6 Dec
2002
6 Dec
'02
8:02 a.m.
Hi all,
I've finally found the glitch in my Jupiter Ace. When the power supply
was momentarily reversed (and applied to the I/O port), the CPU (a NEC
D780C) and one of the RAMs (NatSemi MM2114) packed up. After replacing the
CPU with a spare (OK, I pinched it out of a Toshiba HX-10 MSX), I've managed
to perform a bit of testing. With the CPU out, everything looked good. When
I powered up and probed all the data and I/O lines, D7 was locked to 0V and
D6 was sitting at around 2.5V. Obviously, something was overloading the
Z80's data bus, causing it to overheat significantly. After removing the RAM
(and nearly pulling up four pads), the Z80 seems to be running fine. RFSH is
pulsing, as are M1 and CLK. The data and address lines look OK on my scope,
too.
So, it looks like the Z80 bit the dust when the PSU touched the I/O
port, then it proceeded to dump 9V into D6 and D7. After that, it let out
the magic smoke. Thankfully both ROMs (TMS2532s - TI's clone of the 2732)
seem to be OK.
The only "interesting" thing is that the current draw is around 500mA
with everything except one of the RAMs and the CPU fitted. With the CPU (a
Sharp LH0080A) fitted, the current consumption rises to approx. 620mA. Can
someone with a working Ace please check the current consumption of their
unit for me?
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
6 Dec
6 Dec
8:18 a.m.
New subject: TI-2532 (was Re: The ACE is recovering :-))
--- Philip Pemberton <philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Thankfully both ROMs (TMS2532s - TI's clone of the
2732) seem to be OK.
Good thing, too, because the 2532 is not pin-compatible with the 2732.
It's pin-compatible with the 2332 mask-programmed ROM.
The 2532 is familiar to PET owners - it's what you need to drop right
into the open sockets next to the BASIC ROMs. My 2001-N has three:
BASIC-AID, a replacement machine-language monitor, PAICS BASIC Toolkit
and Eastern House Software's ROM-Rabbit - twelve throbbing K of firmware
goodness. :-)
I was lucky enough to fall into a carton of boards that someone else
pulled from some unknown brand of dumb terminal - a 6502 on every board,
plus several 2532s and some wierd stuff like EA-3400 EAROMs. Bonus:
every chip was socketed!
I always inspect stuff from the 1980s for 2532s. They were much less
commonly used than the 2732s. OTOH, if you only need 2K, the 2716
works fine in a PET.
-ethan
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8:47 a.m.
New subject: TI-2532 (was Re: The ACE is recovering :-))
Ethan, good advice. I also think that since many of these chips are rare,
it's worth the effort to pull them out of their sockets, drop them into a
burner and copy them out to hex files for archival storage. Does anybody do
this as a practice, or am I overly paranoid? --Patrick
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-admin@classiccmp.org]On
Behalf Of Ethan Dicks
Sent: Friday, December 06, 2002 11:21 AM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: TI-2532 (was Re: The ACE is recovering :-))
--- Philip Pemberton <philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com> wrote:
Thankfully both ROMs (TMS2532s - TI's clone
of the 2732) seem to be OK.
Good thing, too, because the 2532 is not pin-compatible with the 2732.
It's pin-compatible with the 2332 mask-programmed ROM.
The 2532 is familiar to PET owners - it's what you need to drop right
into the open sockets next to the BASIC ROMs. My 2001-N has three:
BASIC-AID, a replacement machine-language monitor, PAICS BASIC Toolkit
and Eastern House Software's ROM-Rabbit - twelve throbbing K of firmware
goodness. :-)
I was lucky enough to fall into a carton of boards that someone else
pulled from some unknown brand of dumb terminal - a 6502 on every board,
plus several 2532s and some wierd stuff like EA-3400 EAROMs. Bonus:
every chip was socketed!
I always inspect stuff from the 1980s for 2532s. They were much less
commonly used than the 2732s. OTOH, if you only need 2K, the 2716
works fine in a PET.
-ethan
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
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2:18 p.m.
New subject: TI-2532 (was Re: The ACE is recovering :-))
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7 Dec
7 Dec
1:43 a.m.
New subject: TI-2532 (was Re: The ACE is recovering :-))
Tony Duell wrote:
Am I the only person to _always_ check the PSU on
dummy load before
connecting the rest of the machine?
Possibly! I do take great care with PSUs, though. But I often get
machines where the previous owner has already powered it up several
times to marvel at the flashing lights :-) So, it's usually make
a judgement based in the age and rarity of the machine, and the
probablility of a latent failure. I *don't* just plug 'em in and
hope for the best.
--
John Honniball
coredump(a)gifford.co.uk
6 Dec
6 Dec
11:28 a.m.
This might be a good time to make a dump of the ROMs before one of them bites the dust.
Reversing the voltage on them could have damaged them and they may not last long. It's
not a big risk but without the content of those ROMs the rest of the machine is a
paperweight.
Joe
At 07:05 PM 12/6/02 -0000, you wrote:
Hi all,
I've finally found the glitch in my Jupiter Ace. When the power supply
was momentarily reversed (and applied to the I/O port), the CPU (a NEC
D780C) and one of the RAMs (NatSemi MM2114) packed up. After replacing the
CPU with a spare (OK, I pinched it out of a Toshiba HX-10 MSX), I've managed
to perform a bit of testing. With the CPU out, everything looked good. When
I powered up and probed all the data and I/O lines, D7 was locked to 0V and
D6 was sitting at around 2.5V. Obviously, something was overloading the
Z80's data bus, causing it to overheat significantly. After removing the RAM
(and nearly pulling up four pads), the Z80 seems to be running fine. RFSH is
pulsing, as are M1 and CLK. The data and address lines look OK on my scope,
too.
So, it looks like the Z80 bit the dust when the PSU touched the I/O
port, then it proceeded to dump 9V into D6 and D7. After that, it let out
the magic smoke. Thankfully both ROMs (TMS2532s - TI's clone of the 2732)
seem to be OK.
The only "interesting" thing is that the current draw is around 500mA
with everything except one of the RAMs and the CPU fitted. With the CPU (a
Sharp LH0080A) fitted, the current consumption rises to approx. 620mA. Can
someone with a working Ace please check the current consumption of their
unit for me?
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
11:39 a.m.
Joe wrote:
This might be a good time to make a dump of the
ROMs before one of
them bites the dust. Reversing the voltage on them could have damaged
them and they may not last long. It's not a big risk but without the
content of those ROMs the rest of the machine is a paperweight.
I'm not even
sure they are 2532s (they might be 2732s). They're TI branded
and carry the part numbers "ACE-A" and "ACE-B". I don't have an
EPROM
programmer either...
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
2:09 p.m.
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6:15 p.m.
While I agree that it's _always_ a good idea to
keep a backup of ROMs, in
this case it's not essential. The Ace is relatively rare, but it's still
common enough that there are several other people on this list with one,
You can never have too many backups of data sets this small, besides the
chance of a different version make at least checking worthwhile.
2:14 p.m.
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9:15 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
No, I've removed it from the board and re-tested the Ace, but all seems well
now.
I've got a 2114 in an old Commodore 64. I can justify pilfering parts from
it because the PSU brick blew, the keyboard is shot and C= sold about a
million of the things anyway (at least 500,000 should still be around,
perhaps in people's attics). I'll buy one off Ebay if I feel like it, but
Commodore machines don't rank high on my "wants list". I'm tend to aim
for
British-designed machines, i.e. Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, Acorn BBC series, etc.
Anyone here selling a ZX81 or ZX80? They seem to be extremely rare in my
neck of the woods (West Yorkshire, UK).
BTW, anyone got a pinout for the User Port (the smallest edge connector) on
the Jupiter Ace? It's not mentioned in my "Jupiter Ace FORTH Programming"
manual. I'm assuming that the FORTH Programming manual was the only manual
bundled with the machine because on the first page it carries the usual "TV
goes to mains and Ace, PSU goes to mains and Ace" diagram (VERY similar to
the ones I've seen in Sinclair manuals).
I'm also trying to track down some edge connectors for the bus port on my
Sinclair Spectrum +2A, a disc controller and drive for same (unless the
controller works with PC-style 3.5" drives) and an edge connector for the
Bus port on the Jupiter Ace. Anyone know of a source for any of these items?
The only
"interesting" thing is that the current draw is around
500mA with everything except one of the RAMs and the CPU fitted.
With the CPU (a
Can I assume you've not tried replacing that RAM yet?
I wonder if at
least one of the other RAMs (in the video circuity) has also failed
and is drwaing rather too much current. That probably wouldn't lock
up the bus, so the machine might appear to do something sane with
that fault.
Sounds plausible. I'm going to see if I can get the 2114 out of the
C64 and
then try it in the Ace (in a socket). That should give me some idea as to
the state of the rest of the circuitry. I don't fancy removing ICs
willy-nilly just to see if they're drawing excessive current. I consider
that to be worse than shotgunning.
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
7 Dec
7 Dec
8:08 a.m.
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8:41 a.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Hmm... Without a full set of RAMs you can't get a sensible
video
display, so you can't really know how well the machine is working. I know. I
also know it runs a RAM test on bootup...
It's a real pain that I'm not going to have the RAMs until Monday at the
earliest... Unfortunately Royal Mail aren't open on a Sunday and I can't
justify travelling down to York just for ?10 worth of RAMs. And I haven't
seen anyone on this list who lives in or around Leeds (West Yorkshire)...
Oh, come on. The damn keyboard is missing a key and
most of the parts in it
are board pulls! The PSU brick blew up and there are at least another
thousand of the things lying around in people's garages and attics gathering
dust!
The VIC is about the only part in the whole machine that *does* work. That
and the 2114 colour RAM.
Hmm...
Interesting. You got a copy of the article, if it was published in
ETI?
That shouldn't be too difficult. I think Farnell
still stock edge
connectors.
Can I assume you've not tried replacing that RAM
yet?
No, I've removed it from the board and re-tested the Ace, but all
seems well now. I've got a
2114 in an old Commodore 64. I can justify pilfering
parts from it because the PSU brick blew, the keyboard is shot and
C= sold about a
Sure... BTW, anyone
got a pinout for the User Port (the smallest edge
connector) on
IIRC, It's actually a video port -- it carries many of the
video
timing signals, etc. I think there was at least one colour board that
connected here (and to the system bus, of course). The design _may_
have been published in ETI about 20 years ago, but I am not certain. I'm also
trying to track down some edge connectors for the bus port
on my Sinclair Spectrum +2A, a disc controller and drive for same
(unless the controller works with PC-style 3.5" drives) and an edge
connector for the Bus port on the Jupiter Ace. Anyone know of a
source for any of these items?
They're all standard 0.1" pitch AFAIK. You
make have to buy longer
connectors and cut them down. One point, I assume you realise that while the Ace and
Sinclair
machines have much the same signals on the bus connector (a plain Z80
bus, unbuffered), the pinout is totally different.
Yup. That point is mentioned in
the "Jupiter Ace FORTH Programming" manual.
Thanks.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
1:11 p.m.
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11:08 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
Oh, come on. The damn keyboard is missing a key
and most of the
parts in = I was not being sarcastic. As far as I am concerned, a dead C64 is a
perfectly good thing to raid. As you said, they're common... Jupiter Ace: As
common as rocking horse manure
C= 64: As common as ordinary bog-standard horse manure. Or tarmac.
Probalby, somewhere. Just don't expect me to find it anytime
soon! :-)
Yes, that sort of thing is really annoying. Why
can't useful shops be
open on Sunday :-)
I live quite close to the Farnell Electronics trade counter.
Unfortunately
Farnell stopped selling 2114 RAMs last year. Which is a total pig because a
few 2114s would have made my ?5 order up to their ?10 minimum order quite
nicely.
I've got a
2114 in an old Commodore 64. I can justify pilfering
parts from it because the PSU brick blew, the keyboard is shot and
C=3D sold about a
Sure... have been published in ETI about 20 years ago, but I
am not certain.
Hmm... Interesting. You got a copy of the article, if it was
published in ETI? What always amazes me is that both RS and Farnell
still sell rub-down
transfers for PCB artwork. Are there really companies who still design
PCBs that way rather than using CAD systems? I mean madmen like me
probably still do, but if Farnell sold stuff for such eccentric
people, they'd still be selling a lot of other things that they have
discontinued!
Incidentally, I bought some rub-on (Letraset style) PCB transfers
from
RadioShack when I was on holiday in the 'States. Then a few months after I
got back I bought a Panasonic KXP4400 300dpi LED printer and some
Press-N-Peel. Now I use the PnP.
Just out of curiosity, I'm planning to get a refurbished Sony CPD-E220 17"
Trinitron computer monitor from DIGI-UK (www.digiuk.com iirc). Has anyone
tried these monitors? Are they any good? I've used a Sony Multiscan 17sf II,
that was quite nice.
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
8 Dec
8 Dec
8:13 a.m.
Just another quickie. I found out what happened to the "missing" five case
clips. There are supposed to be five of them around the perimiter of the
case of the Jupiter Ace to hold the top and bottom sections together. Guess
what - I've only got the three that hold the PCB to the bottom of the case.
Does anyone know of a source for replacements or am I going to have to use
small nylon screws or bolts instead? Surely at least one company at least
manufactures something similar? I can probably put one of the split-pin
clips onto my scanner and upload an image somewhere if anyone wants to take
a look.
Just another thing wrong with my Jupiter Ace... Anyone got an Ace with a
destroyed case or PCB? I'd really like to get some replacements for the five
missing clips on my Ace...
I've only got one more thing to say - it's a damn shame Jupiter/Cantab
aren't in business anymore (can you say "excess stock"?)
Thanks.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
16 Dec
16 Dec
2:01 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-admin@classiccmp.org]On
Behalf Of Philip Pemberton
Sent: 08 December 2002 19:16
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: The ACE is recovering :-)
I've only got one more thing to say - it's a damn shame Jupiter/Cantab
aren't in business anymore (can you say "excess stock"?)
They only lasted 3-4 years tops. Boldfield Computing Ltd also couldn't sell
the remaining stocks so who knows what happened to 'em? If they didn't
become landfill they might be propping up someone's shed roof somewhere out
in the sticks :) Here's to hoping eh.
--
adrian/witchy
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online computer museum
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - monthly gothic shenanigans
2:24 p.m.
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7:59 p.m.
New subject: Ebay [was: Re: The ACE is recovering :-)]
Well, speaking of the ROMs, the Austrian guy I ordered the 462532s off isn't
responding to any of my emails. Surprising, considering his 300-odd feedback
rating, 99% positive. The problem? He's given me a shipping price of EUR2.55
per batch of three chips, plus EUR1 for three ROMs. I've ordered six ROMs,
so that comes to EUR3.55 x 2 = 7.10. But he seems to be ignoring my mails
requesting a postage price for me. Bear in mind I'm in England (ho hum). The
auction listed "Will ship internationally" in the "Shipping" box, so
either
he never really meant to sell these chips or he's screwed up somewhere.
What would you guys do? Send a few Euros in a cardboard envelope, Recorded
Delivery or whatever? Surely EUR 5.10 would be enough to ship three EPROMs
in a Jiffy bag from Austria...
*sigh*, damned if I do, damned if I don't...
Later.
--
Phil.
philpem(a)dsl.pipex.com
http://www.philpem.dsl.pipex.com/
18 Dec
18 Dec
8:02 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-admin(a)classiccmp.org [mailto:cctech-admin@classiccmp.org]On
Behalf Of Tony Duell
Sent: 17 December 2002 01:22
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: The ACE is recovering :-)
AFAIK most of the complete ACEs were sold by Boldfield. They had a few
'special deals' to students where they threw in a lot of games tapes, etc
(how do you think I ended up with the games ;-)).
Good stuff - do you mind if I add this to the Ace page in the museum?
A few years ago I met the chap who'd bought the
rights to the ACE
firmware. I obviously can't speak for him, but he struck me as a true
hacker (I met him at a talk I was giving on the PDP11/45 -- non-hackers
don't normally come to talks about processor microcode...). I would
therefore be suprised if he had any objections to reasonable hackish use
of the firmware (such as keeping backups, etc).
Smart - I like people like that :)
cheers
--
adrian/witchy
www.binarydinosaurs.co.uk - the online computer museum
www.snakebiteandblack.co.uk - monthly gothic shenanigans
1:06 p.m.
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20 comments
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participants (8)
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