zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

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PaulJ
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Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by PaulJ »

derkom wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:59 pm FWIW, I've done plenty of work on these old machines with no-lead solder (we also cannot get leaded solder around here) and the only solder-related problems I've had have been due to my incompetence, not due to the solder composition. Leaded may be preferable to some people, but it's by no means a requirement. I would be surprised if your solder composition is the cause of your problems.
I'm sure you can successfully use no-lead solder but why would you want to as a hobbyist? The melting point of NL is 220C while leaded solder is 190C. Thats a huge difference and for someone who doesn't have the experience your chance of lifting a pad is greatly increases especially if that pad has been previously soldered. For manufacturing of electronic components I fully support the use of NL solder but for the hobbyist your chances of developing a successful soldering technique is greatly increased with leaded solder. Is leaded solder against the law or just not sold? I did read that in the EU manufacturing of electronics mandates NL solder but I didn't see anything restricting hobbyists to NL solder.

As a side observation on the first H5 boards one of the fixes required the the removal of a surface mount ic. It was a b1tch removing the chip. With the gold plated traces and NL solder the amount of heat required was way beyond what I normally use. You really worry about the pads and traces when so much heat is required. Anyway this old codger uses lead and always will. Have a supply that will outlast me. :D
zChris
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Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by zChris »

PhilC wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 2:58 pm It's one I built, so should be good. If anything I would recommend upgrading it to the latest firmware @zChris as this mDe things alot more stable for me
Where can i get hold of this firmware?

/zChris
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PhilC
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Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by PhilC »

If it ain't broke, test it to Destruction.
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derkom
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Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by derkom »

PaulJ wrote: Mon Mar 29, 2021 4:05 pm Is leaded solder against the law or just not sold?
Around here it is illegal to sell leaded solder except to appropriately licenced professionals. Of course if one really wants leaded, it can easily be purchased on eBay/AliExpress and imported. I don't know if that's legal or not, but it's not something that's enforced if it's not.
Technoid6502
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Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:17 pm

Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by Technoid6502 »

Hi there. I've got my TF536 and a 1040STfm. My decoder, dualtos board, and 4meg ram upgrade are in the mail.

I'm following this thread with bated breath. Please let me know what your progress is.

Best,

Jeff
zChris
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Joined: Fri Nov 27, 2020 10:13 pm

Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by zChris »

Technoid6502 wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 9:05 pm Hi there. I've got my TF536 and a 1040STfm. My decoder, dualtos board, and 4meg ram upgrade are in the mail.

I'm following this thread with bated breath. Please let me know what your progress is.

Best,

Jeff
Will do jeff! let me know how it works out for you aswell. Currently im waiting on a PSU i got from the exxos store.

My status now is that i consistently get the diskdrive tick at the beginning, it says ram 512kb OK then it says "Memory check cancel" and then it either stops or either go to drawing the bee and 11 bombs.

/zChris
zChris
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Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by zChris »

Hello,

Atm im trying to use a raspberry pi 2 model b (latest version of raspbian) to update TF536. I'm following this guide https://anastas.io/hardware/2020/09/29/ ... sprog.html . I have TF536 in the Atari with the decoder board to power it.

I then try to connect to the chip with sudo ./xc3sprog -c matrix_creator -j.
It gives No JTAG chain found

I then try sudo ./xc3sprog -c sysfsgpio_creator -j.
Which also gives No JTAG chain found.

I have NOT used pin 3.3v, only measured it to be 3.3v. The poweradapter for raspberry is an official adapter for Rpi. I measured PWR2 which had 5v.

Also checked the ohm between the pins and its 0.5 - 0.6. Any tips or ideas? My setup looks like this:

DSC_1146.JPG
DSC_1146.JPG (349.5 KiB) Viewed 4351 times
Technoid6502
Posts: 10
Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:17 pm

Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by Technoid6502 »

As for results that you can see, beyond a buncha bombs, I thumbed my gotek through a bunch of disks until, with the TF536 installed on a 1mb 1040st with TOS 1.04, booting the second disk of Air Support, I get graphics and stuff that was very encouraging. My guess is that this game overwrites TOS at an early stage of the boot process, taking control itself. Give that a try, just for moral support.

Best,

Jeff
Technoid6502
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Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:17 pm

Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by Technoid6502 »

As for programming the TF536, I used a Xylinx platform device with the Xylinx ISE 14.7 under WIndows 7 (in a virtual machine under Linux). If you use other versions of the Xilinx software, the machine will report that nothing is on the chain. So, best guess, is that you are not running v14.7.

Best,

Jeff
Technoid6502
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Joined: Tue Jan 19, 2021 2:17 pm

Re: zChrises 520 STfm + TF536 project.

Post by Technoid6502 »

Well, I have the 4meg mod working, awesome! I've also been tinkering with EMUTOs from floppy, which is also awesome.

Today I assembled my DualTos board. I have a 'silly' 1040st. The original roms were just two, one hi and one lo, under the power supply. The arrangement of the roms is the same as the MEGA version of the dualtos board BUT for the fact that HI and LO rom locations are reversed. I think that this would simply be a matter of reading the flash rom on my burner, inverting everything the appropriate way, and burning it back? Is that a pipe dream? Any suggestions on the layout of the rom so that I don't have to reinvent the wheel to invert it and swap Hi for Lo?

Best,

Jeff
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