Since I’ve been reverse engineering a DataFlyer Plus HDD SCSI expansion card for the Commodore Amiga, I’ve needed to get a much better understanding of how the AutoConfig process works. I’m by far no expert on it, but I have learned a lot and wanted to share a couple logic analyzer traces of this occurring in the wild. The Commodore documentation refers to these expansion cards as PICs or Plug-in Cards.
While trying to reverse the function of the Commodore Amiga Expansion Systems DataFlyer 500 BUSS PAL, I really needed to know what was connected to what. There are no, as far as I know(!!), schematics available for this board, so I thought I’d bring that to end.
I will be publishing schematics relatively soon once I’ve had some more time to double-check them.
So I’m in the process of trying to reverse engineer some custom PALs from a Commodore Amiga Dataflyer 500. It would be ideal to read those PALs directly, however I don’t have a compatible PAL reading solutions. I’ve found some online but they are easily $800-$1200. So someone on a previous blog post commented about a potential solution that works with the TL866A eeprom reader.
I had a few needs to for a simple voltage display that can handle the range of +5v to +12v. There’s a few different applications like displaying the state of a battery, a state of a power supply and so on. I was fairly interested to know how accurate these displays are considering they are only a few dollars each. I ordered these from Amazon.
I have an old Star Micronics NX-1020 Rainbow printer from circa 1993. I bought this printer using my paper route Christmas money that I saved up for months. The printer served me valiantly throughout the early 90s. This is a 9-pin dot matrix printer and was based on popular designs available from Epson, Okidata, and others.
I recently tore down an Agilent E5382A Flying Lead Set. I used a Torx T-4 bit to remove the (4) tiny tiny screws.
This adapter has a 90-pin connector that comes from HP logic analyzer cards, and then goes out to single ended flying leads for direct connection to the System Under Test.
This quick guide contains instructions on how to setup, configure, burn, and launch an install from a SCSI2SD when inserted into an HP/Agilent Logic Analyzer on the 16700 series. A fresh install is always recommended, just like for other operating systems like Windows. I do not recommend imaging your previous SCSI drive, and then trying to burn it directly onto the card.
I’m using a 32GB SD card for this. You’ll need to play with the sector count field if you vary from this.
I recently had a need to provide a battery backup solution for a CPAP machine. A CPAP machine helps people, who suffer from sleep apnea, get a good night’s rest. About 20 million Americans suffer from this condition. This machine provides a large amount of heated, humidified air through a mask. Motors (like those driving a large air pump), and heaters (heating the water to prevent drying out membranes) take a lot of power. The CPAP machine consumes 35w nominally, and 90w peak.
Back in the Christmas of 1991 or 1992, my parents bought me an external floppy drive. It was $129, which was a lot of money back then. The equivalent price would be about $245 after inflation.
I probably found this drive in either AmigaWorld magazine or Computer Shopper, which iirc was a thin newspaper type printed on large format paper.
This external amiga-specific floppy drive with DB23 connectors had a few unique features. It had a two-digit track indicator for which track was being read or written. It also had a few switches in the back. The three switches controlled:
