Most liked posts in thread: I'm going to build a WEFAX interface

Oh Dear I went and changed things again.
There are now 11 pins, 8 of these are either PORTA or PORTB bits 0-7 the next 2 pins are either CA1&2 or CB1&2 and the final one is Ground.
I've just revised the decoder board to match it now has a 22 Pin connector, allowing two bunches of 11 Dupont connectors one for each board. I also added some additional mounting holes to allow the two boards to be stacked, and soldered with long dupont style pins.
CA1&2 can be very useful, as they can be setup to either input or output a stream of serial data, this is fairly easy to latch in either direction output via 74HC595's or for input 74HC165's, note they are CMOS chips.
I'll see what I can do later on to show you.

 

It's looking fantastic Graham! Certainly much better and cleaner looking than my own DIY stuff would have been with Piggy-backed chips with bunches of wires going every which way and to the ports, following some old DIY instructions for dual PIA's! It will make a nice clean upgrade to my 800 with more advanced abilities drawn out of the PIA than I would have had on my own. I really feel like you deserve more money than just cost of the boards for all the work you've put in, and I'd be very happy to pay you more for all of this!

This is amazing work Graham! Wow, just wow!

 

Great to see two retronauts getting all this pleasure from our honourable, homebrewed harmonious hobby.

By all means, send any excess cash, Matt, to:

Mattel Aquarius Research...

LOL ;-)

 

I decided the bord didn't look very nice with the joining pins so I've layed it out again



I've attached the circuit(s) in PDF format to download

 

Thanks! I'll study the PDF's. By the way, what software do you use for designing these? I really have to start designing my boards too, instead of just thinking them up and sketching them on the fly and building them up with wire and bread boards. Though I did buy a bunch of bread board PCB's of different sizes just this past year...but what the hell, I don't think I spent more than $10-20 on them.

 

Hi Matt
Edit updated PDF attached..
The software is KiCAD found Here https://kicad.org/download/
It's free and has been in development for about 20 years, I guess in the last 4-5 years it's really come along.
It's a little cheaper than Altium Designer, whom I did pay for a licence for a year that's over $4000 but I did claim it back out of company expenses and the workstation PC about $3000 KiCAD runs very nicely on it but I also use a Laptop, the one with a graphics card built in is very good, this one I'm on at the moment is 'o.k'
I did use Eagle the starter edition, but when Autodesk purchased Eagle, the only way to update the software was to pay a subscription charge in a similar way to Altium. saying that you can do small designs on Eagle but I think they shot themselves in the foot, as Hobbiests are gradually moving to KiCAD as it gets ever more powerful.
I'd have stayed with them and moved up to a more professional version. but Altium was although expensive a better choice at the time as AutoDesk had only just purchased them and didn't want to fork out and find they pulled the plug on my updated licence.

There is some learning to do as with any piece of software. taken me about a year, but some of that is unlearning Altium.

Give it a go, there is plenty of peeps on youtube to help and you can always ask me (not that I know everything about it but I maybe able to help)

I can recomend this Guy's videos about 30 of them

Plus Elektor and Digi-Key have there own ones as well.

and


Plus Digi Key https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEBQazB0HUyQmF4Vf0WEeGAGDH0th3wYf

Have fun should keep you busy for a week or so

 

Cool, thanks Graham. I may not actually get to it for a day or two as I've spent the afternoon assembling my Ender3 printer, and now I'm learning to use it and installing Cura software on the PC to make the 3D designs, that will probably take a bit to learn too. I'm very happy with the build quality of this $275 list 3D printer, it's almost all steel and aluminum with just a couple small plastic bits.

 

I've just done some more measurements between the top of the 6520 and the aluminium caseing, and appear to have approximately 10mm clearence directly above, decreasing as I move towards the fron of the computer, however I feel I have some additional room there so the original PIA can be moved forwards a little more. that and the Capacitors I'll lay over or replace, will allow the 2nd PIA to sit behind the 1st. See the attached mock up to see what I mean.
This will also fit the XE range 65/130/GS and the 1200XL however not the 800XL as it brings the original PIA to far forward. Likewise the 1088XEL/XLD would need particular versions.


Of course the Vero board overhang the pokey socket but the Original PIA in this case is going to be moved back towards the Pokey, It won't however be above it and allows a Pokey Max for stereo as the pins are on the back side away from the PIA.
The Additional PIA will sit in front of the original, but the output pins will have to go to one side.
So I've swapped around from what I was doing .

 

I won't be building a WEFAX interface after all guys. With my new Fujinet, there's no need as there is already a weather service app available in the ever growing list of internet apps like e-mail client server and web browser (still in development). Luckily all I spent so far towards the WEFAX interface is about $10 for an XR2211 IC...hopefully I can find another use for it.

Check it out!!!

https://www.howtogeek.com/697300/a-vintage-atari-is-an-amazing-weather-terminal-in-2020/amp/

 

My gawd, an APP for the atari, how could they do such a thing to our beloved machine, reducing it to be a cousin of a mobile phone...

I prefer, program.....APP is so cheap

 

Hi Matt
I had to change the PIA board again today, I run some software to check crosstalk between the traces leading from the additional ports to the connectors, as I routed them with fine traces and close together uder the added PIA.
I've now extended the PCB forward but only has traces on it so won't cause a problem for the shield.
The original PIA chip moves back towards Pokey by 0.4" and the additional one directly in front.
The lines infront are not as close as they seem as alternate lines are on opposite sides of the boards.
Just when printed both sides are printed as if you can see through the board.

Having printed it off I've attached the print out to header pins placed in the original PIA socket, not in perfect alignment but good enough to check, pokey has a lot more room, although Capasitors still needed lowering to allow PCB to sit down low to miss the shield at the front.


The two Eleven pin connectors will likely have to have there pins bent towards the back prior to soldering so the connecting duponts miss the shielding.
Now to work out the best place to find A4 to A7 that are needed

 

Thanks Again for the links Matt.
Hmm pre internet I'd found BBS's and unfortunatly for my phone bill some I phoned were in the states, One around the Michigan area I dialed in very regularly, and still have on the original fanfold printer paper some of the bit I downloaded, I did in fact contact Claus on AA as much of the content for memory upgrades etc, had his name attached.. He also knew of John Nagy a guy in the Michigan area Atari group whom I used to send magazines published in the U.K to., John sent me the gourps monthly magazines they produced.
I well remember Netscape Navigator and the beginings of our connected world .. I used windows 286 on an AT class computer and moved with the time s through Win 3.10 then the networked version Win 3.11 at which point NN above was added, these thankfully PC's at work. My first was a self built 386SX at 25MHz certainly had DOS not sure what version of windows remember using this with a Sony TV as a monitor, the ones with the trinitron Clyinder tubes not the convexed ones of most companies. I did used Win 95 98 98SE Win NT win 2000 XP, 7 and now 10.
But I also worked on Amdhal think thats right clones of the IBM 3/90 I did have my own Data General Eclispe 9000 main frame, disassembled and moved to a room in the loft and re assembled .. So not everthing was Atari.

I have had a look at the ESP & ES modules I have and two are compatiable with the latest release of fujinet, I've the CP2102 and a pair of 7407 chips. so not very much more than that needed.
I've a little to much to deal with to have a play with it at the moment, and need to send off Circuit boards to be made up and made sence to me to save on the postage costs buy ordering now and done with. I've an 800XL thats taking up a lot of time trying to find the instability it has, It's been stripped back of most of it's upgrades and annoyingly still plays up ... just not all the time.. I've made up a video lead for my new Oric Atmos, but I've not got as far as checking the Drives I have of Andy's once that's working o.k likely with a drive change, I'll need to find an alternative to load from. And although frustrated by it Back to my ZEGS system sfter that

 

Looking SWEET AS, you lucky fella!

Nice work, Matt - what a great addition to the utility of your Atari classic.

Incredible, really.

 

Reading your comments and seeing those photo's Matt, have confirmed that I need to invest in a Fujinet at some point. And an AVG cart as well. There's so much great hardware out fo our 8bit machines these days.

I don't know about you guys but I'm more enthused these days by the 8/16 bit scenes than anything on Windows pc's or Sony/Microsoft consoles.

Although, a Raspberry Pi400 looks mighty tempting as well.....

 

Graham, is there any electronics you don't have?

Side3 or Side2 is also on my 'maybe' list.
Interested to hear your opinions on the Pi400. I'm thinking of one with Pimiga on it. Also like the idea of having various SD cards ready to put in with full builds of arcade machines, the BBC, etc.

 

Well I do have some photo's of me and my fellow Princple engineer John Handy on a structure very similar, but it wasn't in my back garden, it was at B.T. Madley
We were pictured on a 32M cassegrain dish made by Mitsubishi back in the mid 80's at the time it was still in use that was about 7-8 years ago. Andy your going to have to be careful what you say ...

 

I've decided I'm still going to go through with building a Wefax interface, because even with Weather.xex for Fujinet, there is still know satellite imagery, etc. and I still think it will be fun to get a shortwave radio for this and other things, and I just like to build kit like this. Fujinet weather.xex report can give me a quick look at the day and forecasts for ten days out just like my weather app on my phone (but a heck of a lot more fun to use since it's coming from my Atari!), and it's actually easier/quicker to look at the current conditions and forecasts from any major city in the world than on my phone as all I have to do is enter the city and country, e.g. London, UK and I get it nearly instantly, like I just did: London right now is 40.01 C, broken clouds, wind 6.91 m/s sw, dewpoint 36.46 C, visibility 10km, humidity 87%, clouds 75% and "feels like" temp 36.46 C! But no satellite maps/radar and other things I can get from WEFAX and print out. Though with WEFAX I'll only be able to get reports from any SSB shortwave signals my radio can pick up. So I think having both will be nice and a lot of fun.

 

DEFINITELY. It's another reason to lurve having an Atari, Matt.

Go for it - every project a new adventure.

 

I agree, I think that making up the interface and using it a great idea...
I look forward to seeing it when your done ..

 

Andy
Guess what I found .. Just for you, unfortunately none of me but a couople with John Handy (green hardhat) It's a big ole barsteward.

 

Looks like they are out of stock just now. Unless someone starts to sell them over here I may pick one up whenever I can get over to the States. I think Matt's summary of it has sealed the deal

 

I'll be getting it from TBA, they seem a good source.

 

Good choice, I'm sure more will be in stock soon. (I edited previous post in case you missed it)
Version 1.0 seems to be perfectly stable and the 1.3 version introduced some problems.

One warning I just read on TBA's site is that people with Sophia 2's and Fujinet are getting RF interference from Sophia 2, and the fix is to add RF shielding to Sophia 2. I doubt highly this will be an issue for me or other 800 users though, since the 800's shielding is basically a Faraday cage.

 

It'll be once lockdown lifts that I go for it most likely so plenty of time for a new revision or two .

In the meantime I look forward to more of your posts about it Matt!