The MonSTer board by Alan Hourihane (c) 2015 ============================================ After many months of producing the IDE boards, it was time to move up a gear to a CPLD and stop soldering the many TTL level logic IC's. Additionally the seperate 8MB RAM module put additional strain on the system by stacking more boards. It was time for a new board.... The MonSTer was born. The name came from the fact, it's small, but contains a lot of goodness. Also, because it has ST in the name, the "M" too, and for the Megas, but even better that it's "STe" in the name for all the ST, STe, MegaST and MegaSTe machines.... Hoorah ! One thing was still missing though........... Flashable TOS. So, I've added it. But things don't stop there. You can also attach an RTC module to the board too, that's if you need it. If you have a MegaST or MegaSTE these machines already have RTC's so you don't need this additional item, but for STE and STFM's it's great to have an RTC. The RTC module I have tested and produced the software for is the Dallas DS1338. They are available all over the web. Find one that has 3.3V operation and has the SCL/SDA lines and you are good to go. The Xilinx XC9572XL CPLD is the heart of the system glueing everything together, the Flash chip, 8MB RAM, and the IDE controller. But it also controls the JBLOCK. The JBLOCK is both a jumper block and where the RTC attaches to. See below for the pin information... SIDE JBLOCK.... TOSSEL FLASHSW FLASHON IDESW SDA SCL TOSSEL FLASHSW FLASHON IDESW GND 3.3V FRONT JBLOCK.... TDI TMS TCK TDO GND 3.3V PRIMARY LED SECONDARY LED ACSI ACSI RTC connections - DS1338 module ------------------------------- Connect your RTC voltage pin to the MonSTer 3.3V line (above SCL/SDA). Connect your RTC ground pin to the MonSTer GND line (below SCL/SDA). Connect your RTC SDA pin to the MonSTer SDA pin. Connect your RTC SCL pin to the MonSTer SCL pin. Jumper settings --------------- TOSSEL - When set to GND, the system boots from 0xE00000 i.e. TOS 2.xx When set to 3.3V, the system boots from 0xFC0000 i.e. TOS 1.xx NOTE: It's even possible to boot an STE with TOS 1.04 :-) FLASHSW - The MonSTer has a 2MB Flash chip, and only 1MB of the chip is mapped for the system to boot at 0xE00000 or 0xFC0000. This switch flips the second 1MB into the 0xE00000 or 0xFC0000 window, so you can flash the second part of the chip for swapping boot images. When set to GND it enables the first 1MB. When set to 3.3V it enables the second 1MB. FLASHON - This disables access to 0xE00000/0xFC0000. For recovery mode. If you ever run into problems, you can install the original ROMs and re-run the flash program which will write to the configured 1MB region to get this going again. Use the FLASHSW to select regions. When set to GND the FLASH is enabled. When set to 3.3V the FLASH is disabled. IDESW - This flips the primary and secondary IDE ports. When set to GND the primary/secondary ports are as labelled. When set to 3.3V the ports are reversed. SDA/SCL - For connection of the RTC module. PRIMARY LED - This is a two pin header for attachment of a drive activity LED. SECONDARY LED - As above for the secondary port. ACSI/ACSI - Two pins for attachment of the interrupt cable, and another for daisy chained hardware (if required). TDO/TMS/TCK/TDI/3.3V/GND - these are the JTAG pins for the Xilinx programmer. 512K EmuTOS ----------- This works too. Flash Disk ---------- Future possibility.... The MonSTer has 2MB of Flash, and there's potential space in the flash area for a fast boot disk or upgraded TOS, like the 512K EmuTOS images. But even with 512K EmuTOS there's space for other things, such as the flash disk. There is no software currently to take advantage of this extra space, but watch this space...... Software -------- There are some supplied programs for the MonSTer, and kudos to "joska" aka Jo Even Skarstein who has helped write the software. M_FLASH.ZIP - The MonSTer flash program to write to the onboard flash. M_ALTRAM.ZIP - Alt-Ram program for 2MB, 4MB, 6MB or even 8MB of Alt-RAM. M_RTC.ZIP - The Dallas RTC clock module Flashing -------- Basically you can have four TOS versions installed. Two 192KB versions and two 256KB versions. Example... TOS 2.06 (TOSSEL set to GND, FLASHSW set to GND - first MB) EMUTOS 0.9.4 (TOSSEL set to GND, FLASHSW set to 3.3V - second MB) TOS 1.04 (TOSSEL set to 3.3V, FLASHSW set to GND - first MB) KAOS TOS 1.04 (TOSSEL set to 3.3V, FLASHSW set to 3.3V - second MB) Please see http://emutos.sourceforge.net for more details. Comments -------- I hope you enjoy using the MonSTer. And please let me have any feedback on how you use yours ! Alan.