How I found some original Atari ST ASIC designs

Post by **czietz** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 5:52 pm

Readily available on the Internet, yet hidden by obsolete file formats, the designs of several Atari custom chips (e.g. STE GSTMCU, Blitter) remained seemingly unnoticed -- until now. Read the full story: http://www.chzsoft.de/asic-web/

troed · Post by **troed** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 6:41 pm

Oh. Wow.

That's absolutely amazing! Awesome work!!!

Cyprian · Post by **Cyprian** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 7:07 pm

cannot be true!
that's awesome findind czietz!

Post by **ijor** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 7:08 pm

Fabulous indeed. Great job!

frost · Post by **frost** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 7:14 pm

/me checks if we're the 1st april.. no
Amazing, great job !

exxos · Post by **exxos** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 8:09 pm

Finding internal for Atari's customs IC's is like the holy grail .....

farvardin · Post by **farvardin** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 9:39 pm

wow, that's great! Congrat!

And it will probably help for emulators and projects such as MiST!
I'm also wondering, how did they implement those asic such as the blitter in emulators without those designs?

Frank B · Post by **Frank B** » Wed Aug 24, 2016 10:50 pm

They don't seem to be distributed yet

Post by **czietz** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:55 am

The individual schematic PDFs still need some sorting, joining and minor editing (rotating etc.). Then I plan to release all the files so you can investigate for yourself. I wasn't sure how big the interest in the files would be.

Jeff_HxC2001 · Post by **Jeff_HxC2001** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 6:13 am

This is the famous archive :
(or the the archive of the disgrace imo, how is it possible to forget/lost these documents ? documents available since many years...)

http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/
Category "All Documents" -> "Atari HQ #1 CDROM (schematics, source code, software, ST, Jaguar, Lynx, 529.2mb) [ISO/ZIP]"

http://dev-docs.atariforge.org/files/Atari_HQ_1.zip

gg czietz to have found them !

(with some more research, maybe we will found the TOS/Gem sources code on this website, who know

)

Cyprian · Post by **Cyprian** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 10:06 am

thx Jeff for that link

Code: Select all

Ultrascript Fix
----------------------
Written By Mike Fulton
Atari Computer Corp.
Copyright (c) 1991
---------------------

found it there

shoggoth · Post by **shoggoth** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 11:23 am

Awesome. Looking forward to this stuff.

lp · Post by lp » Thu Aug 25, 2016 11:42 am

czietz wrote:The individual schematic PDFs still need some sorting, joining and minor editing (rotating etc.). Then I plan to release all the files so you can investigate for yourself. I wasn't sure how big the interest in the files would be.

I bought the Atari HQ disk and I must say it was a disorganized mess and over priced. I promptly put it up for download so save others from wasting money on it. They still rip people off on ebay trying to sell it (item # 140966936268). If they had a shred of honor they would just post it on their real website for download (free), but no they do not.

That said, there's definitely interest. The devdocs site is mine. I remember sifting through he disk and not being able to figure out what those files were, so I salvaged other things from it. Have you considered releasing any of the tools used to salvage the information as well?

This guy http://experiment-s.de/en/ can certainly use such info.

Cyprian · Post by **Cyprian** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:12 pm

Many thanks for that Lonny!!

lp · Post by lp » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:19 pm

Jeff_HxC2001 wrote:(with some more research, maybe we will found the TOS/Gem sources code on this website, who know )

There's already archives of TOS sources up to version 4.04 I think at devdocs. Just search for "source". So far all such archives I have found are incomplete as the bios, xbios, and gemdos portions are usually missing.

troed · Post by **troed** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 12:28 pm

lp wrote:They still rip people off on ebay trying to sell it

So I'm all in favor of abandonware should be free (politically actively so) - but I'm slightly surprised to see this being sold on eBay (did not know). It's a copyright violation, and if anyone had notified eBay surely it would've been delisted quickly.

(As to how come Atari's lawyers protecting their trademarks haven't already done so beats me)

/Troed

fpgaarcade · Post by **fpgaarcade** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:11 pm

Many years ago I received some files from an anonymous source and was told not to release it. It contained some of the SILOS simulation netlists, which allowed me to accurately reverse engineer the ASICs. I haven't got around to finishing it, but I'm close (yeah right you say)

I didn't realize some of this stuff ended up in the Atari_HQ_1.zip bundle. I've restored and printed out the DWG files in the same manor as Czietz.
There are a few Orcad schematics, but nothing new. I probably have a few more drawings of random stuff as well.

I've been sitting on this for a while, but I don't see any harm in releasing the documents now as well.
I'll put a note on fpgaarcade.com when I do.

Post by **Dal** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:41 pm

troed wrote:
(As to how come Atari's lawyers protecting their trademarks haven't already done so beats me)

/Troed

Simply because the ST/Falcon/Jaguar computer side of Atari was split from the coin-op/8bit side when Atari collapsed.
The Atari that exists today has no right over this stuff. The rights for this is now buried somewhere in Mattel, probably reduced down to a box file gathering dust in some deep storage somewhere.

Legally it's not ours to mess about with, but in reality, who is really going to care?

fpgaarcade · Post by **fpgaarcade** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:45 pm

"Legally it's not ours to mess about with, but in reality, who is really going to care?"

It's a tricky area indeed. As the documents are pretty much out there, I don't mind adding to it. Some of the other ASIC production files for example would be more problematic.

Frank B · Post by **Frank B** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:15 pm

Is the DMA documented?

fpgaarcade · Post by **fpgaarcade** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 3:45 pm

This is the one area I've yet to complete the coding.
I believe there are some DWG files, I'll go through everything I have tonight.

I've parked this for so long I have forgotten, but I'm really keen to get it done.

Post by **ijor** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:15 pm

Frank B wrote:Is the DMA documented?

I don't know what's in there, but I doubt you will find what I think you are looking for.

If you are interested in the DMA failures issue, that's (I believe) a purely analog issue. Probably not something that you will find on schematics.

May be, if we could get the schematics and/or netlists for all the versions, may be, the comparison could tell us something.

Torlus · Post by **Torlus** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 4:18 pm

Interesting.

I think what I've done with my https://github.com/Torlus/JagNetlists project might be of some use there.

Anyway, that's exciting. Count me in.

Some videos:

Cybermorph

Tempest 2000

Post by **czietz** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:02 pm

The files are now available for download. Scroll to the bottom of http://www.chzsoft.de/asic-web/

fpgaarcade · Post by **fpgaarcade** » Thu Aug 25, 2016 5:07 pm

Torlus wrote:Interesting.

I think what I've done with my https://github.com/Torlus/JagNetlists project might be of some use there.]

Very nice - I couldn't face the amount of work there. I keep meaning to run your stuff on my Replay hardware - I assume that would be ok?

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