New 80-column 800 and XL/XE boards?

[Gunstar]

I'm a hardware guy, but only an associate degree, tech-level experience really. I'm quite capable of designing simple circuits (like my DIY amplifier circuit I made myself for my stereo upgrade) and following schematics for DIY stuff, but certainly not at the level of an engineer who can design new, complex hardware. So I'm just putting the idea out there to see what others think, and if there is some demand, if one of our community hardware guru's might want to take up the challenge.

 

Anyway, with the Incognito pre-order and my now being able to own one, as well as my DIY PBI on my 1200XL, I've started thinking about making more use of the extra slots that will be available in my 800 with the Incognito and other uses besides external memory or HDD solutions for the PBI.

 

Since Bit-3 cards are rare and probably expensive when they do show up for sale, and the fact that I never liked the idea of the XEP80 that plugs into joystick ports, requiring it's removal to use the ports for other things (I want to plug-and-play and not have to remove), the first thing that comes to mind to further expand my Atari's is a new 80-column board for the 800 and for PBI/ECI equipped Atari's. Maybe some other bells and whistle on them too. Software 64/80-column is o.k (made acceptable by my DIY video upgrade), I prefer it with SpartaDOS and programming languages and word processing to a 40-columns display, but I'd like to have real hardware 80-columns through the Atari's buss. 

 

VBXL/XE is an option, of course, for XL/XE owners, but it's another internal upgrade that may or may not fit, or work, with some peoples Atari's depending on what other upgrades are already installed, and a bit too expensive just to have true 80-column output. And, of course, not an option for 800 owners. Though maybe a VBXE type of card could be made for the 800's slot 3? How about a PBI/ECI VBXE? More choices to more Atari owners might help seeing the VBXE move forward with user and programmer support too...

 

What do others think? Any hardware guru's who have considered or would consider such projects?

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gunstar

[+mytek]

A new 80 column card to fit an 800 slot sounds great. I only wish that the original cast aluminium RF shield box had been made with a removable pass-thru panel to the outside world, so as to facilitate cords from 3rd party upgrades such as this one.

 

[Gunstar]

I wish that too, but I'm not afraid to modify it. In fact, I was thinking of cutting a slot in it anyway, so I could access the edge connector hidden away in there and think up some uses for it, depending on what signals are available there...I was going to cut all traces to it and use it with an Incognito, when I got one, for a real PBI, with an adapter, but then I started thinking I'd just as soon make my own PBI edge connector out the back separate from the 800's edge connector, instead of worrying about an adapter to PBI, and then I could still use the 800's edge connector for other things, depending on what's available there (I hadn't really researched it yet, since I was going to cut the traces anyway, so I didn't care what signals come out there, until now). 

[Faicuai]

14 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

I'm a hardware guy, but only an associate degree, tech-level experience really. I'm quite capable of designing simple circuits and following schematics for DIY stuff, but certainly not at the level of an engineer who can design new, complex hardware. So I'm just putting the idea out there to see what others think, and if there is some demand, if one of our community hardware guru's might want to take up the challenge.

 

Anyway, with the Incognito pre-order and my now being able to own one, as well as my DIY PBI on my 1200XL, I've started thinking about making more use of the extra slots that will be available in my 800 with the Incognito and other uses besides external memory or HDD solutions for the PBI.

 

Since Bit-3 cards are rare and probably expensive when they do show up for sale, and the fact that I never liked the idea of the XEP80 that plugs into joystick ports, requiring it's removal to use the ports for other things (I want to plug-and-play and not have to remove), the first thing that comes to mind to further expand my Atari's is a new 80-column board for the 800 and for PBI/ECI equipped Atari's. Maybe some other bells and whistle on them too. Software 64/80-column is o.k (made acceptable by my DIY video upgrade), I prefer it with SpartaDOS and programming languages and word processing to a 40-columns display, but I'd like to have real hardware 80-columns through the Atari's buss. 

 

VBXL/XE is an option, of course, for XL/XE owners, but it's another internal upgrade that may or may not fit, or work, with some peoples Atari's depending on what other upgrades are already installed, and a bit too expensive just to have true 80-column output. And, of course, not an option for 800 owners. Though maybe a VBXE type of card could be made for the 800's slot 3? How about a PBI/ECI VBXE? More choices to more Atari owners might help seeing the VBXE move forward with user and programmer support too...

 

What do others think? Any hardware guru's who have considered or would consider such projects?

Just think ahead... way, way beyond that...

 

What about a PC-on-a-Slot board, carrying enough churning power for launching compact version of Win 10, own storage, own ram, own video output, own Bluetooth and Wifi, with on-board PBI connector to interface with Incognito, and have your super 800's resources available to / from it?

 

Talk about a little MONSTER that not only runs its native resources... but could run Altirra... or Apple II... or C-64... or ANYTHING on a DUAL-SCREEN setup (!!!) ... and still keep the host 800's HW virtually intact / unmodified !

 

With the 800's architecture, its generous plug-and-play expansion bay (with energized slots) and Incognito's PBI, I believe the sky is the limit (!!!)

Edited August 9, 2019 by Faicuai

[Gunstar]

Or just pre-order the new Atari VCS with it's sandbox mode for that...

I don't want to turn my 800 into a PC, I hate PC's and only use them for Internet and I hate emulating things on PC's. But I like the idea of a board for Apple II or C64 compatibility!

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gunstar

[+Allan]

I always wished they had built 80-column into the 8-bit computers. I think making an 80-column board for 800 would be great. Does the Bit-3 require a monochrome monitor? Could a 80-column board be built to work both on a monochrome monitor as well as a standard color monitor like the Commodore 1702s?

 

Allan

 

[Faicuai]

6 minutes ago, Gunstar said:

Or just pre-order the new Atari VCS with it's sandbox mode for that...

I don't want to turn my 800 into a PC, I hate PC's and only use them for Internet. But I like the idea of a board for Apple II or C64 compatibility!

Don't think of the PC-on-a-slot as "THE machine"... think of it as a SLAVE resource...

 

Imagine just working on development with it... now you can do it with true look-and-feel of Atari, but with super-charged editing / compiling / emulation / testing core !!!

 

Wireless keyboard? LAN connectivity? Digital Video output? Digital Sound? 80 col? 120? 160? Rendering of Rasta-converter images? No problem, you got it all, and without soldering a hair on the 800, except six sample points for the Incognito (about 10 mins. or work!)

 

That would be as kick-ass as it can be... and only possible in that form-factor on the 800 (!)

 

?

Edited August 9, 2019 by Faicuai

[Gunstar]

Ok, I can see how cool that would be for a developer, but that's still light-years away for me, even though I am teaching myself Assembly and Basic on my Atari now...I'm still just a beginner and have no desire to do my learning and beginner programming with an emulator. Maybe once I get good enough to start some serious development, which is still probably a couple years away at my pace and available time. Part of the fun of it for me is actually using the Atari to program, and not a PC, and at this point I don't see that changing regardless of how much easier or better it is to develop on Altirra, it means NOT using my Atari, which is where and why I've decided this late in life to learn to program in the first place. But yes, eventually, if I do serious development, I could have the best of both worlds that way!

Edited August 9, 2019 by Gunstar

[+Nezgar]

It would be interesting to get a ROM dump of the 80 column board prototype for ICD's MIO, and see if that could be brought to fruition. First with emulation, then via modern hardware. I really like the idea of PBI type expansions like this that have so much more i/o bandwidth available.

[_The Doctor__]

I think a hybrid of the MIO 80 column, the Atari 1099 expansion 80 column, internal 80 column, bit 3 and xep80 should be folded into one 800 slot card. Use the best of all and retain the hydra ability of the Atari.

[Gunstar]

Sounds good to me

1 hour ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I think a hybrid of the MIO 80 column, the Atari 1099 expansion 80 column, internal 80 column, bit 3 and xep80 should be folded into one 800 slot card. Use the best of all and retain the hydra ability of the Atari.

 

[Gunstar]

So, what else could be made into a card for slot 3? I'd think any upgrades like graphics (VBXE type stuff) would need to be done with a CPU card or personality card, though I guess 80-column is "graphics" so maybe a VBXE 800 could be made for slot 3 card? How about something like Rapidus? There must be some limits to slot 3 stuff, that has to be done on the CPU or Personality cards, like Incognito?

[TGB1718]

Just a thought on the "PC on a card", how about something like a Raspberry Pi Zero W, it's cheap, tiny and has all the connectivity you need,

you could lose one in an 800 slot ?.

and best of all it's NOT Windoze

[Mathy]

Hello guys

 

Could Sophia be expanded to 80 columns?  In an external device?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Mathy]

Hello Guys

 

What ever happened to @Claus Bucholz plans for an 80 column cartridge?

 

Sincerely

 

Mathy

[Faicuai]

3 hours ago, TGB1718 said:

Just a thought on the "PC on a card", how about something like a Raspberry Pi Zero W, it's cheap, tiny and has all the connectivity you need,

you could lose one in an 800 slot ?.

and best of all it's NOT Windoze

 

ANYTHING that reads "NOT Windoze / Windows", is bad in general, and counter productive... especially if I am completely disabled from running Altirra on it, which works on the muscular benefits of Windows' DirectX / graphics integration.

[TGB1718]

9 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

 

ANYTHING that reads "NOT Windoze / Windows", is bad in general, and counter productive... especially if I am completely disabled from running Altirra on it, which works on the muscular benefits of Windows' DirectX / graphics integration.

you are joking of course ???  I was ?

[Faicuai]

1 hour ago, TGB1718 said:

you are joking of course ???  I was ?

 

Just think about that fact that, running the PC-on-Slot (#4 on NTSC-800), for instance, would allow us to fire Altirra, and run ANY PAL-title or DEMO that the Euro team keeps coming with... which are ALL great ! Likewise, you will be able to enjoy NTSC titles are true speed, right from 800-PALs... Just to mention something little, though...

 

...And all that without modifying ANYTHING on the 800, and just leveraging its HW architecture... That's what I am talking about!

Edited August 10, 2019 by Faicuai

[_The Doctor__]

OMG Falcon speed for the 800 (although it was anything but speedy)

[Gunstar]

18 hours ago, _The Doctor__ said:

I think a hybrid of the MIO 80 column, the Atari 1099 expansion 80 column, internal 80 column, bit 3 and xep80 should be folded into one 800 slot card. Use the best of all and retain the hydra ability of the Atari.

I also want to do the same thing for XL/XE PBI/ECI too though. And couldn't a lot of the devices, like Syscheck 2.0 or IDE 2.0+ that were made for the XL/XE have versions made into an 800 card too? I like what Incognito is doing with all the extras beyond an OS on the Personality board, but couldn't we get some slot 3 (0-OS, 1, 2, 3) that have more stuff on it along with Incognito? Not anything redundant of course, so my two examples would be pointless, but they are just examples., unless it's for people without Incognitos.

 

Though I suppose some of us hardware hackers with Incognitos could just direct-connect with a ribbon cable, any PBI/ECI to the Incognito and either have the ribbon coming out someplace or maybe fit the PBI card inside the 800 case somewhere...

Edited August 10, 2019 by Gunstar

[flashjazzcat]

7 hours ago, Gunstar said:

Though I suppose some of us hardware hackers with Incognitos could just direct-connect with a ribbon cable, any PBI/ECI to the Incognito and either have the ribbon coming out someplace or maybe fit the PBI card inside the 800 case somewhere...

Yep: some of us already have. I've demonstrated IDE Plus 2.0 and Turbo Freezer running off the Incognito PBI connector via ribbon cables. IDE Plus was pretty redundant, however, since the Incognito already has similar hard disk hardware built in.

[jnharmon]

I have a Bit3 card for my 800 and am curious whether it would work with an Incognito.  Has anyone tried this combination?

 

My guess is that it would overlap address space used by the Incognito, but I'm not sure.

Edited August 15, 2019 by jnharmon

[adam242]

19 hours ago, jnharmon said:

I have a Bit3 card for my 800 and am curious whether it would work with an Incognito.  Has anyone tried this combination?

 

My guess is that it would overlap address space used by the Incognito, but I'm not sure.

 

I tried this a few years ago in my Incognito 800. My Bit3 was not functional, so take this with a grain of salt.

 

In Colleen mode, the machine would boot fine, but would crash when the (defective) Bit3 was activated. In XL/XE mode, the machine would boot to a Self Test screen showing faulty ROMs. I'm assuming this is because the Bit3 firmware (designed for the 800 only) occupies ROM space that confuses the XL self test. YMMV.

[_The Doctor__]

with the new jed and a bit 3 in good condition, setting the incognito in 800 mode only (colleen) I'd think it would work. shut down all the bells and whistles then make sure only what an 800 had is available. if it doesn't work try each slot...

Edited August 16, 2019 by _The Doctor__

[Geister]

If the Incognito has a compatible PBI bus, just run a ribbon cable out to a 1090 compatible expansion bus box and put all the cards out there.  Then you can opt for a VBXE or  MIO compatible 80 column card, a Rapidus or other 65c816 card, and direct access or banked 16 bit memory card that works with the stock or expanded CPU Ataris.