Nova compatible boards

[frank.lukas]

Use the normal Atari TT TOS 3.06 for first tests ...

... are there all OGFA Hardware patches done on the adapter board?


May be you destroyed with your solder work the nova adapter? I send all adapter well tested out.


2 bombs means graphics card not accessible.
reasons: adapter defective or graphics card defective, wrong driver version

[czietz]

Doing multiple changes at once is detrimental to the fault-finding process, I'm afraid to say.

What I would have done instead:

- With the already pre-installed GAL "ET4"...
- without doing any HW mods...
- I would have just set the jumper to MSTE, which is the correct setting.

But I guess it's too late for that now.

[grunwald]

Frank,

I did test it first with TOS 3.06, which is when I got the two bomb bus error. I have no doubt that your board was/is working when you sent it. This is actually the second board I purchased from you about five years ago. I inadvertantly fried the first one while attempting to mount it in internally in a TT case. I likely fried this video card at the same time. I honestly couldn't remember which card it was. That's what happens when you go over 5 years between projects. Your board appears to be intact and working. The only changes I made were adding the two bog wires and cutting the one trace. I have a new video card ordered, which should be here by the weekend. We'll see how that works. Thank you for your help...

[frank.lukas]

From my experience 99% of all ISA ET4000AX cards work with the VME Adapter. Diamond Speedstar cards do not work...

[frank.lukas]

Create a floppy disk with folders T0, T2, T3, T4, T6, T8 on it, each with the associated emulator program and the emulator.bib file in it.

You can start the emulator program file manually by double-clicking it. When the correct one is found, the ST-High Atari desktop (640x400) appears over the graphics card. reboot between each test...

[grunwald]

Made some progress over the weekend. I decided to confirm data and address continuity from the bus to the video card. I quickly found a number of open lines. After checking the 34 pin, pre-made cables, I realized that the cables were made for a floppy drive and had the seven lines flipped internally. I replaced these with flat ribbon cables and tried to run Emulator.prg again. This time it runs without error. I did not get any output from the card so I the ran sta_vdi.prg. Here again I got a two bomb bus error. I tried the different drivers with 3 different cards, same result. I know the gal is good because I reflashed it already. I am going to pull the two logic chips off and test them just in case I fried them with the bad cables. I do not see any issues with the traces or other components.

20230227_202250.jpg

[frank.lukas]

Are the OGFA Patches gone on your Adapter Board ... ?

Change OFGA GAL on the Nova VME ISA adapter

Disconnect VME row A Pin18 (AS).
VME row A pin20 (IACK) to GAL pin13
VME Row A Pin23 (AM4) to GAL Pin23

vme_bus.png

[frank.lukas]

The adapter or the graphics card may have been damaged due to the incorrect assignment of the two round ribbon cables from you ...

1. Test your ET4000 cards in a old isa Dos/Win95/98 PC
2. Do yourself a favor and use regular gray ribbon cables first
3. Test whether the ISA pins B7 = -12 volts and pin B9 = +12 volts. If not, the Atari TT vme internal cables has burned out or the power supply unit is defective.

... if everything works, rebuild your color round cable to it.

ISA_Bus_pins.png

[grunwald]

I know it's been over a year since I discussed this topic but I needed to walk away from my other issue with the TT memory card. It turned out that my flipped cable burned out the two video cards I had. I have, since last year, built a Pentium 2 PC with an ISA/PCI/AGP bus. This now allows me to to test the old cards I have laying around. I picked up another ISA ET4000AX card, fixed the cables, and like magic it works....

20240629_140645.jpg

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