I've spent quite a bit of time the last week trying to decode some ancient and rotting ECS BASIC programs that were recorded on cassettes back in the 80s. Cassette tapes being what they are, they haven't held up well over the years ( Read more... )

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Just got word today: JLP works on PAL!

Edit: Decompressing the TLAs, jargon, etc.... The Jean Luc Project (my new Intellivision cartridge design) worked on the first try on a PAL Intellivision. (PAL == Phase Alternating Line.) PAL is the TV standard the UK and parts of Europe uses, as opposed to NTSC here in the US ( Read more... )

I added a ROM checksum routine to my JLP diagnostics. I debugged it in the simulator, and then tried it on the real JLP. When I ran it on JLP, one ROM hunk in the middle failed. I was puzzled ( Read more... )

The JLP dev board has been running for nearly 3 days straight running a memory test, with no pullups or anything. Everything looks thumbs up for the design that's being built in the board shop right now. I have high confidence that the boards will come back and work out of the box.

In the meantime, I also sent off another board for "quick ( Read more... )

Well, it's decidedly a mixed bag.

I whipped together a board revision for JLP early today, and then I spent the entire evening getting the old JLP prototype to work at all. The thing's flakier than a snowstorm. I suspect I'm running into some issues with all my ribbon cables and such. And, the breadboards I bought aren't inspiring confidence. ( Read more... )

Well, I identified 3 pins I can move the affected bus to and I even managed to make an updated board layout this morning. I spent last night reinstalling the Microchip development tools on my Windows box and getting things set up to test the proposed changes. I emailed the board shop and got the following good-ish news:
Hi Joe ( Read more... )

Check everything once, twice, thrice and still something gets by.

Microchip's PIC24 and dsPIC33 devices have 5 volt tolerant digital I/O, except those pins that share an analog function. No where in the data sheet do they succinctly list which pins have analog functions for the devices I'm using. They do for later devices. Presumably they got ( Read more... )

I ordered parts on Sunday night. I wrapped up the board layout today. (It had been wrapped up over the weekend, then I reopened it to make some changes.)

Tada:

( Read more... )

I spent a little bit of time upgrading the Intellivision Desk to make room for the fact that a fully assembled Intellivision I system (with ECS and Intellivoice and room for my bungling hands) needs at least 3' of desk space, and 14" TVs are huge desk space hogs ( Read more... )