Brain Innovations

JiffyDOS Production Unit

After many months of preparation, JiffyDOS production ROM overlays are finally ready for distribution. The system utilizes the ROM-el FLASH-based ROM emulator, allowing the units to be fully assembled before programming.  Units should be available shortly for sale in the online store.  Click on the picture for a larger view.

I tried a few, but decided this one was simple enough to meet my needs, yet flexible enough for the items I have to sell. I hope to add my full inventory over the next few weeks.

Brain Innovations Online Store

23XX and 23XXX ROM-el

Aries was backordered on the required 24 and 28 pin headers needed to finish testing, and the order just came in this past week.  Thus, I finally had a chance to solder and test the units.  Testing went well, and I can program the units with my Willem programmer.  Originally designed to hold a 29EE512 64kB EEPROM, I found a good price on Atmel AT49F001 128kB 5V Flash, so I made the necessary adjustments and tested with the new memory.  Testing went well, so I am releasing the design to production.

I have noticed one issue that I need to address.  Some CBM units have an RFI shield that doubles as a heat shield.  To perform the latter function, metal “fingers are stamped out of the shield that press on the top of the ICs.  I need to ensure the metal shield/heat sink does not contact any of the pins on this unit.

ROM-el Merged Board Set

The PCB house shipped the first two ROM-el boards for inspection and testing. Once they are assembled and testing, I will release the design to production.

As one can see, the PCB is a merged set of 4 designs.  The tabs between the designs are designed to be broken, separating the individual units after assembly.

I’ve initiated phase 1 of ROM-el production, scheduling the PCB design for production and shipment.  ROM-el will be completed in 3 phases:

1. PCB manufacture and shipment of 2 bare boards
2. Manual assembly and testing
3. Release PCB for assembly and shipment

This is typical for new designs, for the following reasons:

• Given the low cost of production boards, it’s cheaper to make a production board run instead of an initial prototype board run.  In the best case, the board is operational and no prototype board costs are incurred.  At worst, the board must be “spun” once more, but the total cost does not exceed a prototype + production run cost.
• Shipping 2 boards ahead of time permits verification of the design before assembly.  The boards are shipped at no cost by “piggybacking” them on a previous order that is nearing completion.

Normal turnaround is 10 business days (2 calendar weeks), so I expect boards around July 12th.

To save costs in creating the SMT stencil and the boards themselves, I “merged” 4 designs into one set of files for the PCB house using Gerbmerge.  I struggled to install the program in Windows, which was unsucessful.  The application has some dependencies, one of which requires a C compiler.  The Windows install of the dependency assumes Visual C++, which I do not own.  After wasting a few hours, I installed on the local Linux server, which was trivial.  The application is very straightforward, and I was able to create a minimal merged set of files in a few minutes.  Thus, I will be receiving 100 units of:

• ROM-el 2364
• ROM-el 23128/23256
• 2364Adapter (simple DIP style 24-28 pin adapter
• 6540Adapter (CBM-Hackers folks asked for this design, which has not been tested)