New products for C64 and Amiga from Individual Computers

[Retrofan]

Yep, I had stripes on screen as soon as it got warm, and it was getting worse the more time you were running the Amiga. I soldered a pin there and Voilá, no problem since then.

Edit: But take the oportunity to clean Lisa, as she also has to be clean.

[fitzsteve]

Ha ha, I like my Lisa's dirty!

I have the opposite problem here, glitches for the first minute or so then rock solid after (with MkII) in 1024x768 or HD720, Superplus is always fine.

I use Superplus mostly due to Chip Ram usage anyway.

[Retrofan]

Maybe Fitzsteve that's because of the dirty Lisa. As your Amiga gets hotter Lisa has to make a better contact also and the glitches disappear

Edit: I forgot to say that I've got an 1D1 mobo, but it's also true that Lisa can have different brands on same revisions I believe to remember.

Edit2: I made this video when I was having the problems: [ Show youtube player ]

Hi Jens

i notice that on our url http://wiki.icomp.de
in your list of resellers
there is no amedia computers : before it wasn't the case

i have bought an indivision 1200 6 months ago (amedia computers), it's a very nice product

i am attracted by the HDMI Adapter of kipper2k
http://www.kipper2k.com/amiga/audiomod/audiomod.htm
what do you think of this addon ? i know it's not your hardware but i think you have an opinion

your last product rapidroad USB catch my attention
i'm fed up with my floppy drive,
it take space in my amiga (1200) for nothing because now i use hd sdd card
in your opinion, the option to use this space for rapidroad is it realizable (after the installation of posseidon) ?
i have many questions... i m curious... it's my default

Nicolas

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by el nico

i notice that on our url http://wiki.icomp.de
in your list of resellers
there is no amedia computers : before it wasn't the case

What you see in the Wiki is an up-to-date list of official resellers.

Originally Posted by el nico

i am attracted by the HDMI Adapter of kipper2k
http://www.kipper2k.com/amiga/audiomod/audiomod.htm
what do you think of this addon ? i know it's not your hardware but i think you have an opinion

You're right, it's not my hardware, and I therefore don't have an "official opinion". I have only seen that hardware on pictures of EAB threads ;-)

Originally Posted by el nico

your last product rapidroad USB catch my attention
i'm fed up with my floppy drive,
it take space in my amiga (1200) for nothing because now i use hd sdd card
in your opinion, the option to use this space for rapidroad is it realizable (after the installation of posseidon) ?

RapidRoad is really tiny. You should be able to fit that inside of an A1200.

Jens

[wXR]

Perchance, is C64 reloaded a board that can work with unmodified Sega Genesis pads, without blowing the CIA (even when mashing keys at the same time)?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by wXR

Perchance, is C64 reloaded a board that can work with unmodified Sega Genesis pads, without blowing the CIA (even when mashing keys at the same time)?

Nope - Sega gamepads do not comply with the standard that Commodore and Atari have established back in the days. You should never connect an unmodded Sega gamepad to other computers but a Sega gaming system.

It's the same as with serial ports on a PC: They have the same physical connector, but it's a different protocol and different voltages. There's the danger of breaking the device, the computer's port, or even both.

Jens

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Schoenfeld

Nope - Sega gamepads do not comply with the standard that Commodore and Atari have established back in the days. You should never connect an unmodded Sega gamepad to other computers but a Sega gaming system.

It's the same as with serial ports on a PC: They have the same physical connector, but it's a different protocol and different voltages. There's the danger of breaking the device, the computer's port, or even both.

Jens

This is a good time to pose the following question then.

While we know that the Megadrive/Genesis gamepads don't stricly adhere to the Commodore/Atari specs, and that there's a stray pin which works only by pure chance (SELECT I think?), is there really a danger for the Amigas? I mean, a real chance of damage, not something which could happen only in 1% of cases

I've seen loads of people use them for ages on their Amigas with no issues at all and I use one myself on all my Amigas without any issues at all... While I know that there's real danger when using them with a C64 because of something different in the pinout (can't remember now).

Thanks for your time, Jens!

[Nostromo]

Quick question for Schoenfeld

I am interested in purchasing a Chameleon 64 and have come across this post, where the VGA output quality is discussed. Is this problem (picture not sharp, fuzzyness/blurryness) still an issue? Thanks!

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...ns/topics/2339

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by jbenam

I mean, a real chance of damage, not something which could happen only in 1% of cases

I haven't made those pads, and I don't have the time to check schematics that are possibly wrong. In any case, we're talking about classic computers that can only be repaired with hard-to-find spare parts, so I recommend to only use (game-) controllers that were specifically made for the target computer you're using.

Originally Posted by Nostromo

Quick question for Schoenfeld

I am interested in purchasing a Chameleon 64 and have come across this post, where the VGA output quality is discussed. Is this problem (picture not sharp, fuzzyness/blurryness) still an issue? Thanks!

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/...ns/topics/2339

Solved long ago (actually a few days after that): It was a power regulation issue. I've called back the few devices that were shipped that way. All new units don't have that issue.

Jens

[johey]

Will there be an A3000/4000 accelerator board, for example in the ACA series?

[Daedalus]

Originally Posted by jbenam

While we know that the Megadrive/Genesis gamepads don't stricly adhere to the Commodore/Atari specs, and that there's a stray pin which works only by pure chance (SELECT I think?), is there really a danger for the Amigas? I mean, a real chance of damage, not something which could happen only in 1% of cases

I've seen loads of people use them for ages on their Amigas with no issues at all and I use one myself on all my Amigas without any issues at all... While I know that there's real danger when using them with a C64 because of something different in the pinout (can't remember now).

Jens gives some sound advice there - if there is any chance that it might damage your Amiga, why risk it?

Anyway, I've had a look at the schematics myself and they're a little... odd, really. They use pin 5 to provide power to the logic in the gamepad, not the normal pin 7. Pin 7 is used by the Megadrive as a select signal that switches between two banks of buttons, and because on the Amiga it is +5V it always only considers only one bank of buttons, meaning the A and Start buttons cannot be read by the Amiga. However they shouldn't really cause damage because they don't do anything except pull a logic input low on the multiplexer chip which is normally pulled high by a 10k resistor. My only slight concern here is that the whole thing, including the small current sinks of the buttons and their pull-up resistors, is all running off the pin 5 signal, which is held high in order to detect middle button presses on an Amiga mouse. But the impedance of this signal has to be quite high as the middle button simply shorts it to ground, so I can't imagine the extra current draw being an issue here.

What I would find concerning is that the Amiga uses pin 5 to control certain functions of the CD32 gamepad, similar to what the Megadrive does with pin 7. This is worrying because if anything calls on this function, pin 5 is drawn to ground, powering down the multiplexer which still has the full +5V applied to its select input, and to pin 5's pull-up resistor, neither of which are a good thing. Without knowing how the multiplexer and the Amiga's internals react to such a condition it's hard to say what would happen, but that could be where the damage happens.

Basically it comes down to you. If you trust software to leave pin 5 alone, you're probably pretty safe to use Megadrive pads. But you can never be sure what games might try to use a CD32 pad, or even use the lowlevel.library API to read a normal joystick. Old games are probably fine, but even then, some funky poking around in the CIA or Paula registers could cause you trouble that wouldn't show up with a proper Amiga controller.

Megadrive pads are pretty simple however, and it would be quite trivial to modify one to conform to the Amiga's requirements (and get use of all 3 buttons in the meantime). It should only take a few minutes with a soldering iron...

Edit: It appears that the C64's CIAs don't like the pull-up resistors used in the Megadrive controllers because the signals are also used for other purposes which rely on the joystick being open circuit - remember how the player 2 joystick could be used to type garbage onto the screen? As far as I know this is only the case for the Amiga in the case I described above (software looking for a CD32 controller or other non-standard joystick or peripheral on the port).

[jbenam]

Originally Posted by Daedalus

Jens gives some sound advice there - if there is any chance that it might damage your Amiga, why risk it?
<long quote here>

That's the tech explanation I was waiting for! I got to most of these things myself, but I wanted confirmation. I know that most users have used MD pads for ages on their Amigas without damage, while some had reported damaged C64s.
I really don't like modifying controllers I also intend to use for something else, so I'll keep risking it I suppose nothing really uses pin 5...

Now enough off-topic or Jens will punish us

[Daedalus]

Yep, sorry Jens Good point, it would be simple either to make an in-line adaptor that converts to the Amiga requirements and also protects the C64, should only take a few diodes and would still leave your Megadrive controller unmolested. I'll have a look when I get home and come up with something...

[Retro-Nerd]

I suppose nothing really uses pin 5...

Amiga Pin 5 is the middle (third) mouse button.

[Daedalus]

Yep, pin 5 is the middle mouse button, but I think jbenam was talking about games which rarely use the third button (I only know of one game that uses more than 2 buttons and that's Formula One GP, most only use 1), and even then, they don't use it as an output which is the real problem. Pin 5 is used for output for CD32 controllers though, so any game that supports a CD32 controller is liable to cause problems.

Anyway, here's a little schematic I knocked together that should sort out all your problems and enable you to use your Megadrive controller with any Amiga or Commodore computer without risk. Please not that I haven't built or tested it, but if you're familiar with a soldering iron it should take a few minutes to knock together, and you could probably build the diodes into a DB9 shell to make a very simple adaptor. Some schematics show the Megadrive controller to have a pull-up resistor on the Select line (pin 7 of the controller), but others do not. I suspect most do because if not I'm not sure they'd work with the Amiga at all (left and right might be disconnected), but I've shown it connected to +5V anyway to be sure it selects the correct controls. Button B is mapped to button 1, C is mapped to 2, and A and start do nothing.

[Jope]

The megadrive/genesis pad arguement can continue at the existing thread for it:
http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=75515

[CrashMidnick]

ACA1000/2mb chipram cancelled or still planned ?

[Schoenfeld]

Originally Posted by CrashMidnick

ACA1000/2mb chipram cancelled or still planned ?

Still planned, just no time to even start it. Only thing I've started is to get the hard-to-find mechanical parts. These are sitting here, happily waiting to be used some day :-)

Jens

[CrashMidnick]

Thanks Jens for the info, I will wait happily for this day