--------
In message <NDBBIOPMOLIPFCHDKODGGECECNAA.john@xxxxxxxxxxx>, "John Saeger" write
s:
>Chris Wilkson wrote:
>
>> Ok, Ruffin. You're nominated to get permission. I'll volunteer to scan
>> it and PDF-ify it.
>
>Yeah right Chris! How ye gonna do it in your 15 minute a week Atari time
>budget? Don't you have 10 other projects to do? I'd rather see one of your
>touch controllers. Howzit going on that?
Heehee! I've upgraded my Atari allowance to 16 minutes per week. So figure
about a minute per page with OCR (I dunno...haven't used that yet...) I can
have the book done by...Christmas? Maybe? :P
Seriously...I *do* have umpteen projects in the queue. And I added another one
this week (this is *cool*! more info below...)
My current top 3 projects, in list order are:
A/V mod - design is finished. Just need to lay out a pcb, etc.
(I have chroma working now, Glenn...including saturation
control!)
32k board - the 16k board is getting financially unfeasible in it's
present incarnation. A 32k board is (~)the same cost
and time sink, so...
Touch controller - I have a board lay out done. Sorta. Just need to finally
decide which features I want it to have, and build a proto.
In addition to the above, I have a new side project, which is taking place
in parallel with whatever is currently in the #1 spot:
I'm "performing a competitive analysis of Atari Inc.'s part #CO10444."
In English, I'm reverse engineering the TIA...we started last night! :)
We had some limited success. The person who does acid dipping went home at
5, so we couldn't "do it right". So we had to saw/grind the plastic case
away. Everything was great, but then...we found out that the back of the
case wasn't smooth...we polished away a quarter of the die! (Yet, the
opposite corner still had plastic over it.) So...
For those of you unfamiliar with the process, what I'll do is polish away
the circuitry, layer by layer, taking photos as I go. It looks like it
maybe on the order of a micron per layer. Then the *hard* work begins...
assembling a schematic from the photos. Ouch! At least there seem to be
relatively few layers. Oh...and not many transistors...I'm guessing a
couple thousand-ish? (I'm used to designing products with about 16 million
transistors per die. Yay Moore's (inverse) Law!!!)
Today: attempt #2!
(=> Tia #2...I hope there are a lot of these over at Best Electronics!)
:P
Take care all!
-Chris
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