110 replies to this topic

[HiassofT]

Blues76, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:12 AM, said:

It is amazing the well job you guys do, just like candle , flashjazzcat and others. These are the hero of the Atari 8-bit community.

Thanks a lot!

I have to say that it's really encouraging seeing all those preorders coming in, from various countries - Germany, Netherlands, Poland, UK, Norway, USA so far!

so long,

Hias

[Fox-1 / mnx]

HiassofT, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 10:23 AM, said:

I have to say that it's really encouraging seeing all those preorders coming in, from various countries - Germany, Netherlands, Poland, UK, Norway, USA so far!

In this age of emulation I'm surprised by the amount of orders.

Shipping..... well, disassembling prior to shipping will do but don't get too exited so it ends up as a bag with loose parts! :-))

[HiassofT]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 12:38 PM, said:

In this age of emulation I'm surprised by the amount of orders.

There still seems to be some interest for the "real stuff", i.e. original Atari hardware. I have 68 people on my preorder list (some ordered more than one Freezer), which means not all have switched to emulation :-)

Quote

Shipping..... well, disassembling prior to shipping will do but don't get too exited so it ends up as a bag with loose parts! :-))

Hah, another idea: we could completely skip assembly and just send you the parts. Hope you feel comfortable soldering SO, PLCC and TQFP chips plus some other little SMD parts :-)))

so long,

Hias

[Stephen]

Some stuff just can't be done via emulation (CP/M on the Indus GT for example). Also, it's incredibly cool to have this great new hardware still coming out, 29 years after I got my first Atari computer.

[Fox-1 / mnx]

HiassofT, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 2:02 PM, said:

Hope you feel comfortable soldering SO, PLCC and TQFP chips plus some other little SMD parts :-)))

No prob. I'm ready for it.

Will this baby do? :-)

[Blues76]

Hi.
No soldering for me please. I suck at it.
If you send int a box, it should not get damaged at all.

[bf2k+]

Hias,
I ordered the Freezer XL and adapter XE. Will I be able to use this in both an XL and XE or do I also need an adapter XL?

[HiassofT]

Fox-1 / mnx, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:32 PM, said:

Will this baby do? :-)

Perfect - the larger the tip of your soldering iron, the better! You just might want to clean the tip a little bit, doesn't look too great anymore :-)))

BTW: no kidding, using a large tip, a big drop of solder on that tip and plenty of flux is a very good and easy way to (de-) solder fine-pitch TQFP etc chips.

so long,

Hias

[HiassofT]

bf2k+, on Wed Nov 23, 2011 9:29 PM, said:

I ordered the Freezer XL and adapter XE. Will I be able to use this in both an XL and XE or do I also need an adapter XL?

You'll be able to use it in both computers.

"Freezer XL" actually means the "Freezer electronics module" plus an XL adapter. So you'll get the "Freezer module", an XL adapter and an XE adapter. Just thought it's better to not list the bare Freezer electronics (with 2 2x25 pin connectors, plugging into the adapter board) separately to avoid confusion. Hmmm, seems that actually caused some confusion, too :-)

so long,

Hias

[spookt]

Hey Guys

Any update?

[HiassofT]

spookt, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 8:21 AM, said:

Any update?

Wolfram and I are currently quite busy with our jobs (end of year is always terrible), and we are still waiting for a quote (seems like end of year is also terrible for others).

Currently it looks like the price I mentioned could maybe hold, although we didn't include ENIG ("gold") finish for PCB in our first calculation. But to be sure we have to wait until we get official quotes...

So, please be patient, as soon as we have a final price we'll let you know.

so long,

Hias

[spookt]

HiassofT, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 8:31 AM, said:

spookt, on Mon Dec 5, 2011 8:21 AM, said:

Any update?

Wolfram and I are currently quite busy with our jobs (end of year is always terrible), and we are still waiting for a quote (seems like end of year is also terrible for others).

Currently it looks like the price I mentioned could maybe hold, although we didn't include ENIG ("gold") finish for PCB in our first calculation. But to be sure we have to wait until we get official quotes...

So, please be patient, as soon as we have a final price we'll let you know.

so long,

Hias

Thanks Hias. I wasn't trying to be impatient BTW, I'm happy to wait

[HiassofT]

Just a short update: Wolfram and I are swamped with work and christmas is getting fightening near, so we decided to finish the calculation after the holidays.

so long & thanks for your patience,

Hias

[Stephen]

HiassofT, on Thu Dec 15, 2011 1:27 PM, said:

Just a short update: Wolfram and I are swamped with work and christmas is getting fightening near, so we decided to finish the calculation after the holidays.

so long & thanks for your patience,

Hias

Thanks for the update - have a great Christmas.

[HiassofT]

Update: I'm still swamped with work, haven't found the time to finish the docs, and Wolfram is moving to a new appartment (haven't heard from him in the past two weeks, so I guess he's still busy). So start of production is further delayed...

so long & thanks a lot for your patience,

Hias

[Stephen]

Thanks for the update.

[Marius1976]

Thanks for the update. Am I right that nobody still got a mail with payment instructions right? Let me know when I can donate my money

[Heaven/TQA]

simply let me know when and I will transfer the money

[HiassofT]

Marius1976, on Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:44 AM, said:

Am I right that nobody still got a mail with payment instructions right?

Yes, that's correct. We still have to re-calculate the final price (price of parts and PCBs tends to change slightly, and we also have to check shipping and packaging costs), so we haven't sent out payment instructions yet. And I also don't like to collect all your hard-earned money and then let you waiting for extended periods of time. As soon as we are ready to start production we'll contact you by email.

so long,

Hias

[Marius1976]

HiassofT, on Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:21 AM, said:

And I also don't like to collect all your hard-earned money....

Usually I rob a bank or steal money from innocent old people or kids.

It's not really hard earned you know

[MrFish]

HiassofT, on Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:21 AM, said:

And I also don't like to collect all your hard-earned money and then let you waiting for extended periods of time.

I'll be paying with either Monopoly money or some of these undisclosed bills that I found laying around in a warehouse here in Sunnyvale:

[rdemming]

Hi Hias,

I was testing my 800XL with the Ultimate1MB board in combination with the original 1986 Turbo Freezer XL but they didn't play well together (See this post). According to Candle it is the way the Turbo Freezer works that they are not compatible.
Is this also the case with the new Turbo Freezer or is this problem solved in the new version?
Unfortunately I couldn't test the Ultimate1MB in combination with my TF2005 since that is an XE version.

Robert

[HiassofT]

Hi Robert!

I tested the new TurboFreezer in combination with the Ultimate 1MB on one 800XL and had no compatibility / stability issues so far.

Of course, if you enable the OldOS on the Turbo-Freezer before powering up your Atari the Ultimate BIOS has no chance to run - any OS in the Atari is replaced with the OldOS from the Freezer.

Another issue: If you press the Freezer button while the Ultimate BIOS is active you get a garbled screen. This is because the Freezer software expects some sort of standard OS to be present. It doesn't really need much from the OS: a standard character set at $E000 and standard processing of NMIs (deferred and immediate VBIs, to be more specific). The latter are used for timeout handling in the highspeed SIO code and RTCLOK+2 is needed for keyboard debouncing/repeating. IRQs and other code from the OS aren't needed (unless you use the "SIO" command in the debugger, which uses $E459).

The Ultimate BIOS doesn't meet these requirements, IIRC it uses a hardcoded VBI routine that sets the display list start address and it doesn't have a character set at $E000. This is only a software issue, though, and it could be fixed quite easily (in the Ultimate BIOS code).

so long,

Hias

[rdemming]

Thank Hias,

Good to hear that it is probably an issue with the original Turbo Freezer or my 800XL and not a general problem.
The corrupted character set in TF makes now perfectly sense since indeed only the Ultimate bios is active in my case and not an OS.

I'm looking forward to get the TF2011 to "replace" the original one.

Robert

[Stephen]

HiassofT, on Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:21 AM, said:

Marius1976, on Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:44 AM, said:

Am I right that nobody still got a mail with payment instructions right?

Yes, that's correct. We still have to re-calculate the final price (price of parts and PCBs tends to change slightly, and we also have to check shipping and packaging costs), so we haven't sent out payment instructions yet. And I also don't like to collect all your hard-earned money and then let you waiting for extended periods of time. As soon as we are ready to start production we'll contact you by email.

so long,

Hias

I really hate to even ask, but are there any updates to this?