The Atari 1090 AMY Expansion Card

[Curt Vendel]

Just receiving this along with dozens of folders of technical documents and schematics on every expansion card design for the 1090XL, several 1060 CP/M modules and another 1090XL with an unknown board within it...

 

Remarkably - AMY was slated as an Expansion Card for the 1090XL in April of 1984...

 

Here is the schematic, sorry its scanned from a very dark blueprint drawing, I cleaned up the image as best as possible.

 

1090_AMY_Card17APR84.zip

[Mclaneinc]

Damn, the card sounds like it would have been excellent fun, oh why oh why Atari did you choose to screw up so badly....Many folks would have loved all these add on..

 

Thanks Curt for bring them to out notice so well..

[Curt Vendel]

Atari was on the brink of releasing a slew of new computer products, advanced chipsets and computers that couldve truly made significant changes in its place in the market... Warners cold feet and its urgent sale to the Tramiels destroyed all of that.

[Rybags]

The Amy story seems incomplete - funny how they must have had this at least at some sort of working stage yet the 65XEM supposedly had technical issues which formed part of the reason it never came to market.

[+mytek]

I ran the 1090 AMY Card scan Curt provided through two online converters to render a somewhat cleaner and size reduced version in a pdf format.

 

1090_AMY_Card17APR84.pdf

 

 

The tools I used were...

 

IMGonline (clean-up image)

 

png2pdf (convert png to pdf)

 

[ivop]

Interesting to see how they implemented MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT and have the ability to route IN to OUT (semi MIDI-THRU) in hardware and have that software selectable! Have to check the ST schematics. I always thought their MIDI-THRU was done in software (i.e. echo everything back to OUT) but considering this earlier design, I might have been wrong all the time

 

Edit: checked the 520ST and 1040STf schematics.

 

With normal MIDI cables, MIDI-THRU has to be done in software. That means echoing every received byte. By the CPU. There are no bits to toggle to change the behaviour of TxD and RxD. In that way, it could be said this AMY/MIDI board was superiour in that respect.

 

With custom cables, MIDI-THRU is on the-otherwise-unused pin 3 of MIDI-OUT. Really, never knew that.

 

They used the same optocoupler BTW. The PC900.

Edited June 7, 2019 by ivop

[_The Doctor__]

I wouldn't be surprised at all if pcb's/cards turn up. Keep digging for the analog section of the project. It can't be too far away from what you have uncovered. Great simply great!

Edited June 7, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[+DrVenkman]

Interesting to see how they implemented MIDI-IN and MIDI-OUT and have the ability to route IN to OUT (semi MIDI-THRU) in hardware and have that software selectable! Have to check the ST schematics. I always thought their MIDI-THRU was done in software (i.e. echo everything back to OUT) but considering this earlier design, I might have been wrong all the time

 

Edit: checked the 520ST and 1040STf schematics.

 

With normal MIDI cables, MIDI-THRU has to be done in software. That means echoing every received byte. By the CPU. There are no bits to toggle to change the behaviour of TxD and RxD. In that way, it could be said this AMY/MIDI board was superiour in that respect.

 

With custom cables, MIDI-THRU is on the-otherwise-unused pin 3 of MIDI-OUT. Really, never knew that.

 

They used the same optocoupler BTW. The PC900.

Bear in mind - this is Atari, Inc.’s concept. It has literally zero to do with the ST at all. Leonard Tramiel just this week made certain that was completely clear. The ST was Shiraz Shivji and his team’s concept and detailed design, MIDI and all.

[Lord Thag]

It's really neat seeing all these cards turn up. Always loved the idea of the 1090. I'm actually surprised something like this hasn't been created by hobbyists, as we have some extremely talented creators in the Atari 8-bit scene.

[ivop]

It's really neat seeing all these cards turn up. Always loved the idea of the 1090. I'm actually surprised something like this hasn't been created by hobbyists, as we have some extremely talented creators in the Atari 8-bit scene.

 

There's AtariAge user Dropcheck who's working on 1090XLM, a "mini" version of the original 1090XL. And some people (or perhaps only one until now ) are thinking of eventualy turning the 1088XEL/XLD into a backplane computer. Like in the 70's. Sort of like the original 400/800, with everything on their own board, but with a separate keyboard.

Edited June 7, 2019 by ivop

[+Philsan]

I would love a modern 1090 with AMY card, 80 columns card...

[+DrVenkman]

I would love a modern 1090 with AMY card, 80 columns card...

 

AMY was never finalized and fully-debugged so it's doubtful it could be properly recreated. On the other hand, it's completely possible to use a better, more modern sound chip instead, either the actual IC or through FPGA implementation of something well-understood.

[_The Doctor__]

AMY had production issues and like many things during Warners milking and the later wrecking ball... that doesn't mean it wasn't or isn't viable and that different prototypes were not in the hands of engineers. Bits of info have dripped into the forums and other areas over the years. Some conversations echo in my mind about them enjoy reliving them by doing a deep dive with your favorite search tools.

[+DrVenkman]

AMY had production issues and like many things during Warners milking and the later wrecking ball... that doesn't mean it wasn't or isn't viable and that different prototypes were not in the hands of engineers. Bits of info have dripped into the forums and other areas over the years. Some conversations echo in my mind about them enjoy reliving them by doing a deep dive with your favorite search tools.

 

I've read all those old "I remember seeing ..." and "I once heard ..." posts. But without films to study and reverse-engineer, or a physical chip to de-cap and do the same, it's just beating the same dead horse further into glue. To paraphrase, "SHOW ME THE MONEY! I MEAN MICROCHIP!"

 

Until then, you can make a better-quality, more programmable sound engine from a few dollar microcontroller and open-source code.

 

Speaking of open-source code, take a listen to this, which can be driven through MIDI by any EXISTING A8 machine with one of Michael's new MIDImate-clone boards.

 

 

This implementation is for iOS but it's completely open-source. Anyone can take the sound engine code and build it for whatever OS they've got the inclination to use.

 

Alternately, build a super-cheap microcontroller card and build the BupSystem into it;

 

 

For those who are unaware, this is the "sound chip" built into the AMAZING recent 7800 homebrew RIKKI & VIKKI.

In other words, yes it'd be awesome to open one last dusty folder and find fully-debugged and working schematics and chip films for AMY, plus a crate with a few tens of thousands of never-sold ICs. That's very unlikely to happen. But that should not stop us from taking the same concepts from 35 years ago and implementing them with something similar in spirit but using parts we ACTUALLY HAVE ACCESS TO rather than hopes and dreams.

[Curt Vendel]

Things just don't add up regarding AMY and the whole "It didn't work yet so it couldn't be ready for the STs" line Ive heard for over 30 years... things just don't sound right, so I'm going to be spending some side time so do some deep research (like how I uncovered the whole truth on the Atari Inc Amiga deal) and try to get to the bottom of all of this so we have some straight answers.

[Guest]

agreed ^,

adding the fact that AMY was utilised relatively quickly on a non-computer platform, makes it all the more puzzling.

Edited June 8, 2019 by Guest

[+Allan]

Things just don't add up regarding AMY and the whole "It didn't work yet so it couldn't be ready for the STs" line Ive heard for over 30 years... things just don't sound right, so I'm going to be spending some side time so do some deep research (like how I uncovered the whole truth on the Atari Inc Amiga deal) and try to get to the bottom of all of this so we have some straight answers.

Why would Atari be designing an Amy card for the 1090 if the chip itself didn't work yet. You would think that if the chip still had issues than they would have held off on designing a 1090 card. I agree with you Curt that there has to be more to the story.

 

Allan

[+mytek]

Why would Atari be designing an Amy card for the 1090 if the chip itself didn't work yet. You would think that if the chip still had issues than they would have held off on designing a 1090 card. I agree with you Curt that there has to be more to the story.

 

Allan

 

They ran out of Unobitanium .

[Cyprian]

what about recreating AMY in FPGA? Is it possible?

 

would be cool to have it in my XL and ST

[Rybags]

I don't think it's even been recreated in software emulation, which IMO would be the logical first move.

 

But to do so, sufficient documentation would be required although given that next to nothing exists in the way of compositions, if a recreation was made and it wasn't accurate, who would know?

[wt808]

There might be a bit more documentation and sounds available for recreating the Alles machine on which Amy was closely based.

Demo of Alles machine, Hal Alles:

Alles machine at Oberlin College/TIMARA:

https://disquiet.com/2017/02/04/alles-machine-timara-jackson-talbert/- Also read the comment from Bob Perdue re: Hal Alles.

http://timara.con.oberlin.edu/index.shtml- Scroll to 1/30/2017 entry at bottom of page. Link to Computer Music Journal Vol 1 Number 4 is broken, but it might be interesting to see what John Talbert did to hook up the machine with a Mac and other output modules.

Digital Keyboards Synergy synth and logic board schematics:

https://encyclotronic.com/synthesizers/digital-keyboards/digital-keyboards-synergy-r458/

https://encyclotronic.com/uploads/monthly_2016_10/syn_logic_processor1.png.68931906356b24882ba458eaecb21714.png

Atarimax Amy page, some more historical tidbits:

https://www.atarimax.com/jindroush.atari.org/achamy.html

"Hear the Amy chip at last!" thread:

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/110885-hear-the-amy-chip-at-last/

 

I'm also wondering if the name "Amy" was chosen as it's alphabetically higher than "Alice/Alles"?

[Lynxpro]

 

AMY was never finalized and fully-debugged so it's doubtful it could be properly recreated. On the other hand, it's completely possible to use a better, more modern sound chip instead, either the actual IC or through FPGA implementation of something well-understood.

 

Slight correction. Sight+Sound finalized their "corrected" version of the AMY. But all of the schematics and production run versions were housed in a warehouse that burnt to the ground. Allegedly.

 

I know the rumor about 3-letter intelligence agencies being involved in the shenanigans is unbelievable for some, but the seemingly unnecessary secrecy on the part of ex-S+S employees to this day concerning all of the events is highly peculiar. After all, Atari Corp doesn't exist anymore to sue them today over any new revelations of impropriety and anything that was potentially patented has expired. Their behavior is straight-up bizarre.

[Lord Thag]

 

There's AtariAge user Dropcheck who's working on 1090XLM, a "mini" version of the original 1090XL. And some people (or perhaps only one until now ) are thinking of eventualy turning the 1088XEL/XLD into a backplane computer. Like in the 70's. Sort of like the original 400/800, with everything on their own board, but with a separate keyboard.

Must have missed that one, thanks for the heads up.

[+DrVenkman]

 

Slight correction. Sight+Sound finalized their "corrected" version of the AMY. But all of the schematics and production run versions were housed in a warehouse that burnt to the ground. Allegedly.

 

I know the rumor about 3-letter intelligence agencies being involved in the shenanigans is unbelievable for some, but the seemingly unnecessary secrecy on the part of ex-S+S employees to this day concerning all of the events is highly peculiar. After all, Atari Corp doesn't exist anymore to sue them today over any new revelations of impropriety and anything that was potentially patented has expired. Their behavior is straight-up bizarre.

Sorry, not buying that in in the slightest. Incomplete designs plus the passage of time far better explain the situation than some government conspiracy.

 

“Three people may keep a secret if two of them are dead.” My 25 years experience in the engineering and legal worlds support this completely.

 

Also: “Do not ascribe to malice that which may be more readily explained by incompetence.” Also true in personal experience.

[_The Doctor__]

Atari did send a demonstration team to certain schools and in one of those demonstrations a XL styled keyboard was on stage with an XL color scheme styled box under it, under that was a box with various connectors for phono plugs microphone plugs etc...

 

They took volunteers from the students attending the assembly and had them line up giving them microphones, the Atari folks gave them books to read from, one helping the students the other running the Atari stuff on stage... as they read the book the Atari guy running the computer changed their voices in real time and it was a blast, they did a couple books like the three bears, taking the kid with the deepest voice and making sound like littlest of the bears etc. All the kids were laughing their' *sses off, The duo also did musical flourishes and then moved on to adjusting of singing voices and harmonizing to the music it was generating and playing.

 

This was done at various schools as well as Philipsburg New Jersey's Middle School (08865). Perhaps this could help with a search for what was used in the internal Atari searches Curt has been doing. The devices were all Atari XL styled, and it was an excellent assembly presentation.

Edited June 11, 2019 by _The Doctor__