Stuff and Things.

[rubber_jonnie]

Got to say, although I've only finished one V1.1C, it is running really well and I'm looking forward to the parts arriving so I can finish off the 2nd.

Despite the best efforts of my Mega4 to put me off testing the Megabus IDE interfaces, the Mega1 came to the rescue, and despite being TOS 1.04 and needing a boot disk, it ran fantastically:

IMG_20200328_150459.jpg

IMG_20200328_150502.jpg

With a decent xfrrate result too. Despite having only one GAL (More are on order), I was able to test both by swapping it out and I had no problems with either, and HDDRIVER running well. I tested with both laptop hard drives and CF cards and had no problems with either.

I also tested the V1.1C in the Mega1 and it works nicely too:

IMG_20200328_154915.jpg

IMG_20200328_154909.jpg

The footprint is much smaller and it works great with the small CF adaptor, and the smaller footprint of the V1.1C means there is definitely room for the support pillar. Just need to finish number 2 now.

[PaulJ]

Congrats @rubber_jonnie .. may make you the IDE king with more boards than computers to put them in. :) :) :)

[rubber_jonnie]

Congrats @rubber_jonnie .. may make you the IDE king with more boards than computers to put them in. :) :) :)

@PaulJ I just love building me an IDE interface.

:girldance: :girldance: :girldance:

[rubber_jonnie]

Overall some success this weekend.

Finished as many of the IDE boards as I could, and the Megabus IDE experiment was a complete success. I also managed to finish the refurb of the ST I got the other week. All that was left was the keyboard, which must hold the record for the highest number of dust bunnies I've ever found in a keyboard, and also had a broken off ALT key and + key on the numpad. After a thorough cleaning, those were replaced, and the KBD reassembled and tested. The machine looks really nice now it's all cleaned, tested and assembled, and was excellent value for money at £36 delivered. Shame it doesn't have a Blitter, but at least I have a spare socket for it that I can fit when I have one available, and the upgrade to 1MB went smoothly because it was a CO70789 and all the spaces for extra RAM were clear of solder, so it dropped right in.

[PaulJ]

Overall some success this weekend.

Finished as many of the IDE boards as I could, and the Megabus IDE experiment was a complete success. I also managed to finish the refurb of the ST I got the other week. All that was left was the keyboard, which must hold the record for the highest number of dust bunnies I've ever found in a keyboard, and also had a broken off ALT key and + key on the numpad. After a thorough cleaning, those were replaced, and the KBD reassembled and tested. The machine looks really nice now it's all cleaned, tested and assembled, and was excellent value for money at £36 delivered. Shame it doesn't have a Blitter, but at least I have a spare socket for it that I can fit when I have one available, and the upgrade to 1MB went smoothly because it was a CO70789 and all the spaces for extra RAM were clear of solder, so it dropped right in.

Jon, quite a kick-a## weekend. :dizzy:

[rubber_jonnie]

Jon, quite a kick-a## weekend. :dizzy:

@PaulJ Yeah, when I can focus on a single hobby, stuff gets done :) With a bit of luck my outstanding parts will arrive this week and I can get the two remaining IDE boards all finished and maybe get the Mega4 running again....

I did miss out that I burned a patched TOS 1.04 ROM set that posts details of RAM, TOS and number of floppy drives on boot, and fitted that to the Mega1. The ROMs in the Mega1 had originally come from the Mega4 (The Mega1 had a German TOS) as I was using an IDE board in the Mega4 but wanting to put it back to original for troubleshooting. Hence the Mega1 gets new ROMs and the Mega4 gets its originals back.

I still have an outstanding project to fix my CO70789 test board, and then there's an adaptor board to be made to connect a standard ST KBD to a Mega. So much retro fun to be had :)

[JezC]

@rubber_jonnie Don't forget troubleshooting your alpha when all other tasks are done!

Very impressed by your progress over the last week or so! :cheers: :thumbup:

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie Don't forget troubleshooting your alpha when all other tasks are done!

Very impressed by your progress over the last week or so! :cheers: :thumbup:

@JezC Thanks for reminding me :)

[rubber_jonnie]

Cool, parts delivered today will let me finish the 2nd V1.1C IDE interface this week 😁

Also arrived was an eprom emulator from @cmorley ,which I'm looking forward to getting to know 😁

[rubber_jonnie]

Arrrrgh, slightly annoying, my No2 V1.1C IDE got its 88 pin PLCC socket today, but the IDE header didn't. Good news is that it all seems to be working from a ROM point of view, so I'm confident that it will work once the headers arrive. That'll take me up two betas, two V1.1Cs and 2 Megabus IDE interfaces.

I'm all IDE'd up 😁