Lynx Multi Card Preorders

[C= Cheetah]

Please add me to your per-order list.

It will go well with the LCD mod from McWill.

[7800fan]

How did you finish it so quick? Some of these other atari flashcarts took years.

 

Knowing how the hardware works, knowing the coding if something like CPLD or FPGA is used, knowing how and why things worked with RAM or flash ROM chips and SD cards. Then combining everything in your free time, making some prototype and running some ROMs through the SD card to the actual console, debug anything that doesn't look right, finalize the design, make PCB layout and submit to PCB fab, order in bunch of parts, solder it together if you don't have a Pick n Place machine, test each one, ship them out.

 

Yeah it does take a lot of time. If someone has family and jobs, that may leave little time each days but if someone has no family and limited or no job, that leaves a lot of free time to do this.

[racerx]

Time to get busy. Thanks SainT!

 

 

[Bochum_Boy]

Please add me as well

[tbone3969]

Can I reserve this?

[Level42]

 

Knowing how the hardware works, knowing the coding if something like CPLD or FPGA is used, knowing how and why things worked with RAM or flash ROM chips and SD cards. Then combining everything in your free time, making some prototype and running some ROMs through the SD card to the actual console, debug anything that doesn't look right, finalize the design, make PCB layout and submit to PCB fab, order in bunch of parts, solder it together if you don't have a Pick n Place machine, test each one, ship them out.

 

Yeah it does take a lot of time. If someone has family and jobs, that may leave little time each days but if someone has no family and limited or no job, that leaves a lot of free time to do this.

 

I'm sure Saint thanks you for answering or him.

 

At least that saves him some time.

[TheSlider]

Hi !

I'd like to preorder one of these as well with a loose backplate.

[SainT]

Ah, I see. Thought because of the long programming the as6c8008 is a flash chip (did'nt check before).

So using FRAM/MRAM instead of the SRAM would allow to boot the last image w/o programming it.

Since the PIC seems to be connected to the data bus, it could check key-presses on boot and either leave the last image in the MRAM or reload the menu.

Maybe for Rev. 2 of the card

 

Hmm, never considered polling the bus for button presses. I guess while the strobe is high you can assume the input will be the buttons - I know I accidentally drove the bus when I shouldn't have which caused buttons to be pressed by the cart. Quite weird.

 

I tried to keep the design for the Lynx cart reasonably realistic. Its too easy to shoot off on a tangent and keep adding more features then never finish the thing. Also, I never thought I'd sell even as many as I have already, so the idea of adding in any extra features or hardware which could be used in future games seemed pointless given the expected small userbase.

 

So the design goal was simply: play all Lynx games. That basically covers the needs of all potential users.

[SainT]

 

Knowing how the hardware works, knowing the coding if something like CPLD or FPGA is used, knowing how and why things worked with RAM or flash ROM chips and SD cards. Then combining everything in your free time, making some prototype and running some ROMs through the SD card to the actual console, debug anything that doesn't look right, finalize the design, make PCB layout and submit to PCB fab, order in bunch of parts, solder it together if you don't have a Pick n Place machine, test each one, ship them out.

 

Yeah it does take a lot of time. If someone has family and jobs, that may leave little time each days but if someone has no family and limited or no job, that leaves a lot of free time to do this.

I'm sure Saint thanks you for answering or him.

 

At least that saves him some time.

 

 

Lol, that's a pretty reasonable precis of what I've said in the past (I think!).

 

I think it took about 2 years (!!) to get from the initial "Who's interested in one of these?" thread to actually starting to ship the first finished cart out and probably 3 or 4 PCB iterations.

 

There isn't more than perhaps a month or so's proper full time type work in there, but a combination of family / children / work and dodgy health meant sometimes I'd do nothing at all on the project for many months.

 

Plus as this is just an interest to me rather than related to my line of work, I'm always learning. I don't just instinctively know how to approach a hardware problem fully yet. I'm getting better, though.

[cowdog360]

Hey you're doing a great job! These types of things take a lot of work and you've managed to ship quite a bit of your customers a product in a quick time. The Amiga Vampire board project is another one like these, and they are going through the growing pains of demand and not being able to keep up by hand.

 

I think it was a great decision to offload the production from the start for you.

 

And we can't thank you enough for making the Lynx that much better. Heck, the demand has been crazy high to get Lynxes modded lately. Everyone must be ordering a SainT card!

[42bs]

So the design goal was simply: play all Lynx games. That basically covers the needs of all potential users.

 

And you did right. No doubt. Since I am hacker not a gamer, I look at this from the coder's point of view.

[+af0l]

Please add me to the list (x2 if possible)

[SainT]

And you did right. No doubt. Since I am hacker not a gamer, I look at this from the coder's point of view.

Yeah, I know the feeling. I'm a hacker at heart.

 

The JagSD will be more of a hackers device as the power is there in the Jag, as well as a proper bus interface, so making something which really compliments and extends it is far easier.

[SainT]

I've figured out why the LynxSD has issues on some Lynxes. For ages I've been thinking about pin alignment and bent pins etc causing problems with some Lynxes, but I've found that if the shim on the front of the cartridge overhangs the edges of the PCB at all, then it can stop the cart edge aligning with the socket properly on some Lynxes.

 

The solution is simple -- just get a Stanley knife and trim the edges of the shim so they are flush with the PCB. It should now boot on any Lynx.

 

I've only had 2 carts returned which wouldn't boot when delivered, but on return they have worked for me. So I've been aware there is some tolerance issue somewhere, just wasn't sure what it was.

[Whiskey Brick]

Please add me to your per-order list too

 

Thanks!

[towmater]

Arrived from Gloucochestershire to LA in amazing time, and just works. No worries about .lynx vs .o, or what folder, or Mac OSX hidden files confusing the thing, I just dragged some games to the SD card and ran them. FLAWLESS.

[SainT]

Arrived from Gloucochestershire to LA in amazing time, and just works. No worries about .lynx vs .o, or what folder, or Mac OSX hidden files confusing the thing, I just dragged some games to the SD card and ran them. FLAWLESS.

 

Fantastic, that's what i like to hear!

[leech]

Arrived from Gloucochestershire to LA in amazing time, and just works. No worries about .lynx vs .o, or what folder, or Mac OSX hidden files confusing the thing, I just dragged some games to the SD card and ran them. FLAWLESS.

Nice! Not to go off topic, but doesn't everyone hate that every 'modern' OS dumps crap on any file file system they touch? System Information for Windows, .thumbs for Linux (or whatever that one is) and macOS ones (yeah may as well embrace their new dumb naming scheme.) TOS never did that. I'm trying to think Workbench does (granted it has the separate .info files, but you don't actually see those through anything in Amiga Land unless you use the CLI.)

[SainT]

Yeah, its surprising how much crap gets put on there! At least if its marked as hidden it wont get shown on the Lynx menu. I'm not sure if I hide system files as well... I certainly could do if I don't already. Then it would be pretty much like Windows as default, and you won't ever know what crap is kicking around on there..

[AltRN8]

Please add me to the pre-order list.

[Level42]

Actually, MacOS only creates "crap" extra files when it writes to non MacOS disk formats like FAT etc (what is often used on SD cards). The "crap" files are made to keep track of stuff you'd probably really miss if it wasn't there.....

 

And no TOS, MS-DOS and f.i. Atari DOS 2.5 don't do that....but they can't do a lot of the advanced stuff that modern-day OSes can.....

Edited September 25, 2016 by Level42

[SainT]

Actually, MacOS only creates "crap" extra files when it writes to non MacOS disk formats like FAT etc (what is often used on SD cards). The "crap" files are made to keep track of stuff you'd probably really miss if it wasn't there.....

 

And no TOS, MS-DOS and f.i. Atari DOS 2.5 don't do that....but they can't do a lot of the advanced stuff that modern-day OSes can.....

 

I wouldn't miss the Mac if it wasn't there.

 

But, yes, FAT is a limited and archaic file system.

[Andromeda Stardust]

Nice! Not to go off topic, but doesn't everyone hate that every 'modern' OS dumps crap on any file file system they touch? System Information for Windows, .thumbs for Linux (or whatever that one is) and macOS ones (yeah may as well embrace their new dumb naming scheme.) TOS never did that. I'm trying to think Workbench does (granted it has the separate .info files, but you don't actually see those through anything in Amiga Land unless you use the CLI.)

 

Actually, MacOS only creates "crap" extra files when it writes to non MacOS disk formats like FAT etc (what is often used on SD cards). The "crap" files are made to keep track of stuff you'd probably really miss if it wasn't there.....

 

And no TOS, MS-DOS and f.i. Atari DOS 2.5 don't do that....but they can't do a lot of the advanced stuff that modern-day OSes can.....

Mac and Windows both create junk files on FAT32 drives. Any folder with image files gets a "thumbs.db" for instance. Then there are the Mac equivalent like ".DS_Store". On Mac and Linux hidden filenames and directories start with a period "." On Windows, hidden/system files and folders have either the "h" or "s" attribute set in the attributes tab (or both). It would be fairly easy to configure the flashdrive OS to ignore any filename that starts with a period or any file or folder that uses the "h" or "s" flag. I think most Everdrives ignore hidden system files from both OS environments. At least I don't recall seeing system folders on any of my flachcarts. Even if these hidden OS files are displayed on the SD menu, it is easy enough for the user to ignore them if the flash cart doesn't auto-hide them. It also helps if the OS menu simply hides file extension types that are clearly not ROMs or not supported by the SD card, ie ".jpg" ".doc" etc...

[david500]

Well this is a bummer. Loaded the card in my Lynx and hit the power button and...nothing. The system appears to be dead with some issue, didn't work with either the AC adapter or old battery pack.

[SainT]

Well this is a bummer. Loaded the card in my Lynx and hit the power button and...nothing. The system appears to be dead with some issue, didn't work with either the AC adapter or old battery pack.

 

Do any carts work with the Lynx? If so, check this post out:

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/250637-lynx-multi-card-preorders/page-38?do=findComment&comment=3600524

 

It could be that...