Rumor has it that Tony Duell may have mentioned these words:
>I've done this mod (it was described in Rainbow years ago) to my
>Multi-Pak and it works fine...
I've heard it works great when done correctly, but I hadn't had the time to
do that on mine, and I never ran across a problem (yet), anyway... (All I
used with my CoCo3 thus far was a stock floppy controller & a couple of
game carts, but now that my other hardware project is getting closer to
reality, it's probably best to upgrade at least one of my paks before I get
address conflicts...
>> The older packs used a (socketted?) PAL for address decoding, and with the
>> datafile to program a new PAL/GAL it's a drop-in replacement.
>
>AFAIK it should be possible to use the deadbug mod with an older-type
>Mulit-Pak. It's not as neat, and it's a bit more work, but 74LS10s are
>cheaper than GALs, and you don't need to find the JEDEC file for it. All
>the mod does is disable the data buffer in the Multi-Pak so that it
>doesn't attempt to drive the data bus during accesses to the extra I/O
>registers (part of the GIME chip) in the CoCo 3
Yea, but now that I *have* the programmer, a chip-swap is something that I
might actually have time for...
-- Note -- did you notice I said "have"??? I couldn't believe it - it cost
me $15.28 US for shipping & insurance, requested the cheapest, slowest
shipping available, and it shipped from Santa Clara, CA -- and arrived in
Northern Michigan 24-hours later... (hell, UPS doesn't even guarantee next
day air way up here...)
I was literally cutting & pasting the shipping # to check the shipper
routing (DHL Express) when my friend walked into the back room saying
"Unless this is it..." - he was trying to pull a fast one on me - he new I
was anxious for it - and lo & behold, that was it! :-) :-)
I have yet to see how well it works, but if their attention to shipping &
customer service (the invoice says I have 30 days to replace/trade up & a
90-day warranty - and it's a refurb unit) it can't be all bad for a $200
(shipped) programmer...
I just pulled some EEPROMS from a few junk PeeCee motherboards I can test
it on, and for some GALs -- Jameco, here I come... :-)
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger --- sysadmin, Iceberg Computers
Recycling is good, right??? Ok, so I'll recycle an old .sig.
If at first you don't succeed, nuclear warhead
disarmament should *not* be your first career choice.
Received on Wed Feb 13 2002 - 14:52:14 GMT