Re: Atari Cat boxes

>Cool. I just disasembled the bin file and am checking out the code right
>now. It looks like the "firmware" rom sits at 6000h. It is not very long.
>The code only fills 68Fh bytes (minus the reset and interrupt vectors).
>Now who has a schematic of the catbox they want to cough up???

I will scan the schematic in today and toss it up on my web page. If there
is interest I will also send it to the list. It really doesn't look all
that complex. And Joe (jwelser@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu) has mentioned that he is
willing to tackle the "Cat on a Chip" in his ongoing series of "On a Chip"
test equipment.

This would probably reduce the board size dramatically. As for the two
paper size boards I think we can reduce the total size quite a bit. Its not
like we are going to be going into production on these so we can make some
compromises.

There have been a couple of suggestions on feature additions. This sounds
great to me once we have a good idea of what the original box did.

After looking over the docs I think these are what I would tackle (my wish
list)

Dump the Logic probe, pretty much everyone savvy enough to use a CB already
has one and that is an unneeded expense.
Modify the code to test ram in larger than 1K chunks.
Modify the box to work on other non CB enabled boards. Probably some sort
of CPU plug adapter.
The docs I have I think cover the Checksum mod for the CB if not then we
definitely want to incorporate that from John's images and units.

I could also see turning this into a PC interfacable device so we could go
to the other processors and companies boards. I am typing this on a Pentium
166mmx. That is a hell of a lot more power than the boards we are working
on and I would love to put some of that power to use.

But I don't want feature creep to make us lose sight of the goal. A readily
available replacement for a useful piece of test equipment.

David
Received on Wed Dec 31 13:02:17 1997