For Sale: Nemesis speed booster for Falcon

[Dal]

I have no idea of the history of this; it's clearly been removed from a machine however I don't know why.

It's populated with 40Mhz and 48Mhz crystals and comes complete with the buffer board. ST-Freaks sells these for £80 tested and working, I'm looking for £30 or trade for something of similar value.

[qq1975b]

Hi Dal,

I am interested. Sending you PM.
Thanks.

[qq1975b]

Received...now I have to think how I install it

[Dal]

Best of luck. I looked at it - was tempted but thought twice. I have too many other things to do!

[krupkaj]

There is documentation and software pack on dev-docs:
http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/files/Nemesis_Manual.pdf
http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/files/Nemesis.tar.gz

[dml]

There is also a thread somewhere on this forum where I mapped out the wiring and where things go.

A recommended 'upgrade' is to replace the crappy clock wires with RF-class silver-cored mini coax. It's not cheap to buy but it's worth the trouble. The Nemesis board is also best shielded in a metal box or foil enclosure (carefully constructed/insulated not to be in contact with the board components or pads). The board should be very well grounded to the outer rail of the Falcon mainboard using thick wires with short length.

The machine will typically run at much higher speeds when this is done, as far as the RAM will permit. It's really the wiring/lack of shielding that lets the board down.

I tested with 55MHz crystal (27.5MHz CPU & bus) with reasonable success, albeit not perfect if things were moved around while re-assembling the machine. Simbo reported rock-stable 55MHz in his original build (but then he is an RF trained engineer!). Something close to 50MHz should be easily attainable though on most machines using coax and grounding the unit proprely.

Using the providing wiring, you'll get probably 48MHz tops and you'll have to be very careful with the location of the board and wires. It may however be best to start there, and to incrementally replace the wiring and test each change, once you're confident everything is wired in the correct place.

[CiH]

I have no idea of the history of this; it's clearly been removed from a machine however I don't know why.

If an imperfect memory is correct, that might well be my old Nemesis board. I think it came with me as it was definitely surplus to requirements when I picked up my current (fancy desktoppered) CT60 from Dal in the summer of 2012. If it is that one, and not some other Nemesis, it was removed to make way for my first CT60 installed on my original Falcon.

It was one of the early issue, with the 48Mhz rather than the 50Mhz and was reliable in operation.

I'm pleased it's been recycled and soon to doing the business in Barcelona. Enjoy!

[dhedberg]

Received...now I have to think how I install it

And once installed, you might find the Nemesis Indicator tool I wrote for the Nemesis useful.
You can get it from http://nb.atari.org

[qq1975b]

Yes, it will be interesting. But in first place I have to be more confident soldering....I have just bought an JBC 14ST 11W soldering iron and I will practice with a broken ST motherboard and replacing PSU caps...

The Nemesis indicator will work also with a Phantom?

[dhedberg]

Yes, it will be interesting. But in first place I have to be more confident soldering....I have just bought an JBC 14ST 11W soldering iron and I will practice with a broken ST motherboard and replacing PSU caps...

The Nemesis indicator will work also with a Phantom?

It's always good to practice. The Nemesis isn't that hard to install though, but be careful and take your time. I don't know how the state/speed of the Phantom is controlled. The Nemesis is controlled by the ACIA chips where unused signals of the chips are used to control the state of the Nemesis. The current state of the Nemesis is stored in a cookie as there is no way to find out the current Nemesis state by accessing the hardware. If the Phantom accelerator uses the same technique, the Nemesis Indicator would be compatible as long as you run the NEMESIS.PRG (bundled with the Nemesis) first (it creates the Nspd cookie).

[ctirad]

A recommended 'upgrade' is to replace the crappy clock wires with RF-class silver-cored mini coax. It's not cheap to buy but it's worth the trouble.

I don't think it can actually help without a proper termination on the both sides, at least. I have made a lot of experiments when I designed the Phantom and finally decided to use ordinary wires.

I tested with 55MHz crystal (27.5MHz CPU & bus) with reasonable success, albeit not perfect if things were moved around while re-assembling the machine. Simbo reported rock-stable 55MHz in his original build (but then he is an RF trained engineer!). Something close to 50MHz should be easily attainable though on most machines using coax and grounding the unit proprely.

I personally never saw a Falcon which could not run reliably at 50MHz. But the multipoint grounding of the card was allways a MUST.
I upgraded a lot of machines myself and sold more than hundred of the Phantoms worldwide and the only issue was actually had was the clockpatch I borrowed from the Nemesis It was too sensitive to the used chip. Some SN7404N worked perfectly stable and some just radnomly crashed the computer, especially in Cubase Audio. It was better when the CPU was cooled by a fan, but that was just a healing of the symptoms.

One day I ended with a two exactly same SN7404N from Texas Instruments. The only difference was the one was bought a half year after the former one. The first one was rock stable. I tried to record 16 tracks of audio in Cubase in loop for a three days without a single glitch. Of course at 50MHz. When I replaced the chip in the socket with the second one I had freeze every couple of minutes.

In meantime I tested also different kind of chips. The "F" logic was allways rock stable, but the DMA was garbage. So I designed a new clock patch with a two chips. The 74F04 for driving the CPU, FPU and BUS and (SN)7404N for the SDMA. This may looks weird, but it is actullay works in every Falcon and it is rock stable even with the CT60.

Now I'm trying to achieve the same result with the CPLD.

[jok]

One day I ended with a two exactly same SN7404N from Texas Instruments. The only difference was the one was bought a half year after the former one. The first one was rock stable. I tried to record 16 tracks of audio in Cubase in loop for a three days without a single glitch. Of course at 50MHz. When I replaced the chip in the socket with the second one I had freeze every couple of minutes.

In meantime I tested also different kind of chips. The "F" logic was allways rock stable, but the DMA was garbage. So I designed a new clock patch with a two chips. The 74F04 for driving the CPU, FPU and BUS and (SN)7404N for the SDMA. This may looks weird, but it is actullay works in every Falcon and it is rock stable even with the CT60.

If you can make this as a board you would be my hero! 50MHz would be great! Hint: I am interested in 2 boards!

[qq1975b]

I have no idea of the history of this; it's clearly been removed from a machine however I don't know why.

If an imperfect memory is correct, that might well be my old Nemesis board. I think it came with me as it was definitely surplus to requirements when I picked up my current (fancy desktoppered) CT60 from Dal in the summer of 2012. If it is that one, and not some other Nemesis, it was removed to make way for my first CT60 installed on my original Falcon.

It was one of the early issue, with the 48Mhz rather than the 50Mhz and was reliable in operation.

I'm pleased it's been recycled and soon to doing the business in Barcelona. Enjoy!

mmm....CT60 has improved bus speed, and that's why you didn't need it anymore...not the same as the CT63 that has not bus speed boost but benefits from a Nemesis/Phantom installed. Am I right?

Good news if it is your old Nemesis and you remember it works perfectly stable. I have got scared about the SN7404N issue @ctirad said... . Better if I do not touch anything and I let it be at 48MHZ, right?

One day I ended with a two exactly same SN7404N from Texas Instruments. The only difference was the one was bought a half year after the former one. The first one was rock stable. I tried to record 16 tracks of audio in Cubase in loop for a three days without a single glitch. Of course at 50MHz. When I replaced the chip in the socket with the second one I had freeze every couple of minutes.

In meantime I tested also different kind of chips. The "F" logic was allways rock stable, but the DMA was garbage. So I designed a new clock patch with a two chips. The 74F04 for driving the CPU, FPU and BUS and (SN)7404N for the SDMA. This may looks weird, but it is actullay works in every Falcon and it is rock stable even with the CT60.

by the way I have already a Falcon with a Phantom installed...but I didn't have enough time yet to play with it and see if it is stable or not. I hope it doesn't have this SN7404N issue you told us about.
If it has it I will ask for help

Received...now I have to think how I install it

And once installed, you might find the Nemesis Indicator tool I wrote for the Nemesis useful.
You can get it from http://nb.atari.org

I will try on this Phantom Falcon I have (but I have to find free time! )

[ctirad]

mmm....CT60 has improved bus speed, and that's why you didn't need it anymore...not the same as the CT63 that has not bus speed boost but benefits from a Nemesis/Phantom installed. Am I right?

Yes you are. By CT60 I actually meant any CT6x card. A lot of people also never used the built-int CT60 bus accelerator because they already had the bus speeder installed.

[dhedberg]

And once installed, you might find the Nemesis Indicator tool I wrote for the Nemesis useful.
You can get it from http://nb.atari.org

I will try on this Phantom Falcon I have (but I have to find free time! )

Were you successful in making the Nemesis Indicator work with the Phantom?

[qq1975b]

I didn't have the chance. Last week I finished working on a Mega ST and then I rescued my Falcon with Phantom mod...but now it doesn't work!
Starts memory check and loading from HDD but before going to TOS desktop, it freezes. Without HDD, after the memory check, black screen and hangs there. Maybe the NVRAM...?

I don't know what happened. It used to work fine.

But I have the Nemesis indicator ready to use on a floopy disk next to this Falcon
So, as soon as I make it work, I will test it.

[dhedberg]

I didn't have the chance. Last week I finished working on a Mega ST and then I rescued my Falcon with Phantom mod...but now it doesn't work!
Starts memory check and loading from HDD but before going to TOS desktop, it freezes. Without HDD, after the memory check, black screen and hangs there. Maybe the NVRAM...?

I don't know what happened. It used to work fine.

Sorry about that. I'm no hardware guru so I'm afraid I'm not able to help at all with the broken Falcon. There's several hardware knowledgeable people around here though so create a post in the hardware forum and I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions what to do next.

But I have the Nemesis indicator ready to use on a floopy disk next to this Falcon
So, as soon as I make it work, I will test it.

Great!

If you're able to rescue your Falcon, make sure you test with the latest version of the Nemesis Indicator (2.0). Previous versions had a few nasty bugs. Also, you need NEMESIS.PRG to run before NIND.PRG. NEMESIS.PRG is found on the Nemesis installation disk. Let me know if you need a copy.

Thanks,
Daniel

[Dal]

I've just tested this with my machine (Phantom equipped).

It's all working well. DSPBENCH shows 156% performance when the mode is at 20/40 or 24/48 (Doesn't matter as far as the Phantom is concerned of course). However, when the SuperVidel is set to 32bit mode, the Nemesis display is not drawn, but I guess this is expected as you only handle 8bit and 16bit screen modes. 32bit support would be nice to have.

With my full system config (CT60+SV running Mint+XaAES+Teradesk), the Nemesis display flashes. Running the CT60+SuperVidel under plain TOS doesn't cause the flashing effect. So this appears to be a software 'feature'.

Functionally, it seems solid and finally gives me a mechanism to switch the Phantom on and off at will. Thank you very much!

[dhedberg]

I've just tested this with my machine (Phantom equipped).

It's all working well. DSPBENCH shows 156% performance when the mode is at 20/40 or 24/48 (Doesn't matter as far as the Phantom is concerned of course). However, when the SuperVidel is set to 32bit mode, the Nemesis display is not drawn, but I guess this is expected as you only handle 8bit and 16bit screen modes. 32bit support would be nice to have.

Great! So the only difference between the Nemesis and Phantom is that the Phantom lacks the 25% acceleration mode. Does the Phantom come with any documentation and/or software to show/change the speed or configuration? If yes, can you please send it to me? I'd like to add official support for the Phantom in the Nemesis Indicator. Shouldn't be too hard to add support for the 32bit mode as well. Would you mind beta-testing a new version?

With my full system config (CT60+SV running Mint+XaAES+Teradesk), the Nemesis display flashes. Running the CT60+SuperVidel under plain TOS doesn't cause the flashing effect. So this appears to be a software 'feature'.

How fast is it flashing? The Nemesis Indicator has a power-saver feature, that when enabled and active, flashes the indicator on/off (at a frequency of about 1 hertz). The flashing should stop once you move the mouse or press a key on your keyboard.

Functionally, it seems solid and finally gives me a mechanism to switch the Phantom on and off at will. Thank you very much!

I'm glad you find it useful. Thanks for testing it with the Phantom!

[Dal]

Great! So the only difference between the Nemesis and Phantom is that the Phantom lacks the 25% acceleration mode

Correct.

Does the Phantom come with any documentation and/or software to show/change the speed or configuration?

I don't have documentation, however the program to enable the Phantom is attached:

P_Turbo.zip

Shouldn't be too hard to add support for the 32bit mode as well. Would you mind beta-testing a new version?

I'm more than happy to beta test stuff.

How fast is it flashing? The Nemesis Indicator has a power-saver feature, that when enabled and active, flashes the indicator on/off (at a frequency of about 1 hertz). The flashing should stop once you move the mouse or press a key on your keyboard.

OK - yes it's related to this (sorry, didn't realise this was a feature). However in my case, the flashing persists when I move the mouse or hit a key. The flashing stops when I disable the CPU Power saver in the CPX. One minor glitch I found here was that you have to time when you click the [OK] button to ensure the indicator is displayed when the CPX closes. I found if I clicked ok while the indicator was hidden, it remained hidden.


For the Phantom, it would be useful to only have 2 states, perhaps a config setting or something to put it in Nemesis/phantom mode.

I have also created a couple of NIND16.dat files for the phantom. One is based on NIND16_1.Dat (but just goes from "16/32 Mhz" to "25/50 Mhz") and the other is based on NIND16_6.Dat:

Phantom On.jpg

Phantom Off.jpg

NIND16Px.zip

[dhedberg]

I don't have documentation, however the program to enable the Phantom is attached:

P_Turbo.zip

Thanks! I'll disassemble it to see exactly what it does.

I'm more than happy to beta test stuff.

Great! I'll let you know when I've got something for you!

OK - yes it's related to this (sorry, didn't realise this was a feature). However in my case, the flashing persists when I move the mouse or hit a key. The flashing stops when I disable the CPU Power saver in the CPX. One minor glitch I found here was that you have to time when you click the [OK] button to ensure the indicator is displayed when the CPX closes. I found if I clicked ok while the indicator was hidden, it remained hidden.

This sounds like a bug. Does this happen only when you use the SuperVidel? Does it happen on a "clean" machine running single TOS? The Nemesis Indicator uses ACIA (IKBD) interrupts, timer c interrupts, and vertical blank interrupts. Are any of these interrupts affected when installing the 68060 accelerator or SuperVidel?

For the Phantom, it would be useful to only have 2 states, perhaps a config setting or something to put it in Nemesis/phantom mode.

I'll take a look at the Phantom tool that attached, if it installs a cookie it would be easy to detect, otherwise I need to introduce a Phantom switch/argument for the indicator.

I have also created a couple of NIND16.dat files for the phantom. One is based on NIND16_1.Dat (but just goes from "16/32 Mhz" to "25/50 Mhz") and the other is based on NIND16_6.Dat:

NIND16Px.zip

Neat! I'll include these in the next version.

Thanks,
Daniel

[qq1975b]

Hi Daniel,

The Falcon is repaired
Mine is a plain 14MB Falcon with Phantom mod. I will try your prg this evening

[qq1975b]

Ok. I couldn't resist to give it a try :p

I loaded the .ACC, then the Nemesis.prg , then NIND.prg (showed 16/32 on the top right corner) and finally the P_turbo.prg. Then it showed the 24/48

I haven't problems on this. After few minutes of doing nothing, it went to 16/32 state.

I will read carefully Dal's post and see if I can test something interesting or tell me if you want something special to test.

[Dal]

Don't run P_Turbo, it's not needed. The Phantom kicks in fine with just nemesis.prg and nind.prg. If you want to boot in 25/50 mode, then add one of the nemesis flag PRG files into your auto folder as well. The order should look like:
Nemesis.prg
Nem_LO.prg (or whatever it's called)
NIND.prg

[qq1975b]

I see. Nemesis.prg, Nem_ON.prg and Nind.prg and I get the same result.