[vcf-midatlantic] What projects are you working on?

[Jameel Akari]

> On Dec 30, 2020, at 4:44 AM, Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> 
> On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 10:33 AM Jameel Akari via vcf-midatlantic
> <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Dec 29, 2020 at 02:44 Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic <
>>> vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
>>>> ... On the bench, I just received (after 2+ months of waiting) some
>>>> edge connectors to finish constructing the memory/expansion board for
>>>> my SYM-1...
>> 
>> I was surprised on how expensive those card-edge connectors are.
> 
> They were not cheap back in the day ($3.50 or more 30 years ago).
> 

Given that the ones that I had were made by TRW, they were probably even more than that. :(


> I got some cheap Chinese ones and they are indeed cheap.  The pins on
> the solder-tail connectors are slightly migratory.  I tacked down the
> corner pins first, as one does, and out of 6 connectors, one pin
> raised slightly out of its slot and I get to unsolder, reseat, then
> solder it back.
> 

If I get back to the SYM-1, maybe I’ll suck it up and pay for a couple NOS connectors even if it’s stupid money.


>> OTOH, I haven’t managed to come up with anything to do on my SYM-1 that strains the 4kB on-board or needs more I/O than it already provides.
> 
> The expansion board comes with pads to attach an SD interface and the
> ROM socket lets you load up SYMDOS that can use pins of a VIA to talk
> to a Commodore 1541.  Once I get all that working, I have plans for
> something that will easily soak up 32K.  It was something I wanted to
> do for the last VCF East but didn't have time to do the expansion for.
> 

OK, so that’s really cool.  If I didn’t have two dozen other things to do first...

> My SYM lacks BASIC ROMs, which this expansion also includes.  Those
> would be easy enough to burn on their own, but now, it's just included
> as part of the larger package.

I did manage to do that, requiring some rewiring of the address and /CS lines to match the EPROMS I had vs. the weird PROMs they assumed you’d bought.

> 
> 
>> Meanwhile I still have the Lego Saturn V from last xmas to build…
> 
> I built mine last year.  This year I got the LEGO ISS.

We didn’t gift each other new Legos this year for a reason. ;)

— 
Jameel Akari