rdemming

Ha, ha, yes I saw Grazey becoming like a paparazzi, "secretly" taking pictures of the Dingoo's screen with his mobile phone I don't think I met Calsoft. Or it must have been the nice French guy where I had a very interesting talk with about the elegance of Acorn Archimedes ARM code. He showed me some nice old Acorn Archimedes physics simulation demos. I'm sure the game with c*nt in its name was no thread to SuperFly? Was it really that "offensive" that it had to be shown after dark? Robert

Congratulations! I wasn't long enough at Outline to see the voting results, but my vote must have been the decisive factor Thanks for the great game. And it was great to meet SH3 & GGN in person. Maybe next time I will stay longer. But then I have to sleep in the hardcore snoring room Robert

I agree with you that the solution to this problem (not mentioned in first posts), is inelegant but this memory expansion is interesting because it's plug and play. I think ctirad should find an external solution and leave the option to connect a wire internally. I prefer a connection to the power port, on the back of the computer like memory expansion, instead of a connection to the joystick port, more visible on the left side. The Turbo-Freezer-XL used an additional wire to be connected on the joystick port. And that powered the freezer and in some versions also the build-in 256KB ram expansion. But the manual described how to add +5V to the PBI bus. Getting the 5V from the power connector is not so nice in my opinion. Then the memory expansion will still be under power when the computer is off. (maybe useful for a resident ramdisk between cold starts ) You can also get 5V from the SIO port but SIO connectors are not readily available. Or you can take it from the cartridge port but a pass through cart is not so beautiful as well. So that leaves the joystick port. But it is strange the 800XL has no +5V on the PBI bus. What would be the reasoning behind it? Robert

I looked on the bottom of my board. The only thing next to the pins by J7 is your website address. J4, J5, J6 and J7 are all wired the same. That means you can connect the SIO signals to either of them. I suppose future use is to connect other SIO devices to the remaining 3 connectors like an internal SIO2SD or SDRIVE. @Candle, if you look at the bottom of the PCB, I believe you only see that +5V and GND of those connectors are connected to each other. The other pins are connected at the top side and are hidden by the headers. So you can't make any conclusions by just looking at the bottom. Robert

Such as a GAL which has to be programmed. Many mods for the Atari (ST's too) use custom programmed chips. In the 80's the term "custom chips" refered to chips that were custom designed/made for some company/device. Like the Atari 8-bit ANTIC, ST shifter, Amiga Paula etc. Non custom chips were of the shelf chips like 68000, ST MPF, ST YM soundchip. I would call GAL/PAL/CPLD/FGPA/etc. just programmable logic chips instead of custom chips. And yes, this extension contains a programmable CPLD chip. Using discrete logic chips (74xx chips), these kinds of extensions would be too big because of the high chip count then. Robert

No, you should connect the cap on between the +5V and gnd on the IO board (the connector on the top left of the board (power in)). I placed it on the back of the board. It is needed to reduce noise in the audio output. Read post 14 & 15 of this topic. J3-12 is A7 and J3-13 is A4 and can be connected at different places on the motherboard. I connected those near the rom chip at the bottom of the 130XE board (the solder pads but I don't remember from my head which). J3-17 is only needed if you want to map the convox at D6xx. In that case you need to connect J3-14 too (hardwired to ground or via a switch). D6xx signal is on pin 9 of the 74LS138 above the Pokey chip. I hope to post a few pictures of my installation soon. Robert

Luckily I still have the right crystal from a dead 800XE machine. So count me in. Robert

I like soldering wires and I would prefer an 64KB extended memory ANTIC compatible mode for the few demos that require it. I don't thing there is software that requires more than 64KB in ANTIC compatible mode so that would be OK. But the CompyShop 256 extended memory ANTIC compatible mode would be nice since that extension was fairly popular as well. Isn't it possible to make it so that in the default installation, it is just 1MB mode and if you solder a switch and extra wires, you have a switchable ANTIC compatible mode? Robert

Hi Candle, I want another one too for my PAL 800 XL without Freddy chip. And also a simple stereo + IO board if they become available. Do I understand it correctly that if you have no Freddy chip, you need to provide the 14.xxx crystal yourself since the correct crystal is not on the motherboard? Robert

The connectors are not wired the same but of course you can try to make an adapter. According to the schematics of Jerzy Sobola the connections are as follows: .. 130XE 800XL 1 +5V . OUT 1 2 C95/R95 OUT 4 3 GND. OUT 6 4 IN 6 OUT 2 5 OUT 3 OUT 7 6 OUT 5 OUT 0 7 OUT 7 OUT 3 8 IN 2 OUT 5 9 IN 7 RSC 10 IN 5 IN 4 11 IN 1 IN 6 12 OUT 6 IN 2 13 OUT 1 IN 7 14 OUT 4 IN 5 15 OUT 2 IN 1 16 IN 3 IN 0 17 IN 0 IN 3 18 OUT 0 GND 19 IN 4 +5V 20 RSC. START 21 START SELECT 22 SELECT OPTION 23 OPTION RESET 24 RESET R95 As you can see, it is not just swapping some wires. The connections are mixed all over the place. Robert

This thread contains more information. Look at post 14 & 31. Basically the chip contains a multiplier and divider. Robert

Joking again? Have you read post 31?

Although it does not backup the save game data, Matthias EEPROM browser utility is very interesting. Of course a EEPROM backup utility should also be able to restore the data. Robert

Another way to (partly) fix it, is to bypass the GTIA chip with the VBXE board

The pre-order list for the next batch is here. Second, there is only RGB 15KHz output. There is no VBXE signal on the standard DIN-5 monitor and RF outputs. You need to add a special RGB out connector. A regular VGA monitor (31KHz) does not work, make sure yours support 15KHz signal like the old Atari ST and commodore Amiga monitors or the old NEC multi-sync VGA monitors which supported both 15KHz and 31KHz signals. In Europe, you can use the SCART connection on regular tvs. Robert

I'm almost finished with installing the Simple Stereo + IO board. SIO2PC is working at high speed. I have stereo Pokey and Covox can be heard as well. And the AKI interface works great. But I have a few questions. 1. I want to toggle stereo pokey on/off and switch the covox between D280/D600. Can I just connect a toggle switch between J3-pin 15 and ground for stereo on/off and J3-pin 14 and ground for covox D280/D600? Or do I need a pull-up resistor? I don't think there is any reason to disable the covox so I won't install a switch for that. 2. On the picture you posted in the Simple Stereo 3 thread, you connected SIO clock in and SIO clock out. Without connecting these, SIO2PC works fine so is connecting SIO clock needed for any special features? 3. In the IO board package, you included a capacitor of 1000 micro Farad. Is that needed for something? 4. What is the best way to conect the mono output of the SS board to the monitor port? I suppose I can disable the U1 (LM358) circuit (cut R6 and pin 1 LM358) and connect mono out between R8 and R10 so also the modulator gets the mono audio signal. Cassette audio will be disabled then but for the one tape that uses it I don't care. Or is there a better way to connect the mono out to the monitor port? 5. When I connect the 12V line between the IO and SS board, I get an annoying, clearly audible, high frequency tone in the audio output (both via the stereo out as well as the unmodified monitor audio out.) It sounds to me that the 12 voltage created on the IO board is not stable but swings. When I connect just 5V on the 12V input, then there is no high frequency tone but then the covox audio is not good. Must I use the included 1000 uF capacitor between the 12V/gnd lines to stabilize it? Thanks. Robert

I thought J4 was for the SIO. But I measured the connections and it seems J4-J7 are wired together. So it doesn't matter if you use J4, J5, J6 or J7. Is this correct? Robert

Isn't the 12V connected in reverse here? Pin 1 of J22 on the IO board is +12V. I measured it and it is the bottom pin (the white wire here). On the simple stereo board, the +12V connection is pin 8 on J3 and ground is pin 10 on J3. But here the +12V of the IO board seems to be connected to pin 10 (ground) and IO board ground is connected to pin 8 (+12 V). Or does the polarity not matter for the Covox DA converter? What is the purpose of all the wires on IO board J7? Robert

Reading all this makes me wonder how well the 7800 did in Europe. In The Netherlands it was not available in the shops. I only got one when 7800s got dumped at a computer exhibition around the same time the Lynx and Jaguar were dumped in the toy store. But there were no 7800 games available so I got most of my 7800 games via e-bay from the UK. Does someone know in which European countries the 7800 was officially released? The XE game system was released in The Netherlands but I believe it was not a success. The XE game cartridges were in the shops here but I can't remember if I ever saw an XE games system in the shops. Robert

The payment was done to "20th Century Fox" so it might only be the cost of the license and not development. And according to the sheet, it was for a CD version and it was canceled (The 'N" in the status field). Robert

The "simple" non-switchable upgrades will output "Single Pokey" software on only one of the stereo channels. Also the audio out of the monitor port will only output the original Pokey sound and not the extra Pokey sound. Additionally the GTIA beep sound is not fed to the stereo output jacks. But there are more advanced schemetics like this on Raster's site that feed the 2nd Pokey sound also to the monitor audio out and also mixes the GTIA beep sound to the stereo jacks. And it is also switchable to mono mode so you have mono sound on both stereo output channels. Robert

I suppose making the BIOS not to read data from session 0, is not really a concern for Atari as you still need to get a boot loader encrypted. And if your boot loader was reading data from the first session, Atari would never encrypt it for you. And if an official developer made a hidden "backdoor" that secretly was reading data from the first session, Atari would probably sue their heads off if they discover it. As all CD access is going through the CD BIOS, it would be possible to make an interface that connects a standard IDE CD-drive to the cart port. With an adapted CD-BIOS that interfaces with the IDE port instead of Atari's own hardware, it should be possible. But who is up to the challenge? Thanks. The update was only to make it work with the latest version of the CD-record tool. I suppose they forgot lesson number one of interoperable software design: Never change the interface (someone here programmed COM components?) With adding this kind of thing, I suppose you mean creating encrypted menu CDs with multiple BJL type of programs so you can reduce the number of CDs wasted even further. I always wanted to make my own menu loader to replace the buggy Atari one, but never got around it. But if you guys make a menu loader, I will be happy to add support for it I only wonder if the track-at-once recording mode I use would create the same TOC on every CD-recorder. I have my doubts about that since the data offset in a track is already different among CD-recorders. And an identical TOC regardless of the recorder used, is essential for this method to work. In that case I should generate a CD image and pass it to the recording software instead. Robert

Wow, very nice. From your description I suppose that you didn't convert the CD encryption program to the PC. But that you found a way to inject code in an existing encrypted CD image. I was thinking to put data in the first session where normally only audio tracks are. The first session is AFAIK not checked in the CD authorisation process. So as long you don't change the TOC and only change the contents of the "dummy" audio track in the first session, the authorisation should pass. I only wonder if the CD bios allows to read data from the first session. If Atari was smart the BIOS does not allow that and thus the boot track should read the track in the first session directly and not through the CD BIOS. But that would possibly make the CD not work on future revisions of the CD hardware. But I don't think we will ever see new revisions of the CD hardware Great work! Robert

OK, I've put the crystal of the "spare parts" 800XE onto the VBXE board, removed the oscillator from the 130XE board and connected J6 (14MHz clock) with a shielded cable to the old oscillator connection points. And what a sharp and stable picture! And the colors are much brighter/vibrant as well. The much better picture was worth the upgrade alone Also the GTIA modes (I tried Ball Blazer) are working with VBXE while I thought that was not yet implemented. That must have been for an old core version then. There is only one very small disadvantage of the much sharper picture... There is no artifacting anymore in "graphics 8" mode. The game Amaurote is using "graphics 8" mode and has subtle colors in the dithered pixel patterns when using composite video or RF. But on the VBXE it is pure black/white which makes the graphics a bit too sharp. Thanks to Candle and Electron for bringing this great upgrade. Next thing is installing the simple stereo and IO board. As I only have a few hours per weekend, I hope to finish that within two months Robert B.T.W. As expected, having both the crystal on the VBXE board and the oscillator on 130XE board does not work because the two clocks are not synchronized then.

I think you meant single/double "side" instead single/double "density". Indeed for a long time software was shipped on single side disks because of this. But I wonder if it had much effect on the quality of the software since many games just shipped on two single side disks. Robert