1160 replies to this topic

[Curt Vendel]

Hi everyone,

Officially back from vacation, catching up with emails, so be patient. Was working on things while I was away to keep things moving over Christmas and New Years, here is where things stand briefly, but again will be posting shortly with a XM Project status page so people don't have to dig through various threads and such, I'll try to have that up Saturday afternoon or so...

1. Nameplates.

Bad and Good news -- The company in SC I was working with has been a total disappointment, I think they were over their heads on doing this, or just weren't the best pick. I choose them because they made metal badges for appliances and other products, they are domestic here in the US and really wanted to pursue that, but after 2 months they have been a disappointment.

On to the good news, I was contacted by a friend who has worked with a company on the West Coast, they actually do plates very very close to what I wanted and they guaranteed me they would have plates down and ready to ship in 2 weeks, so I signed a purchase agreement with them this morning and I am feeling a lot better about that very crucial cosmetic feature of the product, its really the focal point in my mind as people will be directly drawn to it, so I've paid a lot of attention to getting it right.

2. Boxes.

Now that nameplates will finally arrive, the product photo's can be taken and the Illustrator files transferred to the printer, they said 7-10 days, the cardboard boxes are already here from uline, down in the garage bay, so once the box cover sleeves arrive, they go right in.

3. Firmware and PC Board updates.

Been going back and forth with Mark (Groovybee) on the firmware control of the XM and some last minute upgrades, additions and changes to the PC boards. It'll be an on-screen control menu for testing and selecting on/off of features, so this should be wrapped up quickly.

4. Manuals (owners) Done
5. Manuals (technical) is being compiled, and will be an online delivery because code examples and a lot of details will be put together, there will be so much involved, its far better to post it up for all to access.

6. Unrelated - saw some posts about nvRAM carts not reaching some, I know a few people did get them as I got emails from those who did, including one from Bob (Pacmanplus) as his for some reason arrived DOA and he's sending his back. I don't know what is going on with them, just got back in so I will try to get to the Post Office tomorrow or definitely Monday to speak with someone and find out what's going on.

7. SIO ports - Good on this short term, but I found a company who's really looking for work and they said they can replicate them very low cost for me, so I'm going to look at making a big run of these and making them available beyond just the XM's

8. Keyboard interface - don't go crazy with a lot of questions on this yet, just pointing out that the keyboard port will be electrically compatible with the XEGS keyboard port

9. SIO port, I think everyone realizes, the SIO port will NOT have 12v+ out on it, the 7800 P/S runs hot enough as it is pushing out its 1A of power for all of this extra H/W alone. Of course the 5v+ line is used for READY, but printer interfaces and XM301 modems and the like use it for power as well, gotta be careful not to overload the power draw.


Okay, so look tomorrow for the status page URL, will get that up, Mark should have something to me in the next few days and there will be a glimpse at the onboard Firmware Menu - nothing outstanding, its a menu with test status and such, but it adds extra intelligence and control to the system overall.


Happy New Year to everyone...


Curt

[DracIsBack]

Thanks for the update, Curt!

[Allan]

Curt Vendel, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 10:46 AM, said:

9. SIO port, I think everyone realizes, the SIO port will NOT have 12v+ out on it, the 7800 P/S runs hot enough as it is pushing out its 1A of power for all of this extra H/W alone. Of course the 5v+ line is used for READY, but printer interfaces and XM301 modems and the like use it for power as well, gotta be careful not to overload the power draw.

What type of 8-bit stuff used the 12v+ line?

Allan

[Curt Vendel]

It was omitted in the 1200XL design, and caused a lot of grief for owners and peripheral makes (which in the grander sense - made NO sense --- the 1200XL design was meant to be a "Closed Box" design, Atari wanted more of the "850" and "835/1030" type smart devices, so you would've thought Atari would've wanted to support more devices and leave the 12V+ line connected to support larger devices given it didn't have a Parallel Bus or any other form of communication or expansion to it.



Curt

Allan, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 11:09 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 10:46 AM, said:

9. SIO port, I think everyone realizes, the SIO port will NOT have 12v+ out on it, the 7800 P/S runs hot enough as it is pushing out its 1A of power for all of this extra H/W alone. Of course the 5v+ line is used for READY, but printer interfaces and XM301 modems and the like use it for power as well, gotta be careful not to overload the power draw.

What type of 8-bit stuff used the 12v+ line?

Allan

[TrekMD]

Thanks for the update!

[Allan]

So this shouldn't really effect much since most 8-bit peripherals use their own power supply. Cool.

Really looking forward to this.

Allan

Curt Vendel, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 11:20 AM, said:

It was omitted in the 1200XL design, and caused a lot of grief for owners and peripheral makes (which in the grander sense - made NO sense --- the 1200XL design was meant to be a "Closed Box" design, Atari wanted more of the "850" and "835/1030" type smart devices, so you would've thought Atari would've wanted to support more devices and leave the 12V+ line connected to support larger devices given it didn't have a Parallel Bus or any other form of communication or expansion to it.



Curt

Allan, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 11:09 AM, said:

Curt Vendel, on Fri Jan 7, 2011 10:46 AM, said:

9. SIO port, I think everyone realizes, the SIO port will NOT have 12v+ out on it, the 7800 P/S runs hot enough as it is pushing out its 1A of power for all of this extra H/W alone. Of course the 5v+ line is used for READY, but printer interfaces and XM301 modems and the like use it for power as well, gotta be careful not to overload the power draw.

What type of 8-bit stuff used the 12v+ line?

Allan

[Curt Vendel]

Sorry - day late on this:

http://www.atarimuse...7800/expansion/

[Lendorien]

Thanks for the update Mr. Vendel. I'm heartily looking forward to getting mine, though to start with, only the HSC functionality will be used (followed by Pacman collection Pokey when it comes out and Circus atariage. ).

Thanks for the XM project page! It was a fun read.

[AtariNerd]

Thank you, Curt!




5 volts is enough to run most flash drives, just like the computer line... if some enterprising soul was to develop it, of course....

[The Usotsuki]

The lack of 12V is identical to the SIO on the 1200XL, as I understand. So I guess any drive which is compatible with a 1200XL should in theory work, given an OS to drive it, on the 7800XM.

[phaxda]

Ordered me up one-a dem!

[PAC-MAN PRIME]

Cool update page and documentation of the progress of the project. Thanks Curt!

[kenfused]

The Usotsuki, on Mon Jan 10, 2011 6:31 AM, said:

The lack of 12V is identical to the SIO on the 1200XL, as I understand. So I guess any drive which is compatible with a 1200XL should in theory work, given an OS to drive it, on the 7800XM.

Do any XL's have 12 volt on the SIO port? I thought only the 400/800 did. I thought the 1200xl main SIO issue was current limiting on the 5v pin?

[Mitch]

kenfused, on Mon Jan 10, 2011 7:17 PM, said:

The Usotsuki, on Mon Jan 10, 2011 6:31 AM, said:

The lack of 12V is identical to the SIO on the 1200XL, as I understand. So I guess any drive which is compatible with a 1200XL should in theory work, given an OS to drive it, on the 7800XM.

Do any XL's have 12 volt on the SIO port? I thought only the 400/800 did. I thought the 1200xl main SIO issue was current limiting on the 5v pin?

The Atari 8 bit FAQ agrees with you.

Mitch

[ATARI7800fan]

How long will you be selling these. Is it a limited time or number run, will probably not be able to buy one until mid October for my birthday, going to college do not have alot of spare cash.

[ApolloBoy]

ATARI7800fan, on Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:39 PM, said:

How long will you be selling these. Is it a limited time or number run, will probably not be able to buy one until mid October for my birthday, going to college do not have alot of spare cash.

Curt said he would keep making them as long as people wanted them, IIRC.

[ATARI7800fan]

ApolloBoy, on Tue Jan 11, 2011 11:43 PM, said:

ATARI7800fan, on Tue Jan 11, 2011 10:39 PM, said:

How long will you be selling these. Is it a limited time or number run, will probably not be able to buy one until mid October for my birthday, going to college do not have alot of spare cash.

Curt said he would keep making them as long as people wanted them, IIRC.

Thanks for the info. Can't wait to see what games are coming out for it, hopefully someone will put up a video on youtube of when they get one. Hoping to get plutos soon for the 7800 what is your guy's opinion of the game.

[AtariNerd]

Right now, we are a few shy of 200 units ordered pre-release, which is excellent, but would be more excellent, still, if we could get several new would-be buyers to push us over the top.

[SpaceDice2010]

Is the box design finalized?

[AtariNerd]

Probably a week or so more for the plates, then he can finalize the box-art. Then another week or so for the box sleeve cover-art to be printed and shipped back to him. Given unforeseen delays and chance the proposed ship date might be somewhat optimistic, but a hopeful goal-post.

Edited by AtariNerd, Sat Jan 15, 2011 2:03 PM.

[Underball]

AtariNerd, on Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:16 AM, said:

Right now, we are a few shy of 200 units ordered pre-release, which is excellent, but would be more excellent, still, if we could get several new would-be buyers to push us over the top.

Make some XM game announcements with projected release dates. As of right now there is still only 1 game being worked on that is a XM game - Dungeon.

Everything else is HSC but not XM, or a pokey sound hack, neither of which require an XM. The rest are all rumored/cancelled vaporware that will likely never see that light of day.

I don't see the point without any games fir it.

[GroovyBee]

Underball, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:53 PM, said:

Make some XM game announcements with projected release dates. As of right now there is still only 1 game being worked on that is a XM game - Dungeon.

There are two. Fruitarian was announced last week and is XM only.

Quote

Everything else is HSC but not XM, or a pokey sound hack, neither of which require an XM. The rest are all rumored/cancelled vaporware that will likely never see that light of day.

In your opinion.

[DracIsBack]

Underball, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:53 PM, said:

Make some XM game announcements with projected release dates. As of right now there is still only 1 game being worked on that is a XM game - Dungeon.

Everything else is HSC but not XM, or a pokey sound hack, neither of which require an XM. The rest are all rumored/cancelled vaporware that will likely never see that light of day.

I don't see the point without any games fir it.

You have been the biggest killjoy about this project forever. Seriously dude - do you have nothing better to do than be a grouch and spread negative vibes about things that people are working hard to get done???

[Mord]

Underball, on Sat Jan 15, 2011 8:53 PM, said:

Make some XM game announcements with projected release dates. As of right now there is still only 1 game being worked on that is a XM game - Dungeon.

Everything else is HSC but not XM, or a pokey sound hack, neither of which require an XM. The rest are all rumored/cancelled vaporware that will likely never see that light of day.

I don't see the point without any games fir it.

Given there's only a handful of people that seem to know the innards of how to program the XM just now that shouldn't be surprising. The documentation is due to be posted publicly once it ships at which point a lot more people will have the option of tinkering with it to make the 7800 dance.

The 7800 scene is pretty active but it still consists of people doing this as a hobby. These things aren't going to sell out instantly - Curt's made sure of that - so if you don't see the point, that's fine! Keep an eye on the scene instead of grumbling, and see how many games are out there designed to work with the XM a year or two from now.

If there's still only 1 game out for it after 5 years... yeah, grumble to your heart's content.

[Underball]

Every time I open one of these XM status threads to read the latest posts, instead of being greeted with news about games coming for it, I see atarinerd making his 45th post in a row begging people to buy mire XM units to get to yet another magical plateau of units sold.

I really don't think asking to know what other games are coming out is grumbling. And if you read around, my opinion is hardly that rare either.