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MEGA65 assembly of preseries batch ongoing

    This is a copy from Paul's Blog ! Some eye candy and our thoughts, how to continue....


    More Assembling of MEGA65 Pre-Series Machines

    Just a quick post with some eye-candy of the growing number of fully assembled MEGA65 pre-series machines:


    ManyPreseriesMachines-1.JPEG


    ManyPreseriesMachines-2.JPEG

    So much 8-bit fun in so little space!



    Meanwhile, we continue to work to assemble the rest, and to figure out a good solution for financing the creation of the injection moulds for the cases for mass-production (the pre-series machines were produced using a very expensive per unit vacuum form process, that is much too expensive for mass production).



    This is really the biggest remaining barrier. While we have some ideas we are exploring, now would be a great time for any wealthy sheiks in the audience to offer us their patronage ;) Or people willing to run sausage sizzles at their local home improvement stores, or whatever. We estimate the total cost of this stage to be around 65,000 €. We'd naturally be happy to talk about appropriate ways to recognise any such support.



    Of course this is the frustrating part where we need actual money, rather than being able to use volunteer labour. If I tried to calculate the value of the volunteer labour, I'd have to guess somewhere between 500K and 1M €, if we had to pay folks to have done the work. This really is a labour of love on the part of many -- and from which we all benefit, since if we had to fund this project "properly" from the start, then (a) it probably wouldn't have happened; and (b) if it had happened, it would have had to have cut so many corners that it wouldn't be recognised. It is only through the voluntary efforts of so many that we have managed to re-create this lost unicorn of computers.



    We really want to get this last hurdle settled before we move forward, because how we fund this is really the greatest uncertainty left in the process of determining what is a possible price, and thus to start moving towards being able to offer a pre-order mechanism for everyone who is longing to hold their very own MEGA65 in their hands.

    • New

    Hello MEGA65 enthusiasts !!!

    Since the assembly and work on the MEGA65 is ongoing with full steam, i wanted to

    show you the latest, i am working on at the moment.

    The other members are working on i.e. video mode, on the emulator, etc., etc.... so much to do and the time is flying by...

    (Did i already mention, that we welcome every helping hand ;-) ? )


    But back to me,


    When we were testing the internal MEGA65 3.5" floppydrive we found a strange bug, that when writing an d81 image with the PC

    back to disc and inserting the disc into the MEGA65 the disc was not readable, we didn't know what the cause might be.

    We used all available PC tools (SAMdisk, 1581copy, Omniflop, PRGmover32) on my trusty old WinXP machine.

    But the result was always the same...


    Before i continue i want to speak out, in the name of the whole M-E-G-A Team, a big THANK YOU ! to the whole Forum64 community !!!


    When we found out, that we would not be able to easily track down the problem with the internal disc drive, we asked here in Forum64, if somebody could borrow us a 1581 disc drive. The response was overwhelming. In no time we received several offers from people, who would like to support us and help us out with their 1581 drive. Thank you, to all of them !


    At this point, M-E-G-A would like to give a special THANK YOU ! to Nelson ! He was the first to respond and he provided us, with a complete test-setup, containing a 1581 PCB with WD1772 FDC, two Shinon drive mechanics (DD & HD), Power supply, IEC cable and a bunch of test discs !



    With this setup we have been able to track down the bug quite fast. The MEGA65 just deleted every newly written disc, when it wasn't write protected...nasty disc drive.... Paul found the Error in the code and fixed it.


    But we are at a point, where we can say, that the internal 3.5" HD Alps drive has a very high compatibility towards the real 1581.

    This is exactly what we want. So now i started to test all kind of IEC devices. i.e. SD2IEC, Pi1541, 1541-II, 1541UII+ and Nelson s 1581 (while we have it here, its always good to test on the real thing).


    There are still some issues, i.e. we still have some timing issues, where some files won't load, also we are not able to use the 1541UII+ atm. (There is more expansion port VHDL code adjustment required) or the Pi1541 (The SD2IEC part works, but mounting an image and loading it fails, probably timing related)



    But in general we are very happy, with the general outcome and what possibilities we already have to feed the MEGA65 with our beloved Software.




    Stay tuned....:DJ