https://github.com/btb/LanguageCard
Hi guys! I recently built a card from this project, but unfortunately it doesn't work. After looking at the original project on GitHub I realized that it's a bit different from what I have now. Now the ROM is controlled with a handy toggle switch, while on my board it is done with a simple jumper. Unfortunately I don't remember exactly whether I downloaded the gerber files from GitHub or someone shared them with me, I communicate with a lot of people from the world of vintage electronics.
Maybe someone can tell me if I have the wrong gerbers or if I've messed something up when assembling, or if I've bought non-working junk on aliexpress again?
The symptoms are as follows:
If the jumper is set to the left position, when I press Reset, the middle LED lights up but no reboot.
If the jumper is in the right position, when Reset is pressed, all three LEDs light up for a moment, but booting from ProDos card does not happen. On the screen there is an incomprehensible inscription, I will add a photo below.
Without the jumper, there is a hell of a thing going on, the LEDs are blinking randomly and there is a crackling noise coming from the speaker.
My ProDos card is tested with a Saturn-128K memory expansion card. My homemade Apple II otherwise works great and brings me a lot of joy. I'm not good with electronics, but I have an oscilloscope and am able to take some measurements with it if needed.
Thanks in advance!
Those "TI" chips don't look right. The logo looks totally different than it should. The Hitachi logo on U7/U8 looks better.
I don't have any smart ideas for testing the circuit, although your screen looks like the line of text from the Autostart Monitor is getting garbled characters.
By the way, I don't often see PCB artwork with smoothly rounded traces like that. There aren't many EDA programs that can produce them, and I doubt they were laid-out the old way with Rubylith.
Yeah, it looks closer to the 1980s logo (middle) than the 2020s logo (bottom), but it is a bit weird:
TI.png
The screen shows "Relocation Configuration Error" using lower case which your CHARGEN does not support. This error basically means that ProDOS probably does not see your language card.
Also, since your board does not have a ROM installed, you definitely don't want the jumper in the ROM EN position.
If you have a Saturn 128K board why do you need this?
He might want the 16K card in slot 0 and the Saturn 128K card in another slot if he has software that uses it like Locksmith or the Saturn RAM disk, etc.
Not just that, the other ones are probably fake as well, unfortunately. That weird-looking logo on the '08, '06, '86 chips is basically an extremely worn-out stamp or whatever trying to pass as the TI logo. I've gotten some of those and they were definitely bad.
You means the one that looks like a mermaid? This looks nothing like the TI logo to me.
yes, it's basically just the silhouette of the bottom half of the TI logo. I got some of those from Jameco once, and asked about it, and that's what they told me (not the part about them being fake, just that that's what the logo is). That batch turned out okay, but many will not.
It's done with KiCAD
Thanks for your help!
Guys, with all due respect, trying to identify fake ICs by labeling is like trying to predict the weather for tomorrow by the dried coffee residue at the bottom of a glass. It doesn't work, on chips from China can be written anything, they must be tested!
Which I did: I tested 3x74ls08 and 74ls32 on the Apple II replica, 74ls86 in the External Oscillator by Gauchia board. I put 74ls175 instead of 74175 on my Apple-1 replica. I tried the reverse swap, I put the 74175 in the Language Card, nothing changed. Only 74ls06 and memory chips remain untested. The latter I bought 2 times in different places, they are different, tried everything, nothing changes.
Next I checked all the resistors, this time I did not confuse anything. All ratings correspond to the silkscreen on the board. I checked the 10uf capacitor and the 4148 diode. I've attached a photo below, I don't know much about it. Maybe you can tell me how else to check this?
About half of the time I get a picture on the screen as in the photo from the first post, half as the photo below. One time the card almost started and luckily I was filming it on my phone. I posted the video on YouTube.
About why I'm not using the Saturn-128 card. Well guys, right now I have 4 projects stuck for one reason or another. BlueSCSI v.1 for my Macintosh, an 80COl card for Apple //e, another one I tried to clone myself, and this Language Card. All of these are sitting in boxes waiting for me to get them working. You know, these unfinished projects are terribly unnerving. It's a matter of principle.
Regarding sharing the Language Card with the Locksmith card, I can say that I don't think I need it. I just wanted to build this card for use with TJ Boldt's ProDOS card. I plan to write a DeadTest to the EPROM in the future, which would make a cool multi-functional card.
My ideas right now.
Bad 74ls06
The project itself is wrong, maybe a beta version or something. Right now the project on GitHub is different from my board, more resistors and capacitors. It would be great to ask the author about it if possible.
There is a Russian proverb "Oranges don't grow on an aspen tree". That's just because I'm not good at electronics, I work as a plumber. :)
https://youtu.be/pgdK3bKaBQc?si=wdNekRKeOfF3sXOq
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I followed the link and like this project. The project there can use a single pole or double pole switch. Yours could use a single pole but not a double.
The board you have is dated last July. The dates in the project are 2 and 3 years ago. You might have a fork of the btb board.