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ICD PR Connection


Bryan

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I was looking inside my PRC and I noticed the only significant IC is a custom labelled 44 pin PLCC from Rockwell. My guess is that's some version of an R6501 or R6511 microcontroller. I wonder if there's any way to dump the code out of one of these. Probably not, since you needed to submit the mask ROM prior to manufacture.

 

Anyway, I discovered something interesting in the Rockwell databook:

 

https://archive.org/stream/bitsavers_rockwelldaDataBook_80778847/1985_Rockwell_Data_Book#page/n529/mode/2up

 

Rockwell made (or at least announced) a dual 6502 microcontroller device with shared resources.

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I look forward to anything else you discover. My P:R:Connection came in a large Atari lot I got 15 years ago or so. I pretty much forgot I had it until several months back when people began discussing how to get online with a Lantronix box, so now this thing serves as my 8-bit's connection to the rest of the world. :)

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  • 1 year later...

Here are some high-res shots I just took of one my PRC PCB's. Maybe this will help others with some initial identification. With this particular one R1: doesn't seem to work, but R2: does,. It appears to have had some sort of humidity exposure, with visible white film on the bottom of the PCB, and rust on the pins of the 44 pin PRC112486 chip which may be related...

 

Heh... PCB has a bold "Made in U.S.A"... but then on the actual controller chip is "MEXICO" :D

post-53052-0-66177200-1541048659_thumb.jpg

post-53052-0-15914300-1541048678_thumb.jpg

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Interesting that the controller chip is a a square package surface mount design as early as that. Well, maybe it’s only interesting to me. :) It’s not at all odd though that the chip was made in Mexico. Rockwell has had a chip fab there forever, seems like. And it is or was still active until relatively recent years. I have some 6532P 40-pin DIPs that have fab dates as late as 2010.

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Here are some high-res shots I just took of one my PRC PCB's. Maybe this will help others with some initial identification. With this particular one R1: doesn't seem to work, but R2: does,. It appears to have had some sort of humidity exposure, with visible white film on the bottom of the PCB, and rust on the pins of the 44 pin PRC112486 chip which may be related...

 

Heh... PCB has a bold "Made in U.S.A"... but then on the actual controller chip is "MEXICO" :D

 

I don't recognize the Rockwell chip part #. Does someone have a contemporary chip catalog from them?

 

*Using the rockwell catalog linked to earlier I didn't find a match for a 44pin MCU. :(

Edited by Dropcheck
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It doesn't make sense that they've isolated the Dsub mounting pins from the ground plane. Besides not providing a ground for the shield and shielding case of the connector, It also doesn't provide as much strength for the connector PCB mount if left unsoldered.

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That's only a dual UART similar to two 6551s in a single SMD package. What you would need would be the micrcontroller version. But personally I wouldn't go that route since it's unlikely you will find a good sustainable source for that part. And of course you still need the firmware and a means to program it. Maybe time for an entirely new version based on current tech as has been suggested. A PIC or AVR would have everything needed on board, and could likely get rid of some of that extra glue as well. But of course it would require some pretty serious firmware development. The only other recourse would be to create the microcontroller from discrete components as I suggested in your Mini 850 thread, but you will still need the firmware from the Rockwell chip and some adjustments of such to fit the revised memory mapping.

 

And then we still have the bottleneck that is SIO to contend with. A PBI version with fully buffered UART would yield the best results, but once again we are looking at a considerable development effort to bring something like that into reality.

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Interesting that the controller chip is a a square package surface mount design as early as that. Well, maybe it’s only interesting to me. :) It’s not at all odd though that the chip was made in Mexico. Rockwell has had a chip fab there forever, seems like. And it is or was still active until relatively recent years. I have some 6532P 40-pin DIPs that have fab dates as late as 2010.

That TOTALLY took me by surprise to see a surface mount chip on the PR: connection! I didn't realize they had surface mount IC's in general use that far back either!

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That TOTALLY took me by surprise to see a surface mount chip on the PR: connection! I didn't realize they had surface mount IC's in general use that far back either!

 

Yeah it surprised me as well :-o .

 

So if you look at the part number being used on that 44 pin Rockwell (PRC112486), it's pretty obvious that this was a custom chip made specifically for the PR Connection. Hence the PRC part of the part number. Most likely it's based on one of Rockwell's 6500 cores, with custom firmware that makes it into a serial/parallel interface. I did a reverse image search of the chip, but came up with nothing.

 

I sent an email to someone that may have the IP on this particular ICD product, and asked him if he still has anything related to the PR Connection, and if so, whether he would consider releasing it into the public domain. It's a long shot, since I haven't communicated with him in quite sometime, but I figured what the hey, it don't hurt to try :) .

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That TOTALLY took me by surprise to see a surface mount chip on the PR: connection! I didn't realize they had surface mount IC's in general use that far back either!

We can only expect the hardware/software genius Mike Gustafson was on top of the latest hardware available, and to make it in the most cost effective way!

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The each pin needs to be identified as best it can to match the chip up, you can see some of what's what pretty simply... you can be sure the chip is used in many things with the custom part being some programming and assignment- customized print on the chip is also common.

Edited by _The Doctor__
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That pretty conclusively proves that we are talking about one of Rockwell's 6500/1 chips.in a PLCC 44pin package. Arggg! Now to find the datasheet. :(

So far not a peep from the guy I contacted that should have all of the IP on this device. If by some miracle we connect up, I'll be sure to ask him for the Rockwell chip datasheet so that the IO assignments can be determined. Because nothing I've found in the wild matches up with it being in a 44 pin SMD package.

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