@DosFox clone aficionado! I found a cool thing you might like.
Have a look at page 78 here: https://win.adrirobot.it/nuova_elettronica/pdf/nuova-elettronica-104-105.pdf
I went to buy food for my cats and came home with a paper copy of this old magazine, and there is a kit of an (allegedly) Apple IIe compatible clone described. Complete with schematics, pity the thing uses PROMs/PALs and of course those are not described in the article.
Would be so cool to find one and clone the clone...
To everyone that followed the discussion about the DELTA:
The person that sent me ROMs/PLDs dumps has confirmed they're the full set, but has yet to respond on the permission to release them. If I hear nothing for a few days, I will simply release them under my responsibility and credit him. He's not selling repros, that I know of.
@DosFox here has checked the ROMs and confirmed the main ones are mostly identical to unenhanced IIe ROMs: where the big difference lies is in the video ROM. Not unexpected given the presence of a 6545 CRTC onboard.
I guess that ROM will have to be studied. This curbs hopes of an easy "enhanced" mod tho
Hmm I re-read the component list. The DELTA uses a 6545 CRTC, not a 6845.
They are not totally interchangeable: http://www.6502.org/users/andre/hwinfo/crtc/diffs.html
I suspect this will be an headache, maybe minor, but one still, as not all 6545 seem equal either.
Also, I think I'll have to order a few, as I can't seem to have any in storage...
That's it. All the ICs for the DELTA (minus the video card) spread out.
Now I just need to wire them up.
Easy Peasy.
I've decided to start with the memory, so I begun placing the symbols and their connections.
Now, I don't know how you like to do that, but i mostly work with paper.
I take notes on paper, sometimes i sketch part of schematics on paper, and in these cases, I definitely work better by printing out the schematics and highlighting the parts I've already taken care of.
I think the first sheet is done.
It needs cleanup, reordering. Maybe some net labeling.
But it's done. And so I am for today.
The DELTA schematics (minus the two video boards) have now been transposed into KiCAD format. Ended up being a bit of a rat's nest in some parts, but this'll be a concern for future me.
I'll now wait one or two days then have a look at them with a fresh eye, and see if I spot glaring errors on my part.
I'm left with just an unused gate, and the electrical rules inspector not complaining (too much), which is encouraging.
Once this is done, I will release everything for others to peruse. I hope I'll be getting the photos of the original PCBs by then, as those will help greatly in recreating the board and spot additional errors.
@davbucci yup! It looks like a very interesting machine. Roberto from https://www.z80ne.com/ provided the dumps for the ROMs and the PLDs. He said there's a chance he'll come up with photos of the PCB, which would be great both in a duplication effort and in a troubleshooting process.
Crossing fingers that we can get this thing resurrected!
@hkz woah that's definitely piqued my interest!
I'll dig into that when I have the chance
@DosFox I doubt I'll ever run into one in the wild. The cost for that thing in kit form was considerable.
Still, sometimes Nuova Elettronica kits pop up at fairs, so I'll keep an eye out just in case.
@hkz those schematics are absolutely gorgeous though.
Shame that the ROMs/PROMs are likely lost to time
@hkz it reminds me that the Franklin Ace 2000s were iie compatible machines that were made entirely out of TTL parts and a few PALs.
The schematics are online, not sure about the ROMs and PALs
@DosFox From an italian newsgroup, one guy mentioned he checked the ROMs and found them to be almost identical to original IIe ones. The PROMs/PALs on the other hand, he did say he was able to copy 5 of 7, but the last 2 were registered.
And all this was 17 years ago. You know what, I'll ask him anyway.
@hkz may as well!
Reminds me I need to message that guy with a prototype Macintosh ii
@csilverman well that's... Intriguing. Isn't that part of the original medium Mac proposal?
Admittedly information on the Macintosh ii (well, Milwaukee) is pretty sparse. It doesn't help that people get confused with Big Mac as well 😅
@DosFox Yeah, I thought Medium Mac *was* the Mac II: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apple/mac/prototypes/1985_Med_Mac/Med_Mac_Proposal_19850607.pdf
Here it is! Page 230, “Insanely Great”, by Steven Levy:
"Until very late in the process, [Mac II hardware designer Brian] Berkeley dictated that the power supply would be placed in the monitor—a surprisingly wrongheaded solution that would have limited the range of screen options available to Mac II users."
(That "Power Supply In Monitors vs. In CPU" item in the proposal does suggest this was a point of contention.)
@DosFox From the book:
"Dhuey believed that out of the File Server's ashes should come Macintosh II, or as he called it, Little Big Mac"
"Jean-Louis Gassee came across the project and benignly permitted it to continue, albeit as sort of a "background skunkworks"...[Gassee] renamed the project "Milwaukee."
As I understand it:
- LBM/MM were what this was called when it started
- Got named Milwaukee further along
- This didn't come from BM—that was something else: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_(computer)
@DosFox "Insanely Great" has a good overview of the story:
- The File Server, which never happened
- BigMac—also never happened, sounds like it was supposed to be a superpowered successor to the all-in-one Mac, vs the pizza-box form factor of the File Server/Mac II
- and then Dhuey's secret spinout of the File Server, which he called Little Big Mac/Medium Mac
- …after which Jean-Louis renamed it Milwaukee/Reno/Uzi/Paris… (these guys *loved* their codenames)
- and then *that* shipped as Mac II
@DosFox Wat.
The guy answered already. Sent me the JEDs and the ROM dumps.
But he actually sent me 7 JEDs, not 5. I'm asking him if he was able to reverse the remaining ones during these 17 years.
Because, if he did, I have a IIe clone to build here.
hkz
DosFox
The_Faeder
Davide Bucci
Chris Silverman 🌻
Jonathan Evraire