Falcon with Screenblaster III and Eagle Sonic 32

[foft]

I recently bought another Falcon, mostly because it was for sale in my country! This one works...

Features of note:
* Fitted into a Space Case rack mount case
* Another rack mount unit with SCSI connection containing 2x external HDDs and a CDROM
* Internal IDE HDD
* Eagle Sonic 32MHz 68030
* Falcon Wings memory
* Screenblaster inside (SBIII?)
* Dead RTC battery
* FPU fitted

By default it seems to run at 16MHz and there is software to switch it to 32MHz. The software for that can be found here: https://www.atari-forum.com/viewtopic.p ... 74#p285270. Unfortunately when I run that software it just hangs. Even with a cold boot with no disk, i.e. doesn't appear to be a clash with other drivers.

There is no documentation for this board posted on dev docs, or anywhere I found on the web. There is some discussion here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1152 and here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =10#p80225

The Atari clock patch 'green bars' test runs fine.

So, I think I'll do this:
i) Fix the RTC (saw in half)
ii) Document Eagle Sonic changes that I can find (I cannot find installation docs...)
iii) Remove the Eagle Sonic 32Mhz and revert changes

I'll post some pictures here for others future reference.

[foft]

So here it is...

EagleSonic.JPG

Obvious aspects first. 32MHz comes from U65 via a wire onto the board. Then 8 pins come from the 'GAL' area into the board, via a 10 pin header! Other than that is just the raw expansion.

[Badwolf]

I must say I find the old expansions really interesting.

None of the technology of today, but people found a way to 'do better' with the hardware.

Great find. :thumbup:

BW

[foft]

Next that connector:

Code: Select all

Brown =U62 pin 3 =XDS030
Red   =U62 pin 9 =SIZ0
Orange=U62 pin 12=SIZ1
Yellow=U67 pin 19=XAVEC
Green =U63 pin 2 =XDSACK0
Blue  =U63 pin 19=XDSACK1
Purple=U68 pin 4 =XBG030
Grey  =U62 pin 13=ADDR0

Which all makes sense, the 030 specific pins that were left off the expansion port.

Also some clock changes - generic clock patch or part of Eagle?:
R216 (CPUCLKC), R221(CPUCLKA) and R222(CPUCLKB) driven from a device piggy backed on U63 - I see 74F04PC marked on it. Picked up from R217.

Code: Select all

R217 -> NOT ->  -> NOT -> CPUCLKA
                       -> NOT -> CPUCLKB 
                       -> NOT -> CPUCLKC

Oh and the bottom of the board:

EagleSonicTop.JPG

A 68030@50, a PAL, 7404 and not much else. Oh and a jumper, which is just the expansion port BG passthrough jumper!

Oh and FPU is on the normal clock.

[foft]

One other important mod is the CPU pins 16 (BG) and 17 (BGK) are lifted. BGK is then wired to U62 pin 10 = GND. So disabling the original CPU.

I think to put this back to the original CPU I just have to:
i) Disconnect the Eagle board
ii) Reconnect the W11 jumper
iii) Reconnect CPU pin 16 and 17 to the board (and remove the gnd connection)

Then to clean up:
i) Desolder the 8 coloured wires.
ii) Remove connection wire from U65

[foft]

One odd thing, no obvious broken wires of things that'd make it crash at 32MHz!

[foft]

One more thing, the RTC is not the same as I have seen on the other Falcons. It is a MCCS146818BM. Its not so obvious that I can saw through it in the same place as the other variant, which obvious has an upper/lower half. Did anyone try this one?

[foft]

I must say I find the old expansions really interesting.

Yeah its always exciting to discover these things inside a 'new' bit of old hardware :-) I got something in both my Falcons, neither of which were mentioned on the adverts!

[atari030]

G'day, I couldn't find the documentation I (thought) had, but your findings match what I saw from memory. It was twenty years ago mind you. I recall I had bad joints on the grounded CPU and another trace was gone. Mine was white screen on boot though.

Did you try ICD HDD software? Mine never worked with HDDriver, it would lock up. I did consider reversing it and I don't recall it being difficult so I'd say you are correct in reversing it.

[Steve]

Might be worth dumping the PAL chip on the eagle sonic and comparing it to another backup elsewhere if there is anything available. Could be something straight forward like aging capacitors causing the lock up, maybe PSU.

Either way it's moot, just restore it and then get a DFB1 instead for all that fast ram goodness ;)