exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Mikerochip wrote: 13 Jul 2025 23:16 Going to build a rework list too, for the A1 boards?
Or, well. Should we create one?

There's not much or anything(?) that really needs reworking but I agree it would be nice with a better and more organised page that describes how to make the A1 a bit more like A2.

- Some kind of patch for the RTC power delivery is perhaps the closest one that fits the bill.
- The small fix on the current revision of the CKBD upgrade board if one is interested in the fan control.
(a new version of that PCB is currently on the way here and I'll update Github once I've built and verified it)
- IDE interrupt is not working on rev.A1 and it should be an easy patch, but nothing(*) is using it so it's not a big loss.
(*) if someone decides to port AtariTOS then it could be useful. MagiC normally does too but the Raven port does not.

CKBD is pretty much plug-and-play but some patch wires can be done for additional but non-essential features.
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/tree ... rades/ckbd

IDESwap is completely plug-and-play but also super optional and not essential unless MagiC or perhaps a theoretical port of Atari TOS.
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/tree ... es/ideswap

And as I typed all that I realise that yes, it's a great idea if this was properly documented :)

Also, would it be easy to add in actual sockets for the 68901 etc, to the schematic?
That way we can have both the parts on the BOM, and the scocket part in the pcb.
I presume it's a chunk of extra work, for not really a lot of gain, apart from making the iBOM complete :P

They already are, both in the schematic and in the bom :)
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/blob ... -a1_bom.md

But I see that I had it show only the IC's in the iBOM. I don't remember the exact reason for that but perhaps I thought it was redundant with both there. Or maybe I made a mistake.

Hah, interesting!

I was going to have a bit of experimentation with IDE and PIO modes and because the risk of trashing data is high when fiddling with IDE I decided to use a different card than my normal one.

Turns out four of my CF-cards don't actually work in Raven, as in they are not recognised by EmuTOS nor HDDriver.
By luck I must have picked one that works and I never tried a different one until now :lol:

Thought it could be good information to know in case you are struggling with IDE ...


It looks like it's caused by a too short "Address setup before IORD" and that some cards don't like that. I think I should be able to sit down some day and fix this in Nessi firmware only.

(the cards I have are of different brands and sizes and the one I've been using, which I don't know the model of, came with the Vampire V4SA which can also be picky with cards)

Pushed nessi firmware 250714. Improves compatibility with slower cf-cards.
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/tree ... w/a1/Nessi

I'll include this firmware in future release zip after it have had a bit more testing, but my disk-on-module and collection of random cf-cards now appear to work.

Overall logical drive speed is not that much effected. It Looks like the number is in the same ballpark as before.


HDDriver appears to be capable of faster logical drive speed, assuming it's a TOS-only partition.
The drawback of that is you can't use the card in a PC then. And you need the byteswap adapter since HDDriver doesn't understand little-endian interfaces.

minor release package update:
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/rele ... .A1.latest

firmware:
- (nessi) improved cf-card compatibility

rom:
- improved IDE transfer rate, now 7.9 MB/s instead of 4.8 MB/s, your mileage may vary.
(I had missed a define in EmuTOS which made the Raven build do 16bit rather than 32bit operations... :oops:)

agranlund wrote: 18 Jul 2025 22:22 minor release package update:
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/rele ... .A1.latest

firmware:
- (nessi) improved cf-card compatibility

rom:
- improved IDE transfer rate, now 7.9 MB/s instead of 4.8 MB/s, your mileage may vary.
(I had missed a define in EmuTOS which made the Raven build do 16bit rather than 32bit operations... :oops:)

:thanksyellow: I can confirm that 2 32GB CF cards that did not work before are now working. :)

And I can also confirm the increase in speed performance.

Thank you !

Finally got around to soldering and testing the updated versions of:

CKBD:
Fixes fan control.
Old rev.c version can be patched using a through-hole resistor as per the readme so I wouldn't bother with the new if you already have one.
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/tree ... rades/ckbd

ROM Simm (SMD version):
Future proofing by tying pin47 high as some vendors flash chips can use this pin for selecting byte/word operation.
It makes no difference for SST39 devices but could in theory allow a larger variety of chips to be used in the future.
Thus, I wouldn't bother if you already have a rom simm.
https://github.com/agranlund/raven/blob ... mm/rom_SMD

So a bit of a no-news, news really :)


For these boards I fired up the ultrasonic cleaner for the very first time and wow, that thing is amazing!
I think I can stop dreading to clean PCBs after soldering now :)

Work in progress, and "borrowing" liberally from the EmuTOS codebase, but still a while to go until it's a finished driver :)


Testing on an ancient super-io card:
Supporting the floppy interface could be a pointless, but fun, exercise too later on.


These newer homemade ones use non-standard addresses but will be supported too is the plan.

I got a multi io card for the same experiments but got sidetracked getting the network stuff and ESS stuff working.

I probably would use the floppy drive as well as I have loads of HD disks.

PhilC wrote: 03 Aug 2025 16:30 I probably would use the floppy drive as well as I have loads of HD disks.

But does your case even have drive bays? :D
(I have a whole bunch of old Atari disks stashed away too, would be really neat if Raven could read them)