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  1. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh Plus PCB

    Interesting that there are revisions of the Plus boards that use the same TSM that was designed on 512k. I thought I mapped out the difference between the two TSM variants and it is relatively trivial... but I'd have to revisit. This is definitely the board I would need for testing the...
  2. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @Kai Robinson I'm pretty sure the only reason why the Mac Plus inverts the clock signal is because that must have appeared to be the most convenient chip-saving layout. Good to know it is the Sony SND chips that's responsible for generating the power-on-RESET signal.  I believe the interesting...
  3. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    Mentioning bodge wire and unconnected traces that shouldn't affect signaling... well that's one thing that old and slow computers are quite a bit more forgiving on!  If I've read the schematics correctly, though, the Macintosh SE does in fact use some impedance-matching resistors for certain...
  4. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    I'd guess probably the most useful thing from @timdorez's tech manuals is the troubleshooting info, seems like the other schematics are largely the same as what currently floating around but always worth taking a more detailed look! Nice find on the Bomarc Macintosh SE schematic...
  5. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    The idea is to go for a flat-panel that caters to the traditional market served by PVM (Professional Video Monitor) CRTs, so you might search around for "security" or "industrial" monitors.  Such displays have separate sync signals for RGB component video and are probably more forgiving to...
  6. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    How about something like the Walk-a-Mac?  TTL-input video flat-panel displays are available under the names of "security monitor" or similar, then you just need a logic NOT chip to get the proper input video signals.
  7. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @Kai Robinson Interesting idea on setting up the layout of the data.  Probably the circuit board footprint of the BBU's socket would be generally more useful when working with the hardware, though (of course not much different).  I would recommend sticking to the Apple terminology that I've used...
  8. quorten

    Sourcing Apple Custom IC's

    Interesting, I have to say I was somewhat surprised at first to hear that New-Old-Stock apple custom ICs are actually a thing.  But I'm guessing it makes sense if you think a bit deeper... Apple may have been planning on making extras on the assumption that their techs might do precise, minimal...
  9. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    No problem @maceffects, probably better that your meandering mind touches some points before other's do.  Good to have the discussion, as long as we do not feel things are getting too chatty/cluttered here. Almost anything is possible with bank switching.  The main limit is really what can be...
  10. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @maceffects It's also useful to reflect upon Brainstorm's historic business model, which was to first reverse engineer the Macintosh Plus PALs and then use that knowledge to create the Macintosh SE BBU replacement.  I'd reckon that method on its own must have created pretty good results.  As far...
  11. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @CharlesT The BBU has an internal soft switch for the ROM Overlay signal, which remaps the ROM to address zero on reset, and the RAM is likewise remapped.  It is disabled on the first regular ROM access.
  12. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @maceffects Sure, my GitHub repository for my leg of the project seeks to be a useful reference repository that links to all the pertinent information.  A lot of the essential information should be copied in and covered there.  I'll be updating it with a few more links shortly but it is pretty...
  13. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @Kai Robinson Honestly I think much of the new interest here needs to spend some time to review some of the existing documentation we have before we can get much progress on a zoom call.  Really, there's not much hidden info remaining after my analysis thus far, I just feel that no one has yet...
  14. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    It really isn't hard to adapt the original BBU design to support a 16 MHz CPU.  I'd guess the purpose of the drivers is primarily to support a soft switch for "turbo" in case you want to run at the normal speed.  I must admit that the back side of that PDS circuit board is quite funny looking...
  15. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    The problem could be that RESET is not held for long enough for the processor's internal state to stabilize.  According to the MC68000 User's Manual, page 10-12, note 4: "For power-up, the MC68000 must be held in the reset state for 100 ms to allow stabilization of on-chip circuitry. After the...
  16. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    I revisited the Macintosh 128k PAL equations I have and touched them up to something more functional... and well, although it's still not quite accurate to the original Macintosh PALs, I feel I've learned quite a bit about the canonical way to implement replacement logic as close to the original...
  17. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @Phipli That is correct in abstract, but do you have more details?  I can see that the Macintosh Plus relies on software to refresh the high portion memory (RA9 on the row access strobe) of each 1MB DRAM SIMM, but I have no idea what this is exactly.  For the Macintosh SE, it would have to be a...
  18. quorten

    Reverse Engineering the Macintosh SE PCB & Custom Chips for 1:1 reproduction

    @asicsolutions  Main point in hand, the reverse engineering efforts on the Macintosh SE are a good stepping stone to a reverse-engineered SE/30.  The GLUE is the SE/30's more sophisticated version of the BBU in the SE.  Our collective memory has forgotten many times... but I squinted really hard...
  19. quorten

    Brand new case screws

    Cool, great to see this information brought up.  For easy future reference, I've created a pull request to copy the info to macse30mlb schematics repository too. https://github.com/mishimasensei/macse30mlb/pull/5 Out of curiosity, what manufacturer did you work with @elemenoh?
  20. quorten

    Mac OS9 Docker Image

    Mainly I'd guess most folks would be more interested in running particular applications rather than carrying over the whole Mac OS 9, which is quite a hodgepodge of technologies on its own.  Paradoxically, it's not that much bloat compared to modern applications. Besides, I feel Windows 98 is...
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