Atari STE writing to floppy and hard disk problems

[mst]

So the bus resistors are not changed looking at your images ? P100 needs to be 1.2k, all 1772, DMA fixes need doing..

New mother is huge subject , current build for example is here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 100&t=3654

:) New mobo appears pulished!


Bus resistors can be placed parallel to the original ones? I am afraid of damage the mobo tracks if I try to remove them.

[rubber_jonnie]

So the bus resistors are not changed looking at your images ? P100 needs to be 1.2k, all 1772, DMA fixes need doing..

New mother is huge subject , current build for example is here https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewt ... 100&t=3654

:) New mobo appears pulished!


Bus resistors can be placed parallel to the original ones? I am afraid of damage the mobo tracks if I try to remove them.

I would advise replacing with new SIL resistor packs as you may get unpredictable results adding them in in parallel, and you are equally likely to damage tracks.

If you are worried about damaging tracks, I'd suggest you cut the old SILs out and desolder one leg at a time, it's less risky. If you're replacing them, then it doesn't matter that the old ones are unusable.

For de-soldering, if you don't have a de-solder gun, use a good quality fluxed de-solder braid and lots of extra flux, don't linger too long on one spot if it doesn't immediately de-solder as it's heat that damages the tracks and vias.

If you are that worried about damage, I'd suggest getting somebody like @Steve to do the work for you. Obviously he's in the UK, so if you're not you will need to find somebody equally helpful.

[mst]

If you are worried about damaging tracks, I'd suggest you cut the old SILs out and desolder one leg at a time, it's less risky. If you're replacing them, then it doesn't matter that the old ones are unusable.

Thanks, it is a good advice;

I will search for these on the shelves,
otherwise if not found, I will ask to buy them from Exxos.

I will report again the results, I hope the problems could be fixed...

[rubber_jonnie]

The SIL resistor packs are easily available from many sources, you won't have any problems finding them.

Just make sure that you count the number of pins and get the correct items, and remember when fitting they do have to be fitted the right way round.

[mst]

Now this problem is fixed!!!

At least on my STE, but probably useful on another ST family machines.

Fix is rare, but interesting, also it has sense... today I focused on making the signal management faster, now the ACSI2STM manages the signal from the Atari a bit quicker, and it works now!

I spent all this afternoon, day 5 of February of 2021, playing the game SwitchBlade using savestate feature.
Writing 525188 Bytes to the hard disk each time I press the / key. Pressing * key, the game exits to desktop, and you can resume your game loading the created .TOS files with your savestate.

It worked more than 3 times in a row,

As a conclusion, the timing of signal is very restrictive, if you can´t deal with less than 200 ns signal management, your hard disk will miss valuable data.



A complete and easy update procedure document, that contains the new firmware file, is uploaded here:




Thanks for your interest and support!

[mst]

This is a video of the updated firmare, version of 5 February 2021, that solves hard disk writing on my STE;

probably this can be useful for many other ST machines.

However, on the update package, the original firmware is also included.

Previously, on a repairing attempt, and following Exxos research and recommendations, I installed the 10 K pull-ups on the WD1772 chip, and the CPU is replaced with a 68HC000FN20 , a low power version.




[VIDEO][/VIDEO]