Mike's PCjr Page

Hi - I'm confused on that last part. I know the BIOS for the Jr needs some refinement, but it's enough to boot and run a hard drive and it's stable. What test code did Jeff provide?

On the todo list:

• Remove my BASIC cartridge "chicken switch" that disables the BIOS
• Use the extra memory for the drive parameter table instead of the reserved areas
• Possible BIOS extensions for the RTC

Mike

Yup, I agree, I got Mike's version of the BIOS up and running a couple of weeks ago, and it's been working great for me!

alanh wrote:PCBs came in except the order was 8 short. I have 12 bare boards and Laen is looking into where the other 8 went.

I just have not had anytime to work on this at all. I need to get some form of documentation up. And there really isn't much of a BIOS for them yet aside from some basic test code supplied by Jeff. I promise to work on this during the week to try and get things into a distributable status by next weekend. Sorry for the delays.

This is a hobby, not a job No need to apologize.

OK, bad news, good news, and 'eh' news. I spent most of the day trying to improve compatibility with certain devices not behaving well with either the Jr side-car or ISA card versions of the board. I wasn't really successful. Specifically the Transcend flash DoMs I have just won't work reliably. It may be possible to improve compatibility in the future, but for now the current setup will have to suffice. There are a number of drives and modules tested working. Over the next week, I'd like some help compiling those. That's the bad news.

The good news is that I'm going to plow along as-is. I don't believe there is anything fundamentally wrong in hardware. 12 PCBs are in and the replacements for the lost 8 will be in a couple months. I have 22 side car connectors remaining and I've ordered parts kits. So pricing breaks down as follows:

PCB: $20
Complete parts kit W/ PLDs: $40
PLDs only: $15
New side-car connector: $10
Assembly & testing: $25
Flat rate shipping (USA only): $5
International shipping (USPS 1st Class): TBD

You can order anything ala-cart. With the exception of assembly/test, those prices are either at or below individual cost (due to group buy). The PLDs in the parts kits come pre-programmed with the latest PLD netlist and tested. However, I'm leaving everyone on their own if there is a need to field reprogram the PLDs due to later compatibility improvement changes. You can buy ByteBlaster II cables off eBay for ~$25 shipped. Or you can send them back to me via normal post (Georgia-USA) and I'll reprogram them for free.

As always I have a public SVN at:

http://www.retrotronics.org/svn/jride/trunk/

Which includes the BOM, board files, HDL source and utility source.

The 'eh' news is I haven't had time this week to start working on wiki page and content. I could really use some help otherwise it might be slow going.

I am taking orders, but I wont be invoicing anyone until the parts kits come in (if you've ordered some). I expect that towards the end of this week. PayPal is preferred however other payment options can be discussed.

Jeff tried a different brand of DOM while he was here a few weeks ago. I was able to get it partitioned and to do a speed test against it, but my DOS 5 patching did not work to make it bootable. Not quite sure what is going on there.

I'll get back to work finishing the BIOS so that it doesn't cause any conflicts with reserved memory. AT clock support will be next. But at least you can ship out BIOS chips that are flashed with something reasonable.

And I'm up for working on the Wiki too.


MIke

It was a Kingspec DOM (8 gig).
http://www.kingspec.com/solid-state-dis ... d-40vs.htm

I haven't done anything with it since, but it sure seemed to work great on both the PCjr and ISA versions, and this is what I'll be using to populate my sidecar. The form factor is small enough that it easily fits inside the shell, is low power and low heat obviously. It's standard 40pin header, so I think all I would need to do is use a 90 degree IDE header so it'll lay flat against the PCB when plugged in. I would also jumper a wire for delivering 5v on pin 20 so that the DOM can be self powered whenever plugged in. (although I'm not sure where the closest 5v source is near the pin header, but that's a quick multimeter job)

BTW Jeff the production boards are cut down so that a right angle connector will float the DoM in the sidecar. They also have a jumper to route +5v to the key pin.

F*n Mouser has the 7seg LEDs on back-order and Digikey is out of stock. When I placed the order they had an estimated ship date of Apr 2. They haven't updated the ETA since.

Parts shipped yesterday from Mouser. Should be here Monday'ish.

How difficult would you rate building out one of the "kits" might be? Is this something a layman could do, or do you really need to have an engineering background to tackle it? The possibilities of this project are intriguing, but I would be lying if I said I understood everything that is being discussed.

All of alan's designs are dead simple to solder together.
The PCBs have giant pads on them, all the parts are through-hole, there's not even that many components. Having built over 100 XTIDE cards over the past few years, alan's builds were an absolute joy to do. What we do need is a nice hi-res photo of an assembled unit, so we can properly see all the orientation of the parts.