Re: Stellation Mill 6809 card clone / FPGA

[steve.howell@altium.com.au]

> - The photos are gorgeous, but the file sizes are so large that the pages take
> considerable time to load - and I'm on 5Mb/sec. symmetrical fiber.  Might be a
> good idea to opt for a bit lower resolution or color depth?  Maybe the page
> could show something that loads quickly with a link if you want to take the
> hit for 1024x768 32-bit color?

I agree. The real killer is the fact that im serving it from home -
ie, my ADSL line to a DI-624 (wireless storage router). I thought it
would be ok, but its really copped a flogging since it went up. Im
looking at upgraading to ADSL2+, hoping to help this abit, but really
- it should be with an ISP - I know this. When I finish ill organise
it all. There is still a lot of info i want to put up. Apple III PROMS
etc.

>
> - Perhaps I'm having a dense-day, but you are showing off a lot of cool boards
>   and I'm not clear how to categorize them in terms of (a) which are simply
> designs at this point (i.e. not planned for commercial availability), (b)
> which are planned to offered and (c) which are actually commercial things
> (Altium, etc.) that are being employed by something else.

Ah, ok. The NB2 is all altium. All the plugs on's are the extra's i
have knocked up (anything that looks "Apple" - ie PB10). Altiums stuff
is open source anyway, so its all available to download and build if
you wish, but its easier to buy from digikey. The idea has been to cut
a system that actually works, and more importantly scales up with FPGA
technology to eventually allow the III and IIGS to follow suit. Once
the core is known good, we can make these boards anywhere. The site
went up last week, so im still just getting this stuff out. Alex has
had a protoype for quite some time, and has found heaps of bugs. We
want to eliminate all of these before the source (being schematics,
gerbers, code, etc) is made available.

>
> In particular, I understand that Carte Blanche will be available, but what
> about that neat daughter board that holds the ZIF socket?

--> It too will be available (PB04 - for asics, cpu's etc). The whole
concept, which includes these boards will be open source. I need to
make sure these thing work well, including an example (for example)
before releasing them. Alex has been creating some really cool stuff
in this domain. He has a 65C02 hard processor connected up to his soft
Apple IIe using the PB04, which works a treat. (If only I had a broom
pole to nudge him to do a 65C816) - but first thing first. So PB04 is
really good to go, its not far off - final test will be with carte
blanche.


>
> On the subject of fabrication, I might be willing to attempt a larger package
> but the little chip resistors and caps scare the wits out of me.  You are
> certainly correct that practice makes perfect, but I don't do enough SMD work
> to be in shape :-(.  My few forays into repair have been suboptimal.

No worries, There will be boards you can buy. I have a few favors I
can wangle, and from what I gather Alex has some strong European
resources, so, Id like to think its a matter ot time. But it will be
reliable hardware and the examples that will make this stuff
understandable, and eventually fly, and thats taking the most time.


Thanks for the feed back on the site. Any news is good news.

steve.
>
> Steve