Details of Dual-OS Newell RAMROD Board...

[fibrewire]

There was still clear contact glue on the surface of the DIP switches, and notice the untouched edge connector. It's never been plugged in. There are two pieces of documentation that came folded up in that tiny box that doubled as packing material for the board. It literally was that box and nothing else! Brand new!

[+Faicuai]

OK, so here's a summary of my RamRod wanna-be project:

 

 

1. Got a couple of Intel 2716-1 EPROMS, brand new (nice, heavy/solid feel to them).

 

2. Bought a Willem PCB5.0E Parallel-bus programmer (item: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 260797411130)

 

3. Got the FastMath .BIN code (@1984) from MADS assembler package, 2048 Kbytes-exact size.

 

4. Set up ALL jumpers and dip-switches and power supply (25Vpp, 2716 config, External VDC/VAC, and master burn/dip switch panel, 12V external PowerSupply)

 

5. After three attemps, I was finally able to properly (and reliably) burn the .BIN file. Final-read out from the entire chip was same as .BIN buffer, byte-for-byte.

 

6. Now, went back to the JayMiner-800 OS/ROM board, pulled out the factory FP package, plugged in the 2716-1, and here's what I got:

 

=> NOTHING, except an empty, lonely blue-screen on power on.

 

 

7. If I UV-erase the 2716-1s (so all of its content goes to "FF") and plug it in like that, I still get the SAME nothingness as above.

 

8. If I leave the FP-ROM socket empty, the machine BOOTS FINE, and reaches the wonderful and "useful" factory memopad.

 

 

 

Don't know, but I have the feeling that this little experiment (although not really expensive) has reached a screetching halt, if you ask me. Sounds like an electrical-level incompatibility between the C012399B/CN32536N OS FP ROM and the Intel 2716-1.

 

 

Any ideas of what could be wrong? Is there something I am missing?

 

 

F.

[BillC]

OK, so here's a summary of my RamRod wanna-be project:

 

 

1. Got a couple of Intel 2716-1 EPROMS, brand new (nice, heavy/solid feel to them).

 

2. Bought a Willem PCB5.0E Parallel-bus programmer (item: eBay Auction -- Item Number: 260797411130)

 

3. Got the FastMath .BIN code (@1984) from MADS assembler package, 2048 Kbytes-exact size.

 

4. Set up ALL jumpers and dip-switches and power supply (25Vpp, 2716 config, External VDC/VAC, and master burn/dip switch panel, 12V external PowerSupply)

 

5. After three attemps, I was finally able to properly (and reliably) burn the .BIN file. Final-read out from the entire chip was same as .BIN buffer, byte-for-byte.

 

6. Now, went back to the JayMiner-800 OS/ROM board, pulled out the factory FP package, plugged in the 2716-1, and here's what I got:

 

=> NOTHING, except an empty, lonely blue-screen on power on.

 

 

7. If I UV-erase the 2716-1s (so all of its content goes to "FF") and plug it in like that, I still get the SAME nothingness as above.

 

8. If I leave the FP-ROM socket empty, the machine BOOTS FINE, and reaches the wonderful and "useful" factory memopad.

 

 

 

Don't know, but I have the feeling that this little experiment (although not really expensive) has reached a screetching halt, if you ask me. Sounds like an electrical-level incompatibility between the C012399B/CN32536N OS FP ROM and the Intel 2716-1.

 

 

Any ideas of what could be wrong? Is there something I am missing?

 

 

F.

I believe the Atari ROM chips 4KB and smaller were compatible with 25XX series EPROMs, I know that 2532 EPROMs are compatible with the the ROM jumper settings on the 1050 drive, while 2732s are compatible with the EPROM jumper setting.

[+warerat]

Any ideas of what could be wrong?

 

The FP ROM and 2716 EPROM have completely different pinouts. It's even a stretch to say that 2532's would work in place of these because it's certainly not true in the case of the OS board.

 

Can it be made to work? Sure.

Piggyback another 74LS138 on top of the one at Z401. Bend up all the pins except 4, 6, 8, 16-- these are soldered to the 'LS138 below. Connections for top 'LS138: Connect pins 2 and 3 to pin 8, connect pins 4 and 5 together, connect pin 5 from the bottom 'LS138 to pin 1 on the top 'LS138.

 

Connections for EPROM: Pull it out and bend up pins 18, 20, 21 and plug back in. Run wire from pin 21 to pin 24 on EPROM. Connect pins 18 and 20 together and connect this pair to pin 14 of the top 'LS138.

[+Faicuai]

Any ideas of what could be wrong?

 

The FP ROM and 2716 EPROM have completely different pinouts. It's even a stretch to say that 2532's would work in place of these because it's certainly not true in the case of the OS board.

 

Can it be made to work? Sure.

Piggyback another 74LS138 on top of the one at Z401. Bend up all the pins except 4, 6, 8, 16-- these are soldered to the 'LS138 below. Connections for top 'LS138: Connect pins 2 and 3 to pin 8, connect pins 4 and 5 together, connect pin 5 from the bottom 'LS138 to pin 1 on the top 'LS138.

 

Connections for EPROM: Pull it out and bend up pins 18, 20, 21 and plug back in. Run wire from pin 21 to pin 24 on EPROM. Connect pins 18 and 20 together and connect this pair to pin 14 of the top 'LS138.

 

 

WoW!

 

Thanks for the Italian-spaghetti recipe (although very knowledgeable, to say the least)!

 

I presume an extra OS rom-board may be in order, since everything I have on this 800 is simply pristine/like-new.

 

Now, in your opinion, what would be the cleanest way to perform the above cabling surgery, without redesigning the actual board? A break-out socket with jumper-pins or some sort of dip-switch box next to it? Or is the above patch-work the only way to go?

 

Again, many thanks for your input,

 

F.

Edited June 15, 2011 by Faicuai

[sloopy]

i would say get a spare OS board, and mod it for this, then you have one for the 'collection' but can still use the FP routine you want...

 

 

 

sloopy.

[fibrewire]

Does anyone know what prom is used for the FastChip on the newell board? I'm guessing it's a 2332 4K PROM, and apparently there are adapters to convert from prom to eprom, but I don't know.

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/roms.html

[+warerat]

Does anyone know what prom is used for the FastChip on the newell board? I'm guessing it's a 2332 4K PROM, and apparently there are adapters to convert from prom to eprom, but I don't know.

http://ist.uwaterloo.ca/~schepers/roms.html

 

It is none of those. It is a custom mask ROM with two active-high and one active-low enable.

[Rev]

Ramrod?????

 

 

I came in here looking for Anthony Weiner jokes.

[+warerat]

Now, in your opinion, what would be the cleanest way to perform the above cabling surgery, without redesigning the actual board? A break-out socket with jumper-pins or some sort of dip-switch box next to it? Or is the above patch-work the only way to go?

 

The stock OS board is designed to take custom mask ROMs with extra chip selects that don't exist on EPROMs so you don't need additional external decoding circuitry.

 

My advice is if you don't want to redesign the OS board, design a piggy-back board that plugs into the the ROM socket that swaps pins and provides the logic to further decode the chip enable for an EPROM, or perform the decoder circuit modification for an EPROM, don't plug in the wrong chip and just to use a mask ROM that the socket is wired for.

[+Faicuai]

OK, Folks, plenty of good ideas around (Sloop's mumbo-jumboed spare OS board seems to be gaining strength, as he originally advised me).

 

FWire's link is right on the money also (I can see some IC pin-out adapters for a probably better/cleaner work, although on of the IC that Warerat suggests is actually pretty small, so I will have to spend more time for the right "proto"-sockets.

 

 

Now, sometimes solutions come from certainly unexpected sources... and it turns out that I found a termporary one on an ATARIMAX cart (!?)

 

You see, in contrast with my contemporary lifestyle, my retro-computing world is as crippled as anyone can imagine. While in one hand I have a home-theater loaded with 30 years of technological amazement, on the other hand, I don't even have an external SDrive, no SIO2USB, no nothing... just a 1050, an IndusGT and one (1) meager 8Mbit Cart.

 

Therefore, I managed to flash "Disk Magic XL", as well as a special verision of Turbobasic (1.4) hacked-to-the-wazoo specifically for the JayMiner-800, then transferred the latter to a 5.25 floppy (right from the cart, but using DiskMagic), so I could boot it directly into the 800, and then proceed with my FP experiments (now much faster- than-EPROM-alone), at the expense of a LARGE chunk of ram, mind you, as well as having to use the 800XL for the initial binary transplant. A pure-SW solution, indeed.

 

I have also performed some interesting tests in Altirra v2.0-T6, and I found that OSS's Basic XL & XE combined with the FP-Rom produces pretty interesting results... but still below the "ethanol" mix described above.

 

Anyway, it seems I will have to research for a while. Next projects are the Nuke-Drive as I call it (or SDrive-NUXX, as it is conventionally called ), and updated EPROM for pulling more juice out of the Indus (I think the Willem will get some use, while I figure out this whole wanna-be RamRod thing).

 

 

Cheers,

 

 

F.

Edited June 15, 2011 by Faicuai

[fibrewire]

Just got the 2nd RAMROD - is "SUPERMON! V1.1" a typo???

[+Faicuai]

Just got the 2nd RAMROD - is "SUPERMON! V1.1" a typo???

 

 

SICK!!!

 

Where does this second, well-preserved fossil came from? Craigslist?

 

F.

[fibrewire]

I snagged it on eBay, but it was listed as 'SUPERMON!'

 

I can't find anything about this particular OmniMon on Google

[Rybags]

Supermon was sold here.

 

Try RESET + OPTION (or SELECT). The monitor has a green background, menu driven. You can also get into the Monitor by SHIFT-CONTROL-M from within a program.

 

It's a reasonable monitor but has a few crash bugs.

[sloopy]

OK, Folks, plenty of good ideas around (Sloop's mumbo-jumboed spare OS board seems to be gaining strength, as he originally advised me).

 

***SNIP FOR CLARITY***

 

Cheers,

 

 

F.

 

I prefer 'hacked' or 'mod'ed' ;')

 

i am thinking about making one for my 800, as i havnt used my soldering iron for a week or two, and i miss it :'(

 

sloopy.