exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

PhilC wrote: 05 Mar 2020 19:43 It needs a name, so for consistency, FlappyFlippyRam?

@Icky is the naming guy...

ASCEP springs to my mind.... Another Super Cool Exxos Project.

The headers give it away :)

I would call it the H4 RAMdomizer

Icky wrote: 05 Mar 2020 20:08 The headers give it away :)

I would call it the H4 RAMdomizer

:lolbig: :bravo:

Started routing the RAMdomizer... Had to dose up on ibuprofen gel though :roll: With this been a relatively simple port to route, I hope it won't take too long :)

So I did actually finished this board but then decided rather than do a separate board for the 4 bit chips, I would mash on the sockets on the bottom... Then because there was space for eight socket, and only four chips are needed for 512K.. I decided to put eight sockets on... Basically this got a whole lot more complicated very quickly :lol: :roll: I'm also hoping that I don't have to change the RAM resistors because this board is pretty large... So currently I'm trying to optimise everything as much as possible...It is getting there slowly...

Why do all the sockets as ZIF? One must be enough (or two) for testing and then solder the rest directly to the board? Maybe it is just quicker to test all the chips the same time and size doesn't really matter I suppose? You also need to have some type of support on the bottom.

DoG wrote: 09 Mar 2020 14:51 Why do all the sockets as ZIF? One must be enough (or two) for testing and then solder the rest directly to the board?

When you have hundreds of chips to test, testing the same 15 chips over and over is a bit of a waste of time.. it would take me 15 longer to test them all.

exxos wrote: 09 Mar 2020 15:02

DoG wrote: 09 Mar 2020 14:51 Why do all the sockets as ZIF? One must be enough (or two) for testing and then solder the rest directly to the board?

When you have hundreds of chips to test, testing the same 15 chips over and over is a bit of a waste of time.. it would take me 15 longer to test them all.

Yup, tedious work indeed. I thought the changing of the chip that took the longest time, but it doesn't really matter when you do it. It's the same amount of time I guess.

DoG wrote: 09 Mar 2020 15:12 Yup, tedious work indeed. I thought the changing of the chip that took the longest time, but it doesn't really matter when you do it. It's the same amount of time I guess.

ZIF Allow me to just put the chip in the socket without having to straighten all the pins first which is where the bulk of the time goes. With turn pin sockets every pin has to be spot-on otherwise it does not fit.. And I end up spending lots of time trying to do just that. Spring-loaded sockets tend to break after several insertions then having to spend more time replacing sockets..and even if things go well that particular motherboard will just die no reason at all and I will have to start all over again changing sockets.. I really am "done" screwing around with these old motherboards.

Now I have a working set of H4's, with this adapter board it is going to save me a phenomenal amount of time and effort in testing RAM chips.

I think I am done for now.... I really need the sockets to come to make sure it all physically fits together before anything else...

I'm not planning on getting these made straight away... I don't know if anyone else is interested in one of these boards or not ? cause I don't know if these will work or not, but first runs of stuff generally don't anyway :lol: :roll: