Toastie Posted March 25 Author Posted March 25 3 hours ago, Gunners TekZone said: So... something is not playing nicely with something else on the cards. Merde. OK, just quickly: You do "initialize" the card (which is just poking the direction register of the 6522 VIA), correct? Otherwise, it does not really know what to do other than factory settings upon power up. Best Thorsten Quote
Toastie Posted March 25 Author Posted March 25 I see - yes, TC Logo should do that. Hmm - sounds like a hardware issue then ... the different VIAs you puchased are all behaving in the same way, right? Best Thorsten Quote
Toastie Posted March 25 Author Posted March 25 Ribbon cable original LEGO (I know, it sounds like: Did you plug it in ... sorry for that)? I once managed to screw up when crimping the connector on ... Best Thorsten Quote
alexGS Posted March 25 Posted March 25 6 hours ago, Gunners TekZone said: , I am testing with LEGO TS LOGO and oddly, they both have the same issue: Ports 0 & 1 are always ON, which is no good. And ports 2, 3, 4 ,5 work as expected, but are referenced backwards as 5, 4, 3, 2. And it seems both inputs register as TRUE, all the time, although they indicate properly on the Interface. Well mostly... there is odd interactions when using both, but only when plugged into the card. Is it possible the footprint for the 20-pin ribbon connector was reversed? Just thinking of how the 5, 4, 3, 2 occurs with 1 and 0 perhaps treated as the inputs Quote
Toastie Posted March 25 Author Posted March 25 Could it be that there were different cables for the Apples and for the IBMs? Or do these cables have the same product ID? Best Thorsten Quote
evank Posted March 25 Posted March 25 4 hours ago, Gunners TekZone said: Earlier I had tested with LEGO original and standard ribbon cables. But as you should be able to see in 2nd photo, it is only the 8 data wires that needed to be flipped along the long axis to "fix" it, so issue resides on the PCB, somehow. One would have to compare the traces with an original card to confirm. I think that's correct. A few years ago, a Chinese ebay seller was offering those cards. I bought one and it didn't work. My friend Scott bought one too and reached the same determination as you: the data pins are wrong. He made a twisted cable and sent it to me. Now it works fine. The best aftermarket 9767 card is Blocko. Anybody who wants an original Lego card should ask me; I've got some to spare. Quote
WhitneyDesignLabs Posted March 25 Posted March 25 I've used the Chinese clone boards before. I definitely had to to the "cut & twist" method on the ribbon cable. Can confirm. But after doing that, clone worked fine. I have never had an authentic board, just the authentic Interface A mated to the Chinese clone. Scott whitneydesignlabs Quote
Toastie Posted March 25 Author Posted March 25 5 minutes ago, WhitneyDesignLabs said: I definitely had to to the "cut & twist" method on the ribbon cable. Well, that issue was solved quickly! I love this place And welcome to EB, Scott! All the best Thorsten Quote
evank Posted March 25 Posted March 25 They're long gone, but a Chinese seller was selling the DM's Reboot. I have no idea if DM allowed this or if the cards were just crappy knock-offs. I'm not going to ask DM himself, because I just don't like him personally. I think the Blocko price is fair. "It's good to be the king." - Mel Brooks Quote
evank Posted March 26 Posted March 26 (edited) My mistake: I'd forgotten that our hero @alexGS had discovered the Reboot card mistake a couple of years ago. Edited March 26 by evank Quote
alexGS Posted March 26 Posted March 26 (edited) Thanks Evan - I was slow off the mark on this thread (sorry, Gunners) - I thought the symptoms sounded familiar. I think it’s a board layout mistake from putting the header footprint on the wrong side. I have a photo of my solution, but can’t upload it here as there’s a size limit for me of 15.78KB. I used a panel-mount 20-pin header (screwed to the back of my Apple IIGS) and, counting from red (pin 1), split the ribbon between wires 5 and 6, and turned over the remaining strip of wires 6-20 before crimping into the 20-pin plug that goes into the 9767 Reboot board. To clarify, the red wire is still pin 1, so the first five wires are not twisted. I didn’t change anything on the board itself. Crimping ribbon cable connectors is best done with a bench vice - the jaws stay parallel - or a Vise-Grip welding clamp can be used (the jaws have wide plates) A standard ribbon cable to the Interface A then plugs into the 20-pin header without having to open the computer for setup/packdown. It’s the same type of bolted-on header that older Apple IIs used for the floppy drives. I really should have documented this by making a PDF, just never got around to it. Again, sorry about that Edited March 26 by alexGS Quote
Toastie Posted March 26 Author Posted March 26 45 minutes ago, Gunners TekZone said: It is just opto-isolators and H-bridges. Yeah - and that is what Interface B is as well, however, >providing< the 8 input data constantly, where outputs are again H bridges. Now just out of curiosity: If you had soldered the header to the other side of the PCB, would have done the trick? Provided it is even "solderable" on that surface? Or are there further issues, when (theoretically) doing that? Best Thorsten Quote
amine Posted March 29 Posted March 29 The work you are doing guys would leave even Steve Wozniak himself amazed. What a marvelous example of engineering !!! Well done. Quote
Bliss Posted April 3 Posted April 3 On 2/1/2023 at 10:14 AM, Toastie said: AND EDITED AGAIN - oh my. Don't code in C++ if you are a BASIC person ... the line: PORTB |= (newPINB) << 2); works exactly once when an input on 9750 goes low - after that no changes occur on the IN LEDs anymore; they simply stay on. The code needs to be PORTB = newPINB << 2. I am very sorry - change that above as well. And you forgot the ";" at the end of PORTB = newPINB << 2 in your revised code. ;-) Quote
evank Posted April 3 Posted April 3 On 3/25/2026 at 8:08 AM, Toastie said: Could it be that there were different cables for the Apples and for the IBMs? Or do these cables have the same product ID? Best Thorsten No, they're the same. Generic 20-pin, female/female. Quote
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