Revisions of the STE motherboard ?

[exxos]

I was sent this page which is in french. But some translations later show...

Did you think it was over? Come on then! There is a problem connecting an external drive. Let's say it works... a little. But not much more. Obviously, we might believe that the STE entrusted to us has a problem, but when it is not the only one!

We can also, by dismantling the STE, ask ourselves questions. Two of the three square circuits mounted on support are doubly blocked on them. We already knew that they had a tendency to come out of their supports without warning, but to this extent!

Then the most impressive thing is to see that the revision number of the motherboard is not printed, but written by hand, and that we are already on the fourteenth version! In addition, the card has some unaesthetic corrections, and in any case particularly bizarre (circuit legs cut and connected to other points on the card...)

Can someone offer any better translation ? I think it's mostly OK as it is.

But I wonder , 14 revisions of the STE ? Hand written numbers and what seems to be a LOT of bodges on them ? It's a shame they did not post images of those boards. It's unclear how the author of the article obtained such boards. Sample maybe ? Early production runs ? I have never seen or heard of such boards. It seems clear (again) that the STE had a lot of issues and revisions durings it production.

I also wonder if those boards was where the DMA issues originated from when apparently "such boards were unlikely to make it into users hands". Article HERE. It is only speculation but if you took these two pieces of information you could easily assume that the first boards off the production line were a lot worse than the ones we generally see today and those are the ones where issue started to originate from. Again I assume these could have possibly been "review boards" . Then the ones that we see later were later "fixed" boards which Atari never fully fixed the DMA problems in the main production runs.

I'm certainly not wanting to go down the DMA hole again. I really don't care about it any more. I am merely interested as to what these boards were and how presumably reviewers obtained them, or did they even make it into users hands and the first of productions were the ones that magazines reviewed with all their issues.. I suspect the bad articles on the STE were such "review boards" where there were issues as mentioned in the articles.

Atari did more revisions, but as they didn't fully fix the DMA issues, this could be where the confusion starts from. As reviewers were talking about basically Alpha boards, that I will call them now, but the same DMA problems were reported in main productions runs where. Clearly these boards mentioned do not sound like the boards we generally see in production.

Did anyone ever see images of such boards ? I think it would be interesting to see.. More information on this is definitely needed..

st magazine - N036 - decembre janvier 89 90 - page020 et 021.jpg

https://www.abandonware-magazines.org/a ... &album=oui

[olivier.jan]

Just read the full article and it seems they are complaining about a production machine, not a review board.
They mention that their initial review (2 month before) was done on a « review machine » which had proper SIMM slots while the new one only has SIP.
So I guess it’s a very early production run they tested and if this initial run was small it might explain why not too many have surfaced.

[exxos]

Just read the full article and it seems they are complaining about a production machine, not a review board.

Interesting, thanks..

They mention that their initial review (2 month before) was done on a « review machine » which had proper SIMM slots while the new one only has SIP.

That is interesting in itself. Maybe related, but IIRC, some STE's seemed to go from simms back to sips at some point. Could have just been parts shortages or cost related though at the time.

I will see if I can look back a couple issues to see if there is any mention of that.. unless you could check as I don't read French :)

2 issues previous mention STE on the cover... https://download.abandonware.org/magazi ... %20017.jpg

So I guess it’s a very early production run they tested and if this initial run was small it might explain why not too many have surfaced.

Could well be yes.

It begs the questions , where did those machines end up. Who else had the early machines to test and what the heck was Atari thinking sending out such bad review machines in the first place.

[exxos]

Actually an image in that issue as well.

At a glance it looks like the Early production boards before the "chip bodge" on it.

st magazine - N034 - octobre 1989 - page016 et 017.jpg

st magazine - N034 - octobre 1989 - page018 et 019.jpg

Looking at one of the early boards..

ste.png

I noticed below the shifter where the oscillator is that there is an IC where is on later boards it seems to be much more complicated circuit.. Also top right near the RS232 circuit looks different.

It is difficult to tell much because the image in the article is bad resolution..

1.PNG

It does say.

On the other hand, this photo is that of a pre-production card (a 520 STE of 4 Megas) and it is entirely possible that changes have taken place since then

CA40030-9.0.1

Though the one under review later doesn't sound like that style of board. :shrug:

[czietz]

Tbh, considering how they mislabel the chips in the magazine (e.g., labelling the Blitter als "new GLUE"), I would take the rest of the information in this article with a grain of salt, too. Such as the claim about 14 revisions. Maybe it said "rev 1.4" :lol: on the board.

[olivier.jan]

Yes, they actually didn’t have a machine for the review, it’s mentioned they got all information by phone.
From what I understand they were supposed to get a machine but a fire at Atari’s French headquarters made it difficult to get production machines on time, which is why they finally did the review 2 issues later.
I checked on the web and the fire actually happened on August 29th 1989 (http://atari.fr.free.fr/atariavenue/histoire.htm), so just 1 month before this issue was published.

[exxos]

wow didn't know that either. I guess that explains a few things then.

On Tuesday, August 29, 1989, around 5:30 p.m., a terrible fire completely destroyed the ATARI France premises located in SURESNES rue Sentou, but the subsidiary had strong shoulders, and a week later activity resumed at full speed in new premises. located in GENNEVILLIERS avenue Louis Roche.

[atari030]

Maybe its worth documenting what forum members have? Serial number, Board, TOS revision, blitter etc. I have three STE's, one has DMA issues I need to resolve the others are rock solid. I've only ever seen one with SIPP's and I don't recall it being an old TOS but it was 20 years ago when I looked at it.

[exxos]

Maybe its worth documenting what forum members have? Serial number, Board, TOS revision, blitter etc.

We have a list of motherboards in the motherboard forum. There is probably several main variations. But mostly i was interested in the very early runs. That article image seems to be a very early variation which it's good to know about. But there must be some even earlier versions going by what the article said. I fear those will never see the light of day now.

[atari030]

It's not too hard to get a handle on STFM variations I suppose, but these STE's are doing my OCD in.