RE: CPU Get well and AVG replacements

> Dumb Question: What's a "CPU get-well kit?"
>
> OK, OK, so I haven't been paying attention :)
>
The CPU Get Well Kit is basically a little daughterboard that plugs into
the 6502 socket on a game board.

It has local SRAM, EPROM, and decoding circuitry. The local memory
replaces all the CPU-space memory on the game board. (So, for Space
Duel for example, you can shotgun-debug all the 2532's and 9114's by
just plugging the Get Well Kit into the 6502 socket.)

It isolates the CPU memory on the game board, so you can actually leave
bad SRAM and EPROMs on the main PCB. (As long as they don't have a
shorted line or something that's hanging the bus...)

Since most PROM and SRAM failures tend to be a couple of bits going bad
here and there, the Get Well Kit should solve a lot of those problems
without further intervention required.

As an added benefit you can remove unused EPROMs and SRAM and reduce the
load on your power supply since the Get Well Kit is relatively low power
by comparison. Obviously this reduces heat too. It also eliminates any
problems with those weird old Atari 24pin DIP sockets crapping out...
;-)

The CPU Get Well Kit also accomodates up to a 27C080, which would allow
for 16 64K memory maps on a single part-- the high 4 address lines are
brought out to a .1" header, so you can attach switches or whatever for
do-it-yourself multigames. (So Black Widow/Gravitar, or Tempest and the
"Tubes" hack can just be in different banks and you just attach a switch
to the header to choose which to play.)

The new PCB's came in last week and I tested them over the weekend. All
is well with the new design (noise problems fixed), so I'll probably
start a production run in the next week or so-- take about 3 weeks to
get boards in.

-Clay

P.S. It's really nice for old black and white stuff where you have a
bunch of bipolar PROMs instead of EPROMs. That's what Al's original
target for it was. I added the RAM and multigame ideas...
Received on Mon Nov 16 13:09:27 1998