RE: Testing Cinematronics CPU's

On Mon, 18 Jan 1999, Al Kossow wrote:

> "2) Use an original exorciser or a copy (and it's documentation)
> "
>
> so, it's been about a year since I sent the PC boards to Joe.
> what ever happened? did you ever bother with a better design?
>

        Here we go again...

        Not wanting these to be a for-profit thing, I have
either distributed or promised the half-dozen or so complete
"rev. A" Exorcisors to people who helped with the project, etc.

        I still have some unpopulated "rev. A" boards. The rev A
exorcisor design has unbuffered outputs from the PLD and seems to
work only with short, twisted-pair ribbon cable. The crosstalk
from normal ribbon cable is too much, and it won't work. Some
simple LS244 buffers would fix this, I'm sure, but the board would
have to be re-done.

        A couple of months ago, I surveyed both RGVAC, and the
vectorlist to see how many people would be interested in buying
this, if I were to have a run of boards professionally done, probably
at a cost of at least $50, for the complete exorcisor (but without
cables) and I got maybe a half dozen replies -- definitely not
enough to make it cost-effective.

        So, that's the situation. If, all of the sudden, there is
a resurgence of interest, I'll reconsider. If anyone wants the JEDEC
file for the PLD (an AMD MACH 210) there're more than welcome to it
(if it isn't up on spies already, along with the "rev A" board layout,
etc) if they want to build they're own Exorcisor....

Joe
Received on Tue Jan 19 12:16:00 1999