1088XLD - Custom A8 Computer in 1050 Drive Case

[ivop]

https://www.pcbdirectory.com/manufacturers

 

e.g. Sri Lanka: http://lankapcb.com/

 

Might take some time to find a good one, but this one does at least small quantities. Other countries worth looking at imho are Thailand (I regularly buy at Tayda) and India.

Edited October 3, 2018 by ivop

[_The Doctor__]

Unfortunately it's looking like this project as well as a few others I had planned may not become a reality due to the US/China trade tariffs that have been recently imposed. My PCB supplier is based in China, and if negotiations do not go well, I am hearing that tariffs will increase on January 2019 from the recently proposed 10%, up to as high as 25%.

 

I will continue to work on the idea, but unless I can find a PCB manufacturer with a similar cost as it once was, the reality of having samples made for testing is becoming a no go situation, especially considering what may happen by early next year when I would likely be ready.

 

I'm not going to get too political other than saying I know who to thank for these recent developments, and he lives in the same country as I .

um 10 percent of a dollar is 10 cents... I don't get the fear here.... the variance on almost any hobby stuff is 20 cents to 4 dollars

take it at 25 and it's a quarter... of course China can do as it always does and drop price down to next to nothing... and absorb it. The amount is still less than most credit card companies are charging in interest on much larger price tags, if we want some perspective, the pcb cost is still so low x percent of very little is very little. I just got my ardiuno for sdrive atx with the new killer tariff attached, it was 4.78 shipped to my door, the new killer tariff on 50 diodes via alibaba cost me a grand total of 1.69 everything including shipped to my door. I am not so certain this hurts us much on such low cost items... Now if it were and automobiles or several hundred of something.. that's a big deal.. I'd wait to see what shakes out... and avoid express shipping! Or get some orders in on things where the listing hasn't been affected yet.

 

Tip for ali, kill your accounts after using up your coupons, start a new one a day or two later under different email address, get the new coupons again, repeat rinse... It's not what I call honest, but it's what circulates in the save every bit you can circles....

 

my smallest purchase of 89 cents for three headphone cables had I waited to long would have cost me and extra 9 cents rounded up or 22 cents if a full on hit were to occur.

 

You are talking a three month period before all the theories have a chance of becoming reality.

that theory thing would then have to include the fact that 8 months to a year after that, it would more than likely all come back off as they can't afford to hold out that long. We shall see.

 

I still prefer this to the 20 percent VAT (values added tax) that our friends of blues (died in the wool) want to impose on everything across the board for everything..

 

edit- ivop points out other places to go with... perhaps helping our friends isn't so bad . Each person will have their own preference as to what they feel and how it affects the place in which they live.

Edited October 3, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[+mytek]

 

um 10 percent of a dollar is 10 cents... I don't get the fear here....

 

Actually it wasn't the 10% tariff I was worried so much about, but more the potential 25% that is forecast for January right around the time I would plan on having a run of boards made. Keep in mind that I am looking at a much larger board then the small MIDI related ones I've been working on lately, and it's 4-layer. So that 25% tariff could equate to about a $35-45 bump in the cost to do even a minimal board run. Considering that everything I have done thus far pertaining to Atari upgrade development has come directly out of my pocket, this does influence my decision. And after all this is about me and my pocket book, so I think I have the right to be concerned, and/or to bitch a tiny bit .

 

Also I have taken on a big project this year with financial consequences that preempts my Atari related stuff.

 

Anyway sorry about the rant, but this has ramifications beyond the PCB, since I also purchase quite a bit of other stuff from China, and even a few items from Europe who are also in the cross hairs for these tariffs. So in the end it could be a lot more money then I've already mentioned.

 

 

 

You are talking a three month period before all the theories have a chance of becoming reality.

 

Exactly my point, since that'll be when I need to order boards.

 

 

 

Tip for ali, kill your accounts after using up your coupons, start a new one a day or two later under different email address, get the new coupons again, repeat rinse... It's not what I call honest, but it's what circulates in the save every bit you can circles....

 

At ALLPCB, the coupons are accumulative based on value of each purchase made, and redeemable based a percentage of what you are currently purchasing. Without suddenly making a huge purchase, It's next to impossible to use up all the coupons, and the discount afforded by their use is minimal. So I fail to see the advantage of your suggestion.

 

 

 

ivop points out other places to go with

 

True, I appreciate that and I will check that out .

 

------

 

The funny part about all this, is that the excuse for the tariffs is to get me to buy more locally produced goods. Last time I looked there wasn't a single piece of consumer electronics made in America, so I'll be dammed as to where I could buy a big screen HDTV that fits that excuse. Of course I guess I could wait until an American company produces one, but I don't see that happening anytime soon, tariffs or not .

 

I've also been around for a while, so I remember quite clearly when the American auto manufacturers started to complain about the Japanese built cars taking business away from them since they were more affordable, as well as more reliable (at the time both points were very true). Of course this didn't last, and now all cars are pretty much competitively priced, as well as having similar reliability. The same will happen to goods produced in China given enough time. Then there will be some other country to worry about after that .

 

The circle of life.

[_The Doctor__]

Now might be the time to start MYTEK PCB! Who knows how much old equipment lay in wait to be dusted off and put back into service? Not sure how that would work out but could be interesting. You might even get approved to do such things these days. The regs for a number of businesses have been sped up or relaxed with some restrictions actually removed.

 

I am not sure you want to leave your current way of life to do so, I rather think you enjoy things as they are now

 

I forget who I used to use most though, they were in the upper mid states and possibly some mid south, but not so much cali. I think there are quite a number left in the states though..

 

https://www.pcbdirectory.com/manufacturers?country=United%20States&order_by=rating&sort_order=desc

 

not so sure many are hobby friendly... you know how that can be.

Edited October 4, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[Kyle22]

I firmly believe these tariff's are a good thing. This is only a temporary situation. As soon as China agrees to back down, then we will.

 

All this is just some much needed political arm-twisting. Give it 6 months or so. No biggie.

 

[+mytek]

Well like I said I really didn't want to get too much into the politics, or the rights and wrongs about it. The simple fact is it may influence when, and if I end up taking this to a completed project, since at some point my justification vs. cost kicks in. Or as pointed out by Doc and kyle, I may need to wait a few more months down the road until stuff settles out.

 

Anyway just in case prices were to shoot up... I ordered 5 boards each of the latest versions of the MIDI-XEL and MIDI DIN Interface PCB's for testing purposes. At least today's prices and the shipping shipping remained the same.

 

So development continues .

 

Speaking of development. Over the last two days I've been experimenting with video processing circuits for the 1088XLD that would in my opinion be able to replace the need for the UAV in this project, making for one less daughter board. Bryan's UAV is great, especially where it replaces the not so good original Atari video circuits, and makes up for poor grounding and power supply and RAM noise issues getting into the video stream. However with my 4-layer board having mid plane power and ground buses some of those problems vanish. So I decided to see what would happen by using a more traditional transistor approach and am happy to say the video looked quite good even being lashed together on a proto-board hanging off of 12" connection leads. I'll have to post some comparative pics tomorrow.

 

So here's the circuit I went with that works quite well, produces 1 Volt peak-to-peak video output into a 75 ohm load, and doesn't have any Chroma leakage into the Luma circuit.

 

Original Source for simpler circuit to be added to the 2600: https://gamesx.com/wiki/doku.php?id=av:2600_s-video_mod

 

Since I'm testing this on a 1088XEL having the same 4-layer board as i wish to use on the XLD project, I think the results are representative of what I can expect.

 

And because V-GATE incorporates 74HCT08 AND gates into the Luma stream, no extra buffering was required such as the CD4050 on the original Atari, prior to feeding the resistor D/A.

[_The Doctor__]

might I ask if an unused gate be used/allow for composite and artifacting perhaps controllable via bios or tk? if noisy relay of some kind, simple fair to allow chroma to mix back in for those cases perhaps in limited fashion.

gotta have color for ultima, diamond mine etc.

Edited October 4, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[+mytek]

might I ask if an unused gate be used/allow for composite and artifacting perhaps controllable via bios or tk? if noisy relay of some kind, simple fair to allow chroma to mix back in for those cases perhaps in limited fashion.

gotta have color for ultima, diamond mine etc.

 

I guess what you are asking for would be similar to what Bryan incorporated into his UAV, but was not part of the stock S-Video that Atari ever offered (as far as I recall). I'll have to check out what Diamond Mine looks like between the two video circuits and see what I think. Obviously this would not be a consideration for PAL.

[Level42]

It’s hard to not give a political comment....but I respect Michaels wish to keep it out of here

 

It’s a shame shipping costs are so insane today...else I could order from The Netherlands and ship them on.

 

Would you still consider making the PCB design public so we non US people can order the final design ?

[_The Doctor__]

ah third party shipper could be a work around.. nice call

[+mytek]

Would you still consider making the PCB design public so we non US people can order the final design ?

 

I have considered going public on this project, and likely will, but first I need it to be in a form that has been built and proven. And that's dependent upon costs, since my free money is not as abundant due to other higher priority stuff going on in my life. So what this actually means, is that the time line to completion will stretch out longer.

 

 

 

It’s a shame shipping costs are so insane today...else I could order from The Netherlands and ship them on.

 

Yeah shipping anything across the ocean ends up being pretty depressing, some times exceeding the value of what is being shipped. And then you also need to factor in all the other potential fees that get tacked on (VAT, tariffs, customs). I did discover a way to avoid custom fees, and that is to not put any kind of company name on your address label. If you keep it personal, it tends to slip through without any fees.

[rockdoc2010]

Just a question about old midi vs new midi...

 

I see that BEST is selling an old ATARI MIDI peripheral. Are there any differences in the new MIDI keyboards vs the ones from the mid eighties?

 

In other words if the new keyboard has power, MIDI in and MIDI out, I would think it would work with the older ATARI MIDI peripheral.

 

Douglas

[ivop]

Yes, MIDI is MIDI. Sort-of. The low-level protocol never changed. Some of the older devices do not know about General MIDI yet, which just means that patch numbers (program change events) don't match with newer devices (and older devices of different brands). I reckon everything from 1990 and up is GM/GS compatible.

Edited October 4, 2018 by ivop

[_The Doctor__]

The newer devices not only patch map differently(as mentioned) but usually have a device on board to give us some immediate gratifying sound. You can do your thing and hear it without hooking up your full kit.. much more useful in that way.. when you want to you can hook up and have some full fledged fun

 

I find the newer devices approach much more convenient and of course allows fun for a wider group of people..

Fun stuff, If you are trying to make some decisions I'd go with myteks or ivops midi solutions with the blaster on board...

Edited October 4, 2018 by _The Doctor__

[+mytek]

And now for a comparison of the UAV -or- the proposed XLD video circuit (shown HERE).

 

System 1088XEL V1.1 Production Board

NTSC S-Video on a Sharp LC-15B6U-SM

 

 

The following images are all with the XLD video circuit in play.

 

 

 

I also looked at the Diamond Mine game, and neither UAV or the XLD video processing circuit rendered color in S-Video mode, although both were very colorful in composite mode.

 

Diamond Mine: XLD S-Video

 

 

Diamond Mine: XLD Composite

 

 

And here's what the XLD video circuit presently looks like in it's bread-boarded prototype form.

 

[foft]

Nice! Could I pinch your video circuit for the EclaireXL video board please? Looking for a nice svideo/composite solution when driven from a gtia style digital colour/4 hue bits.

[+mytek]

Nice! Could I pinch your video circuit for the EclaireXL video board please? Looking for a nice svideo/composite solution when driven from a gtia style digital colour/4 hue bits.

 

Yes my circuits are your circuits . Always feel free to re-use whatever I put online.

[+Stephen]

Right on man! There should be absolutely no colour when in s-video mode, and composite looks fantastic, with proper artifacting.

[+mytek]

Layout has been finalized and Routing has Begun

 

 

I started with the address, data, and control signals first since that tends to be the most complicated. With this layout I am able to run a main bus down the center and then pick off signals for each chip using vias. Only signals that go to more than 2 places have been included in the bus. And address lines A5-A11 (7 signals) were easily routed directly between chips and headers that required them, thus letting me use the precious middle space for stuff that either went a long distance or got used on nearly every chip.

 

Note: If this were a 2-Layer board i would have started routing power first. But since this is a 4-layer board 5 VDC and GND have their own dedicated layer, so no routing required for most of that (only the power input section requires traces).

[+Spaced Cowboy]

Good luck.

 

I'm still wrestling with my own layout, although the main reason for continuing is that I get my yearly bonus in 2 weeks, and it'll come in handy for the board cost

[ivop]

Neat! And cool to see the S2 incorporated I suppose if the IDE connector isn't used, or the WB port is heightened, there is plenty of space for a slightly bigger WB board.

[Level42]

never mind,,,LOL

Edited October 9, 2018 by Level42

[+mytek]

Neat! And cool to see the S2 incorporated I suppose if the IDE connector isn't used, or the WB port is heightened, there is plenty of space for a slightly bigger WB board.

 

I just measured it. It looks like any Wave Blaster board should fit over the top of a plugged in 2 mm IDE ribbon connector. In fact it'll act like an additional support in the process. Of course any time you wanted to unplug the IDE connection you would first need to remove the Wave Blaster. Not really an issue.

 

I just got the MIDI boards in today. Still have a few parts I needed to order, so if all goes well I'll be able to test the full MIDI capability very soon.

 

EDIT: BTW, if you end up creating a finished board of your DIY Wave Blaster, it would be better to stick to the same height as the S2, and just go wider. This way there would be no interference with someone installing a Rapidus (there's a very good reason the S2 sits all the way towards the bottom ).

[ivop]

 

EDIT: BTW, if you end up creating a finished board of your DIY Wave Blaster, it would be better to stick to the same height as the S2, and just go wider. This way there would be no interference with someone installing a Rapidus (there's a very good reason the S2 sits all the way towards the bottom ).

 

What would be the maximum width, assuming the height is 1300 mil (about 33 mm)? (edit: I mean, when would it start interfering with the U1MB board)

 

Update from this side of the pond: I got delayed a bit, but I'm expecting the first CS9236 prototype boards Friday afternoon or early evening. Not ordered any VS1053b yet boards because of reasons All other parts have arrived already, so I hope to finish the first board this Saturday and start testing.

Edited October 10, 2018 by ivop

[+mytek]

What would be the maximum width, assuming the height is 1300 mil (about 33 mm)? (edit: I mean, when would it start interfering with the U1MB board)

 

 

 

Update from this side of the pond: I got delayed a bit, but I'm expecting the first CS9236 prototype boards Friday afternoon or early evening. Not ordered any VS1053b yet boards because of reasons All other parts have arrived already, so I hope to finish the first board this Saturday and start testing.

Sounds like you and I are on the same schedule for this MIDI stuff. My new boards should be assembled and ready to test this weekend as well .