What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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I am sure some point the Atari chips were identified as being one of the ricoh PLDs...Can anyone remember the part number or has the datasheet ? I did have it at some point but I cannot find it :roll:
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

Post by czietz »

There were several manufacturers of ASICs for Atari. With respect to Ricoh, these are not PLDs per se, rather gate arrays, the 5GH series: https://archive.org/details/bitsavers_r ... /page/n101
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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:thanksyellow:
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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czietz wrote: Thu Apr 04, 2019 6:55 pm There were several manufacturers of ASICs for Atari.
Would you know any other manufactures of the chips ?
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

Post by czietz »

From my list, only for the 16/32 bit line of computers. (There were more manufacturers for the 8 bit computers and the game consoles.)

- IMP (a lot of chips)
- National Semiconductor (Blitter, some chips in the TT)
- ST, RCA (other manufacturers of the Blitter)
- LSI Logic, Toshiba (chips in the Falcon)
- Universal Semiconductor (tentative, possible maker of the -20 chips in the earliest STs)

Why do you ask?
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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czietz wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 12:39 pm From my list, only for the 16/32 bit line of computers. (There were more manufacturers for the 8 bit computers and the game consoles.)

Why do you ask?
Another pointless endeavour probably. Though was probing to see if any chips have any chance of being cloned/read or even getting the netlist made for them. I talked about this before, I think its possible, but costs are high as I found before. I'm really just trying to see if there are any alternatives than going to FPGA.

Its just so annoying as the Atari chipset is basically all I want and they will overclock, but with some silly issues.. but if those wakestates were fixed and a few other tweaks, they would be fine to use "as is" . Not simple or cheap, but I just want to see if there are any options whatsoever.
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

Post by czietz »

These are all either gate arrays or fully custom chips. They cannot be "read" like, e.g., a GAL or a CPLD. One can decapsulate them and given enough money (or crazy skills like ijor has) one can reverse-engineer the netlist from there.

But even given a netlist that might look like this (snippet of an original Atari ASIC netlist):

Code: Select all

(P4006        I2         P4006-O P4007-O
(P4008        I2         P4008-O P4006-O
(P4009        FF2        P4009-Q P4009-XQ CLK+ P4009-XQ CLK- RESET-
(P4010        FF2        P4010-Q P4010-XQ P4009-XQ P4010-XQ P4009-Q RESET-
(P4011        FF2        P4011-Q P4011-XQ P4010-XQ P4011-XQ P4010-Q RESET-
(P4012        FF2        P4012-Q P4012-XQ P4011-XQ P4012-XQ P4011-Q RESET-
(P4013        SAB        P4013-O P4012-Q P4011-Q P4002-Q6 P4002-XQ6
(P4014        SAB        P4014-O P4013-O P4015-O P4002-Q7 P4002-XQ7
(P4016        I2         P4016-O P4014-O
(P4015        SAB        P4015-O P4010-Q P4009-Q P4002-Q6 P4002-XQ6
(P4017        SAB        P4017-O P4016-O SCLK1B- CLKSC1B+ CLKSC1B-
(P4018        TS3        P4018-ON P4018-OP CLK1BEN+ P4017-O
... what would you do with it? This is not directly synthesizable in an FPGA.
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Re: What PLD were the Atari chips? ricoh.. ?

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czietz wrote: Sun Sep 29, 2019 1:13 pm ... what would you do with it? This is not directly synthesizable in an FPGA.
Yeah, If the netlist could be converted to a logic block, that could be copied over the Quartus like I was planning with the blitter. It would help to have a proper schematic of it, but I have no idea whats possible.

There is the STE combel where I think you recovered its design, possible that might be a better direction to look into.
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viewtopic.php?f=17&t=1585 Have you done the Mandatory Fixes ?
Just because a lot of people agree on something, doesn't make it a fact. ~exxos ~
People should find solutions to problems, not find problems with solutions.
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