V364 pictures now on line!
Dan Benson
interested. The site is brand new, so some of the more 'colorfully' labelled
links, as well as most of the anticipated content aren't there yet. Also,
please don't scam my pictures, if you would like to use them for something,
please ask my permission before using them.....
http://www.moduluscorporation.com/cbmpics/v364.htm
Richard Atkinson
What a monster. It's beautiful, in its own "large" way. What on Earth are
you doing to the keyboard wires in the following picture? Be careful with
that thing!!
http://www.moduluscorporation.com/cbmpics/v364board.jpg
Looks like you have an EPROM of the speech ROM and purple ceramic Kernal
and BASIC ROMs. Please read these out using an EPROM programmer before
doing anything else! Also document exactly what is written on the chips.
The PLA is the purple ceramic device on the far right of the row of 28 pin
sockets. The 8706R0 speech glue logic ASIC is the one on the far left. I
extracted the pinout for this chip a year ago when I visited Bo Zimmerman;
details on cbm-hackers archive.
Looks like the 6529 for the userport is missing. That's easily replaced
with one from a plus/4. I'd also strongly recommend you replace the
prototype TED, early 7501 CPU, 6551 ACIA (perhaps), ceramic PLA and
ceramic ROMs with ones from a plus/4 if you ever decide to power the thing
up. Bo's used a standard C64 power supply.
Richard
Dan Benson
> What on Earth are
> you doing to the keyboard wires in the following picture? Be careful with
> that thing!!
I haven't touched a thing. The wiring came like that. It's a standard
cheesy ribbon connector with some tape on it for some reason.
> Looks like you have an EPROM of the speech ROM and purple ceramic Kernal
> and BASIC ROMs. Please read these out using an EPROM programmer before
> doing anything else! Also document exactly what is written on the chips.
I think Bo has already done this....unless of course I have different
revisions....
> The PLA is the purple ceramic device on the far right of the row of 28 pin
> sockets. The 8706R0 speech glue logic ASIC is the one on the far left. I
> extracted the pinout for this chip a year ago when I visited Bo Zimmerman;
> details on cbm-hackers archive.
>
Yup. Dave haynie was also kind enough to provide chip data and PLA
Logic equation docs, etc. I'll probably try to get these to funet at
some point if it hasn't been done already.
> Looks like the 6529 for the userport is missing. That's easily replaced
Nope. there are three open sockets. One of which is also open in Bo's
machine - I am missing the high and low function roms. should work
without them, but I'll burn copies from the images off Bo's site to
fill those sockets.
> with one from a plus/4. I'd also strongly recommend you replace the
> prototype TED, early 7501 CPU, 6551 ACIA (perhaps), ceramic PLA and
> ceramic ROMs with ones from a plus/4 if you ever decide to power the thing
> up. Bo's used a standard C64 power supply.
>
Probably a good idea. Although the ceramics seem to last LONGER than
the production chips, IMHO.
Nicolas Welte
> > What on Earth are
> > you doing to the keyboard wires in the following picture? Be careful with
> > that thing!!
>
> I haven't touched a thing. The wiring came like that. It's a standard
> cheesy ribbon connector with some tape on it for some reason.
I think Richard was referring to the way you bent that cable. Putting a lot
of stress to those cables is a bad idea, they will break easily. A better way
would've been to put the keyboard onto the left side of the bottom part, or
maybe even remove the cable from the socket.
> > Looks like you have an EPROM of the speech ROM and purple ceramic Kernal
> > and BASIC ROMs. Please read these out using an EPROM programmer before
> > doing anything else! Also document exactly what is written on the chips.
>
> I think Bo has already done this....unless of course I have different
> revisions....
It would be a good idea to dump your ROM in any case, it's the only other
copy from a V364 that is available. Who knows, maybe Bo's copy is different
or bad after all these years, and the copy from your machine can help to
verify this.
> Yup. Dave haynie was also kind enough to provide chip data and PLA
> Logic equation docs, etc. I'll probably try to get these to funet at
> some point if it hasn't been done already.
That would be great! Do these docs also include info about the 28 pin speech
hardware glue chip (8706)?
Nicolas
Richard Atkinson
> > Looks like you have an EPROM of the speech ROM and purple ceramic Kernal
> > and BASIC ROMs. Please read these out using an EPROM programmer before
> > doing anything else! Also document exactly what is written on the chips.
>
> I think Bo has already done this....unless of course I have different
> revisions....
From what I can see in the right side picture, there is quite a lot
written on all those chips. Please document every chip - eg.
MOS
8580
1287 25
> Yup. Dave haynie was also kind enough to provide chip data and PLA
> Logic equation docs, etc. I'll probably try to get these to funet at
> some point if it hasn't been done already.
Great! Most of these have probably never been seen before, so please make
a list of what you have so we can tell you what's new.
> > Looks like the 6529 for the userport is missing. That's easily replaced
>
> Nope. there are three open sockets. One of which is also open in Bo's
> machine - I am missing the high and low function roms. should work
> without them, but I'll burn copies from the images off Bo's site to
> fill those sockets.
The machine will function perfectly well without 3-plus-1 - in fact
arguably the V364 predates the decision to incorporate that _dreadful_
software into the plus/4 as it became known. Bo's machine has ordinary
production 3-plus-1 ROMs, for whatever reason.
The missing 6529 I was referring to is the empty 20 pin socket U5 in the
top of the page:
http://www.moduluscorporation.com/cbmpics/v364boardright.jpg
> > with one from a plus/4. I'd also strongly recommend you replace the
> > prototype TED, early 7501 CPU, 6551 ACIA (perhaps), ceramic PLA and
> > ceramic ROMs with ones from a plus/4 if you ever decide to power the thing
> > up. Bo's used a standard C64 power supply.
> >
> Probably a good idea. Although the ceramics seem to last LONGER than
> the production chips, IMHO.
Well production ceramic chips such as 6569s might well do so because of
better heat dissipation properties. But I wouldn't like to bet on how well
fabricated the prototype TED is; it could be several internal revisions
before the production masks. One of the last stages in IC design is making
them reliable enough. Temperature, humidity and pressure can be controlled
to simulate advancing age, and designs occasionally have little "tweaks"
applied if there are any obvious failure points. The C128 VDC story would
be a classic example.
In any case, once that TED is broken, it's broken.
Richard
Dan Benson
> I think Richard was referring to the way you bent that cable. Putting a
lot
> of stress to those cables is a bad idea, they will break easily. A better
way
> would've been to put the keyboard onto the left side of the bottom part,
or
> maybe even remove the cable from the socket.
True enough. I was in a hurry to get the pics done. I have a two year old
that was VERY interested in what I was doing (she loves PET's too- a good
sign!)
>
> It would be a good idea to dump your ROM in any case, it's the only other
> copy from a V364 that is available. Who knows, maybe Bo's copy is
different
> or bad after all these years, and the copy from your machine can help to
> verify this.
True enough. I'll mark it a high priority item - that should put it in the
top 500 things I need to get done this week :-)
> That would be great! Do these docs also include info about the 28 pin
speech
> hardware glue chip (8706)?
>
That the ONLY chip not elaborated on. Each chip has docs on pinout, timing
considerations, the PLA has it's logic table, etc. This stuff is probably
already on funet, although admittededly I haven't checked.
I also just received today the schematics and service manuals for the
600/700 series and 8296 / 8296-D machines. They are all in German, except
the schematics.
Dan Benson
> From what I can see in the right side picture, there is quite a lot
> written on all those chips. Please document every chip - eg.
>
> MOS
> 8580
> 1287 25
I will post this data and some close up pics on my website.
> Great! Most of these have probably never been seen before, so please make
> a list of what you have so we can tell you what's new.
See my response to Nicholas on this one.
> The missing 6529 I was referring to is the empty 20 pin socket U5 in the
> top of the page:
You are indeed correct. I didn't even notice - even in my own pictures. (See
my response to Nicholas on this as well...)
> In any case, once that TED is broken, it's broken.
>
True enough!
Richard Atkinson
> True enough. I was in a hurry to get the pics done. I have a two year old
> that was VERY interested in what I was doing (she loves PET's too- a good
> sign!)
Aww. You'll awaken the paternal instinct in even the most committed of
perpetual batchelors ;)
> > That would be great! Do these docs also include info about the 28 pin
> speech
> > hardware glue chip (8706)?
> >
> That the ONLY chip not elaborated on. Each chip has docs on pinout, timing
> considerations, the PLA has it's logic table, etc. This stuff is probably
> already on funet, although admittededly I haven't checked.
Damn and blast and botheration etc! Oh well...
Funet is painfully lacking 264 series documentation (mainly because the
whole world is). If you have genuine Commodore 7360 and 7501 datasheets,
etc, then these would be great. There is a text file of the PLA logic
equations, but it would be good to have the "official" versions, straight
from the horse's mouth as it were.
Tibor Biczo once sent me a fairly comprehensive TED document, which I must
add to my sound chips page. I haven't seen it on Funet yet... Let me know
if it's the same as one of yours, when I get round to putting it up. Might
be able to save you some scanning. I know what a thorough bore scanning in
documentation is, by the way.
Richard
Richard Atkinson
> That the ONLY chip not elaborated on. Each chip has docs on pinout, timing
> considerations, the PLA has it's logic table, etc. This stuff is probably
> already on funet, although admittededly I haven't checked.
Oh by the way, if the pile of docs you have includes the V364 schematics,
then you should probably make this the top priority - that's half of what
my reverse-engineering project would have been about. I'm very relieved
that the V364 is in competent hands :)
Richard
Dan Benson
He doesn't have any 364 schematics or chip data on the voice chip.
HOWEVER, he say's he's gone through only a fraction of the stuff he boxed up
and moved out of Commodore with in 1994.
He was kind enough to indicate that if he comes across further
documentation, he'll forward the stuff on.
At which point I will forward it on to those who are interested!
Dave's a nice guy.
"Richard Atkinson" <rg...@nospam.cantab.net> wrote in message
news:Pine.LNX.4.31.020205...@kern.srcf.societies.cam.ac.uk.
..