exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

One with and one without alt-ram built now.

It looks like there are three boards which will be heading to the store ( not sure currently when yet). Two of them have alt-ram, 1 doesn't. Two other boards just refuse to function :roll:

Anyway, started making plans to put some boards into production. Usual parts shortages are causing problems :roll:

We had some BGA type buffers on there before and they are out of stock everywhere now :roll: So been busy trashing, I mean updating, @Icky's flashy PCB to use the TSOP packages which are in stock.


Pretty much all the main IC's are out of stock everywhere :roll: . But between myself and @Icky I think we should be able to build at least 10 boards up.

I wasn't going to put these into production for a while. But because there are more people interested than I can currently supply, and the fact that part shortages are likely going to be only getting worse, I thought putting these into production sooner rather than later be a prudent course of action.

I have also been busy fixing minor bugs and doing tweaks to the flashy software as well.

exxos wrote: 20 May 2022 21:45 We had some BGA type buffers on there before and they are out of stock everywhere now :roll: So been busy trashing, I mean updating, @Icky's flashy PCB to use the TSOP packages which are in stock.

I make a nice neat PCB that satisfies my OCD and @exxos comes along and gives me more work to put the world in order again :)

Icky wrote: 20 May 2022 23:54 I make a nice neat PCB that satisfies my OCD and @exxos comes along and gives me more work to put the world in order again :)

Looks fine to me :lol: :crazy:

OCD becomes optional after moving stuff about more than 3 times :lol:

Still searching for atmel chips :roll: getting some crazy prices up to $95 a chip :roll: I have a company which claims to have them in stock new at a reasonable price.. So we shall see.

OK I hate China as usual. They give a price and new in stock, come to pay, oh sorry price is wrong its really this price x5 higher. What a huge waste of time. :pullhair: This was the trend even before covid hit. :roll:

Finally got some chips. Albeit slightly oddly printed I might add. They do not look like used chips. But I have not seen Atmel chips printed in white text like that before. I guess I really need to solder a couple on sort of test board to see if they actually are genuine before sending them off to Fab :roll:

Some years later..

exxos wrote: 27 Jun 2022 19:58 Finally got some chips. Albeit slightly oddly printed I might add. They do not look like used chips. But I have not seen Atmel chips printed in white text like that before. I guess I really need to solder a couple on sort of test board to see if they actually are genuine before sending them off to Fab :roll:

Which I never did it seems :roll: Always the problem as limited time to do stuff, then turned into a huge epic further down the line :roll:

So today I will connect up all the boards and see how many the programmer actually recognises...


IIRC, 14 should at least work as the chips came from mouser. But the total working may be less, as these were also assembled by PCBWAY :roll:

So 12 PLDs passed...

These are the fake PLD ones :roll: The 3 at the bottom I can't even insert into the sockets as the pins are soldered on wonky :roll:


So PCBWAY strikes again..

Bent pins..


Melted pins...


Missing pins..


All reasons I am moving away from China suppliers these days. Just not worth the hassle. In fact I think PCBWAY has been one of the worst suppliers I have dealt with now. I don't think I have had such bad soldering on header pins as I have had with them :roll:

Found what seems to be the latest firmware :thumbup:

Did not boot up at first.. Seems some pins were swapped on the hardware but not in the firmware :shrug: Anyway, swapped them in the code and recompiled and got no where!

After more puzzling, and looking back on old threats like this one... viewtopic.php?p=62214#p62214 which had a ROM disable jumper. The current version it seems we must have decided to reuse some pins on the JTAG connector instead.. so jumper fitted there, and then to desktop!

Found the current PRG as well.. and gave it a go..


It also seems that it will need the battery to run correctly as well otherwise it doesn't boot up flash ROM :lol: :roll: it's probably because the RTC's NVRAM is used to store settings like ROM bank etc So without the battery it probably malfunctions..

I remember now that I was going to reuse @Badwolf's alt-ram installer. I think you might have even made a specific version for me? But I cannot remember any more :(

I also think the time seter program was never done either. Probably simple enough to write one in basic but maybe a bit more complicated to do assembly version.. Unless I convince AI to write one for me now.. :D