| Posted By
SukkoPera
on 2023-03-25
14:48:32
|  Expansion Proto Board
Here's the first thing from the latest batch of PCBs that has just arrived at SukkoHQ: it's a quick hack I made once I was willing to experiment with the Expansion port. It's just a matrix of 2.54mm-spaced soldering points with easy access to all the signals available on the port. With a few wires you can easily build anything you have in mind.
Of course now that I have it in my hands I don't need it anymore  . Anyway if anybody needs one, just drop me a line  .
As usual, it will also be released openly as soon as I have time to prepare docs & stuff.
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Posted By
MCes
on 2023-03-27
11:03:34
 | Re: Expansion Proto Board
Well done!
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Posted By
Mike
on 2024-10-15
06:30:55
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
Hi,
thats great i have just ordered some.
I want to play with the Plus4 and some 6522, i did this with the Vtech Creativision and made a Super Game Card with 2 NES Controller Ports.
But the adressing on the Plus4 is still complicate for me, i was able to wrote a rom at $8000 now problem.
But i still don't know how to adress a chip at lets say the free $fd40 or $FDE0 with simple logic, i don't want use a GAL like all the Sid Cards for example.
Let see how far i can go.
Cheers
Mike
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Posted By
SukkoPera
on 2024-10-15
10:05:45
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
In the last few months I have been working on maaaaany things (too many), which I will probably release properly over the "upcoming" Xmas holidays.
One of those is a remake of the 6522 board by Günter Knesebeck published in Compute Mit SA 5/88 and 8/88. My version can be mapped at 4 different addresses, has a pinheader with all the signals and also supports the Motorola MC6821, but in order to get to that I had to start with a 1:1 copy of the original board, which uses two 74xx chips for address decoding (a 74x04 and a 74x133). I have never tested this early version of the board, but if you want I can send you the gerbers and you can do it .
Although keep in mind that the original design only allows you to put the board at either $FD0x or $FD1x, which will both conflict with the userport on a +4 (and $FD1x will probably cause problems on a C16 just as well). That's why I started changing the board to a GAL, so that the address could easily be changed by just reprogramming the GAL. Actually the current version can already be put at 4 different addresses by just moving jumpers (I think I chose $FD2x, $FD9x, $FDAx and $FDCx). The original version also decoded a much larger address space than necessary.
Oh, to save you some headaches in any case: make sure to use a 6522A (or R6522AP or even BP), the non-A version is too slow to be connected in the simple way the board implements (and also note addresses are improperly qualified with phi0 rather than phi2 for the same reason - /CS must come earlier than PHI clock - but it seems to work reliably in my experience anyway).
One more thing: one of the other boards I've designed is an adapter for 2 SNES controllers (one port should be compatible with the PETSCII Robots adapter), but it can easily be adapted for 2 NES controllers (it's just a matter of changing the connectors, the protocol is the same). It connects to the +4 userport but it can be used on a C16 with my 16UP board, of course.
If you want, I can send you (or anyone, for that matter) a couple of these PCBs for free (for the 6522 board I mean the GAL version)!
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Posted By
Mike
on 2024-10-15
10:58:29
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
Hi,
thank you for your great answer. Wow so much is coming from you, thats cool.
I am more a programmer then a hardware designer, this is just a side hobby. I plan to port some of my 6502 games to the plus4.
If you can send me maybe the kicad or easyeda files (whatever you use) for this 6522 card would be great, the gerber files are also welcome.
And in case of hardware, if i ask to send me then of course i pay for it.
Regards,
Mike
P.S. michael.obsieger@icloud.com is my email adress
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Posted By
SukkoPera
on 2024-10-15
11:11:56
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
I am also a SW developer actually, HW is just my hobby .
If you have a GitHub user I can add you to the project and you can get all you need. I hope to make the project public in the Xmas holidays, as I mentioned, as I still need to do some testing, prepare docs, etc.
Anyway please consider using 16UP for whatever you are planning, as that gives the C16 a userport that is 100% compatible with the one on the +4, meaning you wouldn't need any additional HW on that computer.
I can send you any boards for free, I don't mind helping developers and I have much excess anyway. You can pay for the shipping if you want but it's not necessary.
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Posted By
Mike
on 2024-10-22
14:56:49
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
Hi,
i have ordere some and i get tomorrow.
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Posted By
JimmyCoupe
on 2024-10-23
05:08:29
 | Re: Expansion Proto Board
SukkoPera are you selling the SNES controller cards or is this just a mock up\proto type?
Your wheel of joy looks crazy :-)
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Posted By
SukkoPera
on 2024-10-23
05:21:15
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
Generally I don't sell much, all of my stuff is shared openly on GitHub and is free for anyone to get produced (direct links to PCBWay are provided but that's just an option) and made in a DIY fashion.
I haven't released the SNES adapter yet but it's fully tested and working, I just haven't had the time yet.
I like to support developers, so I can send you a couple of PCBs if you are willing to source and solder the components (Which is just the SNES and userport connectors in this case, besides that 3-pin header and a jumper block, the capacitor is not really required).
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Posted By
JimmyCoupe
on 2024-10-24
09:29:10
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
Oh wow what a lovely kind offer. Let me PM you, I am more than happy to pay for this.
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Posted By
MMS
on 2024-10-25
02:25:02
 | Re: Expansion Proto Board
Nice Proto board!
BTWcould you confirm, that the expansion port pin distance is the same as the old, original PCI cards on the PC?
The second card made me confused. What is the aim? As I see it is fully C64 user port compatible, right?
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Posted By
SukkoPera
on 2024-10-25
03:39:25
| Re: Expansion Proto Board
I can tell you that the expansion port pitch is exactly 2.00 mm, but I have no idea if that matches the PCI pitch!
Yes, that userport card aims at being "compatible enough" with the C64 userport. Full compatibility is not possible since the C64 exposes pins from two different 6526 (CIA) chips, while this only has one 6522 (VIA, che one used on the VIC 20) chip. But (after one more mod from me) it's close enough and I got the WiC64 board working with it, much faster (more than twice as fast) than my WiC+4 port. That is thanks to the hardware handshake lines of the 6522/6526 which we don't have on our +4 userports and thus they have to be emulated manually.
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