Amiga 600 schematics nearly put into Kicad

[Mick]

Hi all,

I started playing around with Kicad a few weeks ago after being impressed by Kai's memory converter PCB, it encouraged me to play around in Kicad trying to make my own and even though it was just a connecting dots exercise it allowed to me learn a bit of Kicad.

So a few days ago I was delusional or something and so I thought about building an A600 board using the R2 schematics available here. I've successfully (I think) managed to replace the video DAC with a newer version and I was maybe going to make an A600 in A1200 footprint with the A1200 keyboard controller but I don't really know how lmao.

The problem is at this point there's something like 200 errors showing in electrical test which has destroyed my morale I think they're because I haven't assigned inputs/outputs properly (I just left nearly everything as inputs) or maybe because I haven't finished doing connectors (PCMCIA/IDE/expansion) and although I don't think it would affect a PCB I think I'd struggle to do the layout part anyway, even though I've made some footprints for 23pin etc. I also don't have a board on hand to measure or anything.

As I'm reaching the point of giving up I've upoaded all of the files into the Zone with Footprints and Symbols, file name is Amiga600LMAO.zip which was how I rated my chances of success before starting. Hopefully others can finish the job. I probably did some things wrong but it's better than starting from a blank slate I guess?

Maybe Chucky or someone will find it helpful.

Like I said files are uploaded to the zone knock yourselves out and maybe fix it.

Cheers.
Michael

[Mick]

I managed to get the warning count down to something like 160 just changing a few of the data buses to bidirectional so yeah, with hindsight I probably should have just set everything to bidirectional. I think I've had enough trying to get the count down to 0. It probably needs someone who understands computers/electronics more. If anyone finishes it please share. Or maybe tell me what I need to do to sort it and I might plow some more time into it. I don't feel like finishing it when there are so many warnings it just seems like a waste of time at this point.

[zero]

Some of the errors may be down to how Kicad handles power. If something is marked as a power pin the whole net needs to be connected to something marked as a power supply. There is a "pwr_flag" that can mark things as being power supplies.

[SukkoPera]

I will help you with this.

[Mick]

I noticed that with the global _IPL label going into Paula I missed the underscore, so that will remove a few warnings with the uploaded version.

I realised early on with Kicad you can't have the same part/symbol on more than one sheet so I got around that by using global labels. I think inputs/outputs is probably my main source of confusion though.

If you can fix any obvious errors SukkoPera and re-upload it that would be great! If the warning count is reduced significantly I might be more inclined to finish the remaining parts.

My thinking is that the Amiga 600 would be a good basis for any kind of DIY Amiga whether in ATX form or whatever, maybe it'd be possible to have full 2MB and RTC onboard or add a DIP 68000 socket for expansion. The possibilities are endless once the schematics have been drawn up into a freely available format.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by Mick

I realised early on with Kicad you can't have the same part/symbol on more than one sheet so I got around that by using global labels. I think inputs/outputs is probably my main source of confusion though.

When you say symbol, do you mean net name? You can isolate net names using hierarchical sheets.

[Mick]

For example on the original schematics they have U25 split into a few parts and used on different sheets, when I tried to do the same with U25 on multiple sheets it kicked up some error about duplicates I think, so I just put the full U25 on the earlier sheet and used global labels in later ones.

It also wouldn't allow me to name capacitors/resistors ending with a letter without sticking a 1 on the end, so instead of E100R which would become E100R1 I called them ER100 EC100 etc. I'm still a beginner really I just wanted to do something hopefully useful to the community.

[dashie]

If the kicad symbol isn't splited in multiple "units" you can do one yourself to tidy the schematics, the footprint won't change.

Also same as said by zero: add a PWR_FLAG on each power lines, also if you have something like pin<>res/ferrite<>IC you need to put a PWR_FLAG after the res/ferrite too because the ERC don't understand the "power through xxx".

The naming is good as long as it's not too far derived from "original" for understanding.

Your buses naming is wrong, it should be like "DRD[0..15]" (kicad not yet enforce that but next release will add a bunch of ERC buses checks !), also add a net-label to each lines to ensure they are properly routed.
Same for DRA[0..9] (sheet2).
I've personally named my buses as "DRD[0..15]" and used "DRDx" for each net-label instead of just a number (the net label needs to match the bus naming in fact).

[Mick]

I tried changing the buses and net labels as suggested and nothing has really changed, I think the problem is symbols not being set as output or bidirectional. The majority of warnings are "connected but not driven".

What's weird is some address and data lines are showing that error but others aren't and they're connected along the same bus, surely it would be all or nothing?

I found the single error at least, I did two pin 20's on Paula.

[dashie]

If you have an updated archive I can take a look (tell me where the issue is).

I've done a few custom symbols (all custom amiga 2k chips + some others one) for the A2000, I dunno which ones are common with the 600 but you can look at https://dev.sigpipe.me/dashieelectro...icad_libraries (files: amiga_customs, dashie_ti, d_serdat, d_eeproms, d_memory, d_rtc and d_ics) if there is anything you can reuse or inspire from.

Edit about the all or nothing: not really, they should all highlight (if they are all 'identical') but the arrow might not be always at the same place, like some might be on one component on A1:5 and A6:10 on another on the same bus, yeah that's kinda weird.

[Mick]

Okay I've posted latest archive as things are now, basically I'm trying to diagnose all of the 'warnings' in electrical test before putting any more serious work into finishing the connectors and stuff.

I think my global labels might be a bit wrong as well, I seem to be getting confused about what should be an input and what should be an output when referencing back to symbols.

[dashie]

The 74LS245 from 74xx will work, I use it on the A2000 without issues.

For the 68k you can use 68000D from CPU_NXP_68000, works fine.

Didn't checked much else, but it's really in/out pin issue mostly it seems.

I have symbol for AGNUS 8372, the A600 have 8375 (at least mine does), it's possible to use the 72 and change the pinout a bit for the 75 (http://obligement.free.fr/gfx/agnus8372_brochage.jpg) they looks very similar.

All my symbols should have the right pin types too. I used https://translate.google.fr/translat...hl=fr&ie=UTF-8 and some google search to get various pinouts and deducting how they should behave if I couldn't find them.

As for the connector, I do have the db23 symbol and footprints in my libraries.

Edit: AFAIK the label orientation in/out is purely cosmetic and KiCAD ERC doesn't care.
Edit2: I don't know why you have a lot of symbols in the MyLibrary, if you use the default one people should have it, and KiCAD also handle a library cache in the project directory so it will be always working. only make custom when you really needs to change something.

[Mick]

Ok thank you, I might try to finish it over the next few days. I saved symbols into my own library because I planned to share it and when I installed Kicad onto one Linux system a while back I couldn't even get the stock libraries installed/working.

I think changing the bus labels did do something, when I put the parts into PCBnew now there looks to be a lot more links.

[dashie]

Ok I see.

Let me know if you need help or review after cleaning stuff.

You can take a look at my a2000 https://github.com/rhaamo/kicad-amiga2000 (ignore the tri-state and open collector errors in ERC, they are "normal")

[Mick]

Is that the Amiga 2000 board I've seen progressing on A1K? yeah I definitely want one of those.

[dashie]

Originally Posted by Mick

Is that the Amiga 2000 board I've seen progressing on A1K? yeah I definitely want one of those.

I'm not on A1K, I know someone was/is working on a project on his side but I don't have more informations on that.

[Mick]

Yeah that's truly amazing, you're obviously a pro at Kicad. Like I said I only started learning it a few weeks ago. I appreciate the offer to look it over afterwards.

How come I haven't heard about your 2k board before? did you never release it? I'll probably spend the next hour just admiring your board in 3d viewer.

What did you use to trace it? freerouting? or manual?

[dashie]

Originally Posted by Mick

How come I haven't heard about your 2k board before? did you never release it? I'll probably spend the next hour just admiring your board in 3d viewer.

tbh I more or less did it on an impulse and never really made any news about it, it was more a fun way to entertain me at some point (and because of another recent project of a 1:1 pcb-only which permitted me to easily do the PCB placement and dimensions)

Most of the routing was done with Freerouting (from LayoutEditor) and a few traces were manually routed to ease ground plane which was done within kicad.

[Mick]

I've spent about the last year following the A2000 projects on A1K, I think there are a couple of people working on them. I thought they were at the cutting edge.

[Mick]

When you say freerouting in layour editor has that been dropped in recent version of Kicad? when I tried autorouting before I was directed to some separate java app.

Is your 2000 PCB fully working? you should make a thread it's awesome.