Denial

Yep.

I think most of the chosen parts were to keep the cartridge in the "DIY kit" kind. Probably designing the board to be factory built with most, if not all, SMD components, will make it even cheaper... but then you'll probably need to find a 1000 buyers. I somehow like the old school look of the board. I recently bought a similar card for MSX computer built with SMD components that look like islands in a green sea. It was twice the price and works like a charm, but looks a little "alien" plugged in the cartridge slot of the MSX.

So, here's an idea for a submerged/sunken SD card connector board, a two drill hole solution, buttons and led indicators on top.
IEC-cable goes out through the slot as well, if connector is moved to the edge and in line with the cable output it could works as a safety break away cable - like those extra connectors on an Xbox 360 cable for example.
I'll probably just solder mine and put a tie wrap in the holes.



For buttons a LED with broken off pins could be used, it's a good light conductor as well if LEDs are pointed in that direction.
Need to find a good SD connector/slot that will be adapted for this, preferably one solderable metal hook on each side at the feeding end of the connector.

Auto router is at 98.2% routed so I think it will be possible to make it real- after some manual adjustments.

I tried auto routing until the end it and it was possible - so with some additional work it should be possible to make a proper board with this design.

I carefully selected a suitable SD connector, this one has four supports to hang in the opening of the card, placed up-side-down of the intended mounting positions so the pins match the originally recommended socket which is if the reversed kind.

I might be able to put together a prototype, I haven't added logos or any alias:es - as I took a chunk of the pcb there's not a whole lot of room left for such things, I could increase the right side side of the board now that there are no buttons - and write some there. There's a bit more room on the back.

Bravo!

Will be of some use the dump of an ATMEGA1284P used in a SD2IEC adapter?

Yes, that could do the trick, I'd be able to program it with the same bootloader and firmware (I presume) - thanks!


Here's the completed CAD-files (Eagle Cad), not tested for real (yet)... so let's call it prototype plans.

My programmer showed three different areas reading the IC, the biggest one (128k) being the code, a 4k area called data and the configuration. Data seems to be empty (all FF) and the configuration look like the fuses. I forgot to screen capture the fuses, It may be easier to understand than just the hex values. If you have a common and cheap TL866A or TL866CS I've included the saved project file with all included and ready to program.

I found a 3D drawing of a shell, but I can't find the normal version.
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:107260

Found it:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:69261

Now I have the reason to own a 3d printer... If I had just were to put it...

I assembled a 0.9 version and cannot get it to work. I really would like to get it going as I'm developing some retro games for the C64, VIC 20 and PET 4032. It looks as if the firmware is not in the Atmel and / or CPLD. Has somebody else also struggled to get it to work?

Cheers,
Johan

0.9? Version of what? Final expansion or sd2iec?

Start checking that you placed all direction sensitive components in the proper direction. IC:s, diodes, capacitor.

Check all soldering, possibly resolder.

0.9 should mean the sd2iec firmware, right? Perhaps you mean "Revision 9", the smaller board?

Is there any life at all when you turn it on?

It is rev. 0.9 of the board (http://www.sinchai.de/index.php?main_page=page&id=5).

I double checked polarities of the components and verified pin orientation of the ICs.

What happens is that the sd2iec LED flickers, but when trying to access the SD card, nothing happens.
I also see the 'normal' amount of bytes free in the VIC 20 startup screen. But according to docs that should be fine until you update the firmware...

Cheers,
Johan

And the VIC-20 serial port works with another device, doesn't it?

I had a similar problem with the xu1541, never got it to work. Maybe I should check if the chips that should be programmed really are... It does the same, led blink at power up and then nothing...

The dot is for the shortening of the word "Revision", so it's Revision 9 of the board, can you make 1/10's of revisions to something?

So take a few pictures with the three large IC:s taken out, with them mounted and one or two of the back so we can have a look.

Have you checked the connection and wiring of the IEC-cable?
What about accidental swap of components? Capacitors, resistors? Jumpers set up properly?

What about grabbing those sd2iec 10.3 binaries I posted and see if it wants to update?