Re: Sega boards (and Huntron again) (and BG Micro)

>Sheesh, that seems like a fairly simple device. It generates a low
>current ac signal, switches it through a number of gates, and stores the
>results. The Huntron 2000 can be replaced with a scope and about $10 in
>parts. Perhaps the DSI 700 would cost about $100 in parts and stuff. I
>think reverse engineering on this item would be a snap.

The one described a while back was just two transformers wired up to be
about 3VAC at 60Hz. "Fairly Simple" describes it quite well. It wouldn't
be too hard to marry that to a couple channels of A/D with a PC. The
Huntron things look like they can control lots of "range" type behavior for
testing voltages and I'm sure there are a lot of other bells and whistles.
But... If you could make one that was 50% as good for <$100 it would be
pretty damn cool. ;-)

>Speaking though of interesting software/hardware, has anyone else looked
>at BG Micro's ( http://www.bgmicro.com ) SOFTLA product?
>I bought one to try out, and it looks interesting. "Turn your PC into a
>logic analyzer." "Monitor up to 16 channels simultaniously, with this
>nufty piece of softwear. Measure time in micro seconds between any tow
>points." Software $29.95, cable kit $17.90. Requires 286 or faster with
>a bi-directional parallel port (non bi-directional will only support 8
>traces)

That would probably be OK for bringing up home-brew projects. (The price is
right!) When I use a logic analyzer I typically want to look at an address
range or data and usually a couple other signals to qualify the trigger.
The triggering is the big help on an LA, IMHO. If something isn't working
and I get frustrated enough I'll just put the LA on it and capture all the
addresses and data going over the bus. Pretty easy to see where things are
getting stuck that way. They're also REALLY helpful for debugging
programmable logic where you have a dozen or two signals coming in that all
affect the outputs. 100's of nanosecond resolution works for most all old
game boards-- it's nice to have 16 bits for address, 8 bits for data, and a
few more bits for WR/RD, etc...

-Clay

Clayton N. Cowgill Engineering Manager
_______________________________________________________________________
/\ Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc. clay@supra.com
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Received on Wed Jan 14 10:34:51 1998