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Thread: Adventures in hardware hacking - share your stories!

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    Default Adventures in hardware hacking - share your stories!

    I'm about to head to the Shack after work and pick up a diode and some matrix board. I'm going to roll my own SIO2PC interface thanks to a MAX233 chip I got. Schematic seems easy enough and if it works - that's $35 or so saved right there.

    Although - I've also taken a PC floppy drive and with a couple wires hacked it into thinking it's an Amiga floppy drive. Wrote over 100 working ADFs using that puppy, good times.


    What sort of hardware hacks have you done to your old computer setups? Any tips/tricks you want to share?

    For A8 owners - here's the schematic I'm using. If it works I'll update it here.
    -AB+

    Holy crap. It's been a while.

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    Did you get this circuit working? My 1489 circuit works, but only reliably at normal speeds. I decided to try a Max233a version circuit and it will not boot from it at all. I am suspecting a bad IC, due to the way it was stored.

    Just curious.

    Take care.

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    Default MAX233a for Atari SIO Cable

    Well...After checking the datasheet of my specific 233, it shows that you must jumper these pins as pairs: 11 and 15, 10 and 16, and 12 and 17. This connects the internal caps allowing for the voltage doubler and inverter to work. After doing that, all is well. There are only two pins where it stated not to connect.

    Maybe this will help someone.

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