[Techtoolslist] (no subject)

[Brent Walker]

John,

I'd love to have more information/tips/tricks on using these.  I picked up
one of the 6809 ones a few months back when somebody was selling 4 or 5 of
them on eBay, but haven't used it much.  Definitely different from the 9010.

I was a bit confused about how it seemed to run the mentioned tests while
the board (Joust boardset at the time) seemed to be running, so the cycle
stealing info makes sense (and remember reading something to that effect in
the doc's, or in the video (available on YouTube).  I also remember getting
certain error messages on the display that may well have been related to
the lack (?) of the mentioned pull-up resistors on specific pins.  I'll
have to pull it out again and give it another go at some point.

I seem to remember an earlier post (or maybe it was on KLOV) talking about
using a socket between the UUT and the 90 to make it easier to use with
some UUT configurations, but don't remember the details - ie, install a
couple of sockets on the UUT, put the processor into the top socket, and
then clip the 90 into place - this may have been a means of getting a
pull-up resistor between the uP pin(s) in question and the UUT PCB.

It would be nice to have a full write-up/guide on using these with
arcade/pinball PCB's - there's just not much out there on them, and I'm
sure they'd be useful for cases where you just can't get your hands on a
9010/9100 equivalent pod.

Brent


> The 90 series was designed in Canada (Edmonton, Alberta) and worked
> fairly well as a clip-over the CPU type of exorcisor. I've got pretty
> much the complete set and they can be handy at times, especially if you
> don't have the pod for your 9010/9100. I have all the pods so these
> basically sit on a shelf.
>
> These only work with CPUs that can support having their address and data
> lines floated when you select a particular CPU pin, AND that pin MUST
> have a pullup resistor on the UUT PCB. In some cases that pin was simply
> wired to Vcc, and then to able to use the 90 you have to cut the Vcc
> trace and add a 10K pullup.
>
> The 90 works by cycle stealing, it runs when the CPU is on the opposite
> cycle. Rather cute in fact - the game can be running and you can run a
> RAM, ROM and I/O test at the same time!
>
> It has a RS-232 port as I recall and if more folks on the list had these
> then I probably would have played more with mine and we may have made
> some use of it here.
>
> Perhaps a show of hands of folks with the Z80 or 9809 Series 90?
>
> If there is interest perhaps I can contact the designer and see if he is
> any more interested in sharing info on the unit than he was the last
> time I asked about six years ago...what I'd like him to do is write the
> story of the 90 series device, and what the heck, I will try contacting
> him again in any case. It would be nice to get the story out!
>
> John :-#)#
>
>