David,

I went through the posts - good analysis. I only have used MYIDE as a CP/M 
transient. The board I/O code in my system is burned in my system ROM just 
as my prior ST506 code was since there is not room in the ROM for both sets 
of code. I boot my system from a 1.2 MB 5.25 inch floppy.

I got bold a few minutes ago and removed the pull up SIP and replaced the 
74S03's with 74LS00's. No instant cure but in looking at the sectors on the 
CF card I think things are better but no eureka. It did not degrade 
performance. I also will replace those two 74LS00's with 74ALS00's to 
further reduce the loading. Also U18 has pins 1 & 2 being driven by one 
8255 line and the same for pins 4 & 5. I will lift one of each of those 
pairs and tie it to Vcc.

Next step I will try is to remove the ICs driving the hex displays and 
LEDs. They are all LS TTL and put a somewhat higher load on the 8255 lines 
than do the CF cards themselves. I will pull U10, U12, U13, and U14. I 
will  no longer have the benefit of the hex displays and the LEDs but to be 
honest they are not that useful when the board is in my system as I really 
can not see them and I do not trust observations when a board is on an 
extender.

One final note - I have been staring at the MYIDE code and at my ROM code 
that was mostly a copy of the MYIDE code. At least one place in the code 
(both sets) has me looking at adding a busy check. I don't want to make too 
much of that right now as I may just be grasping at straws.

I have only a little time today - more tomorrow.

I will report results.

Rich Leary



On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 2:44:34 AM UTC-7, David Fry wrote:

> Hi Rich,
>
> I was the person who originally proposed the changing of the 680 ohm 
> resistor sil to 330 ohm based upon my own personal findings, the upgrade to 
> the 74S03 was necessary to cope with the increased current. At the time of 
> this mod I was thinking that this was crazy, it shouldn't take this kind of 
> brute force to drive a low power card but I can only report what my 
> oscilloscope was telling me, the CF card R/W lines were loading down the 
> driving gate, ejecting the card gave me full TTL levels.!!!
> As you say, if the CF card input leakage current is 1uA then it shouldn't 
> load the driving gate at all :-)
>
> Having made the mod (and it's the only one !) my card has been reading and 
> writing to CF cards for about a year now. I almost exclusively use the 
> Kingston 4GB card with the white flower on.
>
> One thought that has crossed my mind was a subsequent post I later made on 
> corrupted CF writes to the directory area of the CF card, take a look at 
> the post below and start reading from date 6/25/14 (it's a long post) to 
> see if the resolution has any relevance to your symptoms.
>
>
> https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/n8vem-s100/memtop/n8vem-s100/iuHcpanZwq4/VAmvr6Q_O_MJ
>
> regards
>
> David Fry
>
> On Saturday, January 17, 2015 at 5:14:42 AM UTC, Rich Leary wrote:
>
>> John,
>>
>> It is puzzling. I am using all 74LS except the two 74S03s and have tried 
>> both NMOS and CMOS varieties of the 8255.
>>
>> I have gone back to the CF and IDE specs and looked hard at the signal 
>> level specifications. My preliminary look seems to conflict with the build 
>> notes.
>>
>> The CF spec defines three type of signals at the interface and one of 
>> them (Type 1) does specify a 4V Vih for some signals. Other signals use 
>> either 2.0V or 2.8V.
>>
>> What is confusing is that the Type 1 signals are the address lines (An) 
>> and the data lines (Dn). The IORD, IOWR, and CSn (chip select n) lines are 
>> all Type 3 and the card inputs for those lines only require Vih of 2.8V to 
>> trigger the Schmitt Trigger that Type 3 uses. But the IORD, IOWR, and 
>> CSn lines are what are driven by the 74S03 or 74H03 ICs on the S100 board. 
>> RESET is a Type 2 signal and Vih need only be 2.0V.
>>
>> The only on-board pull ups are those associated with the 74S03 or 74H03 
>> ICs and they are very low value. The schematic shows 680 ohm but the notes 
>> suggest something like 330.
>>
>> What is also important to note is that the CF card input leakage current 
>> is very low at +- 1 uA so whatever is driving all CF lines is doing so at a 
>> very low load level. Since the IDE An and IDE Dn lines all connected to the 
>> 8255 ports that probably explains why those lines may be OK. In my Toshiba 
>> TMP82C55A datasheet it shows a Voh of Vcc-0.8V for Ioh of -100uA. As long 
>> as the load seen by the 8255 is just one of two CF cards with a total 
>> leakage of +- 2 uA that would work. But any 8255 outputs driving TTL inputs 
>> may have a low or marginal Voh at least for Dn and An.
>>
>> I can see no reasons for use of the high power - high speed gates and the 
>> low value pull ups on the IORD, IOWR, CSn, and RESET lines. As I read the 
>> specs it looks like those gates can be 74LS00's with no pull up or much 
>> higher pull ups (50K ?). In addition if we do not need to switch the higher 
>> currents associated with the low value pull ups that will reduce noise 
>> levels on the board.
>>
>> I need to read the CF spec again and do a line by line gozinta versus 
>> gozouta analysis before reaching for the de-soldering braid and solder 
>> sucker. It is possible that I have completely misread the spec and if so I 
>> apologize for the confusion but right now I think there may be some 
>> low-hanging fruit that should be harvested. Even if what my initial look 
>> indicates proves correct there may be other issues.
>>
>> I will get back to everyone hopefully by late on the 18th.
>>
>> If anyone has reason to show me the error in my thinking please fire away 
>> - at my age my skin has absorbed many blasts and a little more will not 
>> hurt.
>>
>> Rich Leary
>>
>>

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