YAKS - Yet Another Kickstart Switcher

[sampedenawa]

Hello, sorry for my ugly English, but I'm Italian and don't understand/write German so ....

I would like to contribute here with my version of YAKS (Yet Another Kickstart Switcher) for A500/600/2000.

Follows a quick description of the board:

it can hold up to two additional KS images, other than the original ROM in passthrough socket on the left.

Kickstarts can be switched:
- by mean of an electrical switch (if you don't mind modifying you case)
AND/OR (better option)
- by pressing and holding CTRL+LAmiga+RAmiga for more than 4 (or whatever amount of time you want) secs

When switching KS image, the board emits an acoustical signal (one, two ore three "beeps", according to witch KS image is going to be selected).

The board keeps record of the selected KS when you power off the Amiga, so at next power up, you keep the last KS you selected (until you switch again).

Below a few pics of the board.

For who may ask "why you put two ugly PLCC32 flash chips onto an smd board ?", the answer is: "because I had plenty of them in a drawer of my workdesk".

Just wondering if someone could be ineterested in the project, I did mainly for my own fun.

[E-Penguin]

Nice. Are you planning to sell these or purely as a fun project?

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Nice. Are you planning to sell these or purely as a fun project?

It is mainly intended as for fun, but should someone be interested I could supply some bare pcb at cost (say 5€ + shipping), or even build one or two units just to "spread the fun" (adding cost of components, of course).

For anyone should be interested in building one: please note that if you plan to build one with the CTRL+RA+LA option enabled, you need a firmware to be flashed within the Attiny AVR uP, acting the control & management behaviour.

On the contrary, if you plan to select KS by electrical switch, you don't even need the Attiny onboard.

Should the board become "popular" (..never say never in this crazy world), I could build a "rev2" board, fixing some minor issues I discovered with the current pcb (e.g. "smarter layout design", fix of "on chip capacitor over Attiny", etc).

Happy to share any kind of comments with you.

[E-Penguin]

I'd be keen to buy one - my soldering skills are limited to burning myself and getting blobs of liquid metal on the sofa.

How are the KSs written into the flash? Do the chips need popping out into a programmer or can the board do it directly over a usb connection so similar?

One problem with selling it with pre-flashed a KS is licencing.

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

I'd be keen to buy one - my soldering skills are limited to burning myself and getting blobs of liquid metal on the sofa.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

How are the KSs written into the flash? Do the chips need popping out into a programmer or can the board do it directly over a usb connection so similar?

At the moment KS have to be flashed outside the board, with a flash programmer. That's why I put sockets on the board rather than soldering chips directly.

My plans are to implement the on-board flashing directly from the Amiga; by doing some dirty "trick" with chip-enable signals it should be possible, but I still don't have managed to have time to write tha Amiga code.

The uP firmware, instead, can be flashed directly on-board by mean of the ICSP interface.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

One problem with selling it with pre-flashed a KS is licencing.

Yes, I know. That's why, should I sell these boards, I would not ship them with pre-programmed flash chips. (No probs for the uP firmware, instead, since it is my own propriety).

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by sampedenawa

My plans are to implement the on-board flashing directly from the Amiga; by doing some dirty "trick" with chip-enable signals it should be possible, but I still don't have managed to have time to write tha Amiga code.

How would that work, would you need special hardware or go via the attiny? I'm intrigued.

What size is the flash, btw? Can it support 1mb ROMs?

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

How would that work, would you need special hardware or go via the attiny? I'm intrigued.

Nope, it will go directly via the Amiga. The idea is to program flashchips by "tricking" both the Amiga (kickstart physical chips appear twice in the virtual memory space of the Amiga, at different virtual addresses) and the flash chips (by forcing some of the EN pin by mean of jumpers, when you want to program them), and the flashing algorithm (technically, writing in "blind mode", without reading-back completion state).

I already made a "proof of concept" Amiga executable, but I still need to find some spare time to write down a fully working software tool.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

What size is the flash, btw? Can it support 1mb ROMs?

Flash chips on my board are 2x 29F040, so 8Mbit = 1MByte in total.
By mean of a jumper you can switch A18 line to be wired to the Amiga A18, so the answer is Yes.

[springycz]

I'd be also keen to buy two pieces for both the A500+ and the A2000.

[E-Penguin]

Get off, they're mine, I saw them first!

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by springycz

I'd be also keen to buy two pieces for both the A500+ and the A2000.

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Get off, they're mine, I saw them first!

Happy to see genuine interest on the stuff guys

Let me clarify some points, just not to be misunderstood and not to hurt anyone:
- at the current sate of development (rev 1.0 as you see in photos), the board fully works as intended, but you have to flash kickstart(s) in 29F040 by mean of a chip programmer. In-line flashing through the Amiga is under (slow and unpredictable) development by me, and I can't assure neither how long will it take to me to have a working version, nor that the current rev 1.0 version of the board will work that way (I mean, I could have made mistakes and maybe the board design could need some bug fixing)

- the "firmware" code within the attiny uP, on the contrary, can be easily injected by mean of the ICSP port directly on board (by mean of a common ICSP standard programmer), so it is easily upgradable/modifiable/etc.

- the board can hold and manage:
- the original rom KS of you amiga;
PLUS
- two additional 512k KS if you put 29F040 chips on board (e.g. 2.04 and 3.1)
OR
- one additional 1M KS if you put 29F040 chips on board (provided that you AMiga can handle it of course)

OR
- one additional 512k KS if you put 29F020 chips on board

- I can not provide you pre-flashed KS chips, due to copyright issues.

- I produced a bundle of 10 pcbs, and I have still 5 available. If you want a pcb(or two) from me, and you are skilled enough in soldering to build the board, I can give you one (or two) pcbs at cost, together with a full BOM, a full explanation of jumper settings, and my "firmware" for the attiny uP(the latter under your solemn promise not to spread it to anyone without my explicit approval).

- If you are E-Penguin, which publicly declared his lack of ability in soldering , and you have enough patience, we can arrange this way: I will compile a priced BOM at cost, then I will send you the detail of how much the board cost to me, and you decide if you want to get one built from me. I will give you for free my soldering effort, but in exchange you will be my first offcial "beta tester".

- if you are springycz, let me know if you are able to build the board yourself, I'll send you instructions as well (and a couple of pcbs at cost).
If not, and you have a lot more patience than E-Penguin, we could arrange me to build a further board for you (provided that I have enough components).

- if you are any other friend here, I will appreciate your opinion and declaration of interest for the board. Should it become popular and collect more "declaration of interest", I could "invest" (time , more than money ...) in developing a "rev 1.1" board and try to sell a few bunch at a reasonable price.

- Should more people be interested in further development, I have the will to design an "A1200/A4000" version. How long will it take to this will to become reality si another matter, but at leat you have been warned

[E-Penguin]

I'm happy to support the development of new Amiga hardware.

I'm also happy to cover the cost of the BOM if you're happy to burn your fingers on my behalf. We can discuss the details via PM.

[durniplot]

Very cool project!

I would be interested in a couple of "v1.1's" for A500/A2000, that could hold a 1MB ROM image and be programmed from the Amiga. Couldn't build it myself. Pretty sure these would sell at Amibay/Facebook, too, btw. Possibly also interested in A1200 versions.

One question: rev 5 a500s, maybe other revs too, have problems with eprom-kickstarts (like the 3.1 ones you can purchase from amigakit) unless you do a mod (add pull-up resistors? to the a500). Could this mod be incorporated in this board somehow?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by durniplot

Very cool project!

I would be interested in a couple of "v1.1's" for A500/A2000, that could hold a 1MB ROM image and be programmed from the Amiga. Couldn't build it myself. Pretty sure these would sell at Amibay/Facebook, too, btw. Possibly also interested in A1200 versions.

One question: rev 5 a500s, maybe other revs too, have problems with eprom-kickstarts (like the 3.1 ones you can purchase from amigakit) unless you do a mod (add pull-up resistors? to the a500). Could this mod be incorporated in this board somehow?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thank you for your interest too !

The "rev 5" mod is already implemented (look at the photos, you should see a dedicated jumper on the board in upper/left side of pcb).

[springycz]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Get off, they're mine, I saw them first!

Why the plural? You only wanted one!

Originally Posted by sampedenawa

Happy to see genuine interest on the stuff guys

Let me clarify some points, just not to be misunderstood and not to hurt anyone:
- at the current sate of development (rev 1.0 as you see in photos), the board fully works as intended, but you have to flash kickstart(s) in 29F040 by mean of a chip programmer. In-line flashing through the Amiga is under (slow and unpredictable) development by me, and I can't assure neither how long will it take to me to have a working version, nor that the current rev 1.0 version of the board will work that way (I mean, I could have made mistakes and maybe the board design could need some bug fixing)

- the "firmware" code within the attiny uP, on the contrary, can be easily injected by mean of the ICSP port directly on board (by mean of a common ICSP standard programmer), so it is easily upgradable/modifiable/etc.

- the board can hold and manage:
- the original rom KS of you amiga;
PLUS
- two additional 512k KS if you put 29F040 chips on board (e.g. 2.04 and 3.1)
OR
- one additional 1M KS if you put 29F040 chips on board (provided that you AMiga can handle it of course)

OR
- one additional 512k KS if you put 29F020 chips on board

- I can not provide you pre-flashed KS chips, due to copyright issues.

- I produced a bundle of 10 pcbs, and I have still 5 available. If you want a pcb(or two) from me, and you are skilled enough in soldering to build the board, I can give you one (or two) pcbs at cost, together with a full BOM, a full explanation of jumper settings, and my "firmware" for the attiny uP(the latter under your solemn promise not to spread it to anyone without my explicit approval).

- If you are E-Penguin, which publicly declared his lack of ability in soldering , and you have enough patience, we can arrange this way: I will compile a priced BOM at cost, then I will send you the detail of how much the board cost to me, and you decide if you want to get one built from me. I will give you for free my soldering effort, but in exchange you will be my first offcial "beta tester".

- if you are springycz, let me know if you are able to build the board yourself, I'll send you instructions as well (and a couple of pcbs at cost).
If not, and you have a lot more patience than E-Penguin, we could arrange me to build a further board for you (provided that I have enough components).

- if you are any other friend here, I will appreciate your opinion and declaration of interest for the board. Should it become popular and collect more "declaration of interest", I could "invest" (time , more than money ...) in developing a "rev 1.1" board and try to sell a few bunch at a reasonable price.

- Should more people be interested in further development, I have the will to design an "A1200/A4000" version. How long will it take to this will to become reality si another matter, but at leat you have been warned

My soldering skills are somewhat better than E-Penguins... it's been a long time since I last burned. I'm not sure how I can solder those square sockets. But I´ll ask somebody for help. I may also ask my retro computer repairing friend to solder the for me but he would definitely want one for himself.

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by springycz

I'm not sure how I can solder those square sockets. But I´ll ask somebody for help. I may also ask my retro computer repairing friend to solder the for me but he would definitely want one for himself.

Oh, don't worry, plcc32 square sockets are pass-through (i.e not the smd variant), so they are the easiest component to solder on the board.

Remember that I firstly design the board to be simple, cheap and affordable.

Please springycz PM me for discussing details on focus. I spared 2 pcbs for E-Penguin, so I have still 3 available for you and your friend.

[hooverphonique]

Looks like a nice project where you more or less thought of everything

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

Looks like a nice project where you more or less thought of everything

You will never believe it, but I also predicted your comment coming from Fyn, and I am right now in Copenaghen, ready to have an advice from you on where to have a nice dinner this evening (not kidding ... I mean the fact that I am in Denmark now)

[durniplot]

Originally Posted by sampedenawa

You will never believe it, but I also predicted your comment coming from Fyn, and I am right now in Copenaghen, ready to have an advice from you on where to have a nice dinner this evening (not kidding ... I mean the fact that I am in Denmark now)

I'm not in Copenhagen, but if you like meat, try "Kød". The Street Food Market is also pretty cool, but better suited for lunch than dinner, maybe.

[hooverphonique]

Originally Posted by sampedenawa

You will never believe it, but I also predicted your comment coming from Fyn, and I am right now in Copenaghen, ready to have an advice from you on where to have a nice dinner this evening (not kidding ... I mean the fact that I am in Denmark now)

I'm not sure how to interpret 'I also predicted your comment coming from Fyn', but a nice down-to-earth place with good food and a nice cocktail bar is Madklubben Vesterbro - but what suits you best is hard to know of course ;-)

[sampedenawa]

Originally Posted by hooverphonique

I'm not sure how to interpret 'I also predicted your comment coming from Fyn',

It was a Joke !

You said "you more or less thought of everything", and I replied (not so seriously speaking) "yes, I did really thought of "everything": I started designing the board in such a way that, when presenting it on this forum, this would have forced a comment from a user from Denmark, precisely at the time I would have been in Denmark, so he can advice me on a good restaurant".

So, I was so cool to have started designing a board with the final intention to get a free advice on where to have a good dinner in Copenaghen !

I am a nerd inside, you know