December 2017 - TechToolsList - listserv.classicarcade.com

Alpha Electronics Dynamic Integrated Digital IC Tester on eBay
by John Robertson 17 Feb '20

17 Feb '20

I chatted with the seller and he confirms that it does NOT power up. So chances are the battery backed up system ROM has failed. Item 390623172259 He reduced the price on his own from the original asking $59.95 to $19.95. Pity. I was hoping to find a good one to extract the program from to save mine... If someone here buys it and CAN extract the ROM data I'd sure like a copy! John :-#(# _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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9100FT Programmer’s Keyboard
by Ian Eure 08 Oct '18

08 Oct '18

I finally tracked down a Programmer’s Keyboard for my 9100. I don’t know how widely it’s known, but there were two different versions of the keyboard. The only photos I’ve seen are the earlier model, which meant that I almost let this one slip away. It was on eBay, new old stock, for $36 shipped! All the info is in the manuals, if you look. I had always wondered why the keyboard illustrations in the Programmer’s Manual didn’t match the photos of the keyboard I’d seen. It’s because I read scans of a later (1991) printing, which has illustrations of the later revision of the keyboard. I haven’t seen a 1988 printing, but I bet it shows the earlier keyboard layout. The various 9100 service manuals list different part numbers: 9100A Supplemental Parts List (May 1988), fig. 5-21, p. 5-53 ---- Lists p/n 5-64995-131. This seems to be the more common version of the keyboard. It has a block of (mostly) 2u keys on the far right, angled RETURN key, and arrows by the SHIFT and RETURN keys. Photo: https://i.imgur.com/undefined.png The Service Manual which this is a supplement to (9100A Service Manual p/n 809210, May 1988) only lists the Fluke stock number, 757120, in fig. 5-20 on p. 5-50. 9100FT Service Manual (p/n 910476, November 1991), fig. 5-18, p. 5-49 ---- This has new stock and parts numbers. s/n 887216, p/n E04008051. The later revision more closely resembles a 1990s 101-key PC keyboard, with separate numpad and arrow keys. It seems to work fine on a 9100A. Since this an uncommon keyboard, I naturally tore it apart and took some photos of the inside before even plugging it in. These are available on https://www.dropbox.com/s/sa34h6252476012/9100FT-Keyboard.zip?dl=0, and probably ought to go into the TTL FTP. It seems to be second-sourced from KeyTronics, which might explain the lack of documentation (schematics, etc) in the Fluke service manuals. Even though it looks like a PC keyboard, it uses uncommon capacative (hybrid mechanical) switches mounted on a metal plate, and feels much sturdier than the 1990s rubber dome board I was expecting. The controller is an 8031, with the program in a 2764 EPROM. I’m going to see if I can dump it, though it’s soldered in and I’d prefer not to remove it. There are two DIP switches which are accessible via a panel on the bottom. I have no idea what (if anything) they do. I’ve built a few keyboards from kits, so I was hoping that with a good look inside, it might be possible build a reproduction with the same microcontroller and program. While the 8031/2764 is excellent news for this, the rest is a downer. There’s an Exar 22-00958-000 IC which handles the capacitive keyswitches and provides keypress data to the 8031. It looks like the switches and controller are hard to come by, which renders the program on the EPROM useless. Still, maybe someone could adapt another KeyTronics board, as they seem to be fairly similar. Here’s a couple pages I found that have info on KeyTronics keyboards, and might be useful. http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?58612-Key-Tronic-KB3270-Plus-ROM-… http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/kb3270.html https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=37968.0 -- Ian _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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Fluke 9010A 006/async self-test
by Tony Jones 17 Aug '18

17 Aug '18

Hi. Has anyone else tried to perform the self-test for the 9010 async module? It is documented on pages 2-13 and 2-14 of the Asynchronous Signature Probe Option 9000A-006 Operation Manual: (http://files.stardustarcade.com/Test%20Equipment/Fluke/PDFs/9000A-006%20Asy…) I'm using the archive of side-a of the tape from ftp://ftp.flippers.com/TTL/TestEquipment/Fluke/9010%20Series/9010A%20Tapes/… (which I think came from Matt Rossiter - http://www.vectorlist.org/TechTools/2011/06/0008.html) I believe the hardware specific binaries are present and executing however I'm unable to successfully pass self-test. I constantly get 0000/255 rather than BB34/256. I interpreted steps 3, 4 and 5 below to mean that I could connect green, yellow and the probe tip to one lead of the 33 ohm resistor and connect red, blue, black and probe ground to the other lead (as that's a lot easier than trying to hang everything off the tips). I'm also not seeing a "data delay" option in the 9010 setup menu so I'm unable to set it to 4. Curious if anyone else gets the expected result? Thanks for your time Tony instructions: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Connect the start and clock (green and yellow) leads of the Clock Module to the tip of the data probe. 4. Connect the stop (red), enable (blue), and ground (black) leads to the data probe ground lead. 5. Connect a 33-ohm, 1/4-watt resistor across the group of connections made in step 3 and the group of connections made in step 4. (The resistor connects so that the data probe tip is shunted to the ground lead.). 7. For the Model 9020A, run the example program listed in Section 6, paragraph 6-5. For the 9005A and 9010A, refer to Initialization of the Signature Function and: - Set the start signal to a rising edge - Sect the clock signal to a falling edge - Set the stop counter to 256 (The clock limit count provides an end to the gate time in lieu of a stop signal.) - Set the data transition (event) count to gated - Set the enable signal to low - Set the data delay to 4 - Press the PULSE HIGH key on the Troubleshooter. - Press the READ PROBE key, and the display reads WAIT followed by SIGNATURE BB34 COUNT 256 Any other signature or count indicates a problem with the Signature Module, the Clock Module, or the Troubleshooter. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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Re: [Techtoolslist] Fluke on Mario Bros.
by David Shoemaker 20 Apr '18

20 Apr '18

Looking at the manual for the Z80QT pod and the schematic I think I am getting an expected result. I hooked up the pod and hit BUS to run the bus test. I immediately get back CTL ERR showing 00000010 this is the HALT line. Looking at the schematic it appears HALT and INT are both tied together and pulled high. So the fluke can't exercise that line. Any way to ignore that error and verify the rest of the bus test? Oh and according the manual maximum clock frequency is 8.0 mhz. Does that mean this pod support Z80A/B/C ? From: David Shoemaker [mailto:davids@oz.net] Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 10:38 PM To: 'Technical Tools Mail List' Subject: Fluke on Mario Bros. Anyone know if you can use either the base z80 pod or the z80qt pod on Mario bros? I know it uses the Z80A but I don't know what the pod is rated at. Thanks, David _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com http://seven.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ftp.flippers.com/TTL/TestEquipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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Fluke 9000A mystery adapter (for me at least ;-)
by John Robertson 20 Feb '18

20 Feb '18

I have a pod module here called "Z8 I/F ADAPTER" Fluke #9000-200/AB. It has no cable to the base, just a 40 pin CPU cable. Inside is a couple of RAM chips, and some Fluke hybrid interface ICs. Any guesses? John :-#)#

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Fluke 68000 pod version 6 firmware
by Tony Jones 25 Jan '18

25 Jan '18

Hi. I'm repairing a couple of 68000 pods at present and it reminded me that I'd always wanted to dig deeper into this. Does anyone have a 68000 pod running version 6 of the firmware? It's documented in rev 2 of the pod manual, and the code resides on larger 2764 EPROMs to implement the additional QT. I've owned six 68k pods and I've never seen anything higher than rev 5. You can get your pod version (on a 9010) by reading F0000012 (after taking the pod out of self-test of course). Output format is hex x0 where x is the major version. Not sure how to do this on a 9100 as it won't process addresses outside of what it knows as the 24bit address space, maybe TL/1. I need to dig deeper into the schematics to see how this is implemented on the hw (and what the upgrade path is). The three 68000 pods I have at present, all have the pads present for the larger 28 pin sockets (on their cpu boards) but only a 24 pin socket installed. The cpu board part# and the U9 PAL part# are the same in both versions of the manual, only the EPROM part#'s differ which is curious as obviously the pin addressing differs between a 2732 and 2764. Tony _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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9100 probe calibration
by Ian Eure 30 Dec '17

30 Dec '17

I’ve been trying to calibrate my 9100 probe, and am running into problems. I’ve tried two 9100s, two probes, two scopes, and haven’t been able to replicate what the service manual says I should see. The manual says to hook the probe tip to the external trigger, and ground to the mainframe chassis; then, a scope probe to the cal out test loop and ground to the common test loop. When this is done (and you start probe comp cal from the operator’s keypad), you’re supposed to see a square wave on the scope, which you can adjust with the comp trimpot. On my main FT setup, I I’m just getting noise on the cal out loop: I thought the probe offset might be a problem, so I calibrated that with the service disk, but it didn’t help. The second setup is a 9100A, and I get different (but also unhelpful) results. I’m able to get a square wave, but it’s extremely noisy: I also tried setting the probe offset on this machine. Even though I’m using the same service disk (V6), the procedure is different. I guess part of it is in the system ROM. The FT prompts you to connect the probe tip/ground to a 1.5V battery, enter the voltage, then reverse them. The A procedure asks for a “filtered reference voltage between 1.0 and 2.0 volts.” I used the same battery there, since my bench power supply doesn’t go down to 1.5V. It’s not clear if I’m supposed to leave the probe connected through the procedure, and it doesn’t prompt to reverse the leads like the FT. I get warnings about noisy transitions on the 9100A, no matter if the battery remains connected or not. I’m peeling this onion because when I went to calibrate the pod to sync for my UUT, I got intermittent results. And I calibrated that because I was getting some intermittent readings taking signatures off a good board. Both mainframes and probes pass selftest, and appear to work in the gross sense of recognizing high/low/invalid states, counting clock frequencies, etc. Anyone successfully completed this procedure? _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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How do you send a hex file to 9010A?
by Tony Jones 24 Dec '17

24 Dec '17

Hi How do I send a hex file (the output of the 9LC compiler [1]) from Windows to a 9010A using RS232? I can use FIDE to compile a script into hex and send the hex ("compile and send") and that works fine but I'm not seeing an option in FIDE to open and send a pre-existing hex file. There is an option "send a pre-compiled file to the 9010A base unit" which sounds like what I want but I can see no way to select the file. The original Fluke 'xfer' utility [2[ supports sending hex files over serial but I can't get it to work on Win7 (32bit). Native "dos" it never starts the transfer. Under dosbox it completes without seeming to send anything and the Fluke just displays "Aux-Receiving". Trying to send the file direct to the serial port using DOS "copy <file> com1:" (in text or binary modes) or using Realterm just results in a Framing Error at 9600-7O1 (the FIDE recommended default) and 9600-8N1. Using 300-7O1 gets me a Parity Error rather than Framing Error. Also, I saw an old comment from John that XON/XOFF is manually enabled through the Fluke setup menu (http://www.vectorlist.org/TechTools/2009/08/0003.html) but I don't see such an option and Kevin replied saying same. Tony 1: Example of a hex file ftp://ftp.flippers.com/TTL/TestEquipment/Fluke/9010%20Series/9010A%20Tapes/… 2. xfer: utility ftp://ftp.flippers.com/TTL/TestEquipment/Fluke/9010%20Series/9010%20DOS%20P… _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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FS: Fluke 9100A manual set
by Tony Jones 20 Dec '17

20 Dec '17

Anyone interested? $100 shipped USPS Media Mail (USA destinations). Paypal gift else cover fees. Open to trades. New condition. Pics: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ubNN9L_A7ZdMSfKxPgNi1oBM-FJVAAbs?us… _______________________________________________ Techtoolslist mailing list Techtoolslist(a)flippers.com https://pairlist7.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/techtoolslist FTP site is: ftp://ttl.arcadetech.org/TTL/Test_Equipment Archive site: http://seven.pairlist.net/pipermail/techtoolslist/

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