Building the TF536r5 - recommendations

[shoggoth77]

Howdy :)

I'm building a few of the TF536r5, birdseed version. Looks awesome!

Things are a bit unclear for me regarding the TOS; does it need patching or is it patched on the fly by the CPLD firmware?

(i.e. which one should I buy; the one linked from the LaST upgrade pages seems to be unpatched, which is possibly correct - or not - it's not entirely clear to me).

Also, I wonder what a good choice for the DIP-connection is; is it better to solder it in place in the machine, or desolder the 68k, put a DIP socket in there. I don't know what kind of DIP-headers that goes with either option. I'm good enough at soldering SMD things, but not at the mechanical aspects!

I'm also curious about the EmuTOS issues; perhaps I can lend a hand there. I guess I'll need to buy an eprom programmer in such case, and I don't know which model is the most suitable one either.

Right now I'm trying to source the CPLDs, so obviously I'm not in a hurry.

[stephen_usher]

TOS doesn't absolutely need to be patched at all. As long as you have stock TOS 2.06 or EmuTOS then the system will boot.

Exxos did build a patched version of TOS 2.06 at one point to fix some cache issues.

You should also put @agranlund 's utilities into the AUTO folder but that's it.

[shoggoth77]

Awesome. Having some stuff in the auto folder or ducking for VDI vs blitter (NVDI) is common practice for accelerators anyway.

[exxos]

Vanilla TOS206 will get to desktop but things are known to malfunction which is why you need the utilities in the auto folder from the last upgrade page. The utilities do some clever tricks to get around the cache issues. Alternatively you can turn off the "cache" option in the desktop menu as a quick workaround.

My build of TOS206 will work "out of the box" with the ST536 and fixes the cache stuff and automatically installs TT-RAM etc. You can still run the utilities because it copies ROM into RAM and does some other tricks to speed things up. But it is not necessarily needed in this case.

[DoG]

Also, I wonder what a good choice for the DIP-connection is; is it better to solder it in place in the machine, or desolder the 68k, put a DIP socket in there. I don't know what kind of DIP-headers that goes with either option. I'm good enough at soldering SMD things, but not at the mechanical aspects!

The 68K needs to come out. You can't have it and TF536 fitted at the same time. It won't work. So solder in a socket on top of the 68K is not an option.

Since you are going to solder in pins on the TF536 most (all?) use turned pin header and socket to match it. The thick end of the pins is the end you are going to solder on the TF536. The turned socket will also fit a normal 68K if you want to revert back to stock.

The dual wipe socket is great for flat pins (as on the 68K chip) but doesn't match well with the turned pins you're going to be using on the TF536.

However, the turned socket is not meant for massive amount of insertion and pulling out. It's a friction fit. The dual wipe socket does a greater job with that since the pins is under tension.

[PhilC]

If it's of use to anyone, here's a dual tos rom file that you can burn using a TL866 (without byte swapping at least on mine).

Its EmuTos 1.2.1 and the ST536 version of Tos2.06

ET121_206_ST536.zip

I've just tried the file and it boots fine in my Mega ST.

Thanks go to the EmuTos team and Exxos for modifying the Tos2.06 rom.

[shoggoth77]

Thanks guys :) Ordered some more stuff from Exxos. Think I've got everything except the CPLDs now.