Mike's PCjr Page

The other major open source EDA suite is GEDA.

I used to like it better than KiCAD until I got used to KiCAD, now I like KiCAD better (mainly because I can export my designs from the PCB program to FreeRouter, which is much better than any of the built-in routing programs in any of the EDA suites I've tried).

I think GEDA still only runs on Linux, though.

I never auto-route a final design. Every one I've ever tried is just plain bad. They sometime are useful for suggesting paths. But most wont even do basic gate swapping.

Some of the higher end tools have descent parallel bus routing. Almost essential for impedance matching. But even those require lots of manual rework after the initial pass.

FreeRouter has some pretty painless manual routing modes as well.

Option D it is. Next spin will have all three

Correction, it may not have Compact Flash. There is only about .4" between the 40-pin IDE header and the CF socket pins. That's nearly impossible to route in 2 layers. I'm looking for alternatives atm.

alanh wrote:Correction, it may not have Compact Flash. There is only about .4" between the 40-pin IDE header and the CF socket pins. That's nearly impossible to route in 2 layers. I'm looking for alternatives atm.

I think that's fine. CF adapters are cheap and easy to find, anyway.

I'm likely going to have to push this another week. I have to fly to south Texas tomorrow for a couple days as the proverbial **** hit the fan at the factory. I have most everything layed out. I measured the side car pins today so hopefully that issue is resolved. The CF adapter is definitely out.

OK, So the boards came in today! I have some good news and some bad... nm, a lot of good news! The pins fit! The drills are perhaps a bit on the loose side, but they do snug up nicely with a pair of needle nose leveraged against the board pulling them through. The only concern I have after grafting the side car connector to a board tonight is given the force needed to push and pull the pins, they aren't as straight as they used to be on the new board. So chaining a side-car downstream of the JR-IDE is probably not going to be possible unless you are really really anal in setting up the pins and mating the two side-cars. I've also had a lot of difficulty with the first spin some of which I'm starting to suspect is a lack of sufficient power supply. I'm going to add an AC side car to my JR when I install this round to see if anything changes. Everything else seems good My tentative plans are to solder up my boards tomorrow. Do some basic prove outs and testing of the PLD code towards the end of the week and into the weekend. Mail everything out early next week. I have boards + complete parts kits + Byte Blaster programming cables for:

Mike: 1 side car board + 1 programming cable + 1 ultimate cartridge bonus board
Jeff: 2 side car boards + 1 ISA card + 1 programming cable + 1 ultimate cartridge bonus board
jmetal88 (OMG what's your name?): 1 side car board + 1 programming cable (sorry ran out of the bonus boards)
aitotat (OMG what's his name too?): 1 ISA card + 1 programming cable
Me: 1 side car board + 1 ISA card + 1 ultimate cartridge bonus board

PM me your snail mail addresses, email addresses, and other then Mike and Jeff, your real names. I've already contacted aitotat separately.

During this week, I'd like to discuss via email how to manage collecting information (mainly documentation) learned during the first board boot strap. Here works for me, however I have a feeling the ISA version will become the 'new' XT-IDE. And aitotat doesn't really post here.

-Alan

Excellent! I'm looking forward to reworking the BIOS that I have for the new board!


Mike

I did get a valid signed quote back from State Electronics for AMP 532773-2 (60 pin stacked box connector) $8.90 and AMP 532771-2 (60 pin shroud) $0.75. I think I might order 25 of each to have on-hand. I have another request for quote out. Going to wait for it first. Would save tearing up side-cars.