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5.00: Professionally assembled PCB, EmuTOS, PIO mode, multiple devices and fixes

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@retro16 retro16 released this 11 Nov 10:53
· 3 commits to 5.0 since this release
5.00
aae0f60

5.00 is the final version of this project. Development is officially stopped.

This is a new major version because the project shifted direction: it's not
officially based on the Blue Pill anymore, but a custom PCB based on the exact
same microcontroller: the STM32F103C8T6.

Don't worry, your existing hardware is still supported with zero changes and is
perfectly fine. Don't feel bad if you don't have the new PCB design.

New Compact PCB

This release adds a new PCB with less features, but that can be built entirely
by JLCPCB's assembly services. It does not require a Blue Pill as it integrates
the STM32 directly.

Total cost is around $50 for 5 units (this is the minimum amount you can buy).
Prices are of 07/2023 and may vary.

Sources for EasyEda, Gerber, BOM and component placement are included.

This PCB can also be connected using UltraSatan cables (IDC20 format), both for
sharing the port to other devices or being connected using an IDC20 cable.

Note that buying from JLCPCB does not imply any warranty of any form from
ACSI2STM authors. ACSI2STM authors don't receive any money from this.

It also includes a 3D printable enclosure to have a finished product.

This is now the official design, all Blue Pill based units are still supported
(and will be in the future) but it is discouraged to build new designs based on
blue pill boards because of clone/bad chip issues found on too many Blue Pill
boards available for sale. You will lose money buying these.

GemDrive loader program

GemDrive can now be loaded as a TOS program. The main reason to do that is
EmuTOS support since EmuTOS does not boot hard disk boot sectors.

EmuTOS loader

GemDrive can now boot EMUTOS.SYS from the 1st SD card slot. It needs a special
setup to reload GemDrive from within EmuTOS, described in
gemdrive.md.

PIO firmware

Many Atari ST's have a broken DMA chip. The PIO firmware uses a protocol that
does not use DMA transfers at all. The price to pay is speed: it is 10x slower
and it does not support ACSI at all nor auto booting. It requires a special
driver GEMDRPIO.PRG provided in the release package.

Multiple devices support

A lot of improvements and testing has been done to make sure ACSI2STM plays well
with other devices on the DMA port. This includes other ACSI2STM units in any
mode.

Changes since 4.12

Compatibility:

  • Fixed SD card frequencies to 50MHz, 25MHz and 1MHz to match the actual
  • Changed debug output speed to 1Mbps: helps with laggy USB-UART converters
    standard speeds
  • Removed self-modifying code in GemDrive: it should now work with CPU cache
  • Added support for TT-RAM in GemDrive
  • Added support for up to 6 ACSI2STM units in GEMDRIVE.PRG
  • Added support for PIO mode in HDDFLASH.TOS
  • Verbose firmware is now less than 64k allowing to flash it with HDDFLASH.TOS
  • Improved ACSI performance of some commands. Fixes multi device with GemDrive

Bug fixes:

  • Found and fixed the root cause for memory corruptions with ACSI_FAST_DMA = 5
  • Fixed GemDrive boot when ACSI id 0 is not an ACSI2STM unit
  • Fixed a lot of issues when multiple hard drives and ACSI2STM units are used at
    the same time
  • Introduced GemDrive command 0x09 to avoid crashes when reading boot sector
  • Fixed GemDrive drive letter allocation
  • Improved SD card hot swapping a lot
  • Fixed and added GEMDRIVE.PRG to load GemDrive from desktop and AUTO
  • Removed timeout in GemDrive boot program as it is useless
  • Fixed command byte timeout handling
  • Fixed fast CS/IRQ protocol implementation
  • Code cleanup pass (dead code removal, code formating, comments review, ...)

Features:

  • Boot EMUTOS.SYS on startup if present on the SD card
  • Added PIO mode to GemDrive to work on broken DMA chips

Hardware:

  • Added the Compact PCB
  • Swapped ID_SHIFT jumper positions in software to match the actual Compact PCB
    configuration.
  • Removed "full-featured" PCB as it's not really safe nor easy to build

Build chain:

  • Arduino 2.x is now the official IDE
  • arduino-cli is now the official build platform for release packages

Release package:

  • Added back the whole history for 4.x in release_notes.md, as it should be
  • Provide a ready to use GemDrive boot image for EmuTOS, both hard drive and
    floppy disk formats
  • Reworked documentation to put more emphasis on the new PCB design
  • Simplified documentation
Assets 3
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