SDD 99

[+Ksarul]

4 hours ago, 9640News said:

I agree, somehow, there needs to be a housing to be viable for me.  Too much floating cat hair to worry about shorting something out.

 

Beery

Yeah, the dozen or so cats I take care of get hair all over the place, even though all but one of them are mostly outside (the ferals sneak in if I forget to close the door after I feed them, as they really like being around me for some reason). Looks like it would fit into a standard project box too, so it may not need a printed solution.

[+dhe]

Mandatory comment - make sure you use a black case, it won't show fur as bad! ?

[Sid1968]

12 hours ago, 9640News said:

Too much floating cat hair to worry about shorting something out.

Mmmhhh ... I always thought Kentucky was completely cat-free. I've seen a lot of photos on google street view and never saw a cat. But dogs ...

[+9640News]

1 hour ago, dhe said:

Mandatory comment - make sure you use a black case, it won't show fur as bad! ?

The cat that sheds the most has white hair.

[Sid1968]

37 minutes ago, 9640News said:

The cat that sheds the most has white hair.

Aha that can either be just the Tasmanian death cat or a two-legged cat.

[ralphb]

Well, I thought about it, but unfortunately I don't have a 3d printer.  Some years ago (ahem) somebody contacted me and offered to design a case, so hopefully he stands by that offer.

 

I even put in 4 (unevenly spaced) holes to aid in mounting.

 

If the case fails, just glue the static bag with the SDD 99 (or whatever we'll call it) still inside to the TI 99.  Cat hair solved! ?  (any hair, actually)

Edited May 26, 2021 by ralphb

[+9640News]

We have a couple of individuals with 3D printers, so hopefully someone will step up to the plate with cases.

[philgood1351fr]

Will design one as soon as I received mine.....Hopefully you'll be able to release this Gem ?

Greatly appreciated that kind of development initiative. Great to keep our old computers alive.

 

So if you need help, I'm here for casing.

[ralphb]

37 minutes ago, philgood1351fr said:

Will design one as soon as I received mine.....Hopefully you'll be able to release this Gem ?

Greatly appreciated that kind of development initiative. Great to keep our old computers alive.

 

So if you need help, I'm here for casing.

Excellent!  Would you need the actual board, or do the gerbers (or even a picture with measurements) work for you?

 

There are two unknowns here, though:

 

1) How much does the board stick out if I solder an edge connector to the board and then insert it?  I've left some room between connection and main board, so you even might ignore this aspect and simply box the rectangular part.

 

2) The inserted board should remain level, even though the far end has quite some weight and causes the entire board to slope downwards (which puts stress on the edge port).  We'd need to figure out the length of any support, as the edge connector puts the board lower than the edge port.

 

Maybe I can speed this up by sending you an empty board with just the connectors soldered in?

 

[philgood1351fr]

Yep. Then I design, print a case and send it back to you.

tell me in private message.

[+Vorticon]

I am very excited about this board. That said, I do own a TIPI-PEB and I was wondering what the SDD 99 adds to that setup. There would be no point for me to duplicate equipment functionality unless there is a distinct advantage here, as much as I am wanting the SDD99...

[jrhodes]

1 hour ago, Vorticon said:

I am very excited about this board. That said, I do own a TIPI-PEB and I was wondering what the SDD 99 adds to that setup. There would be no point for me to duplicate equipment functionality unless there is a distinct advantage here, as much as I am wanting the SDD99...

On 7/24/2020 at 9:10 AM, ralphb said:

Strictly speaking, it's Half-CD sound, i.e., 44.1 kHz audio with 8 bit resolution.  I could bump this up to 12 bits resolution, but I cannot hear a big difference.  The audio is piped into the TMS 9919 so that it's merged by the beeps from the TI and you hear it from your TV/monitor.  I think I presented the feature in my previous video.

 

You need to convert a WAV or MP3 file to plain PCM format, but then can play back the PCM file by CALL PLAY(<file>).  It's non-blocking, so you can use it in games, or simply as background music while typing in a BASIC program. ?

 

Well, the TIPI can't do this ☝️ that i know of, so that's a good selling point for me ?.

[+Vorticon]

2 hours ago, jrhodes said:

Well, the TIPI can't do this ☝️ that i know of, so that's a good selling point for me ?.

Yes that is a very cool feature. I just realized however that there isn't a pass-through port for the PEB connector on the SDD99 and essentially this would preclude any PEB cards or drives, including the TIPI-PEB. Bummer...

[jrhodes]

9 minutes ago, Vorticon said:

Yes that is a very cool feature. I just realized however that there isn't a pass-through port for the PEB connector on the SDD99 and essentially this would preclude any PEB cards or drives, including the TIPI-PEB. Bummer...

What about a side port splitter?

Greg has one in his shop I believe.

[+Vorticon]

26 minutes ago, jrhodes said:

What about a side port splitter?

Greg has one in his shop I believe.

It's an option but only if the SDD99 can coexist with a PEB, physical drives, and most importantly the TIPI. Since it is meant to be a PEB replacement, compatibility with the PEB is probably not a priority understandably.

Edited May 27, 2021 by Vorticon

[Asmusr]

As I see it, the idea of the SDD 99 is not that it should co-exist with a PEB. The SDD 99 is ahead of the PEB with the digital sound, so to make them equal somebody could develop a PEB card with that feature.

 

[+Schmitzi]

 

Yes, SDD 99 having a PortThrough to the PEB would be cool.

For testing and playing with real cards.

Maybe more disk drives, more COM-ports, more clocks

And for TIPI-Users for all comfort  

 

[Sid1968]

15 hours ago, Vorticon said:

I am very excited about this board. That said, I do own a TIPI-PEB and I was wondering what the SDD 99 adds to that setup. There would be no point for me to duplicate equipment functionality unless there is a distinct advantage here, as much as I am wanting the SDD99...

Hey buddy, you don't buy this because you need it right now, but because you bite your ass when at some point you can't buy it anymore.

[ralphb]

11 hours ago, Asmusr said:

As I see it, the idea of the SDD 99 is not that it should co-exist with a PEB. The SDD 99 is ahead of the PEB with the digital sound, so to make them equal somebody could develop a PEB card with that feature.

 

Well, for peripherals that could conflict with the PEB like the RS232, PIO you could set them to a different CRU address, and they would happily co-exist.  Same for the SDD 99 itself, although both SDD and disk controller can be active, you just have to be careful which DSKn you use in the SDD 99.

 

Also, if the PEB has a P-CODE card, you'd need to disable that in the SDD 99, but you wouldn't lose anything.  (Or remove the one in the PEB, since disk accesses are faster.)

 

Local peripherals like GIO or mouse cannot interfere with the PEB.

 

The biggest issue is the duplicate memory, but I'd suggest to remove the 32K expansion in the PEB.  SAMS/RAMS would also be something that the TIPI might not have (don't know, as I don't own a TIPI).

 

But note that I settled on not passing through any signals from the side port.  For cases where it is mounted after the Speech Synth, there is  plugin for 5V external power, which must only be used if the side connector doesn't provide 5V, like for the Speech Synth.

 

EDIT: I forgot that I'm planning on a SDD 99 card for the PEB.  Everything said here should apply.

Edited May 27, 2021 by ralphb

[Asmusr]

33 minutes ago, ralphb said:

Well, for peripherals that could conflict with the PEB like the RS232, PIO you could set them to a different CRU address, and they would happily co-exist.  Same for the SDD 99 itself, although both SDD and disk controller can be active, you just have to be careful which DSKn you use in the SDD 99.

 

Also, if the PEB has a P-CODE card, you'd need to disable that in the SDD 99, but you wouldn't lose anything.  (Or remove the one in the PEB, since disk accesses are faster.)

 

Local peripherals like GIO or mouse cannot interfere with the PEB.

 

The biggest issue is the duplicate memory, but I'd suggest to remove the 32K expansion in the PEB.  SAMS/RAMS would also be something that the TIPI might not have (don't know, as I don't own a TIPI).

 

But note that I settled on not passing through any signals from the side port.  For cases where it is mounted after the Speech Synth, there is  plugin for 5V external power, which must only be used if the side connector doesn't provide 5V, like for the Speech Synth.

 

EDIT: I forgot that I'm planning on a SDD 99 card for the PEB.  Everything said here should apply.

So I was wrong. Then it's only a question of whether those who already have disk drives, IDE and TIPI really need another storage device. I guess the answer is YES ?

[ralphb]

51 minutes ago, Asmusr said:

So I was wrong. Then it's only a question of whether those who already have disk drives, IDE and TIPI really need another storage device. I guess the answer is YES ?

Yes, and to build on that: There are two cases where we have a device name conflict --

 

1.SDD 99 CRU < Disk Controller CRU: You can configure which DSK drives the SDD 99 should "own", i.e., handle.  For example, we say DSK1 and DSK3 belong to SDD 99.  Then if we use device name DSK2, the entire handling is passed onto the next card, which is eventually the disk controller.

 

2. Disk Controller CRU < SDD 99 CRU.  In that case we will never see device names handled by the disk controller.  And I cannot remember if the TIFC claims ownership of, say, DSK3 even when that drive not present.  In so, then SDD 99 wouldn't see any DSKn device, which would make the other case the recommended one.  If that is not the behavior of TIFC, then it doesn't matter.

 

[ralphb]

Sadly, I do have bad news regarding the availability of the final product. ?

 

Some days ago, I noticed that I only had three STM32s left, which might be too few for beta testing.  But when I tried to order new MCUs, I found that ALL suppliers were sold out.  Eventually, I found one that sold some MCUs with a 90% premium, but their stock was also pretty low.

 

Due to the global IC shortage, I'll have to postpone the assembly and release of the final product indefinitely, until STM32s become available again.  I have no idea when this will happen. ?  The upside is that I'll have more time for polishing.

 

I really thought that the shortage would only apply to the big players, but not my little project

 

This has no effect on beta-testing, though, which will happen in July or August.

[Sid1968]

51 minutes ago, ralphb said:

Sadly, I do have bad news regarding the availability of the final product. ?

 

Some days ago, I noticed that I only had three STM32s left, which might be too few for beta testing.  But when I tried to order new MCUs, I found that ALL suppliers were sold out.  Eventually, I found one that sold some MCUs with a 90% premium, but their stock was also pretty low.

 

Due to the global IC shortage, I'll have to postpone the assembly and release of the final product indefinitely, until STM32s become available again.  I have no idea when this will happen. ?  The upside is that I'll have more time for polishing.

 

I really thought that the shortage would only apply to the big players, but not my little project

 

This has no effect on beta-testing, though, which will happen in July or August.

No problem Ralph, we all know you will make good use of the time. Thx for your great work!

Edited June 12, 2021 by Sid1968

[+Ksarul]

Yeah, it is getting somewhat difficult to find any components used in current products. The big players have sucked all of the air out of the parts space to try and guarantee enough stocks to keep producing for another year or two. They're hoarding whatever they can get their hands on. . .

[oddemann]

I "just" want a new CPU, AMD Ryzen 5 3400G... been waiting for this for almost 90 days. Even food supply in the shop seems to be "suffering" too.