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Recreateing the Apple TechStep

retr01

Active member
Me too! it's going to be a really awesome bit of kit once it's finished :)

I agree! :D

As for pricing, it's hard to say exactly at this point but we are trying to keep to cost down where we can (e.g intergateing the port packs and ROM packs to eliminate unneeded connectors and extra bits of casing)

Understood. I am saying having one as a kit, one assembled, and one with a case as options would be friendly in terms of costs. :)
 

Pants

New member
You all might already have found this, but I didn't see a link to Apple's very detailed patent on the TechStep:


It goes on at length about details like emulating a SCSI device to feed a tiny boot program that dumps into the Test Manager routines in ROM, so that the user doing the test doesn't have to hit the NMI switch at boot. Interesting stuff.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
You all might already have found this, but I didn't see a link to Apple's very detailed patent on the TechStep:


It goes on at length about details like emulating a SCSI device to feed a tiny boot program that dumps into the Test Manager routines in ROM, so that the user doing the test doesn't have to hit the NMI switch at boot. Interesting stuff.
I didn’t see this but it’s actually very cool!
 

jwg1962

Member
I love this project. I just saw three of the TechStep units on eBay and all three of them are over $3,000 because of hardcoremac thinking they can get $3,500 for the prototype. If it was a macintosh computer, maybe, but it has been there for 5 years at that price or higher. I offered the one person who has all five ROM cartridges $350 and tried to reason with them. We will see what happens, but at $3,000 or more, those will be up there until someone wants to pay 10 times what they should be going for. There might be someone out there that will pay for that, but that someone is not me. :) I hope when this goes live, it will force those people to sell theirs for $100 or less. Everyone will want the new one.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
I love this project. I just saw three of the TechStep units on eBay and all three of them are over $3,000 because of hardcoremac thinking they can get $3,500 for the prototype. If it was a macintosh computer, maybe, but it has been there for 5 years at that price or higher. I offered the one person who has all five ROM cartridges $350 and tried to reason with them. We will see what happens, but at $3,000 or more, those will be up there until someone wants to pay 10 times what they should be going for. There might be someone out there that will pay for that, but that someone is not me. :) I hope when this goes live, it will force those people to sell theirs for $100 or less. Everyone will want the new one.
That’s what we’re hoping it’s so close still needs some work but it’s getting there.
 

jwg1962

Member
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Not too good at coding anymore, but am really good at soldering and “technician” type things.
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. Not too good at coding anymore, but am really good at soldering and “technician” type things.
Thank you we will keep that in mind! Really, really appreciate it and we hope to have this thing ready soon.
 

micheledipaola

Well-known member
Hi, I spotted this on Mercari (not mine, I live overseas... :D ) and even if it's a lot of money, maybe the seller could be contacted or convinced to put a more reasonable price :


At the contrary of what @jwg1962 wrote, I am not any kind of technician, but anything I could do to help, just count me in.
 
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jajan547

Well-known member
Hi, I spotted this on Mercari (not mine, I live overseas... :D ) and even if it's a lot of money, maybe the seller could be contacted or convinced to put a more reasonable price :


At the contrary of what @jwg1962 wrote, I am not any kind of technician, but anything I could do to help, just count me in.
Unfortunately people will price things as what others dis round them multiple sellers have posted these for that same price . I am lucky to have three it just takes time and a lot of patience to find one at a very good proce
 

max1zzz

Well-known member
Much progress has been made since the my last post to this thread!

Stage 2 is now more or less complete, All the hardware has been reverse engineered and new boards have been drawn up and sent off for manufacture.
A quick overview of the current status of the hardware:
Logicboard:
1674431870379.png

Port "Pack":
1674432207266.png

Keypad / Power board:
1674432459067.png

These are really "development" versions of the PCB's and will likely be altered a little for the final version but we at a point where we just need to get one of these built and make sure it works!

In particular the keypad PCB needs some attention as that massive 18650 holder will get in the way but I just wanted to PCB mount it so it isn't flapping around while I'm testing. (and I just noticed I have two 8's on the keypad, oops :) )

If I have all my measurements correct these boards should all be able to be stacked and screwed together leaving enough space between the keypad and port pack PCB for the LCD module (Which will sit on a 3D printed bracket) which should make for a rather neat compact solution for testing before we have a case :)
 

jajan547

Well-known member
Much progress has been made since the my last post to this thread!

Stage 2 is now more or less complete, All the hardware has been reverse engineered and new boards have been drawn up and sent off for manufacture.
A quick overview of the current status of the hardware:
Logicboard:
View attachment 51503

Port "Pack":
View attachment 51504

Keypad / Power board:
View attachment 51505

These are really "development" versions of the PCB's and will likely be altered a little for the final version but we at a point where we just need to get one of these built and make sure it works!

In particular the keypad PCB needs some attention as that massive 18650 holder will get in the way but I just wanted to PCB mount it so it isn't flapping around while I'm testing. (and I just noticed I have two 8's on the keypad, oops :) )

If I have all my measurements correct these boards should all be able to be stacked and screwed together leaving enough space between the keypad and port pack PCB for the LCD module (Which will sit on a 3D printed bracket) which should make for a rather neat compact solution for testing before we have a case :)
Super super excited to see the protos. It’s crazy to think that we Are this close to having this available for multiple people across the world to get the TechStep experience
 

sarnau

Member
Very cool project. I have a TechTool (got it when it was more affordable), but recreating it is great.

Can you share the ROM dump from the main CPU? I'd like to look into it.
 

sarnau

Member
I'm hoping the LCD will be something standard that a off the shelf module can be found for (I haven't extracted it form the case yet but do not see any apple markings on the board for it)
By looking at the firmware I have hopes that it is a LM041L with a HD44780 controller. That is good and bad: good, because it is well known, bad, because the LM041L seems no longer be available. Modern LCD typically use I2C, but this is clearly not it.

At least the initialization sequence looks like the sample code for the HD44780 which switches the LCD to 4 bit mode, which seems correct (4 bit data, 1 bit for RS and 1 bit for R/W, which is always 0).

The rest of the initialization: not sure.
 

max1zzz

Well-known member
By looking at the firmware I have hopes that it is a LM041L with a HD44780 controller. That is good and bad: good, because it is well known, bad, because the LM041L seems no longer be available. Modern LCD typically use I2C, but this is clearly not it.

At least the initialization sequence looks like the sample code for the HD44780 which switches the LCD to 4 bit mode, which seems correct (4 bit data, 1 bit for RS and 1 bit for R/W, which is always 0).

The rest of the initialization: not sure.
I have confirmed modern LCD's with the HD44780 compatible controllers do work fine on the techstep :)

I thought I had posted that in this thread but I guess not... Must have only mentioned it in PM's with @jajan547
Here is the techstep working with a modern backlit LCD (Which looks much better than the original LCD!)
1675207059780.png
 
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