Amiga CD32 Rev4.1 Gerber files

[CD32Freak]

When John "Chucky" Hertell is recovered from his ReAmiga 3000 adventures , he will check my Sprint Layout file. However, anyone is free to join in and iron out my newbie mistakes

[Mick]

Originally Posted by CD32Freak

I come to the conclusion that the VCC layer at amigapcb.org is not used at all on an original CD32 board. Only the GND en OVV layers are used.

Are you sure? it looks to me like it's a plane spanning the whole board, you can see the thermal relief connections on the through hole VCC pins and presumably there will be VIA's scattered all over the board for the surface mount parts.

I still think OVV and VCC belong to the same layer but they were just stored as separate files as it's a mixed layer, one file has the plane data the other is the traces.

[Chucky]

Having done this now.. I can say that even if Amigapcb is a very useful resource. you cannot really use it as the "whole picture"

generally inner layers is for power and ground. and some "emergency, we are out of routingplace" traces.

I will have a look at the sprntfiles. problem for me is time as I will also rebuild my lab after christmas etc..

[CD32Freak]

Originally Posted by Mick

Are you sure? it looks to me like it's a plane spanning the whole board, you can see the thermal relief connections on the through hole VCC pins and presumably there will be VIA's scattered all over the board for the surface mount parts.

I still think OVV and VCC belong to the same layer but they were just stored as separate files as it's a mixed layer, one file has the plane data the other is the traces.

Mick, I'm sorry for the confusion, you are right, OVV and VCC belong to the same layer:


I also had to create Sprint Layout macros of Akiko and 68EC020, because they were not converted correctly. So I've updated the Lay6 file with these changes.

@Chucky
No problem, build your lab first

[CD32Freak]

It seems back in 1993 the Design Rule Checking (DRC) was different, because I see silkscreen over pads en vias..lol..Anyway, I don't know if it is useful, but at least you could use it as a template or hang it on the wall

[turrican3]

What you did is amazing,
but i would have been more interested in a cd32 new mobo, included sx32 +fmv in a way or in other.

[CD32Freak]

Yes, I agree, I would also prefer a complete new CD32 motherboard with all those features and HDMI+USB, but that would require the talent of someone like Chucky (ReAmiga 1200) or Jeroen Vandezande (A1200+)

What I wanted to do with this conversion, is using what seems to be the original Gerber data from Commodore converted to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) for amigapcb.org and converting it back to Gerber, because the owner of that site is not willing to release the original files to the public

[PurpleMelbourne]

Much simpler than adding USB would be changing 14Mhz 020 for 28Mhz 030 would be an easy and small change.

[rvctech]

Originally Posted by CD32Freak

Thanks Mick. I think I've converted the GND layer wrong, now it doesn't make sense. What black is should be copper en what orange is should not be copper. What do you think?

Hi CD32freak,

You probably already know this (I am late to the party) - in a Gerber file, *inner plane* layers are always inverted. The layer plot shows where copper does *not* appear

(The AmigaPCB data does this, because it probably came direct from Gerbers. This is one of the 'hallmarks' that makes it obvious where the data originally came from).

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by CD32Freak

What I wanted to do with this conversion, is using what seems to be the original Gerber data from Commodore converted to SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) for amigapcb.org and converting it back to Gerber, because the owner of that site is not willing to release the original files to the public

Not willing? Well, I promised not to release the files, that's all.

[Mick]

Originally Posted by Scrat

Not willing? Well, I promised not to release the files, that's all.

Why out of interest?

Do you have other revisions or just those that have been published?

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by Mick

Why out of interest?

Lets just say it was part of the deal to get access to these files.

Originally Posted by Mick

Do you have other revisions or just those that have been published?

Other revisions of the CD32 board? No. Just the two revs that Commodore produced.

[Mick]

Originally Posted by Scrat

Lets just say it was part of the deal to get access to these files.

Do you know why he doesn't want to share them? I've not been back long but the Amiga community seems to be a bit overly-political at times.

AmigaPCB is great but it would be better with all of the revisions.

Originally Posted by Scrat

Other revisions of the CD32 board? No. Just the two revs that Commodore produced.

No I meant other models. A500 6/8, A600 1.5/2B/2D, A1200 1D4 etc.

[rvctech]

Originally Posted by Mick

AmigaPCB is great but it would be better with all of the revisions.

No I meant other models. A500 6/8, A600 1.5/2B/2D, A1200 1D4 etc.

@Mick My 2c AUD: A lot of internal Commodore data that we have was leaked and/or taken by ex-employees of Commodore and/or ESCOM.

Normally it is against company policy to leak or take proprietary data, employees are not meant to do this!

Therefore you can appreciate that these people might not feel comfortable about this being released into the public domain (although it has been many years). It's not necessarily political.

What you see on AmigaPCB.org is probably all that they have because the other data was simply not available to the person that originally leaked or obtained it.

A number of the revisions on AmigaPCB are pre-release and were probably not used by Commodore in mass production (like the Rev 2A A600). But we're lucky to have anything at all!

[CD32Freak]

Originally Posted by rvctech

Hi CD32freak,

You probably already know this (I am late to the party) - in a Gerber file, inner layers are always inverted. The layer plot shows where copper does *not* appear

(The AmgaPCB data does this, because it probably came direct from Gerbers. This is one of the 'hallmarks' that makes it obvious where the data originally came from).

No, I didn't know that, but thanks for the clarification. As you probably have read above, it confused me a lot at the beginning, but you always learn as you go

[CD32Freak]

Originally Posted by Scrat

Not willing? Well, I promised not to release the files, that's all.

Okay, I understand, but now the Gerber files are out there and it's not your fault. According to a ruling by The Intellectual Property Court I also didn't do anything illegal. I didn't copy any original circuit designs. I've only converted the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) at amigapcb.org into Gerber files: Copyright Infringement of Circuit Layouts

[rvctech]

Originally Posted by CD32Freak

No, I didn't know that, but thanks for the clarification. As you probably have read above, it confused me a lot at the beginning, but you always learn as you go

Clarification (I made a typo) - *Inner plane* layers are always inverted .

(Inner signal layers are plotted in the normal manner).

[Scrat]

Originally Posted by CD32Freak

Okay, I understand, but now the Gerber files are out there and it's not your fault. According to a ruling by The Intellectual Property Court I also didn't do anything illegal. I didn't copy any original circuit designs. I've only converted the SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) at amigapcb.org into Gerber files: Copyright Infringement of Circuit Layouts

It has never been a legal question, that stuff is 30 years old. It's more or less a moral question. I've spent an insane amount of time to set up amigapcb.org and seeing that work being ripped and proudly presented here makes me feel sad.

Go on and keep telling yourself that you didn't do anything wrong. Maybe it's time to retire amigapcb.org and spend the amount of time and money required to keep it running elsewhere, with all the data in the wild now it's probably not needed anymore.

[Mick]

Why so possessive about it? like you've said it's 25-35 year old hardware from a company that's been bust for 25 years and we're all fans here, from what I've seen there seems to be too much "I have something you can't have" within the Amiga community.

Have you considered that had you released the files then maybe someone else would have done that insane amount of work for you? is it about control or what?

[Heppaz]

Originally Posted by Scrat

IGo on and keep telling yourself that you didn't do anything wrong. Maybe it's time to retire amigapcb.org and spend the amount of time and money required to keep it running elsewhere, with all the data in the wild now it's probably not needed anymore.

I think you are taking this the wrong way.
He hasn't devalued or diluted your work on amigapcb and I for one are very thankful of that work, it has become a great resource for me when troubleshooting.

He has used your freely available resources to create something new, easier.
He could have done it without amigapcb and all of the information is in the public domain.