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Arrived and running

Posted: 07 Sep 2019, 09:53
by DavidHK
My Gigatron kit finally arrived yesterday and today I finished the build. It's an amazing design!

Just with my PS/2-keyboard (Cherry RS 6000 M) or the Pluggy I didn't have luck yet. I measured the voltage at the D-SUB connector and it's a stable 5V. The dot on the micro lines up with the dot on the PCB.

The game controller works. I suspect it is one of those that are called "Type C" in the ROM as it seems to only register one key at a time. Which is fine for most things, but the Racer app is...quite some challenge this way. ;-)

So I guess next on my list is getting an Arduino so I can use that as a terminal and also for getting my own programs on to it.

Further experiments I have planned so far are software modifications to the sound system. But that is probably a topic for its own thread.

On the hardware side I would like to try to move both the ROM and the RAM to a cartridge, where the RAM could also be battery backed. The cartridge could then be connected to something else and the RAM could be saved to disk. But that is currently just a wild idea, I don't know when or even if I will start with that. ;-)

Again, I am really impressed by this amazing design!

Re: Arrived and running

Posted: 07 Sep 2019, 09:54
by walter
Thanks!

Did you try to wait a minute or so for the PS/2 keyboard to start working?

Re: Arrived and running

Posted: 07 Sep 2019, 09:58
by DavidHK
I haven't measured the time, but it appeared as more than a minute to me. I guess I should watch a clock, as time perception might be misleading sometimes.

Re: Arrived and running

Posted: 07 Sep 2019, 10:04
by DavidHK
Ok, this seems to be a "help desk paradox". I have now tried it again and it immediately worked! Weird, I *did* restart it, reconnect it and tried it with two (identical) keyboards before...

Now I should be able to play Racer. ;-)

Ah...I suspect something...previously I used either a USB charger that didn't output full 5V or with my switched off PC, that did supply 5V, but it was probably current limited. Now my PC is running. Time to look for another USB charger...

Re: Arrived and running

Posted: 16 Sep 2019, 17:35
by marcelk
You wouldn't mind attaching a build photo, would you? :?

Re: Arrived and running

Posted: 16 Sep 2019, 18:19
by DavidHK
Unfortunately I do not have a proper camera at hand, I tried using my (basic) action camera, but that doesn't really like indoor lighting. Anyway, here is my attempt...