Re: Cat Box

I'm STILL trying to dig out the twenty or so that I know of back east.
Sigh. Someday...

John :-#)#

jwelser@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu wrote:
>
> On 21 Jul 1998, Mark Shostak wrote:
>
> > Joe,
> >
> > Sounds kinda pricy. Once you add it all up (including the cost of
> > the board and construction time), you may come out ahead to just pay
> > the ~$300 for a real CAT.
>
> The point was more that CATs aren't available. I'd gladly pay
> ~$300 today for a real CAT. If you (or anybody else) knows where I can
> get one, I'm all ears.
>
> > Do you think multiple smaller (cheaper) devices might be more practical?
> > (I just split the Cinematronics multigame into two PLDs for the very same
> > reason, and being a purist, I thought it was going to kill me).
>
> The problem is IOs, more than anything else. It would probably
> fit in a MACH3xx series part, but there aren't enough IOs. Off the top of
> my head, the CAT box needs 48 IOs for the ADDR and Data busses, plus
> another dozen or so miscellaneous signals.
>
> I figure I'd need a PLD with about 70 IOs.
>
> I can try to partition things, but I think I'd wind up with just
> 2 smaller PLDs each needing 70 IOs, which doesn't really help anything.
> Schleping that many signals around a board to multiple chips will make the
> board more complex.
>
> I guess I'm kind of spoiled by the Cinematronics Exorcisors, which
> with one chip, led to a really nice, neat, one-sided PCB design (that fits
> in the palm of your hand.)
>
> > Cheers,
> > Mark
> >
> > P.S. From the perspective of money being no object, I like the idea of
> > an elegant, single chip solution. Unfortunately, the techies find
> > out sooner or later that what looks good on paper, doesn't always
> > translate into a practical solution. That's when you have to com-
> > promise some elegance for what's most practical to manufacture.
> >
>
> Manufacturing a board with 1 chip is certainly easier than
> manufacturing a board with many chips, so I'm not sure what you're
> getting at. Fitting something on 1 PLD trades off board complexity
> for chip complexity, which is something that I'm very willing to do.
> We'll see how it all pans out. I'm not concerned about the cost
> as much as I am the utility of the final product, since I'm not
> "manufacturing" anything on a mass scale, and I'm not doing it to
> make money. If I can get away with not needing a 2-sided PCB, then
> I've already "won" in my eyes, because, technically I could etch the
> PCBs myself if I felt like it , and save lots of $.
>
> Joe

-- 
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