General Stuff(tm)

[stephen_usher]

Wasn't this the infamous tilting train that was eventually cancelled?

This is the original experimental train, which was powered by gas turbine engines and built by aircraft engineers.

The later APT-P (P for Prototype) actually did carry passengers and is probably the one you're thinking of. This is the early 80s Hornby model...

IMG_2580.jpg

The Thatcher government forced it into service before it was ready, and sent drunk newspaper hacks on the first journey. Because of the drink and they'd not yet worked out that removing all G-forces made people queasy when going around corners.. plus Isla St.Clair wanting to get off at Carlisle, so adding an extra stop and losing the high speed slot in the schedule, it was a bit of a PR disaster.

By 1985 all the teething problems had been fixed, but it was too late and it was cancelled. All the patents were given away to the Italian company which later produced the Pendolino trains that Virgin ran.

[stephen_usher]

Did you replace the Maxell bomb? I hate those damn batteries, they seem to have molecular acid for blood that eats through everything!! (That's my film reference for the evening :) )

Yes, the battery hadn't leaked, thankfully.

[stephen_usher]

The second 4MB 30 pin SIMM for the LCII arrived today. I thought it was faulty as I got the bad SIMM chimes but then tried both 4MB SIMMs and it worked.

Interestingly the additional memory seems to have booted almost every benchmark!

IMG_2650.jpg

[rubber_jonnie]

Wasn't this the infamous tilting train that was eventually cancelled?

This is the original experimental train, which was powered by gas turbine engines and built by aircraft engineers.

The later APT-P (P for Prototype) actually did carry passengers and is probably the one you're thinking of. This is the early 80s Hornby model...


IMG_2580.jpg


The Thatcher government forced it into service before it was ready, and sent drunk newspaper hacks on the first journey. Because of the drink and they'd not yet worked out that removing all G-forces made people queasy when going around corners.. plus Isla St.Clair wanting to get off at Carlisle, so adding an extra stop and losing the high speed slot in the schedule, it was a bit of a PR disaster.

By 1985 all the teething problems had been fixed, but it was too late and it was cancelled. All the patents were given away to the Italian company which later produced the Pendolino trains that Virgin ran.

Ahh didn't realise its tech went into the Pendolinos!!

[stephen_usher]

And I'm back to the Sun 3/80 but hitting my head against a WinCUPL brick wall.

I want to use the GAL16V8C (Atmel version) in registered mode so that I can synchronise the state change of the output to the clock.

As per @exxos 's suggestion I added '.D' to the pin definition and I get:

Capture.JPG

Code: Select all

The extension is unknown or invalid for the particular device.

Which suggests that WinCUPL assumes only "Simple" mode for the GAL.

The code is:

Code: Select all

Name     Sun 3/80 tty-fix ;
PartNo   00 ;
Date     19/03/2022 ;
Revision 01 ;
Designer Engineer ;
Company  Personal ;
Assembly None ;
Location  ;
Device   g16v8 ;

/* *************** INPUT PINS *********************/

PIN  2   =  !R;
PIN  3   =  !UART_ENABLE;
PIN  4   =  PORT_SELECT;
PIN  5   =  !IO_ENABLE;

/* *************** OUTPUT PINS *********************/
PIN  19   =  !SER1WR.D;
PIN  18   =  !SER1RD.D;
PIN  17   =  !SER0WR.D;
PIN  16   =  !SER0RD.D;

SER0EN = IO_ENABLE & UART_ENABLE & PORT_SELECT;
SER1EN = IO_ENABLE & UART_ENABLE & !PORT_SELECT;

SER0WR = SER0EN & !R;
SER0RD = SER0EN & R;

SER1WR = SER1EN & !R;
SER1RD = SER1EN & R;

Googling is getting me absolutely nowhere as all I get in posts is the assumption that you already know how to set the device into registered mode and no code samples, only off the cuff advice which assumes that you already know what to do. (Typical "expert" advice where the expert can't think down to the level of a person who doesn't know what they know and hence doesn't actually give any useful information.)

[stephen_usher]

Might have got somewhere by specifying the device as a 'g16v8cpms', but this then doesn't allow me to use pin 4 as an input!

Oh well.

[stephen_usher]

Well, although it compiles it's ignoring the clock and /OE pins, which means that it's not in registered mode. *sigh*

[stephen_usher]

OK. I've run out of time for today. I'm getting nowhere fast.

I know what I want to do.

I know that the hardware can do it.

The tools are getting in the way.

[stephen_usher]

To give a bit of background, it's pretty simple. I need to latch values when there's a low/high transition of the "clock" input. I may use the 20MHz clock or another signal.

This is bread and butter type of functionality for the 16V8 in Registered Mode as pin 1 is then dedicated to be a clock input and pin 11 output enable. Working out how to get WinCUPL to program the device into Registered Mode is the issue.

[stephen_usher]

OK. Found out what I was doing wrong. I was specifying the type of output in the wrong place.

The signals start at precisely the correct time now. It still doesn't work, but it's at the correct time.