exxosuk

Aside from the MiST, There was a "mini ST" being worked on a few years back using original chips https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=51564#p51564 It was based on a early H5 design , so it had a lot of the fixes and updates etc. Once the 72pin simm was swapped out for smaller RAM and If you forget the cartridge port, then all the space the PSU took up is gone, just use a small power brick, internal or external. Overall the board wasn't much wider than the floppy drive. Maybe 2 floppy drives back to back in size overall. The main problem is a smaller keyboard would be needed, or a external one, and a new case done. Aside from that, the problem is lack of time as always, and there just isn't enough interest in original board remakes to warrant spending all the time on such things. It's the same old problem of no source for the original chips anymore. So you're forced to FPGA, and well, the MiST already exists. The Suska was a similar thing. IMHO went a bit to far in the direction of FPGA and didn't really have original IO which was a shame. That was a great project, but I don't think many were interested in that either. A lot of projects have come and gone over the years. They just never gain traction or support from enough users or developers. So again, the MiST is the only likely solution for anything past original machines. Even venturing into the ATX type world with the Milan, Hades etc, nothing really survived. I don't know how popular those were back in the day as they was really expensive IIRC.

It is not often I pipe up on the forums these days. But as a long-term hardware and software developer for the Atari ST platform for the best part of 30 years, I do understand some people's concerns about various topics, to be honest I probably do agree with a lot of them myself . But I think a lot of people are really trying to focus on too many negative things here. In my opinion people should be focusing on what Atari can bring to the table. I mean they seem to be talking about publishing people's homebrew games and that seems to have been totally forgotten like 40 pages ago. They are literally funding Albert to do some good work in updating various parts of the site. This also seems to have gone out of the window in the discussion. I'm sure there are many other things I have missed as well. I'm not looking to start any arguments or fuel any sort of arguments, but just wanted to state that people need to realise there are huge opportunities to be had here. This is what people should be focusing on in my opinion. I personally was not a fan of the flashback consoles. Though I have purchased one of the 2600+ consoles this past week. I do have a original 2600JR which I have owned since my childhood. I am planning to take it to the Cyber Legends UK retro event next month in fact. I also found it rather fitting that the first console I purchased was a Atari 2600. And the last console I purchased was a Atari 2600 ! I have only ever purchased Atari stuff! I personally like the idea of being able to play original cartridges and hopefully have the option to buy new ones in the future. People can show off their cartridge collection as they often do . Not as impressive to have a huge list of games on a hard drive , at least for me anyway. I prefer to buy the physical games and be able to play them years later simply by plugging them in! Something which is sort of a lost art with a lot of things these days with all short term DLC type stuff. In fact I rarely buy anything on steam because my favourite games always get discontinued and I can no longer play them online. While all the new fancy graphics and sound is always impressive, I'm quite happy just to plug in a cartridge and play Pole position or Phoenix and just go and kill things. It's all just a bit of fun and time wasting at the end of the day. Anyway, I think the relevant saying here is, "help Atari to help us". exxos

Actually we spent a lot of time straightening them up as much as possible. Are they 100% perfect ? no, but unless your going to invest several months of your life in doing something which nobody cares about. I did a lot of colour corrections on them as well. I spent a lot of time doing so and got them as good as can be. There was a trade-off between "noise" and losing image quality as well. A lot got stuff got manually edited which took ages. Removing marks and creases etc, took huge amount of time. I have higher resolution scans and a lot of pages were even redone, but why spend the time when there was only me who cared about preserving them in the first place. The "scanner background" you are referring to , nope, that was because I couldn't find a way to export all the image to pdf with anything which didn't actually crash. Nobody came forward to help. The border was down to the PDF processing not the scanning. These all took several months of myself and girlfriend to do, but with comments like that, makes me wonder why we even bothered. Such as people generally do these days.

Have a look here https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=1171 and here https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=330 and here https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=71 Anyone who wants to keep up with current news, just visit my forum... I don't post much here (or anywhere else for that matter) as I just end up repeating myself when stuff has already been talked about before.

STF remake seems to be taking shape https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

Test layout is about ready for a small run of boards... So if anyone wants to get on board with helping then please watch the main thread in my forum... I need people willing to invest a bit of cash and time in building , testing, debugging etc. This board is Tweaked STF type design. It is currently about half the size of the normal motherboard in order to keep costs down prototype runs. There is no RF modulator, and the 32MHz generator circuit is simply been replaced with a 32MHz oscillator chip ( like on the MEGA ST). The RS232 circuit has been simplified now using more integrated solution, but does the same job, using the lot less bits! The ROMs have been replaced with a single 16bit ROM. The CPU is now a PLCC CPU. The RAM is reusing old Falcon RAM cards, either 1MB or 4MB.There is also been various tweaks around the board which I won't go into again. For those who want to yet again start with a, why don't I do this or that type discussion, then please see it all has already been talked about in great lengths.. The first step is to create a working clone and then build upon stable platform. People either help at this stage of the project, or it never goes ahead and never gets improved on. Is entirely depends on support from the community. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=19

Maybe someone has a archive of the site I can host it ?

A few kits are now in my store.. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/storenew/#0133

I've come up with a solution to replace the horrid push switches.. My test boards have gone out so hopefully I will get some feedback soon on them. I have one in my own JR and it works fantastic and really pleased with the "clicky" result. Read more about it here.. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=663 I have also designed a JR PAL board (who hasn't right ? ) where I am waiting for the PCBs to arrive so I can build the more final board. The bulk of the work is done I think now. Read more about it here with my investigations... https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=701 If there is any interest I will get a run of both boards made in the near future.

https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=387

It's that time of year when the crash screens gets updated. Not only have I a few videos this time around, there are now around 70 more cool crash screens for your viewing pleasure. http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/crash/index.htm

A lot of people are having difficulties assembling this, and I don't really blame them either as it is a bit of a nightmare..I got 100 of these made (which wasn't cheap!) ready to "solder in" and go. These are ideal if people want to add blitter to STFM etc. STORE LINK https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/storenew/#0113

yup.

The STFM project is here.. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=45 I am still trying to get 32MHz working on there. That is probably 12 months away as I have little time to work on it these days.

I don't think so no.

PCB is almost finished.. Basically the STE booster with more stuff... We have 8MB of Fast-RAM (32Mhz). 32MHZ 68000 CPU. Fast-Flash 32MHz flashable ROM banks (probably 4 or 8 ROM banks). Simple IDE interface. Also this booster can be set via software or switches. Settings are stored in the small ATTINY flash chip. So if you select TOS206 and write the setting to the tiny-flash, then the STE will boot with TOS206. Also the booster can be turned on/off with software which saves having to mount switches. Progress can be seen here. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=373 Please don't "nag" when this will be finished, I've got like 20 projects on the go already... and no I am not adding anything else to this, so don't ask! Also my simple STE V1.5 plug in (same as V1 STE booster but plug in) is almost finished. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=46

Have a look here.. http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/psu/index.htm and here. https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=9

https://blog.troed.se/2014/10/21/atari-st-drive-a-and-b-swap/ ?

If its the original NVRAM then likely battery is flat. Its common. So once you power off the machine it will lose settings again. You could be stuck in some odd resolution on boot up giving odd video results. Some links which maybe of interest... http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/NVRAM/index.htm http://exxosnews.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/falcon-rtc-module.html

You need a program to change the NVRAM settings or restore it. I'm not at home to check, though http://dhs.nu/files.php?t=single&ID=123is one I use, though not sure if it sets to 50hz or 60hz. Maybe someone knows better methods of a CPX to do it.

The ports will need testing once the PCB is manufactured. I don't think I have anything anymore which uses any of the ports. PSU, will be using my own designed PSU. I don't trust any other PSU's out there which I have not designed or tested myself personally. Though if people don't want to do that, they can upgrade their old PSU. This is a prototype board which uses PLCC ROM like my boosters do. I am looking into flash, but can't work on everything at once by myself so everything takes time.

It has been suggested before, though adding ATX form factor holes so the board could be used in both systems along with the ATX power connector. Though I am working with original stuff here. With the board being open source, people can design a ATX design if they want to.

A quick update.. Basically revamped RS232 circuit as suggested by Rodolphe. I think this was a really good suggestion and something realistic to actually do. http://exxosnews.blogspot.co.uk/2017/08/stf-remake-progress-new-layout.html

You could try booting it, though I Would be surprised if it worked and was stable.

cool, GEM in a browser Also lots of cool STuff there, good stuff!!