Developer's MC/KC breakout board

[decle]

Morning Guys,

I thought I might share the design for a simple Intellivision breakout board that I have found quite useful. In doing so I'd like to thank Lathe26 and RonTheCat for their ideas and input which increased the scope of the design and made it much more polished. The board is designed to serve one of four purposes for the Intellivision hardware developer:

• Breakout the Intellivision Master Component cartridge lines for easy access with a logic analyser
• Breakout the Intellivision Keyboard Component cartridge lines for easy access with a logic analyser (thanks to JoeZ and FrankP for the pinout)
• Provide an extension of the ribbon cable that links the Intellivision Keyboard Component to the Master Component
• Allow the separate development of Intellivision hardware and software with the use of the LTO Flash

The board is a simple extension of the 44 pin cartridge port connector with the option of putting in some pin headers to labelled locations for a logic analyser or other cartridge connectors:



The symmetry of the Keyboard Component cartridge interface means it can also be used to analyse Keyboard Component hardware:

 

By cutting the board in two and fitting headers and an appropriate ribbon cable it is possible to create a Keyboard Component extension cable:



Finally, it would be possible to replace one or both of the pin header locations with vertical 44 pin PCB edge connectors, allowing more than one cartridge to be connected at once. In this way it would be possible to develop Master Component hardware and software on separate boards and potentially make use of the LTO Flash or similar for software development.

The images above show version 0 of the board. This only works with bare boards because the cartridge connector is mounted to the top of the board. However, version 1 which is currently on OSH Park inverts the cartridge connector, allowing cartridges in shells to be used:

 

Please bear in mind that, although the changes between v0 and v1 are minor, I have not had a need to commission or test v1 of the board:

Therefore, if you are considering ordering one, you might want to download and check the Eagle schematics:

 

breakout.tar.gz

 

As always all corrections and feedback is most welcome.


Cheers

decle

Edited September 9, 2018 by decle

[+Lathe26]

I just noticed your board for sale on eBay. Is this you? Is it v0 or v1 of the board?

 

eBay Auction -- Item Number: 113293308977

[decle]

I just noticed your board for sale on eBay. Is this you? Is it v0 or v1 of the board?

 

Hi Lathe,

 

Thanks for drawing this to my attention. Unless I publicise them here, this and any other similar eBay auctions are nothing to do with me. I don't know who the manufacturer / seller is and they have not contacted me. I guess someone decided to get all entrepreneurial with the designs I posted above.

 

The board in the auction picture appears to be based on v1. Obviously I cannot comment on what, if any, changes have been made and whether or not the boards work because I just don't know. Sorry I cannot be of more help.

 

Cheers

 

decle

Edited October 17, 2018 by decle

[carlsson]

It seems the seller is spinning boards of every more or less openly published retro computing/console project they can find. Sometimes they link to official documentation, sometimes not. Sometimes it is even mentioned that the seller doesn't know about all the required parts, but that you can use Google image search to try to find a matching picture and derive parts from that. I suppose a lot of people with the right resources and abilities work like this. Some would call it a service to the community, some would call it mostly non-profit theft.

[+nanochess]

It's pretty sad when some people takes without permission everything that they can find to make money.

[rd80sguy]

Excuse me but I have to ask a question, is it possible to build a intellivision cart reader with this?