YAKS2 - TITUO YetAnotherKicktartSwitcher-ThisIsTheUltimateOne

[sampedenawa]

At first ok, I must admit, I like acronyms




Presenting here another time-wasting result of my hobby: YAKS2 - TITUO.


In my wet dreams, it should be the ultimate kickswitcher and it is the natural heir of my previous YAKS board.


The project started with the idea to develop a board which could be directly flashed from inside the Amiga, but at the end it resulted to be possible only by adding another further gary-adapter inside our Amigas, which is not attractive indeed for most of us who already installed memory expansion boards and similar.


So I changed my mind and designed a solution which won't require frequent flashing (better: wil require to be flashed once and for all at the moment of first setup).. natural consequence was to make the board be able to store a number of different KS, in such a way it would be unlike the need to flash a differnt one.


Here it is: YAKS2 comes in two variants: 16mbits and 32mbits capable of managing either four or eight (!) different KS at the same time, freely selectable by the user.


The board can be flashed, by mean of a simple adapter board, in every chip programmer capable of flashing common 29F040 DIP chips.


The change selection of the KS to become the active one can be triggered by the onboard pushbutton (which could also be remoted outside the case, if whished) or, better, by any logic level it could be found inside the case (my favourite is RST, by holding CTRL+LAmiga+RAmiga).

At the moment of change, the board beeps "n-times" the current selected KS slot (i.e. one beep=first KS, two beeps=2nd KS, etc..)


Furthermore, the board keeps the KS selection upon reboots and power shutdown, so there is no need to re-select the favourite KS at every power-on.

Main features:

small sized board: it fits in all A500 and A600 and,when combined with a relocator pcb, allows install of a number of different memory expansion/accelerator combinations;


cheap: both the uP which manages the switching logic and the flashchips cost a few euros; no expensive or hard-to-find components there;


audible KS switching confirmation: the board warns the user at the moment of KS switching, beeping a number of times corresponding to the KS "slot" which is going to be selected;


keeps memory of selected KS: the KS selection is permanent across reboots and power downs;


flexible switching triggering: the KS switch command can be sent by mean of the onboard pushbutton, a remote button placed outside the case or by triggering any logic level inside of your Amiga (e.g. RST by pressing CTRL+LA+RM, RMB at boot, etc.)

Here you are a couple of shots of the current board (first pic, the one here is the 16Mbit flavour) and the flashing daughterboard/adapter (2nd pic)


Any comments appreciated !