STE536 BUYERS INTERESTS

[Jbrianc]

I am interest in the STE536. Located in the US

[exxos]

I'm going to order a few boards for people to buy. These won't be 100% finished. Mostly they will just need the PLD soldering and maybe some header pins, and CPU socket.

At least some people can start building them up as there's unlikely to be any hardware changes now anyway. Mostly it's going to be firmware fixes which will of course take time.

But also as the year is flying by and I don't plan on shipping to Germany next year, I want to make sure people can get some boards sooner rather than later.

top.PNG (77.18 KiB) Viewed 2470 times

bottom.PNG (72.42 KiB) Viewed 2470 times

Buyers of these boards must be good at soldering and already know how to program the PLD and ROM! These are considered BETA boards and buyers should expect problems while the firmware is debugged and worked on (which will take time)


EDIT:
Though I will probably remove the JTAG header as it gets a bit in the way of PLD soldering!

[aadhoc38802]

I am interested in the STE536.
Located in the US.

Will it work on my CA401177 1040STE (no CPU socket) if I replace SM CPU with a SM socket?

My 1040STE will not be complete until it's Falcon-like.
I have no nostalgia for Falcon, but there's no limit to upgrading my 1040STE!

[exxos]

Will it work on my CA401177 1040STE (no CPU socket) if I replace SM CPU with a SM socket?

Its possible but I don't recommend unless your good at soldering. Many have tried and caused a lot of damage. IMHO get a socketed motherboard and don't risk it.

[aadhoc38802]

Thanks for suggestion.

I'm still high on having successfully replaced my 144 pin SM glue chip (the blitter was bad).
But as I recall the socket is a different beast, with pins tucked under, not out.
I'll have to look at it closely again and decide how crazy the idea is.

[exxos]

STE536_TOP.PNG (76.49 KiB) Viewed 2221 times

STE536_BOTTOM.PNG (70.67 KiB) Viewed 2221 times

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0313


Mostly assembled as shown in the images. These are for people who can finish the build themselves (I don't have time to build and test fully myself)

You will need,

PGA socket
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0181

030 CPU
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0187

DUMMY CPU
https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0243

PLD included. You need to program your own ROM and already know how to program the firmware.


EDIT:

I've just noticed the upgraded 3.3V regulator has been missed off I will try and solder them myself as they are tiny. It will of course delay shipping as my time is limited.

EDIT2:
Sorry bumped wrong topic!
Still not had chance to look into the regulator issue yet!

[Bugging]

I'm interested in a fully built board

[aadhoc38802]

Still interested in the STE536.
Located in the US.

I don't see it in the exxos store.
Would prefer less soldering, but will solder as necessary.
(Will have a socketed 1040STE soon)

[darkxavier]

Still interested in the STE536.
Located in the US.

I don't see it in the exxos store
Would prefer less soldering, but will solder as necessary.
(Will have a socketed 1040STE soon)

I think Exxos took it off as he is waiting for feedback from the beta testers

[exxos]

I think Exxos took it off as he is waiting for feedback from the beta testers

I've put the STE ones back in the store.

https://www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/#0313


Problem is , people need to finish them off, solder the PLD etc.. if it doesn't work, there's no way to know if there's a problem with the design, or as in most cases, problems with peoples soldering. Which makes BETA testing a huge problem, because peoples soldering is always in the mix. so i'm not sure it really helps having testers, but it needs testers to make progress with the project. I don't have time to solder them up and test myself either.

Problem is as well, there's that many respins of the boards, I am having to document and list modifications for every revision board, when in reality, there's hardly any. So it seem a bit of a waste of time in that respect. I can't sell a final revision as there's not enough testers involved to get to that point. If someone has a issue , it's almost impossible to remotely diagnose. People need to be able to reliably solder and help diagnose the problems on their own machine and help come up with solutions.

I am aware of a lot of problems, but realistically, I cannot make anything any better than what it already is. As we know these machines all have their own quirks and its just going to be inevitably impossible to get a design which works in everyone's machine. That is just the harsh reality of things.

At this point I will upload the latest firmware's which are the latest ones which work for me, but beyond that I cannot guarantee that it will work in anyone else's machines in particular when people are soldering them up themselves. I cannot keep re-spinning small volumes of these boards because they are costing a fortune.

So there will be about 9 STE536 boards in store, which need finishing off. It needs to be people where I don't have to constantly "hold their hand" every step of the way and want to help test.

I honestly don't think there's enough people out there to get involved with this project to help testing, but I cannot do anything any more without testing. So I am basically marking the project as "done" until such time there's enough people to build and test.

So just have to see how things go in the future. It could be a couple of years before I realistically get any more time to work on this project now, because I just have so much of a backlog to get through it is unbelievable. Everything works fine for me with my boards on my machines, that's all I can say.