To: perot@pallas.amp.uni-hannover.de
From: dlanor@oden.se (Ronald Andersson)
Organization: 
Subject: Re: Hardware
X-Mailer: NEWSie Version 0.79 (Atari)


>Hi

Hi Peter.  Sorry about the long silence, but I had my troubles with the Falcon
as you know, and unfortunately these still remain.  I've wasted a lot of time
on it, but have decided to give it a rest now, to catch up on developments.
I've spent the recent days reshuffling hard disks etc and reinstalling software
so as to give me a decent setup on the Mega ST, while still leaving most of the
Falcon stuff intact on the main drives for when I have fixed it.

I'm now running the Mega ST with a 300 MB Seagate, and have installed most of
the important stuff on this too (eg: all my source code).  To this I will add
a small 50 MB Quantum to have some backup capability to a different media.
The 1300MB drive and the Streamer tapes still hold all the Falcon stuff, so as
I fix the Falcon it should not take long to get going on it again later.

Right now I feel it more important to keep the momentum of STinG development,
and fixing the Falcon may be too expensive for me right away anyhow.  It seems
as though the SCSI controller chip is burned out like I feared, but additionally
some other chip also seems affected, since now also floppy access has ceased to
work.  This probably means that either the AJAX chip or the Falcon's DMA chip is
broken too... :-(

I suspect the 'burnout' to have been caused by the fact that my machine was not
grounded, whereas the NAS network was.  The normal PSU design, used in both the
Falcon and its peripherals, is adapted to US power grids, with symmetric ground.
Here in Europe we have assymetric ground so this couples 110 Volts capacitively
to the 'floating ground' of an ungrounded computer.  Normally this is grounded
by other means, but it does give current surges and voltage spikes whenever any
peripheral cables are being attached or removed, and it was after one (of many)
such operations that the Falcon lost touch with the hard disk.

Oh well..., I'll solve that by and by as I get time (and money) for it.


>Here are some price tags for GALs from a local supplier :
>
>   GAL 16 V 8 - 5 LP    (5 ns)    DM 17.60
>                7       (7 ns)       11.50
>               10      (10 ns)        7.84
>               15 QP   (15 ns)        5.25
>               20 LP   (20 ns)        4.95
>               25      (25 ns)        4.05
>
>These are all DIL20P package. Now :
>
>   GAL 20 V 8 - 7 LP    (7 ns)       12.11
>               10      (10 ns)       14.50
>               15      (15 ns)        6.15
>               25      (25 ns)        4.50
>
>These are all DIL24P package. Several types are available in PLCC20
>(16V8) or PLCC28 (20V8) too, which I find less handy for a hobbyist.
>DM 1.00 is approximately kr 3.50

Thanks.  I'll save this list for future reference, understanding of course
that the prices may fluctuate from those given above.  The important thing
for me is that the chips are available, and especially in the faster versions
which AFAIK were never sold in this country.  There are lots of things that
can be done with a 5ns GAL which are completely impossible with slower ones.
(eg: high speed CPU clock switching)


>Here is the uuencoded version of RSVE V2.2, which contains the GAL 
>code for the GALs I left with you. I guess you were interested in 
>the package too ?

Sure, especially now when it looks like I will be using the ST exclusively
for yet a while longer.  I'll have a good look at it and try to fix the GALs
for you (and some for me too of course ;-) as soon as possible.  It will
probably not be today though, since I have just finished reading the 202
Emails I had waiting, and have just started replying to the relevant ones.
Then I also have to install the new betas and some other stuff, but after
that it should be 'business as usual' again (though on my older machine).

