherwise, it would be a tedious process of writing code to avoid these areas, and that destroys the whole idea of using one big chunk of linear RAM. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rybags Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Agreed. The logical thing would be to only direct to I/O if high address = all zeros. If it's the case that Rom or IO is needed in the expanded area the obvious solution would be to use addresses $FF0000 and above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 Since we already have a CF for a hard drive, I think we should concentrate on things like high speed serial ports, 80 column video, ethernet, etc. I'll say it one more time, maybe someone will appreciate my idea: I'd like to see a replacement CPU card combining Rapidus and VBXE. We would still have the three slots behind Incognito available for other things. Yes, I'm more interested in a 65c816 type co processor board and stuff like that rather than a HD, which is already supported anyway. An IO card that extends the PBI bus to bluetooth, ethernet, USB, etc. would be very cool, with or without a processor enhancement. A VBXE is, to my taste, going too far down the 'it's not an atari anymore' road, but any kind of IO support that could be hooked into the 8 bit architecture would be exciting. Even just dropping an arduino or something on a card and hooking up the IO pins to the PBI bus would allow for a lot of stuff. SIO is just too slow for doing that kind of thing for anything besides emulated disk, but a direct memory or PBI interface would do nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kyle22 Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 I know this really isn't the place for this, but I can't resist... How can you say that a VBXE makes it not an Atari, and then suggest an arduino? The VBXE is 100% in the spirit of Atari. It is an enhancement to the existing video chips. Existing software runs just the same, except with a clearer pictute. The VBXE is all good, and everyone should have one. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwinslow Posted February 5, 2016 Author Share Posted February 5, 2016 Hehe, its just opinion kyle, as I stated. I don't want to open that discussion! The point about the arduino is that it would just feed IO, and not participate in any kind of other massive change to the hardware capabilities. I think the VBXE is great, but in my opinion I don't really want one. I do want IO, preferably PBI or other direct memory integration. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flashjazzcat Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 Finally tested Turbo Freezer connected to the Incognito PBI: Works fine, and BIOS is fully TF compatible now. Only problem is dust on 800 keyboard. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Stephen Posted February 5, 2016 Share Posted February 5, 2016 That's a sweet setup. 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.