1 Jul
2003
1 Jul
'03
11:38 a.m.
Hi Tony,
The VME interface doesn't have any big chips. It's TTL buffers and a few
small PALs...
No idea... What (if any) chips are missing from
your Stickleback, other
than the Ethernet chipset?
I haven't had time to open the case today, but a glance the other day didn't
show anything big around the VME bus interface; it looked to all be 16 pin
chips and the like. I got an email from the guy today saying the following:
[ Not a theory - I know that one is the original prototype. The VME interface
[ didn't work on that PCB issue. I've an idea that it's got a prototype
EPROM
[ in it that doesn't require a key disk. IIRC on that box of Eproms I gave you
[ there is a "Simon" eprom - that's a debug boot EPROM that doesn't use
the
[ key disk system
Interesting. I noticed that Simon ROM and wondered what it did :-)
Hmmm.. i have Simon too, but I thought it still needed the key disk. It
lets you boot from arbitrary files on the hard disk, though which is what
makes it useful. But UniPlus+ still seems to need a key disk to boot...
The monitor I
am thinking of is almost entirely a Sony chassis, with a
little Torch PCB at the input carrying the 8 pin DIN socket and
connectors to the monitor video board (flat in the bottom) and the speaker.
that's what the 10" ones are like inside. I pulled the case the other day to
see what the connections were but didn't need to
go any further than the small
PCB carrying the connector so I don't know what's lurking deeper within (yet)
Can't help you. The power control is handled via the service processor
(6803 IIRC)...
I think that 'NC' pin is for the
interrupt input from the touch switch.
there's some bodged circuitry (cut tracks, extra capacitor and a desoldered
resistor etc.) in the corner of the board near the video circuitry. Maybe
that's something to do with the power-mechanism bypass (or might well be
something else entirely) One question?
Is there a ROM or EPROM on this board connected to the 1MHz
bus side of things? The reason I ask is that there's some feature of the
BBC micro where you can get it to execute code from a ROM in one of the
1MHz bus address spaces after a reset, if you hold one of the interrupt
lines low or something. I wonder if that's where it gets the hard disk
drivers from...
No, not on the SASI board. There's a Torch ROM on the Xebec controller, but the