exxos's Atari, Amiga & retro forum

Hi all,

With all the time on hand ATM(social distancing / lockdown), thought I would build a TF534 in preparation for hopefully a bulk release of the TF536 PCBs in the near future. Realizing that the current situation will most likely push the bulk release way to the right, this would be a good project to checkout the process in building a TF board.

I had obtained most of the items to complete the build last year, but decided to shelve the project when Terriblefire decided to give the TF536 another go in January, and managed to solve the previous issues experienced in 2019.

The TF534 when together without hitch, I do not have a stereo microscope on my bench, I simply use a magnifying lamp with approx 5 times magnification and a cheap USB microscope for inspection.

I have been using a soldering iron most of my life, and I have to say the 0.5 mm pitch on the cplds was a little challenging at first, but managed to devise a method that worked well in the end. The cplds were recognised on first power up and the firmware uploaded without a problem :)

The only essential items I have missing to complete the build, are the alliance memory chips, none available from digikey or mouser, but I managed to order some from RS in the UK, that was over 6 weeks ago, I think they must be on the slow boat to OZ ;) still have not arrived.

I have looked through these forums to see if there are any further tests I could conduct, but I did not find anything.

So just one simple question is there any other tests that are worthwhile conducting, or do I just put it to bed until the memory arrives :?:

Gday from WA!

Which side of the country are you on?

I've had items from UK arrive within 3 weeks of order,

But a PCMCIA wifi card from QLD is now at the 4 week mark. Figure that out.

matt020 wrote: 20 Apr 2020 03:56 Gday from WA!

Which side of the country are you on?

How you going Matt,
Sunny SEQLD mate, about 100k from Brissy out in the country live on a small hobby farm.

Yea mate usually only 2-3 weeks from the UK, have ordered plenty of items in the past, but these are very different times ATM.

Geez 4 weeks from QLD to WA :shock: must be coming via camel train through the desert :D

Hope you are all healthy over in the west? I spent a couple of years living there in the mid 90s but could never get use to the sand ;)

If you run it without memory and everything else works you'll get a red memory defective screen, you can click continue and you'll be able to boot.

terriblefire wrote: 20 Apr 2020 08:41 If you run it without memory and everything else works you'll get a red memory defective screen, you can click continue and you'll be able to boot.

Thanks for the info, will give it a whirl in a few days time. Tractor issues this arvo on goes the overalls

Danoo wrote: 20 Apr 2020 09:33 Thanks for the info, will give it a whirl in a few days time. Tractor issues this arvo on goes the overalls

Sorry cant help you there. Only tractor i know anything about is the TEF20

terriblefire wrote: 20 Apr 2020 09:40

Sorry cant help you there. Only tractor i know anything about is the TEF20

:lol: Use to have a Massey Ferg. on another farm I owned, left it there when I sold the farm. They are near on bullet proof, pleasure to work on.
Hope you are recovering from the lurgy, read in another thread you were pretty crook.

terriblefire wrote: 20 Apr 2020 08:41 If you run it without memory and everything else works you'll get a red memory defective screen, you can click continue and you'll be able to boot.

Overalls off, finally got back to the TF534, the memory has still not arrived :( , but RS did send a dispatch notice on Friday so hopefully it will arrive sometime this week.

Decided to give it a test with DiagRom in a A500 to see if it would boot.

Booted in DiagROM without a hitch so it is looking promising, just need to add some memory and the IDE connector.

Was going to try it with KS 3.1 but ran out of time.

Memory arrived yesterday :), hopefully I will find a hour or two to complete the build over the weekend

Righty-O,
Memory soldered on, there were a few memory errors in DiagRom on the initial boot, I suspected there might be a few, as I was enjoying a couple of sherbets during the soldering process.

About 10 minutes of continuity tests on the address lines between memory chips identified a couple of ordinary joints, which subsequently copped a re-flow, and the memory errors were history :)

Swapped my test board to a 500+ so I would have more chip RAM available, and started throwing heaps of demos and games at it to see
how it would perform.

Geez, I have to say IMHO this board hits the sweet spot on a A500 / 500+, everything I tested was silky smooth :D

Thank you Terriblefire :thanksblue:, I should have built one of these ages ago.

Patiently awaiting the TF536 release, will build a few of these for myself, and friends :mrgreen: