Carte Blanche - the wait is almost over.
Alex Freed
looks like the "final" production version is alive and well.
We'll start collecting payments very soon now but I already
have one board for sale.
It has a bigger 500E chip populated that is only useful for
development. No extra charge for this one but there is a string
attached: it will go to someone willing to help with the "disk"
driver.
Here is the story. The default configuration does the VGA video
and provides an interface to an MMC/SD card as a mass storage
device. The hardware works quite well but the driver has a lot
of room for improvement:
1. The soft Z80 doesn't understand the SD card's space beyond the
first 32 MB. Why? Because I didn't implement more than 16 bits of
address calculation. Not hard to do.
2. The 6502 ProDOS driver is extremely spartan. In fact read-only
right now. This is one particular thing I'd rather have somebody
else program.
What's needed to load a new configuration into the FPGA is a $12
JTAG adapter by Digilent and a PC with a real parallel port - not
a USB to parallel adapter.
The code goes inside the FPGA into the "BLOCK RAM" so it becomes
a part of the configuration stream. It would be possible to load
this code from a file on the SD card if needed.
If somebody wants to help in return for a faster delivery of a bigger
card, send me e-mail.
-Alex.
Steve
will be updated and made available here. Please feel free to use this
link to view the staus of your order.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=rzSV3VnLs18ySKyghWCy4-w&hl=en
On arrivial of the production cards, which will hopefully be around
July the 17th, payment and delivery address information requests will
go out via email.
Many thaks for your patience, and after seeing what Alex has put
together, it has most definitely been worth the wait.
best regards,
Steve
Steve
Sorry, try this link (no authorization required)
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rzSV3VnLs18ySKyghWCy4-w&single=true&gid=0&output=html
magnusfalkirk
> Sorry, try this link (no authorization required)
>
I'm thinking seriously about turning loose my Carte Blanche order.
From what I've read there really isn't all that much that it will do
for my GS. So if there is someone who wanted in on the first run that
had to wait for the second they can have mine.
Sorry I waited so long to decide.
Dean
sfahey
Re: Carte Blanche - the wait is almost over.
By: Alex Freed to comp.sys.apple2 on Sun Jul 12 2009 08:17 pm
> After a number of delays for non-technical reasons it
> looks like the "final" production version is alive and well.
Do you think the boards will ship (and arrive) before July 20th? I offered to
demo a card during KFest and time is running out.
Thanks in advance.
Sean Fahey
www.a2central.com
bbs.a2central.com
Garberstreet Electronics
I will take it now, if no one else wants it.
Garberstreet Electronics
http://www.garberstreet.com
"magnusfalkirk" <dean....@gmail.com> wrote in message news:8d526a74-ef54-48c4...@b25g2000prb.googlegroups.com...
Steve
wrote:
> I will take it now, if no one else wants it.
>
> Garberstreet Electronicshttp://www.garberstreet.com
>
>
> On Jul 13, 8:56 am, Steve <srk...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Sorry, try this link (no authorization required)
>
> >http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rzSV3VnLs18ySKyghWCy4-w&single...
>
> I'm thinking seriously about turning loose my Carte Blanche order.
> From what I've read there really isn't all that much that it will do
> for my GS. So if there is someone who wanted in on the first run that
> had to wait for the second they can have mine.
>
> Sorry I waited so long to decide.
>
> Dean
Done.
Rgds,
Steve
Steve
Hi Sean,
We have a board for you now - ill organise to send it out. Could you
please send meyour shipping address.
We have the remaining boards also due in in the next week, so if
people could start to email me their preffered delivery addresses,
we'll get the show on the road.
email is srk...@gmail.com
many thanks,
rgds,
Steve
On Jul 14, 3:38 am, "sfahey" <sfa...@a2central.com.remove-zmu-this>
wrote:
Polymorph
Steve/Alex,
I too am hear by relinquishing my Carte Blanche order to someone else,
seeing as I too am currently down for the first run and I plan on
using the card in a IIgs also.
At this stage, I would prefer to wait and see what people are able to
achieve with the Carte Blanche/IIgs combination seeing as this will be
my primary use for it. Although I have a //e setup, its currently in a
cupboard and only see's the light of day every so often.
Someone wanting a 1st run card, here is your opportunity! :-)
Apologies for withdrawing my order so late.
Cheers,
Mike
ps. Its still highly probable that I will purchase a 2nd (or later)
run Carte Blanche, especially if someone can provide something for my
IIgs that I don't already have (VGA output would be *awesome*)
