ST-IDE-ROM Dev Board v1 - BETA Testers

[rubber_jonnie]

Yeah, a focused @rubber_jonnie can be a scary thing.. who would have guessed what heights he could achieve. To dilute the water since I'm out of Atari stuff to build I've been playing with the 3d printer which works well. Have dedicated a room to printing. What do you use to design objects? Since the printer is approximately eight meters away from my main computer as the cable runs has anyone successfully run a long usb cable over five meters and got it function properly. I've exceeded ethernet maximums a number of times with no adverse effects but USB maybe a different animal. Looking into some usb extenders that convert from USB->ethernet->USB. Appears to be the best answer. Also any recommended 3d cad program? I've been playing with tinkered and it maybe all I need since my needs are modest at this point.

@PaulJ For 3d stuff I use Fusion 360 because if you are a maker, the license is free. I tried a load of others, but for me it seemed to be the best. I haven't used my 3d printer in a little while though, I should really get back to it while I have extra time on my hands. Now I have a permanent work desk setup, I can plug in my secondary monitor which makes 3d stuff a bit easier.

My 3d Printer lives upstairs in the man cave, but I use an old laptop running Repetier server free version to manage it. I can create on my laptop using Fusion 360, slice using Cura, then upload the job to Repetier over my network. I don't leave the 3d Printer powered up all the time, so I need to go plug it in, then I start the job via the repetier web front end and can monitor progress from anywhere, including my mobile.

[JezC]

@PaulJ
I think you can go over 5m length by using a plain USB hub...so up to 5m from PC to hub & then up to 5m from hub to device.
I think you can even go up to 7 hubs in total (but one is sometimes inside the PC) so 30m+ is possible with plain USB.
If it was bus powered rather than self powered you need powered hubs but I expect your printer has a mains plug...

[PhilC]

@PaulJ to give you Nother option, why not look at Octoprint and hook a raspberry pi up to your printer? Its similar to what RJ is using but physically much smaller Bd means you can put the printer anywhere that will connect to your home network.

[PaulJ]

I believe your correct @JezC , I'm leaning toward the usb-> ethernet interfaces though because each unit is powered by usb connection on its end and they have good reviews. I'm using simplify3d which has some pretty neat monitoring capabilities so I want that direct connection instead of putting the print file on a SD card and walking it to the printer.

Is it just me or does Thingiverse suck.. as far as speed goes. Maybe everyones home looking for things to print? Don't know but today it took 2 minutes for Thingiverse main page to come up. Also there were some Atari items I wanted to print the other day but when you attempted to select the item you would wait and then recieve a 404 error? Now they don't even show up any more.

[PaulJ]

@PaulJ to give you Nother option, why not look at Octoprint and hook a raspberry pi up to your printer? Its similar to what RJ is using but physically much smaller Bd means you can put the printer anywhere that will connect to your home network.

Thanks @PhilC , I'll look into it.

[rubber_jonnie]

So a bit more assembly, annoyingly only one out of two 88 pin PLCC sockets arrived. Enough to get one mostly finished, just the IDE pin header to go on, and I also got the 2x Mega ST adapters mostly finished:

IDE_1.jpg (123.27 KiB) Viewed 3557 times

And the bodge wires under the V1C too:

IDE_1_Underneath.jpg (92.27 KiB) Viewed 3557 times

Too tired for more tonight though, so watched some crap on TV before retiring to bed and the internet. Hopefully get the V1C finished tomorrow all things being equal. Hopefully some of the other parts I have on order will arrive so I can get the Mega interfaces done too, just need the GALs and they are done.

[PaulJ]

@rubber_jonnie , @PhilC , looks like its going to come down to the wire between you guys. Think Phil may have his issue sorted so rubber jonnie your going to need to step on it. Will be interesting to see how those IDE interfaces compare.

[rubber_jonnie]

@rubber_jonnie , @PhilC , looks like its going to come down to the wire between you guys. Think Phil may have his issue sorted so rubber jonnie your going to need to step on it. Will be interesting to see how those IDE interfaces compare.

@PaulJ Fingers crossed I'll be done over the next day or so. I could at least plug it into the H4 or another machine to test the ROM functionality. Will see what I can do tonight.

[rubber_jonnie]

Quick lunchtime test, IDE card plugged into an STFM with ROMs removed, 68k also fitted to IDE card, and boot is fine to TOS 2.06 and 1.04. Need to plug it into the H4 next, see what happens.

More to follow.

[rubber_jonnie]

Ok, so boot up tested for TOS 1.04/2.06 in the following confiurations:

1. STFM, ROM and CPU on IDE board, all other ROMs removed.
2. H4, ROM and CPU on IDE board, all other ROMs and PLCC CPU removed.
3. H4, ROM on IDE board, PLCC CPU refitted all other ROMs removed.

All scenarios worked for both versions of TOS.

@exxos I presume if you're going for IDE board based TOS, then you should leave the H4 ROM socket empty? If you wish to use the H4 ROM socket, then the IDE ROM socket should be empty? Also, I presume that even with the IDE board fitted, you cannot use TOS 2.06 from the H4 socket, it has to be in the IDE board?