exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

In a small update, the last batch of items I need have finally been posted from LCSC.
Global Standard Direct Line postage, this time.

Unbelievably, FexEX have contacted me several more times, requesting payment for the returned package.

So, providing everything works as expected... I'm down to needing a VGA card, and 68060 :)

Like PhilC though, my ATF1508 is a 10ns part...


What an absolutely **fantastic** time to be an Atari fan :)

Well. I'm not having much luck.

I was holding off updating about this, until I had the parts in hand!
Looks like I was right to hold off... I'm beginning to think someone doesn't want me to have a Raven... :lol:

Current LCSC parts order is being delivered by Fastway....
Landed in Ireland Yesterday.

Fastway went out of business lastnight / this morning.
https://www.thejournal.ie/fastway-paren ... 4-Oct2025/

(I mean, it's also bad for the 300 employees who are not being paid beyond today!)

Mikerochip wrote: 29 Oct 2025 10:20 (I mean, it's also bad for the 300 employees who are not being paid beyond today!)

Crazy situation... and such terrible news for all those employees getting hit with those news.
Happened to me many many years ago at a small-ish UK games company. One day we were all told to pack up and get out, company had gone into liquidation.

Wonder what happens with parcels already in their hands. And how you'd go about getting reimbursed (and from where in such case?) for orders of things that are now stuck there?

agranlund wrote: 29 Oct 2025 17:04 Crazy situation... and such terrible news for all those employees getting hit with those news.
Happened to me many many years ago at a small-ish UK games company. One day we were all told to pack up and get out, company had gone into liquidation.

I too, had a similar experience.
Hard to imagine going into work, and finding the doors are locked, or similar.
Until it actually happens :(
300 people looking for a job, today. So, while I complain about my package, yet again, getting delayed.
Worse things will happen.

agranlund wrote: 29 Oct 2025 17:04 Wonder what happens with parcels already in their hands. And how you'd go about getting reimbursed (and from where in such case?) for orders of things that are now stuck there?

They're appointed a receiver, so, if I had to guess, they will work out some kind of deal.
Maybe the government will need to step in, and have An Post deliver the parcels... I've no idea, really.

What happens, too, to the parcels en route? Just return to sender?
Put's a massive burden on pretty much all other delivery service companies, then, in that case.
Fastway were probably the biggest "last mile" delivery service in the country.

OK! Small update! Package delivered!
It hadn't actually arrived at the courier, and LCSC contacted the courier, who routed it to An Post, the Irish postal service.
So!
Checking parts now, and, soldering will resume shortly :)

CKBD and IDE endian swap pcbs haven't arrived yet though!

OK!

I've forgotten 33pF caps. Tch! And, ordered 4.7R instead of 4K7R!

BUT
Just digging around, and I've found that the SAKURA-IT Amiga 600 and A1200 PCMCIA 4MB SRAM uses the exact same IC (Well, the 4MB version) that I've picked out for my PSRAM adventure, so, I'm 99% certain it's a good alternative to the SRAM Anders has used. (Good as in, he said himself, it's probably going to be faster! But, apart from that, the 8MB ICs cost €5 each. So, 6x of those, plus pcb, is going to be a *LOT* cheaper than the €28 current ICs.

I just need to practice routing BGA :D

And, the 16MB version is only €1 more expensive. So, with some small work, we could have 96MB of PSRAM, for €35 odd + pcb, rather than €300 odd :P


https://github.com/Sakura-IT/ppa-pcmcia-sram is the PCMCIA project. (And, in fact, I own one myself, and used it for several years, so, I'm *really* happy with that!)

Very cool…
Will keep my fingers crossed
BGA soldering manually seems pretty impossible for the average DIY guy, right?
Can a PCB manufacturer like JLCPCB do this upon ordering?
Do they stock those PSRAMs?

LarryL wrote: 06 Nov 2025 16:03 Very cool…
Will keep my fingers crossed
BGA soldering manually seems pretty impossible for the average DIY guy, right?
Can a PCB manufacturer like JLCPCB do this upon ordering?
Do they stock those PSRAMs?

I might need a bit of help on the routing!
(Maybe a lot help!!)

But, to answer...
No! Anyone can BGA solder.
If the IC isn't "pre balled" you can use a hot air gun, and solder balls, and add the solder balls yourself.
You usually use hot air, and a stencil.
Just place the stencil over the IC, shake on, or place on some appropriate sized solder balls, and then heat, with the stencil in place.
They'll keep their balled up shape.

Same with soldering.
Once the IC has solder balls in place, you just place some SMD / rework paste on the PCB, place the IC in position,
and heat the IC with hot air. You'll see it snap into place and slightly sink.
You can touch it, with a tweezers etc, and it's sort of set in place, like jelly, and pulls back into place after you touch it.

I'll link you a video if you want! But, either way:
Yes, JLCPCB normally stock the part, and yes, they do BGA assembly for you either way!
(And, if you've not used it, you can ask them to assemble Parts that are not in stock, but you can buy them from one of their global partners, and have them shipped to your locker in JLCPCB, and they'll then use them out of there. It normally takes 7-14 days for the parts to arrive into stock for usage)

Part in Question:
https://lcsc.com/product-detail/PSRAM_I ... EBLL-70BLI
(It's a page back but you can see, I've got the Footprint finished, and the Schematic done, it's just the actual routing is kicking my ass)

Mikerochip wrote: 06 Nov 2025 15:18 And, the 16MB version is only €1 more expensive. So, with some small work, we could have 96MB of PSRAM, for €35 odd + pcb, rather than €300 odd :P

I don't know about small work :)
Or maybe it can be, depending on how far you want to take it.

You'd still need to modify the firmware to extend the cycle with an additional bus-clock to satisfy the slower ram (*)
(*) or maybe not.. I think we're running one unnecessary waitstate already so you might luck out there.

If stopping there then I'd agree it probably wouldn't be that much work and it's a lot cheaper for sure so I'm rooting for you there.

ram/rom/uart share the same cycle length at the moment so if you don't want all of them slower by 20ns you'd have to separate out ram from the rest in that regard. Not a terribly big deal but something to know about at least.

Then, after that, to get the speed back. You would probably want to do the logic for taking advantage of page-mode burst (besides the cupl logic I think that would also have to involve writing the necessary bios code to enable page-mode in those psram's config registers as I believe they "boot up" with page-mode disabled)


I elected to just purchase my way out of days of non-fun hassles to get more time for fun hassles (a common theme for this computer in general) :lol:

(but I very much applaude the initiative, those psrams are a lot cheaper indeed!)

Anders!!

How are you going to know if your 32MB Simms work... if you don't build the PSRAM ones?? :P
Yeah, I was just thinking of slowing the cycle down to 70ns. Job done!

Why buy your way out of all this ... when the fun is making it work ;)

Anyhow. Having less faith in my abilities than my ideas, I too, have purchased the usual 16MB RAM SRAM PCBs :P
So. I'm not holding my breath, for this PSRAM to work out :lol: