Mega STe stability issues.

[HigashiJun]

Have you a GAL Prommer?

I do have a "TL866II plus", I know that works for eproms, but no idea if that can do GAL.

You can read and write GALs with no problem with your TL866II plus.

[mikro]

I thought about it, but I'm in Norway, I don't know anyone here with a Mega STe

Jo Even is from Norway and he definitely has a MegaSTE and IIRC he also has a graphics card in one of his Ataris.

[frank.lukas]

... first choose the GAL manufacturer and then the type in the prommer soft. You also can buy a new GAL 20V8 -25ns or -15ns

plus_ii.jed.zip

[troed]

That one is probably for Troed, the resident fullscreen demo expert!: I also tried a recent demo from DHS/SMFX (The Art of Profanity) which was always failing after the first screen, now I've been able to run it twice in a row from start to finish, there are some occasional top-border fullscreen fails, but at least it ran completely without crashing.

Unless a demo has been extensively tested on Mega STE then yes, there are differences compared to STE that can make a thing like border opening fail. I would not worry too much about it compared to the more "normal" problems. At least not yet.

/Troed

[frank.lukas]

Test the Computer with Photoline and a large JPEG color image. It should use almost of all free memory. If there are problems with that, it has nothing to do with the VME bus.

Seems to be working (found a version 2.30 on the Atari Coldfire Project page)

Use a JPEG that fills the entire free memory ...

[Dbug]

Not sure I did it properly, but here is what I got when I tried to read, there was no ST option so I choose the Lattice 20V8 in the GAL category:

nova_mste_mach32.zip

Instead of flashing that one, I think I will order some new ones, unfortunately it looks like digikey and rs are both empty, so it looks like the only choice are eBay and Ali Express...

Regarding Kronos, I got in touch with the author (Olivier) who sent me an updated SCREEN.LDG, made Kronos to run fine on all the tests except the OpenGL one which crashes with 3 bombs

image_2022-05-03_210422687.png

image_2022-05-03_210430427.png

image_2022-05-03_210455150.png

[stephen_usher]

Forget the obsolete Lattice GALs which aren't manufactuered any more, get the Atmel ones, ATF20V8B

[exxos]

Forget the obsolete Lattice GALs which aren't manufactured any more, get the Atmel ones, ATF20V8B

I gave up with those Atmel GALs. No programmer I tried would program the powerdown pin correctly. Might work for others or just don't use pin4 IIRC and you can. They tormented me during my STE booster stuff for ages.

[stephen_usher]

Atmel are the only game in town now for GALs. OK, they're no-longer Atmel, they're owned by another company now.

[Dbug]

Ok, so the Latice are obsolete (but there are plenty on eBay), these "formerly Atmel but not anymore" would they work with the "TL866II plus" programmer?

I'm a pragmatic person, if the best thing does not actually work with my equipment, or is not available, and if the "not the best thing but it works good enough" is available, then the choice is a no brainer :)

It's a bit like when a member of my family during holidays told me that the "Biafine" I was applying to my gf's sunburns was not the best product to help with sunburns and that instead I should use (forgot the name), and when I asked them if they had this product they said no, and since we were in the middle of nowhere...