66 replies to this topic

[Allan]

There are a lot of great products that have come out for the popular 8-bit computers of the eighties including the Atari 8-bit computers. The one downside with the Atari 8-bits is that there are no multiple expansion ports like the Apple IIs. We almost had the 1090XL but it never came out like most of you know. But if someone reproduced this, would people buy one if there were some boards made for it like harddrive/memory card boards, 80-column boards, network cards, modern printer cards, etc?

I was just curious what people thought of this idea.

Allan

[Gunstar]

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

Edited by Gunstar, Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:16 PM.

[Curt Vendel]

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

[Gunstar]

Curt Vendel, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:57 AM, said:

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

I'd even be happy with a kit with the board and schematics and most if not all needed components(assuming any missing components were cheap, standard affair), I'm the kind of person who takes just as much pride and has just as much fun, if not more, building electronic kits. Which is why I've used just about every possible mod or upgrade plan on the net to upgrade my 1200XL and my 130XE before. Or the "kits" like the APE WARP+ 32-in-1 OS, The Pokey stereo board MetalGuy66 released, and the Rambo memory upgrade (further upgraded to 512K). Maybe you could offer it both ways; pre-assembled and complete with case, or just kit and you make your own case? it'd be fun to make my own custom XL look-alike case from 1/8" plywood and paint, etc. Or people with XE's could use a salvaged Mega ST or TT case for it. Possibly a XEGS case?

But would special cards need to be made for it? Or were maybe expansions cards made for the Apple II industry standard and could be used in the 1090XL, maybe just needing software drivers and whatnot?

Edited by Gunstar, Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:30 PM.

[Redb3ard]

Gunstar, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 1:24 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:57 AM, said:

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

I'd even be happy with a kit with the board and schematics and most if not all needed components(assuming any missing components were cheap, standard affair), I'm the kind of person who takes just as much pride and has just as much fun, if not more, building electronic kits. Which is why I've used just about every possible mod or upgrade plan on the net to upgrade my 1200XL and my 130XE before. Or the "kits" like the APE WARP+ 32-in-1 OS, The Pokey stereo board MetalGuy66 released, and the Rambo memory upgrade (further upgraded to 512K). Maybe you could offer it both ways; pre-assembled and complete with case, or just kit and you make your own case? it'd be fun to make my own custom XL look-alike case from 1/8" plywood and paint, etc. Or people with XE's could use a salvaged Mega ST or TT case for it. Possibly a XEGS case?

But would special cards need to be made for it? Or were maybe expansions cards made for the Apple II industry standard and could be used in the 1090XL, maybe just needing software drivers and whatnot?

Apple II cards were hardly industry standard. They weren't used in anything other than the Apple II and its clones, as far as I know. ISA or S-100 are the only standard expansion slots of that era that I know of, MCA and Nubus and whatnot came later.

[Gunstar]

Redb3ard, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:30 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 1:24 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:57 AM, said:

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

I'd even be happy with a kit with the board and schematics and most if not all needed components(assuming any missing components were cheap, standard affair), I'm the kind of person who takes just as much pride and has just as much fun, if not more, building electronic kits. Which is why I've used just about every possible mod or upgrade plan on the net to upgrade my 1200XL and my 130XE before. Or the "kits" like the APE WARP+ 32-in-1 OS, The Pokey stereo board MetalGuy66 released, and the Rambo memory upgrade (further upgraded to 512K). Maybe you could offer it both ways; pre-assembled and complete with case, or just kit and you make your own case? it'd be fun to make my own custom XL look-alike case from 1/8" plywood and paint, etc. Or people with XE's could use a salvaged Mega ST or TT case for it. Possibly a XEGS case?

But would special cards need to be made for it? Or were maybe expansions cards made for the Apple II industry standard and could be used in the 1090XL, maybe just needing software drivers and whatnot?

Apple II cards were hardly industry standard. They weren't used in anything other than the Apple II and its clones, as far as I know. ISA or S-100 are the only standard expansion slots of that era that I know of, MCA and Nubus and whatnot came later.

So then, what we are talking about is more than just making 1090XL units or selling kits, but would still need custom cards made for use with it and software to take advantage of the cards? I assumed that software and drivers would be needed, but I'd hoped that there were some "industry standard" cards that might be used right away, once a driver was made.

[Allan]

Gunstar, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:02 PM, said:

Redb3ard, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:30 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 1:24 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:57 AM, said:

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

I'd even be happy with a kit with the board and schematics and most if not all needed components(assuming any missing components were cheap, standard affair), I'm the kind of person who takes just as much pride and has just as much fun, if not more, building electronic kits. Which is why I've used just about every possible mod or upgrade plan on the net to upgrade my 1200XL and my 130XE before. Or the "kits" like the APE WARP+ 32-in-1 OS, The Pokey stereo board MetalGuy66 released, and the Rambo memory upgrade (further upgraded to 512K). Maybe you could offer it both ways; pre-assembled and complete with case, or just kit and you make your own case? it'd be fun to make my own custom XL look-alike case from 1/8" plywood and paint, etc. Or people with XE's could use a salvaged Mega ST or TT case for it. Possibly a XEGS case?

But would special cards need to be made for it? Or were maybe expansions cards made for the Apple II industry standard and could be used in the 1090XL, maybe just needing software drivers and whatnot?

Apple II cards were hardly industry standard. They weren't used in anything other than the Apple II and its clones, as far as I know. ISA or S-100 are the only standard expansion slots of that era that I know of, MCA and Nubus and whatnot came later.

So then, what we are talking about is more than just making 1090XL units or selling kits, but would still need custom cards made for use with it and software to take advantage of the cards? I assumed that software and drivers would be needed, but I'd hoped that there were some "industry standard" cards that might be used right away, once a driver was made.

Yes, you would have to make custom cards. But once you have the expansion box, it makes it a lot easier to do that. And the other big advantage is that you can have access to multiple cards at once. Think a nice 80-column card, a nice hard-drive/memory card drive, a printer card, a 1.44 floppy card,a 65816 processor and a cd-rom card. Maybe even a graphics card if the Parallel Bus Interface could handle such a thing. Five cards accessible all at once.

Allan

Edited by Allan, Sun Jun 17, 2007 5:52 PM.

[carmel_andrews]

I seem to remember the original 1090 xl expansion box offering 2600/vcs compat., Apple 2 compat., option to add on pc disk drives (360 or 720k) and also hard drive compat. (SASI)....was there anything else this little beaut was capable off

[pepax]

There's a list of planned (?) cards on Atariki.

[Redb3ard]

pepax, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 6:56 AM, said:

There's a list of planned (?) cards on Atariki.

Somehow I doubt there is much demand for a Corvus nic.

[Redb3ard]

Allan, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:51 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 7:02 PM, said:

Redb3ard, on Sun Jun 17, 2007 4:30 PM, said:

Gunstar, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 1:24 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Sat Jun 16, 2007 3:57 AM, said:

Well, I have the schematics and pcb plots for the board, so it could very easily be reproduced...


Anyone have an connections to a sheet metal shop where some simple cases could be made? Otherwise we could shop around for some project cases which may be wide and high enough to accomodate some lower profile cards, the back of the boxes could have simple Apple ][ styled slim wedge cuts to accommodate cables and connectors and such out of the back of the box?

Anyone interested in helping to do it, let me know, I'll fire up Eaglecad and start doing a board layout.



Curt

Gunstar, on Fri Jun 15, 2007 11:29 PM, said:

Not only would I buy one, I'd go through with adding a Parallel Buss to my 1200XL to make it compatible! I'd want the repro to have the XL case styling of course...if it came with a case, but that doesn't mean I would by it if it were just a generic box, I'd just really prefer a case with the XL's colors and bevelled case design (or what ever the original 1090XL cas looked like).

I'd even be happy with a kit with the board and schematics and most if not all needed components(assuming any missing components were cheap, standard affair), I'm the kind of person who takes just as much pride and has just as much fun, if not more, building electronic kits. Which is why I've used just about every possible mod or upgrade plan on the net to upgrade my 1200XL and my 130XE before. Or the "kits" like the APE WARP+ 32-in-1 OS, The Pokey stereo board MetalGuy66 released, and the Rambo memory upgrade (further upgraded to 512K). Maybe you could offer it both ways; pre-assembled and complete with case, or just kit and you make your own case? it'd be fun to make my own custom XL look-alike case from 1/8" plywood and paint, etc. Or people with XE's could use a salvaged Mega ST or TT case for it. Possibly a XEGS case?

But would special cards need to be made for it? Or were maybe expansions cards made for the Apple II industry standard and could be used in the 1090XL, maybe just needing software drivers and whatnot?

Apple II cards were hardly industry standard. They weren't used in anything other than the Apple II and its clones, as far as I know. ISA or S-100 are the only standard expansion slots of that era that I know of, MCA and Nubus and whatnot came later.

So then, what we are talking about is more than just making 1090XL units or selling kits, but would still need custom cards made for use with it and software to take advantage of the cards? I assumed that software and drivers would be needed, but I'd hoped that there were some "industry standard" cards that might be used right away, once a driver was made.

Yes, you would have to make custom cards. But once you have the expansion box, it makes it a lot easier to do that. And the other big advantage is that you can have access to multiple cards at once. Think a nice 80-column card, a nice hard-drive/memory card drive, a printer card, a 1.44 floppy card,a 65816 processor and a cd-rom card. Maybe even a graphics card if the Parallel Bus Interface could handle such a thing. Five cards accessible all at once.

Allan

Shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't do a graphics card. All it needs is a VGA or DVI port, a framebuffer, and some software to put some pixels in that framebuffer.

[danwinslow]

I would put some development money behind this.

Edited by danwinslow, Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:08 AM.

[pepax]

Redb3ard, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:47 PM, said:

Somehow I doubt there is much demand for a Corvus nic.

I don't think that anyone is planning to produce it now.

[Bumzyman]

hmmmm
Since there's so much interest maybe I should put my 1090XL up on eBay.

[Redb3ard]

pepax, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 10:13 AM, said:

Redb3ard, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 2:47 PM, said:

Somehow I doubt there is much demand for a Corvus nic.

I don't think that anyone is planning to produce it now.

The ethernet card would be nice though... and for the record, I've always wanted to do a corvus network at home. Too bad I can't find the ISA card to get my Apple hooked up to the linux server.

[kheller2]

Keep in mind folks, the 1090 didn't do anything by itself. It was basically and expansion of the PBI. Anything the 1090 could do you certainly should be able to do today with the PBI by itself. Granted, there is some appeal to sliding in an IDE/Flash card and perhaps memory expansion boards.

[JR>]

kheller2, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:05 PM, said:

Keep in mind folks, the 1090 didn't do anything by itself. It was basically and expansion of the PBI. Anything the 1090 could do you certainly should be able to do today with the PBI by itself. Granted, there is some appeal to sliding in an IDE/Flash card and perhaps memory expansion boards.

Yep, all that's really in there is a Power Supply, Buffers for the PBI lines and 5 Edge Connectors.

[Allan]

kheller2, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 4:05 PM, said:

Keep in mind folks, the 1090 didn't do anything by itself. It was basically and expansion of the PBI. Anything the 1090 could do you certainly should be able to do today with the PBI by itself. Granted, there is some appeal to sliding in an IDE/Flash card and perhaps memory expansion boards.

True except for one little detail. Everything else needs to be unplugged and plugged. No other device allows 5 PBI devices plugged in at once. Hence the whole point of the 1090.

Allan

[kheller2]

I might like to see a 1050 card/kit. Basically, take your existing 1050 and use the mech and some of the chips to build out a high speed bus version. Of course you would leave room in the chassis for a floppy mech!
The TI 99 Expansion box always seemed so awesome.

Edited by kheller2, Tue Jun 19, 2007 8:33 PM.

[carmel_andrews]

danwinslow, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:08 PM, said:

I would put some development money behind this.

Hey Dan...your not the same dan winslow that writes games using ACS/OSS's action cart. (i saw a game or two of ur's something called 'wall' and also 'simon' and one or two others)

Getting back to the subject at hand, i think the 1090 essentially turned the A8 into a PC, or at least that was the thinking behind it, as the 1090 is or was the equivalent to the 'expansion riser card or interface' on most flat top/base unit pc's at the time (i know, i've got an expansion riser stuck in my compaq p3 1gig pc)

[danwinslow]

carmel_andrews, on Tue Jun 19, 2007 5:38 AM, said:

danwinslow, on Mon Jun 18, 2007 1:08 PM, said:

I would put some development money behind this.

Hey Dan...your not the same dan winslow that writes games using ACS/OSS's action cart. (i saw a game or two of ur's something called 'wall' and also 'simon' and one or two others)

Getting back to the subject at hand, i think the 1090 essentially turned the A8 into a PC, or at least that was the thinking behind it, as the 1090 is or was the equivalent to the 'expansion riser card or interface' on most flat top/base unit pc's at the time (i know, i've got an expansion riser stuck in my compaq p3 1gig pc)

Hi Carmel. Yep, those are mine.

[Defender II]

Hey curt,

Did you ever do the PCB layout for this?

[Rhod]

YES WE (YOU) CAN !

I WANT ONE

[Curt Vendel]

Yes, started putting the schem into Eaglecad and need to finish, right now I'm focusing on catching up on joystick shipments and making some good progress, once I'm caught back up, I can finish the 1090XL PCB's and also I have some schematics for the 80 column card, cpm card, memory card and a proto/hobbyist card, so a lot could be done. I will look to restart this in May, so remind me then and let's setup up something where a bunch of us could work together to get the box and cards done.



Curt

Defender II, on Sat Apr 4, 2009 10:41 PM, said:

Hey curt,

Did you ever do the PCB layout for this?

[sup8pdct]

Will the ones you do have space for the 2nd buffer chip for the address and control lines? Mine has space for them but not inserted.
Mine also has some fine wire joining several pads on the underside in the power supply section.

James

Curt Vendel, on Mon Apr 6, 2009 12:42 AM, said:

Yes, started putting the schem into Eaglecad and need to finish, right now I'm focusing on catching up on joystick shipments and making some good progress, once I'm caught back up, I can finish the 1090XL PCB's and also I have some schematics for the 80 column card, cpm card, memory card and a proto/hobbyist card, so a lot could be done. I will look to restart this in May, so remind me then and let's setup up something where a bunch of us could work together to get the box and cards done.



Curt

Defender II, on Sat Apr 4, 2009 10:41 PM, said:

Hey curt,

Did you ever do the PCB layout for this?