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Level42

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Posts posted by Level42

  1. Posted

    I'll have to establish a price once I have everything here. 

     

    I will offer sets of parts only (so you have to solder the connectors yourself) and sets with the connectors soldered by myself.


    I decided not to go with having them soldered at the PCB factory because it raises cost significantly. It does mean I will need to do the soldering of the complete sets myself so naturally these will be a bit more expensive than the "parts only" sets.

     

    Currently the flex cables have arrived, connectors and PCB's are still on their way. I'll post as soon as they are in.

     

    • Like 6

  2. Posted

    On 7/5/2020 at 3:53 PM, Roydea6 said:

    @E474

     

    Is doing something along this line of key board fixes also.

    Correction it is @Level42

     

    Yes. My solution uses an even smaller flex cable but that's not very relevant. At this moment I have new flex cables arrived and PCBs and the connectors still on order. I have adapted the PCB so that it could also be used in XE's, mostly this meant there are now two break-outs for the keyboard-connector so that this can be hooked up as a 2nd button for any joystick/pad that offers that. This is very useful for games like Dropzone etc. where keyboard is a "bomb" option....also the new Scramble f.i.

    Sets will be available as soon as I received the PCBs and connectors. I decided to do the soldering myself. Having the connectors installed is making things way too expensive.

    • Like 1

  4. Posted

    On 2/3/2020 at 2:21 AM, -^CrossBow^- said:

    I've stated more than one on a Vectrex fan FB page the importance of soldering to both bottom and top when doing the caps..etc because of this and keep getting told I'm crazy so..ehh..whatever. It came up because someone was called out for having their caps mounted high water off the board. I advised this wasn't a bad idea in the case of the vectrex since there are traces on top and bottom for many of the components and you need to solder to both sides to make sure you make good connection.

    As I have learned by re-capping a Vectrex the past few days: you are absolutely correct. I even had one track coming off....fixed it with a piece of capacitor "wire"....

    The worst thing is that the cap-kit didn't solve my problem....

  6. Posted

    On 5/26/2020 at 6:26 PM, ivop said:

    How hard are those connectors to solder? If not too hard, I'd be interested in a couple, too. Would be nice if a future new keyboard used this ;)

    It's not a regular solder job for sure. It is a SMD sized connector. There are several techniques to do it:

    1) Hot air soldering. This requires a dedicated hot-air soldering station. They are quite cheap to get from Asia these days. This is how I did it. The positive thing about this method is that it's cheap. The negative is that you are running the risk of overheating the plastic part of the connector and it melts. This happened to my first PCB set a bit, but it still works fine.

    2) (Dedicated) SMD soldering oven. These are quite a bit more expensive if you get a dedicated one. There are also many hacks of regular electrical ovens to be find on-line. The trick with oven soldering is that it reaches a certain temperature, keeps it just long enough and then slowly decreases the temperature again. In other words, this is rather hard to do with a regular oven, but it can be done.

    3) a traditional soldering station with a very fine tip and using a method called "drag soldering".

    All these methods require the PCBs to be cleaned with some pure alchohol before soldering, then applying flux and then applying (about) the correct amount of (fresh) solder paste. 


    For all soldering methods: you can find loads of information and videos about all of them on the internet. It goes to far to explain them all in detail here.

    I have asked for a price to have the connectors soldered at the PCB factory and I will report back about that ASAP but it's clear that ordering bare PCBs is a lot cheaper. On the other hand I could do the soldering, but I have to say I'm no SMD soldering expert and it's definitely  not my favorite pass-time :) I guess I would become better by doing more though.... LOL.

    OK, more info ASAP.

     

    • Thanks 1

  7. Posted

    Well, to answer my own question...just in case anyone else might ever be interested:

     

    The diameter of the speaker is 7,7 cm.

    The depth of the speaker is 2,5 cm.

     

    There is about 1 cm. extra space between the rear of the speaker and the transformer but there is a round hole in the plastic that might spoil things for a bigger and better speaker, on the other hand...you could cut some plastic away if keeping the inside of your vectored 100% original is not that important to you....

    • Like 1

  8. Posted

    Excellent, thanks !

     

    Small update: I just updated the design a bit. Removed the unnecessary ground-plane and added a second break-in set of pins so not it is possible to use the break in for Space Bar generation on both XL and XE machines. So the PCB is now truly universal for XL and XE's.

    • Like 1

  9. Posted

    OK that's 6 sets so far here, and I got interest on Facebook for 6 sets too. (let me know if you posted your interest there too).

     

    Anyway, enough reason to order new PCBs, connectors and flex cables.

     

    Let me get the materials first and we'll go from there. Prices won't break the bank...not doing this for money but helping out fellow Atari users.

     

    I'll post as soon as I have the parts here. Thanks for all the positive replies !

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    Mytek, did you try moving a finger near the Antics while the machine was running ? I had issues with it freezing because apparently my finger induced a signal into one of the clock inputs. So I think I grounded both clock inputs  instead of just one.

     

    There is also one signal that I switched......that isn't used in XLs and XE's but IS in 400/800.

  14. Posted

    On 5/6/2020 at 4:08 AM, mytek said:

    Parallel connected Antic chips: an experiment in isolation for the purpose of swapping between NTSC & PAL

     

    I guess this as good a place as any to discuss Antic NTSC/PAL swap, since I don't want to disturb the AntiX topic.

     

    Speaking of AntiX. Here's how the creator describes what is happening on his board...

     

    After looking at the description, I started wondering if there might be an even simpler way. So I made an Antic sandwich for research purposes. I must mention the fact that I have no idea what the AntiX board's logic really looks like. No schematic and no actual board to reverse engineer. I just wanted the challenge, and to see what minimally would be required. And I'm not looking to duplicate the AntiX, but I might build something like this into one of my other ongoing projects.

     

    ANTIC_sandwich.thumb.JPG.9102f6213b47ebb70acd0fdc1ea2f2ca.JPG

     

    The image above was taken with the Antic sandwich mounted in my XEGS.

    All the extra wires that are seen surrounding the Antic socket,

    are from various upgrade experiments that I have used this system for in the past.

     

    I started by paralleling everything between the NTSC Antic on the bottom and the PAL Antic on the top, with the exception of Reset and FΦ0 (Fast 3.57Mhz clock sourced from GTIA) on the PAL Antic. I then tied the PAL Antic's Reset to GND and FΦ0 to +5v. I got this idea from a post that Bryan made many years ago.

    What I'm trying to do is figure out how to float the signals tied in parallel, or in other words make them look like there is no actual connection to the system.

     

    Fired it up, and got a pretty messed up picture.

     

    Next I started disconnecting things on the PAL Antic that I suspected would interfere with the NTSC one. That would be Φ0 (the 1.79Mhz clock for the CPU), and REF (refresh for the DRAM). Things started to work... well almost.

     

    Next I disconnected R/W from the PAL Antic and initially tied it to +5v for Read (NOT!), and then to GND for Write (Bingo that worked!). And thus far after doing this last bit everything that I've thrown at the sandwich runs as if there is only an NTSC Antic connected, which was the whole point of these experiments (e.g., can I isolate the parallel connected Antic).

     

    So here's where I'm currently at signal-wise...

     

    There are a total of 5 signal lines for each Antic that need to be switched in some manner to deactivate a given parallel connected Antic.

     

    The deactivated state is as follows:

     

    Pin-8 (/REF) disconnect and float

    Pin-14 (R/W) Tie to GND

    Pin-34 (Φ0) disconnect and float

    Pin-35 (FΦ0) Tie to +5v

    Pin-36 (/RST) Tie to GND

     

    The last two pin assignments (Pin-35 and 36) are what floats the Address bus and a few other associated signals. Then bringing the write line low, puts the data bus in input mode. Essentially all these things remove a good portion of the Antic pins from the system bus electrically speaking, so that they don't interfere with the other parallel Antic. This would have to be done for each Antic in the sandwich that you wish to deactivate.

     

    I could see using a pair of 74HCT4053 chips to do all the switching, and just use a couple of pull-down and pull-up resistors to determine the logic state for Pins 14, 35, 36 when not actively switched in circuit.

     

    Pair of 74HCT4053 Integrated Circuits

    74HCT4053.png.19ca8cd892a6aa767e667718ff88b4c4.png74HCT4053.png.19ca8cd892a6aa767e667718ff88b4c4.png

     

    The control lines for 5 of the switches would all be connected together. Then dependent upon what state the control signal was (GND or +5v) the common side of the switch would be directed at either the PAL or NTSC Antic connections on the other side. Since there is one spare switch, that too can be connected to the common control signal, and the output side could select one of two LEDs to show the active Antic in a similar way to what the AntiX does.

     

    Or there's something like this available from MAXIM MAX4948.

     

    MAX4948_6PDT_switch.thumb.png.68208a946ba6a98aa4859b393b074a5a.png

     

    Now I wonder how close I am getting to the AntiX design?

     

    Yeah, without looking into the details that is very close to what I did.

     

    I guess AntiX is history now.

    • Like 1

  15. Posted

    Hey fellow Vectrex fans.

     

    i would like to know the size of the original Vectrex speaker, and no I don’t mean the diameter because wel all know it’s 3”, but how deep/high is it .....AND is there any extra space behind the speaker’s end and the transformer ?

     

    reason is simple: I’ll be cap-checking and definitely replacing some caps Soon and I’d love to replace the speaker with something better....

     

    I searched around on the net and no info about it, not clear pictures etc.

     

    any help would be great, thanks !

  16. Posted

    Hey guys....I’m still alive....sorry for the black-out.

     

    well the personal issues are settled...(divorce, new GF and very happy now....)

    However, I’m still in the process of some home improvement which is eating up most of my spare time and worse....I switched jobs which turned out not to be the best of choice...(too many hours in the evenings).

     

    ANYWAY. Just when I’m about to gear up getting production done in China.....corona happened.... which i guess might slow things down.....however....I have every intention of getting some prototypes built over there, test and evaluate them and finally get them produced in numbers....so ....I’ll keep this updated....

    • Like 9

  17. Posted

    1 minute ago, Lamer Deluxe tm said:

    Ah, that's a shame. I hope you'll get time to tinker again soon.

    Honestly, if I do find some time I will use it to finally get production of AntiX going...which is an idea I did get to work successfully.... (A8 stuff)

  20. Posted

    Yes the Atari Handheld Touch Me was sold after Simon BUT the idea for Simon was stolen by Ralph Baer from Atari’s arcade version of a Touch Me. So the original idea will always be Atari’s however, Ralph did improve it by using color lights and more pleasant sounds.

     

    thanks for posting about that video and indeed I had already seen it while searching but regretfully it doesn’t give a clue about how to open it without damaging it.

     

    luckily, I already found the problem. The battery connector was simply bad, a common issue I believe. This one looks like poorly resoldered. Maybe a battery had been leaking although I see no evidence of that.

    Anyway I spliced a new connector into the original wires and it works fine now, but I’d still like to open it to solder the wires properly to the PCB.

    • Like 2

  21. Posted

    I just receive a little gem I always wanted to own in the collection. It’s Atari’s handheld version of Touch Me. Regretfully it is completely dead. I hope it’s a simple issue with the battery connector so I want to have a look inside but before I damage the old plastic case, does anybody know how this is supposed to be opened ?

     

    • Like 1

  23. Posted

    On 6/20/2019 at 8:31 AM, emkay said:

    Because of this feature I was always thinking that POKEY wasn't created to suit any 8 Bit computer. POKEY works well with a CPU as a driver. A 2nd CPU in an Arcade machine driving POKEY, some high tone filter behind it, to get real great sound experience back in the 70s. In the Atari , as a main sound device, well... you know the limits.

    Please name which Atar arcade games in the 70s used POKEYs ?

    none did sir as it got out only in 1979. Further IMHO, Atari Coin-op never managed to pull very much from POKEY at all. Centipede is just a number of fairly simple sounds. The best they did was with Star Wars...but they used 4 POKEYS and a TI voice synth controlled by a separate CPU. But ven wth 4 POKEYs they didn’t think of creating true stereo but added a simple fake stereo phase shifting set-up.

    nah...POKEY was used meagrely by Atari coin op, but then again, how well was it used in the A8 machines in 1983 ?

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