Sunday with my SuperBoard II

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MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by MK14HAK »

FDC uses $C000-$C004 PIA and $C010,11 ACIA, not sure if fully decoded.
Spotted your OE on Exp pin3 , I guess other addons would supply their own DD gating as per 610 and same could be done for sound etc.
Is 32K sufficient to overcome your OM errors for your arrays ? Maybe only 65U and DMS require 40K or more. Banked RAM would be great for Stephans CC65 port and C compiled programs and Plasma ?
Myself I would disable the lower onboard 8K as the Firmware ROM extensions are more useful but this could all be optional - populate Firmware and sound as you wish but provide the required circuit layout. Same for FDC extensions such as motor on, dual side select. Reset delay cct ...
Would and additional 48 pin backplane bus connection be useful in a C4 ?
Last edited by MK14HAK on Wed Feb 18, 2015 12:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
nama
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by nama »

Just to chime in again.
Certainly a RAM expansion + FDC would have greater usefulness, and if someone was thinking to make a board that did both, again I'd be totally keen.

Phil

2P (1mhz 32k) - 502 + 8k + CEGMON + garbage collector fix BASIC, D&N MEM-CM9 + 24k, 540 (mono) [SOLD]
4PMF (2mhz 24k) - 505, 540, 527, D13 + 5.25" + Gotek
Superboard RevD - CEGMON + 610 board 24k + D13
Spares - 3 x 527, 1 x 505, Backplane
BillO
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by BillO »

I'm reluctant to make this board too complicated as I have seen too many nice simple ideas grow to the point that they get so complicated they never see the light of day. I could add the 8K EPROM and a jumper to switch between RAM and ROM in the space between $8000 and $9FFF, but I think that is as far as I'd like to go on this particular board. Even that will delay things significantly because of my availability over the next few months.

I have no issue with participating in another project, and since this dose not conflict with the FDC, it could be copied verbatim to a larger project that includes the FDC. IF we ever make it down that road, I'd like to see the FDC include the data separator so that off the shelf FD units can be used. Compatibility with 3.5" 720K units would be nice. Does anyone have enough knowledge of the available operating systems to be able to patch of the better ones for larger capacity drives?

It's good to see we have 4 people interested. Including me that makes 5 and about half of what we need to make this economically feasible. I did up a schematic and board for the RAM only using DipTrace. I need to give it a once over to ensure it's accurate, but will post in a few days. They way it stands now with RAM the board is only .81" x 2.85". Just a tad larger than a 60-pin dip.
Box stock Superboard II Rev. B
KLyball replica 600D, replica 610 & KLyball Data Separator
OMS SBME and SBME+ memory cards
OMS Digi-Mule expansion bus
KLyball memory card
stm
Posts: 63
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by stm »

BillO wrote:I'm reluctant to make this board too complicated as I have seen too many nice simple ideas grow to the point that they get so complicated they never see the light of day.
I totally agree to keep things simple and focus on the RAM-only board for now. I hope we can all afford another more capable board with an FDC if it materializes at a later time.
BillO wrote:I have no issue with participating in another project, and since this dose not conflict with the FDC, it could be copied verbatim to a larger project that includes the FDC. IF we ever make it down that road, I'd like to see the FDC include the data separator so that off the shelf FD units can be used. Compatibility with 3.5" 720K units would be nice. Does anyone have enough knowledge of the available operating systems to be able to patch of the better ones for larger capacity drives?

It's good to see we have 4 people interested. Including me that makes 5 and about half of what we need to make this economically feasible. I did up a schematic and board for the RAM only using DipTrace. I need to give it a once over to ensure it's accurate, but will post in a few days. They way it stands now with RAM the board is only .81" x 2.85". Just a tad larger than a 60-pin dip.
Count me for two RAM boards if otherwise not enough people are interested.

Regarding a future board with an FDC, as I personally don't see a chance that I ever get my hands on original OSI floppy drives, I would prefer a FDC board that simulates floppy disks with a SD card. I mean, what's the point in sticking to floppy disks if they are not the original ones anyway? With a SD card you could easily write floppy images from a PC and plug them into a FDC simulator board.
C1P Model 600 CPU 1978 REV B, 40K (8K original and 32K BillO memory expansion), RS-232
Maintainer of cc65 OSI target and llvm-mos-sdk C1P target
Klyball
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Joined: Tue Dec 09, 2014 12:53 am

Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by Klyball »

MK14HAK wrote:Another alternative if Grant is willing to share the 610 netlist is to add your memory and decoder to the 610 FDC circuitry along with ROM , sound and 40 pin expansion. That would be very useful. Anyone ??
Grant has also hinted at colour. I wonder what that entails ?

Mike
Nice Work!!

I am still testing my boards, to make sure that everything is working properly, So far everything is looking good, i got extra boards made to make the cost of this replica more civilized, so i will have a small # of 610 and 600 revD available if anyone is interested , i am going to post the whole project once complete with the net lists , so everyone can go to town

I was also working on a data separator board but looks like there is one in the works , i have mine on breadboard working with old mpi drive, but i found a nice vintage 3 1/2 Toshiba full height that i just started to get going, needs the rdy on 34.. im going to make another thread..

Grant
Replica 600 Rev D:8K,CEGMON
Replica 610 Rev B: 24k,MPI B-51 with Custom Data separator D-13
510 on the bench/replica 582 backplane/replica 470a /replica 555/original 570B/2 x Shugart 851
Ongoing : 630 ,620 ,510,542c,custom 590,SA1200,592,594,596,598
BillO
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by BillO »

I'll be putting updates in the original post at the top.
Box stock Superboard II Rev. B
KLyball replica 600D, replica 610 & KLyball Data Separator
OMS SBME and SBME+ memory cards
OMS Digi-Mule expansion bus
KLyball memory card
MK14HAK
Posts: 356
Joined: Wed Mar 16, 2011 1:49 am
Location: New Zealand

Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by MK14HAK »

Looking good Bill.
I had a number of additional boards on my RevB SII driving the DD line and remember cutting a few of those numerous grounds for other signals, VCC and others.
I will check those out as it may be useful to make some of those grounds an optional link to another pad and an easy track cut option if you want to isolate one or two grounds.
The RAM /ROM addressing options are great. Well done.
I have to sort out some of the Premier BASIC5 routine then I will upload an 8K ROM sometime (or maybe just as is for now).
Mike
600RevB:16K,2MHz,64x32,470,CEGMON
SuperKit:502,540B,542B,CEGMON, 8" and 5" FDDs
Cards:PE IO,6522 D-A-D, AY3-8910,ProgramGraphics,Color,UK101
WIP:HexDOS,FDD Emulator
Steve Gray
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by Steve Gray »

Seems a few days away and I miss a lot! The forum sure seems to have picked up lately!

I'd be interested in a couple of these boards. My superboards aren't working right now, but when they do this will be a nice addition.

As a side thought... Would it be possible to have an option to map the ram starting at $0000? Then people with defective 2114's could remove them completely. It would also reduce the power requirements of the board!

Steve
C4P working, C1P working. 600D Replica working, C4P+D&N floppy not working. 505 board, 610 board, Mittendorf board, TOSIE hacker board need testing, PicoDOS disk untested.
Steve Gray
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by Steve Gray »

Just rambling... My very first computer was the OSI C4P, so of course anything that is C4P compatible would interest me. If you look on www.6502.org you will see many 6502 SBC projects and I find it interesting that when they choose to implement BASIC most of them use the OSI BASIC variant I suppose because it's so simple. What suprises me with these projects is how small they are. These days you can make a complete SBC with CPU, one RAM chip, one ROM chip and perhaps an ACIA for connection to a terminal. It seems like one of these projects could be the basis for a completely new OSI compatible computer. I've been thinking that a small base system would be great as long as it had a simple expansion option for additional capabilities, whether it's OSI's 40-pin socket expansion or something similar. I think about what distinquishes one system from another and a lot of the time hardware-wise it isn't much. Other than CPU/RAM/ROM, you have the video and sound, i/o, keyboard, disk controller etc. For the OSI and particularly the C4P, I think it's the video system that makes it unique. There is no other system that I know of that gives you a 64X32 screen with 8 colours and such a cool character set. I often wish I could recreate a C4P with newer, and fewer parts, but it seems the video system would be the most complicated. Recreating it with modern components would be possible I suppose if we replaced most of the TTL parts with with a CPLD or some other programmable logic. I guess this is what was done with the Briel Superboard III. I wish it could do C4P video. Oh well. And speaking of video, it would be nice if our machines could be connected to a modern VGA monitor since monochrome and crt-based monitors are either scare, or expensive and bulky.

It would be nice if we had complete source for the OSI monitor rom (or maybe CEGMON or WEMON) so that it could be re-assembled with a modern assembler. We could then patch in support for additional features, such as a new disk system using FDC chip (1770, 1793 etc). It would be amazing if we had an SD card storage solution. Things would be so much easier if we could download a game, transfer it to a card, insert into the slot, and boot right into it.

So many ideas, so little time... Rambling off.

Steve
C4P working, C1P working. 600D Replica working, C4P+D&N floppy not working. 505 board, 610 board, Mittendorf board, TOSIE hacker board need testing, PicoDOS disk untested.
BillO
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Re: Sunday with my SuperBoard II

Post by BillO »

Steve Gray wrote:As a side thought... Would it be possible to have an option to map the ram starting at $0000? Then people with defective 2114's could remove them completely. It would also reduce the power requirements of the board!

Steve
Not a bad idea. That might be doable without adding any real complexity. It's on the list to be considered for the final cut.
Box stock Superboard II Rev. B
KLyball replica 600D, replica 610 & KLyball Data Separator
OMS SBME and SBME+ memory cards
OMS Digi-Mule expansion bus
KLyball memory card
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