ATR 8000 [Sold]

Well Andy it must have been the way your brought the subject of Oric up, clearly no friends of Shakespear


PS just Orics head ?

 

ALAS! Poor Oric...

 

Hey his looking good.
Love to have a crack as actuating his jaw and eyes, and adding sound so his jaw moves in time to the sounds. Great for Halloween
Hmm I feel mischief coming on ...
One of these


a few of these

 

It’s funny I’m a lefty too, luckily no one tried to beat it out of me. I did spend some time in a school in Antrim but it was a Protestant school so they only caned you for breathing, talking or moving. They left my left hand alone.

 

Ha ha....Sadly so true of these religion based schools..

Socially engineering children in a subject they have no clue of understanding at that age, but then again that seems to be their point..Listen but don't ask...

 

I'm not even sure what left or right handed eating looks like! I'm basically right-handed, though my left is good at some stuff, but not writing or throwing balls! But what is considered right or left handed when eating? I use both hands with a utensil in both and constantly switch knife or spoon or fork between hands depending on the circumstances; I never thought about it until now, but I guess I generally use a fork with my right hand, but if I'm eating meat that needs cutting, I switch the fork to my left hand and use the knife in my right, but I still eat the cut meat using my left hand with fork to the mouth, etc. So am I then ambidextrous when it comes to eating? If a utensil is on the left side of the plate, I generally use the left hand and the same with the right side...I'm sure I've also cut meat with my left hand and eaten it with the right, it's just not something I ever payed cognitive attention too, and no one has ever said anything either...

 

convension is fork on left knife on right, spoon right.
If multiple courses move from cutlery furthest away from plate on each side, moving inward for each course.
soup, dessert spoon at top, sure there ment to point in a particular direction. knife blades layed out cutting edge towards plate ..

 

Thanks @Graham , yes, I know proper convention for proper dining and am aware to properly use the utensils for such occasions, but I'm just referring to everyday meals where I don't give a flying fuck (don't take this as directed at you) about meals, and most times we do it buffet style these days at my house where everyone serves themselves, grabs flat-wear out of the drawer and has at it! Come U.S. Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. we do it up proper, and used to all the time as children with the parents, but not since Father died and otherwise I've been a single bloke since high school and don't bother when eating alone for decades as well. I don't even eat out at a restaurant in public and worry about such things except maybe once or twice a year.

 

Op's sorry Matt I was going to go back and add some funny comments to that after I'd found a link to what 'etiquette' is.. However I was distracted by shiny things arriving in the post ..

Pam & I much like you treat eating as a need, so it's not unusual for us to veg out on the sofa; plate or bowl to hand rather than sitting up at a table with everything laid out, that is more or less reserved for friends round to dinner, Christmas etc.

I'm going by Pam's observation, but according to her I seem to swap knife and fork around purely based of what needs to be cut or added to a fork etc. rather than moving the plate around I'll just swap hands and continue, just as good with a knife or fork in either hand. I guess its funny how we all adapt and learn.

When I spent more times working on cars and engines, or even projects like building the antenna array for EME experiments, being able to get into awkward places and use a spanner or some other tool was very useful, and remains so even today, although working on cars isn't something I'll do every day now I'm a bit older.

 

@Graham: "but according to her I seem to swap knife and fork around purely based of what needs to be cut or added to a fork etc. rather than moving the plate around I'll just swap hands and continue, just as good with a knife or fork in either hand. I guess its funny how we all adapt and learn."

This is exactly what I meant by my original post regarding utensils and lefty/righty and being ambidextrous.

 

Well we have at least two things in common...
Our love of Atari's and both are ambidextrous when eating!


I've just tried soldering left-handed, I'd say that using the left hand feels odd and I appear slower in making sure the iron is in just the right place, but the results seem identical either hand, something I don't remember trying deliberately so to speak.
Think I'll stick with what feels better.

 

@Graham I was just reading your "likes" and was wondering what are Atmel AVR micros? Of course I can look it up, but since you like them, maybe you would like to tell me?

 

Yes of course
Although the AVR chip’s have been going for many years, I think when one of them was first used in an Arduino, they became much more popular, however it’s just not the one used in the Arduino Uno that’s been produced, there are smaller 8 pin chips, all the way up to 40 pin chips in DIP packages, and looking at surface mount the AtMega & AtXMEGA range, these have many more peripheral built in along with even more pins.

I personally started with an Arduino UNO and learnt there version of ‘C’ , but for some of the things I was doing I eventually learnt assembler on them as well.

I’ve used them many times over, from major interfaces reading in a string of DMX messages sent by a theatre lighting desk, driving a Oled display to show what address’s its going to respond to (read in by 9 dipswitches, and depending on programming, outputting via USB as if it’s a keyboard attached to a PC, I used this with software on the PC to trigger sound and video affects timed to lighting effects. However enough of that I’ll find some links for you to have a read.

One thing has occurred is that Microchip has purchased Atmel; so Atmel itself no longer exists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AVR_microcontrollers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATtiny_microcontroller_comparison_chart

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATmega328

I have many hundreds of these and use them for all sorts of things ..

This will likely waste some time for you .. Enjoy

 

Matt
I found this by accident following a link Richie posted for a newly released CPC game.
https://www.usebox.net/jjm/dan64/
It's using a small AVR as used in the Arduino Uno for this

 

Thanks @Graham , as it happens, I have two UNO's here with those chips, I'd just forgotten their designation. One is the real Arduino and the other is an Elegoo knock-off I purchased second. Though I've never bothered to see all of what they are capable of, I did know it was much more than for SDrive Max's I bought them for. I actually think one of the Atmel ATMEGA328's might be bad, as I made one SDrive Max, and was never able to program it, just constantly getting errors. I bought the second one as the first was meant as a gift, and I decided to by a second one for a SDrive Max for me, but first swap ATMEGA's and see if I could get the other one programmed, and then I'd know I just need another ATMEGA chip. The problem was I bought the Arduino Uno, and then it sat for about 6-8 months before I got around to it, so it was far too late to return it. Since I can get real Uno's for $15-20 and Chinese generics for $10, it's no big deal, they are cheap enough, which is nice.

Of course since I've never really learned how the Uno's work, it may be something else than the ATMEGA that is bad, but since it's socketed it's easiest to try first. For all I know it may be the Elegoo LCD board that's bad, as I don't even know what's actually getting programmed, I just followed directions to put it together and program it. It might even be an issue with my PC or doing something wrong in the programming procedures. But they went on the back-burner until I have my computers running again and the 2 that are being gifted.

I also know that robot arms I've been looking at for my Bender 400 robot project use Arduino Uno's, but I intended to remove them, maybe use them for something else, as I want to go all old-school 80's tech with my robot, all controlled by the 400 that will be inside, and not anything else. only using the robot arm and it's servos.

Edit: after glancing at the ATMEGA device overview, I see that the ATMEGA328 has eeprom memory, so I think my initial guess as to it being the chip programmed on the Uno is correct.

 

Fans of Shakespear yes, I just don't pay a lot of attention to threads having to do with computers I don't own. So I sort of ignore them mostly.

 

Hi Matt
Yes that's the main 'Chip' that's programmed, and does all the hard work so to speak.
On most later UNO's there is another ATmega chip, this is programmed to act as a USB to serial converter, and additionally can control the reset/ boot loader line of the master ATmega (the 328) when you program this with your PC.
One issue I have had is that the main ATmega328 didn't have its boot loader programmed in. this would cause a programming failure that would be seen on the PC however.
For their physical size they are remarkable in what you can do with them.

Thinking about your application using the 400 as the main controlling computer for your robotic arms, I think it would be better to add the 6522 VIA rather than the 6520 PIA, this has additional registers to control several additional timers within the VIA. This would maybe help with programming timing loops to control RC Servo's if that’s what the robotic arm is using already.
It stops any issues with using the timers that the Atari O.S is using.
As a note the two aren’t pin for pin compatible but they are very close, the main changes are in the IRQ output lines, changed to register control lines but also moved around on one side of the chip. it needs RS0-RS3 four address lines, rather than the PIA two lines. Nearly all the control lines are in the same place, so PortA, PortB, Power, Data D0-D7, all the same.
I've attached data sheets for the WDC variants below.

 

Thanks @Graham , It's been months or more since I actually was looking at robot arms, and I really don't remember what kind of motors they used, I just chose "servo" as a generic term so I didn't have to go searching. All I remember is most came equipped with one or more Arduino's, which I automatically rejected out-of-hand, since I didn't realize the core of them, the AtMega328's were 8-bit. I may end up learning them and learning to interface them with the Atari 8-bit, maybe, but I really have the dream of the 400 only, probably upgraded with an Incognito, if it's compatible, but definitely upgraded as much as possible. Most of it is very fluid and flexible at the moment until I really dive into it all.

I'll look into the VIA alternative, especially now that I've re-stocked my electronic components this past year, and now have multiple sized PCB's to use for projects. Initially I just wanted to piggy-back a second PIA. and I may still go that route.

My starting point on the project, as always, in my initial learning process and just because I've been waiting 35 years to do it, is to follow the old Analog magazine's 'Arm Your Atari' articles, and they just use the first 3 ports of the 400/800 and one PIA. Of course those articles were written for a toy 'Robotron' robot arm from the 80's and connected directly to the ports, so I'm already going to be heavily modifying how the articles get the arm working, since I'll be using Atarilab Interfaces to start, and a modern, real, robot arm. I was going to add a second PIA before hand, since I'm in full-upgrade-mode with the 800 anyway, instead of going back in later to do it when I reached a graduation point (working arm under my control) and then look into a chassis with treads to mount the robot arm and 400 mobo onto, and add sensors and camera and whatnot. But I never wanted to go beyond an upgraded Atari 8-bit as the one and only "brain." I may change my mind.

I definitely want it to be an 8-bit robot and will be designed to look as 80's style and tech as I can get, something along the lines of the robot from the movie 'Short Circuit' that I always had a dream of building something like it since I first saw it. I'm sure back then, if robots like that existed in research and development (which I believe they did, sort of like the anti-bomb robots, etc. that they may have been using 16/32/etc.-bit tech in them anyway, but I want it to be an Atari robot, with a 6502 at it's core running it all, because I love Atari, I love 6502's and I've always loved the fact that one of my favorite animated shows, 'Futurama' has Bender using a 6502 in his brain in the far future.

Hence Bender-400 even though it will look and operate nothing like the fictional Bender. But it's all a learning experience for me from the ground up in hardware and programming, and I may find, in the end, that I have to make some compromises in the dream to get it all working.

I never intended the robot to be truly interactive and social with a human, just programs to the "hard drive" and/or via remote-control and the 400 keyboard still on the robot for some direct programming. I'll have it talking, programmed stuff at first, using SAM, basically introduction programming or something, maybe I'll add a Voice Master and mic to it for some simple voice command operations, etc. Really just a toy to have fun with and a curiosity piece to show off in action and have non-tech types calling me a Genius to pet my ego, etc. so I've really felt that just a couple of PIA's or four, would do what I want and still be original equipment found in an Atari 8-bit. Though I know it's all shades of gray, since stuff like the Incognito is anything but original equipment, even if it acts like it...PokeyMax too, though I don't know that my robot will need more than one POKEY..

My aim is to make the mechanical parts and sensors operated directly from the Atari with it's PIA's, but time will tell as I teach myself all of it, and at some point I'll probably be teaching myself about Arduino Uno's, even if I don't use them for this project. But for now I just want to get the SDrive Max's working with them.

 

Hi Matt

I hear you in regard using the Adriano’s to get your SDrive Max's to work, and wasn't suggesting there use in any other way, Although you did say you may consider using the 400, along with Arduino’s If you do I think that could be a good way to go, and you don't have to use the Arduino boards, I have used the chips mainly on vero boards, I've still used the Boot loader from the Arduino project as I only have to attach a few wires to an external USB to serial adapter to re program. However I did learn assembler and worked directly with the chips themselves, some smaller devices in the ATtiny range all the way up to the 40pin Dip packages.

Just to point out that the VIA (versatile Interface Adapter) is basically a PIA (Peripheral Interface Adapter) but with additional Counter/ Timers built in, you still get the same two additional 8 bit ports along with the CA1&2 CB1&2 lines. these (CA1&2 CB1&2) I'll add can be programmed to input or output any number bits by using either something like the 74LS165 for input or 74LS595 for output, see below. This applies to VIA or PIA


or



My intensions are to add either the VIA or PIA and play with coding for these ports,
I have used similar for input on the ATtiny as needed to read in 9 bits of DMX address decoding (1-512) and not enough pins, so adding a 165 allowed me to reduce to only three lines to read 9 bits.(it read the 'overflow bit giving me an additional input to what is an 8 bit shift register)
So how are the repairs going Matt what's working or not?

 

I didn't think you were suggesting their use in any other way, just that at the moment, that's all I was interested in concerning them.

 

Thanks for the schematics, I'll save them to use when the time comes, and of course all the other stuff you uploaded and links.

 

I haven't done anything more yet, but it's a "rain" day for me today and possibly the next few days, so business is postponed until better weather, so I was planning on working on some things today and maybe the next couple of days. But I am switching back to the 1200XL long enough to install the new OS board and see if that cures my issues, since it's the only thing I haven't swapped out yet since I didn't have anything to swap in, except for some more basic components as I've been tracing the circuit traces and testing with a voltage meter along the way, which I will have to go back too if the OS replacement doesn't work. If that is the case, then it's back over to the 800 as it's red screen of death only occurred the last time I assembled it, with original components, and I'm sure it's just something simple like a card not being seated properly.

Though I will go ahead and re-install the Incognito when I do that anyway, since it was also working fine when installed and that reduces the cards that may be causing the issue. Then back to the testing if I've fixed the keyboard and if not, continued work with it, with actual multi-meter testing for the first time.

Once I get one of them working; 1200XL or 800, I will next install my 1050 happy upgrade and then onto burning OS eproms and get working on Paul's 1200XL and my friend Danny's 800XL, both long-overdue gifts that I'm really pushing to be gifted for Christmas.

 

Your welcome
I'll get round to writing some code one day, I'll make sure it's posted for all to use.

EDIT
Posts crossed Glad you have a little time for your Atari's althugh always a trade off against icoming funds.
Really hope it's something very easy to fix, and sounds like it will be. wish you good luck!