Re: [sebhc] New H8 Pending boards!

[Norberto Collado]

Updates:

 

These are the H8 pending boards.

 

Priority:

1. H8 – New Backplane
• Layout Completed & in review.
2. H8 – Front Panel with Keypad LED, KP termination, on-board mini-speaker, music, schematics, and 2.048 MHz OSC.
• Completed and ordered boards to test layout.
3. Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 only. Will have 4 bootable CF cards. (2/16-20MHz boot support).
• Review Completed. In process of ordering a few board to test layout.

 

Pending boards:

4. H8-82C55A-I/O board

• Review Completed. Ordering boards to test layout.

5. Mini APU-H Arithmetic Processor Card

• Layout test completed. Board is fully functional. There are a few proto boards available for those interested. Please contact Terry Smedley terry....@gmail.com.

6. Z180 (1MB of RAM).

• Schematics completed. Layout 85% completed.

 

Thanks,

Norberto

[Terry Smedley]

The H8-82C55A-I/O layout test boards were shipped yesterday.  I have kitted out the parts to build the board for testing, and will share the results of that exercise shortly after the boards arrive.

Terry

[Norberto Collado]

Great news! It if works, I will take all the credit. If it doesn’t work you take all the credit. 😊

 

Let’s hope there is no logic or layout issues.

 

Thanks for sharing,

Norberto

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[Norberto Collado]

Updated list:

 

Priority:

1. H8 – New Backplane

• Layout Completed & in review.

• Made holes adjustments as some of them out of reference by 1/16” when compared with original H8 backplane. Only 3 holes adjusted.

2. H8 – Front Panel with Keypad LED, KP termination, on-board mini-speaker, music, schematics, and 2.048 MHz OSC.

• Completed and ordered boards to test layout.

• Board is fully operational and layout traces too close to screws, so will need to clear such space. Need to add retention bus bar at top of the board.
• Custom keycaps ordered.
• Add additional LED under “0” keycap.

3. H8 - Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 only. Will have 4 bootable CF cards. (2/16-20MHz boot support).

• Review Completed. In process of ordering a few board to test layout.

• No new updates as working on #1 and #2.
3. New H8 - Dual SD cards board for CP/M and CP/M3.
• POC tested and working
• Board schematics completed. Will work on layout once #1 and #2 tasks are completed.

 

Pending boards:

4. H8 - 82C55A-I/O board

·         Review Completed. Ordering boards to test layout.

.       Boards shipped.

5. Mini APU-H Arithmetic Processor Card Done!

·         Layout test completed. Board is fully functional. There are a few proto boards available for those interested. Please contact Terry Smedley terry....@gmail.com. 

6. Z180 (1MB of RAM).

·         Schematics completed. Layout 85% completed.

.       No new updates.

 

Norberto

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[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Updated list:

 

Priority:

1. H8 – New Backplane

• Layout Completed & in review.
  

2. H8 – Front Panel with Keypad LED, KP termination, on-board mini-speaker, music, schematics, and 2.048 MHz OSC.
   

1. Performing final testings. Added on top of keys the bus bar holes to eliminate the clip. Eliminate crosstalk on some IC's.

3. H8 - Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 only. Will have 4 bootable CF cards. (2/16-20MHz boot support).
   

• No new updates as working on #1 and #2.
  
3. New H8 - Dual SD cards board for CP/M and CP/M3.
   

• Board schematics completed. Will work on layout once #1 and #2 tasks are completed.

 

Pending boards:

1. Z180 (1MB of RAM).

·         Schematics completed. Layout 85% completed.

.       No new updates.

 

Norberto

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com>

Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2021 11:07 PM

[Norberto Collado]

Updated list:

Priority:

1. H8 – New Backplane

• Layout Completed & in review. Do we make it a 4 layer ( Norberto to find price difference)?

2. H8 – Front Panel with Keypad LED, KP termination, on-board mini-speaker, music, schematics, and 2.048 MHz OSC.

1. Performing final testings. Added on top of keys the bus bar holes to eliminate the clip. Eliminate crosstalk on some IC's.

1. Added more LEDs to front panel for CPU speed or other I/O signals.

3. H8 - Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 only. Will have 4 bootable CF cards. (2/16-20MHz boot support).

• No new updates as working on #1.

4. New H8 - Dual SD cards board for CP/M and CP/M3.

• Board schematics completed. Layout completed and under review.

5. New H8 – System Support I – preliminary information here: http://koyado.com/heathkit/New-H8-Website/h8-system-support-i.html

• Schematics under development

[Glenn Roberts]

System support idea is interesting but worth more discussion here on what should be housed there.

 

It might be worth some discussion on port standardization. We’ve already had some back and forth on the USB port, now we have the HA-8-2, 9511 , etc.  would be good to stake out our “standard” configurations.

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[Norberto Collado]

Updated List:

 

1. H8 Backplane completed – Ordering a few boards to test it out.
2. H8 - Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 completed. I will order after completing backplane testing.
3. H8 - Dual SD cards board for CP/M and CP/M3 completed. I will order after completing Dual GIDE controller.
4. SSI board completed. Boards ordered to test it out. Anxious to play music with it.
1. We should be able to play the music files from the Z80 V4 Monitor without the need to run HDOS or CP/M. Douglas, can we get a music.sys file???
5. Pending:
1. Z180 (1MB of RAM). No new updates. This board will run the Z180 above 20MHz. It is mostly for CP/M+. Perhaps by summer 2022. 😊

                                                               i.      It will support the Z80 V4.0 monitor as well.

 

Also, I will be improving the current H8 Extender card and the H8 prototype board. Just a few minor changes.

 

I think with all the H8 boards developed or improved, we extended the life of the H8 into the future.

 

Thanks,

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[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Just got from Amazon the speaker and 3.5mm audio cables to play music once the SSI board is available. First time doing this on my H8 system. A lot of thanks to Terry S. for prototyping the DIXIE board and for all the feedback received during the layout process. It is going to be a great board for everyone and hopefully it will work out without any "honest" layout issues. 🙂 

Norby

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From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Norberto Collado <norberto...@koyado.com>

Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 9:27 PM

To: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [sebhc] New H8 Pending boards!

 

Updated List:

 

1. H8 Backplane completed – Ordering a few boards to test it out.
2. H8 - Dual GIDE controller for CP/M/ & CP/M3 completed. I will order after completing backplane testing.
3. H8 - Dual SD cards board for CP/M and CP/M3 completed. I will order after completing Dual GIDE controller.
4. SSI board completed. Boards ordered to test it out. Anxious to play music with it.
1. We should be able to play the music files from the Z80 V4 Monitor without the need to run HDOS or CP/M. Douglas, can we get a music.sys file???
5. Pending:
1. Z180 (1MB of RAM). No new updates. This board will run the Z180 above 20MHz. It is mostly for CP/M+. Perhaps by summer 2022. 😊

                                                               i.      It will support the Z80 V4.0 monitor as well.

 

Also, I will be improving the current H8 Extender card and the H8 prototype board. Just a few minor changes.

 

I think with all the H8 boards developed or improved; we extended the life of the H8 into the future.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/418F4B8C-8E8A-48E0-A4AA-465DD6AE24AC%40koyado.com.

[Glenn Roberts]

Very nice. once I get my hands on the (hopefully) soon to be released front panel and SSI boards I will plan to do a comprehensive REMarks writeup on how to make music on your H8. Hope to incorporate this in the demos we do at VCF in the fall (I’ll send a separate email on the VCF topic since some of you have expressed interest in participating).

 

The music capability is a clone of the original New Orleans General Data Services (NOGDS) HA-8-2 board.  The original software is on Les’ site, in Volume 1 (see disk index below)

 

Norberto has a draft web page on the SSI board:

http://koyado.com/heathkit/New-H8-Website/h8-system-support-i.html

 

minor changes will be needed to the NOGDS software to work with the new board.  the “hello world” test for the board is to play the five songs from the distribution.  A pet project idea of mine is to develop a MIDI capability for this board, which would open the doors to thousands of musical renderings – hopefully the new board will spur me into action!  The HA-8-2 pre-dated the MIDI standard, which was published in 1983.

 

 

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[Norberto Collado]

Which file contains the binaries to playback into the DAC? I see the *.MUS and the *.PLA.

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[Terry Smedley]

PLAY.ABS is the playback binary.  PLAY.ASM is the source, and it must be modified to talk to the IO-mapped DACs.  OUT replaces STA in two places.

Terry

[Terry Smedley]

(Hit return too soon.....)

*.MUS is music file source (basically sheet music in computer readable notation)

COMPOSE.ABS generates the required waveforms (voices) and produces the .PLA file.  This program requires no changes.

PLAY.ABS reads the *.PLA file and sends the pre-computed waveforms to the DACs.

your brain | sheet music -> text editor -> *.MUS -> COMPOSE.ABS -> *.PLA -> PLAY.ABS -> DACs -> amplifier -> speaker -> your ears

PLAY.ABS can read individual .PLA files, or a .CTL "batch" file that contains a list of .PLA files to play.

Terry

[norberto.collado koyado.com]

So, I can just open the existing PLA file and send it directly to the DAC to play the music until it reaches EOF; correct?

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From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Terry Smedley <terry....@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2021 9:51 AM
To: SEBHC <se...@googlegroups.com>

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[terry.smedley]

To play music through the HA-8-2, you use the PLAY.ABS program.  The .PLA file itself cannot just be pumped to the DACs.  It is a set of instructions to the PLAY program that describe the waveforms to be reproduced.  When you run the PLAY program, it will prompt you for a command which is typically the name of a .PLA file.  The program then sends the waveforms encoded in that file to the DACs and continues until EOF.  The PLAY program must be run at 2MHz, since all waveforms are digitized assuming that specific frequency.

Terry

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[Terry Smedley]

Norberto:

To play music through the HA-8-2, you use the PLAY.ABS program.  The .PLA file itself cannot just be pumped to the DACs.  It is a set of instructions to the PLAY program that describe the waveforms to be reproduced.  When you run the PLAY program, it will prompt you for a command which is typically the name of a .PLA file.  The program then sends the waveforms encoded in that file to the DACs and continues until EOF.  The PLAY program must be run at 2MHz, since all waveforms are digitized assuming that specific frequency.

Terry

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[norberto.collado koyado.com]

Thanks for the feedback as I'm new to this board sound capabilities. So, we just need to capture the data written into the DAC for playback. So, the PLAY program could be modified to write into a file the values that are written into the DAC to play it back easily unless the PLAY program software delay overhead needs to be considered as well. Eager to play music soon.

On the original design, I see that only one DAC is selected at a given time by the memory decoder circuit. Not sure on how you can keep both channels in sync when one is lagging the other. On the new board we are written both DACs at the same time, so they are in sync.

Thanks,

Norberto 

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Sent: Thursday, June 24, 2021 2:14 PM

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[Glenn Roberts]

I don’t think that will work except maybe for a few very short musical clips. The PLAY program essentially takes over 100 % of the CPU (including disabling interrupts) so that it can constantly feed values to the DAC. There is no buffering. So I don’t see any feasible way with the CPU speeds and disk access times we’re dealing with to offload that large dataset from disk and feed it to the DAC without interruption.

Sent from my iPad

On Jun 24, 2021, at 9:43 PM, norberto.collado koyado.com <norberto...@koyado.com> wrote:



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[Terry Smedley]

Glenn is right about this.

The NOGDS music system works on a system as slow and memory constrained as an H8 because it very cleverly divides the tasks into pieces.   The PLAY program takes very low data rate instructions - basically something like "play this musical note for this many beats", and translates that using pre-calculated waveform lookup tables to a byte datastream that is pumped to the DAC.  The software writes one byte to a DAC every 125usec.  That interval was chosen because that's as fast as a 2MHz 8080 CPU can do the lookup and output the value.  Even though by today's standards that's a pretty slow sampling rate, it's still a whole bunch of data for an 8-bit computer to handle - 8,000 bytes/second of audio.

If that datastream is captured to disk, you could only store a very short burst of audio in a "reasonable size" H8 file.  To play it with any kind of fidelity, you'd have to read the entire audio clip into memory and then pump it to the DAC with all other processes (interrupts) shut down so you could have a consistent 125usec/byte interval.  PLAY shuts off interrupts and takes complete control of the H8 for this same reason.  

As far as writing to both DACs goes, the PLAY software sends up to four independent voices or waveforms.  Voices 0 and 1 go to DAC0, and voices 2 and 3 go to DAC1 (I might have that backwards or numbered incorrectly, but the idea is that the four voices are split between the two DACs = two stereo channels).  I'd have to look at  the PLAY software closely - it's possible that it offsets the waveform lookup for each voice to keep all of them precisely in phase.  I'm guessing that the 125usec phase shift between voices was considered to be audibly insignificant.  Maybe David remembers the details.

Terry

[norberto...@koyado.com]

Great feedback!

 

So we will need to do some surgery on the board once received to split DAC0 and DAC1 as they are both wired together to handle the different voices. My bad that I did not ask before.

 

Norberto

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[Terry Smedley]

Norberto:

Well the bad is on me as I reviewed the circuit multiple times and didn't catch that!  The surgery should be outpatient, though, I think - nothing too major.  And it can all be made perfect when the final boards are ordered!

Terry

[Norberto Collado]

No worries. Let’s see if we can cancel the order and send out the updated Gerber files with the fixes. I found another typo while checking the DAC’s.

 

Thanks,

Norberto

From: se...@googlegroups.com <se...@googlegroups.com> On Behalf Of norberto.collado koyado.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 23, 2021 9:47 PM
To: se...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [sebhc] New H8 Pending boards!

 

Just got from Amazon the speaker and 3.5mm audio cables to play music once the SSI board is available. First time doing this on my H8 system. A lot of thanks to Terry S. for prototyping the DIXIE board and for all the feedback received during the layout process. It is going to be a great board for everyone and hopefully it will work out without any "honest" layout issues. 🙂 

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/sebhc/8a56288d-b962-4cf9-95c9-8df8e1e81ddfn%40googlegroups.com.