The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.21 – 29/9/2022

Added:

• A new MODE has been added and can be used with the MODE key while you are in TUNEINFO screen.

This mode allows to change the SID model in realtime while the music is playing.

Example:

If a SID music is played with the SID 8580 positioned on SOCKET #1 by choosing the ‘sid’ mode you can with the encoder turning it to the Right or Left choose the SOCKET #2 where for example where is installed a SID 6581. The led placed under the Socket will show the sid you have chosen.
 
An apparently useless option which, however, can be used to experiment the differences in reproduction of the piece of music with two different SID models or choose the most appropriate sid model if the SID not specified the SID to be used.
 
So in summary we have these choice with the mode key while you are in TUNEINFO screen.

- Single Play
- Sequential Play
- Random Play
- Intro Play
- Sid Switch

Updated:

• Source code description.

Fixed:

• Missing the default value of the startSong in the SID Header if this value is missing. The SidPlayer sets 255 and try to play it.

I only found one SID with this strange configuration : Hammer Down by Sean Connoly.  Fixed by setting it to the default value : 1.

• The player freezes while browsing file system folders with many *.sid files.

This happens when the driver scan the file system and immediately after is done the bubble sort routine that takes about 700ms for 512 entries and more for the max entries (800) in one single directory and during this time the sid player freezes.
 
To avoid hearing the annoying last note played repeatedly for this amount of time, i have forced the player to pause and remove it as soon as the contents of the new directory will be displayed.
 
Obviously if you had chosen to pause the song voluntarily with the appropriate button, it will not resume playing after the new directory is displayed.

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.20 – 30/7/2022

Added:

• Combo buttons to go up of one directory.

The new feature working when you are in FILE BROWSING display mode and by holding down the button MODE and at the same time press the button of the ENCODER you can go up of one directory.

This mode is very useful if you have a list of many files or directory and would like to easily go up of one directory, currently you should scroll at the beginning or at the end of the list and then click on the double dot to go back, really boring.

Updated:

• Modified the way for the horizontal scroll of the sid filenames list.

I was not very convinced by the system that i have made for scroll the filenames horizontally, so i changed the mode, in my opinion much nicer.

By holding down the MODE key when you are in FILE BROWSING display mode you can move the entire screen with the filenames list left and right using the same encoder that is used to scroll the filenames list up and down.

Moreover the horizontal screen position is maintained also after the switching of the display mode or if you go up of one or more directory.

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.19 – 22/5/2022

Added:

• Added the horizontal scroll of the sid filenames list.
  • The maximum allowed length of the sid file including extension is 48 characters, the small oled can display a maximum of 20 characters, so this feature is useful with very long file names. The function is activated with the MODE key when you are in browsing files mode, once the 48 characters are reached, the scroll resets and repositions the display of the file from the beginning until the next pressing of the MODE key.

Updated:

• Added a new parameter to the configuration file (config.ini).
  • Choose the default SID Socket on bootup. This configuration is not mandatory.

Below is an excerpt from the “config.ini” file.

# Choose the default SID Socket on bootup (1:Socket #1 – 2:Socket #2) – default: 1
DEFAULT_SID_SOCKET=1

Fixed:

• Wrong emulation for the NOP opcode. %-)
  • I noticed this problem with a SID made by Hermit of Samar Productions, SIDRIP Alliance, Singular that uses a SID Player written by him. SID Tune: MSK Cover-XF End (https://csdb.dk/release/?id=214247)  This SID Player uses several illegal opcodes and i immediately thought of an emulation problem of these illegal opcodes, instead it was the NOP opcode that had problems. I point out that i listen at random 7XX favorite songs at least 1 hour a day and i never noticed any problems. :-D  Anyway, Fixed.
• Max entries per directory.

The PCB of our SID Player rev v2.0 is finally here.

Missing only the assembly and testing.

Gallery:

Note:

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab).

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

This Amiga 1200 was sent to me by a friend to made the usual replacement of the capacitors and also overhaul everything and migrate the pcb to a new case with a new colored keyboard.

Works that have been done:

• Replacement of all electrolytic capacitors.
• Cleaning the expansion connector which was oxidized in some parts.
• General cleaning of the PCB.
• Kickstart OS3.2 installation
• Replacement electrolytic capacitor in the Panasonic JU-253-043P Floppy Drive
• Floppy Drive Cleaning.
• Greasing of Floppy Drive mechanical parts with silicone grease.
• Painting of the Floppy Disk eject button with matt Black color (Only the black button for Chinon Floppy Drive is supplied with the new case)
• CF Card adapter fixing.
• Installazione PCB and colored keyboard in the new case.
• Functioning test with Floppy Disk and CF Card.

Gallery:

12►

This drive has two different problems.

• The Floppy Drive just did not turn on.
• The motor spinning always, regardless of whether a Floppy Disk was inserted or not.

Repair:

The Floppy Drive could not work because the FUSE inside the external power supply (transformer) was missing. :-D

The second problem was caused by the RAM-I/O-Timer (RIOT) 6532 which had decided to stop working.

Replaced the RIOT and made a good cleaning and greased some mechanical parts with silicone grease, everything has started again to work better than before. :-D

Gallery of the repair:

This poor Commodore 64 already been previously repaired by me but soffer of these new problems.

• Out of Memory
• Black Screen
• No Cursor.
• Garbage screen.

The problem of the black screen at irregular intervals with the out of memory was solved by replacing the CPU 6510, as soon as the CPU warms up a little more than normal the computer displayed only a black screen, cooling the CPU still did not work but at least something was displayed.

The problem of the out of memory are 4 dead ram + 1 previously replaced and i have decided to put in a socket the remain 3.

Last problem, there was no cursor and sometimes a garbage screen was displayed, as we all know the CIA 6526 in position U1 should be faulty due to the missing cursor.

Instead of CIA 6526 it was the socket of the 6569R3, replaced the socket the cursor is back and other annoying glitches disappeared.

Commodore Floppy Drive 1541 (1540050) Repair #1

Defects:

• Drive access problems (IEC): drive resets but the computer freez with a “searching for”
• The RED led flashes twice times then stops and start again and motor runs continuously.
• The RED led flashes repeatedly every second without stopping and motor runs continuously.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced 6522 (UC3)
• Replaced 6522 (UC2)
• Replaced 901229-03 ROM (UB4)

Commodore Floppy Drive 1541 (251830) Repair #2

Defects:

• The RED led flashes repeatedly every second without stopping and motor runs continuously.

Replaced parts:

• Replaced MOS 8713 [74LS04] (UC6)

The Return of the HybridSID Player PCB rev v2.0 by Xad/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab). Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

After the first revision of the PCB we are realized that there were some design problems and consequently of a correct functioning.

Below is a brief description of the fixes and improvements that have been made for the new one version of the SID Player PCB.

PCB rev v2.0 St.Valentine’s day version:

• OLED did not turn off when the power switch was off.
• Wrong pinout of the ALPS switch and consequently the PCB could not be powered via the USB power supply/power bank.
• Removed Zener diode.
• Added two new jumpers to select (AB – BA) for the rotary encoder.
• Rotary Encoder 20 steps, the previous one was wrong.
• Removed circuit for the switch of the two LEDs to visualize what SID is used for playing the song.
• Remapped the two SID LED switches on two MCU pins (RB15 – LED SOCKET # 1, RB12 – LED SOCKET # 2)
• Removed the possibility of using OLED 0.96″
• Aligned OLED 1.3 “on the line of the ZIF Socket.
• Moved reset signal that was used by OLED 0.96 on free pins connector.
• Fixed the holes for the OLED 1.3 “
• Remapped the following pins (RD5 – SID_RW, RD6 – SID2_CS, RB9 – KEY_FFWD, RB10 – KEY_PAUSE) to free 5v tolerant pins.
• Added two new pull-up resistors for PAUSE and FFWD key.
• Redesigned the entire amplifier stage for the headphone output using TPA6111A2 and NE5532.
• PCB tracks optimization.
• Facilitated the CPU DEBUG by creating a “frame” where each PAD corresponds to a pin of the MCU.

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.18 – 28/1/2022

Fixed:

• When you are in Manual mode of playing SID the timeout timer wrongly are also increased into a variable but this timer works only for the modes: auto/random/intro.
• Wrong STATIC variable for the debug via serial. the serial debug don’t works correctly in some part of the code. %-)
• Wrong variable for the Timeout check if the time is longer then 99 seconds. %-)

Updated:

• Freed and remapped to another destination the MCU pins of PAUSE and FFWD buttons to use them with the CS for the SID #2 and R/W because we needed 2 MCU pins 5v tolerant and there aren’t many left :/
• Described some parts of the source code.
• Added new parameters to the configuration file (config.ini).
  • Playback timeout in seconds of the .SID files for AUTO/RANDOM and INTRO modes.
  • Configure the best baudrate for the debug via Serial.
  • Disable or Enable the visualization of the VU-METER for the 3 sid voices.

Below is an excerpt from the “config.ini” file.

# Serial Debug Baudrate – default: 115200
SERIAL_BAUDRATE=115200
# Set the Timeout in Seconds for the AUTO/RANDOM playing mode – default: 2 minutes
AUTORND_TIMEOUT=120
# Set the Timeout in Seconds for the INTRO playing mode – default: 15 seconds
INTRO_TIMEOUT=15
# Write 0 if you want to disable the visualization of the vu-meter for the 3 x sid voices.
# Default: 1
SID_VUMETER=1

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.17 – 31/12/2021

Added:

• Change visualization status of the LED for Socket #1 and Socket #2 available on the Olimex Development Board and the SID Player PCB.
• A configuration file (config.ini) for some important settings of the SID Player. The file will be loaded during the boot and must be present in the ROOT of the filesystem of the USB key.If the file is not found, the player will configure itself with the default values. Thanks to Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab) for his lite INI file parser.

Below is an excerpt from the “config.ini” file.

# Select the Sid model for the Tune played by the SID Player on the Socket #1 or Socket #2.
# Specify the socket which you want to play the sid tunes (example for SID_8580_SOCKET write
# the number 2 if you want it to be played with the SID 8580 installed on socket #2)
# This configuration makes the use very dynamic for everyone. – default: socket #1,#1,#2,#2
TUNE_UNKNOWN_SOCKET=1
TUNE_6581_SOCKET=1
TUNE_8580_SOCKET=2
TUNE_BOTH_SOCKET=2
# Use Armsid with Auto Switching (0:Disabled – 1:Socket #1 – 2:Socket #2) – default: 0
# Note: When you use the auto detection and switching of the SID model with the ARMSID this can be
# used only in one of the two sockets, the other socket is completely ignored and can remain empty.
ARMSID_SOCKET=0
# Brightness of the OLED. (0 … 255) – default: 127
OLED_BRIGHTNESS=127
# Brightness of the OLED in IDLE mode. (0 … 255) – default: 10
OLED_BRIGHTNESS_IDLE=10
# Enable the serial DEBUG. (1 Enable | 0 Disabled) – default: 0
SERIAL_DEBUG=0

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.16 – 29/11/2021

Updated:

• Illegal/undocumented opcodes to the CPU Emulator:
  • LAE (LAS/LAR) Combinations of STA/TXS and LDA/TSX.
  • ANE (XAA) Combination of an immediate and an implied command.
  • All 6502/6510 instructions have been implemented.
• Increased the maximum number of files per directory from 512 max to 800 max.
• Improved delay routine for read/write eeprom via I2c bitbang, it should now be compatible with all levels of the XC32 compiler code optimization.
• Replaced and splitted the Splash Screen Logo during the boot. Thanks to Federico di dato for the Retrobit LAB logo.

Fixed:

• The BRK opcode, opcode that will probably will never used in our case.
• Missing +2 Machine Cycle Times for the opcodes: BPL,BMI,BVC,BVS,BCC,BCS,BNE,BEQ due to some previous performance improvment of the 6502/6510  emulator code, i was probably drunk, indeed, i’m sure. %-)
• The clock “|CIA|” was displayed mistakenly when you choose to play a file in DMP format but this is wrong because the DMP file format doesn’t support the information of clock used (VBI/CIA) in the file header.
• The previous and next button did not work if there are only two files (SID or DMP) available to play in the folder.
• Incorrect Machine Cycle Times for the NOP opcode, four times instead of two. %-)
• Sometimes the version number displayed during boot would pop outside from the right side of the oled screen.
• Wrong Machine Cycle Times for the SLO, SRE(LSE), DCP, RLA, ISC(ISB) Illegal/undocumented opcodes with Indexed-indirect addressing of X,Y-Registers.

The Amiga scene has been dead for me from several years, long life to the Commodore 64.

Taken from a deadly boredom i have decided to do this useless hardware update of one of my Amiga 1200.

• A1208 V3 8MB Expansion.
• OS3.2 CF Card.
• OS3.2 Kickstart.
• New membrane for the keyboard.
• Lightbrightning Case and Keyboard.
• CF Trapdoor.
• 4xIDE Buffered IDE interface.

I personally updated the A1208 memory expansion with the Clock section because i had the order wrong, old age strikes again.

This is just a small update to my post.

I added another useless thing to this update … unfortunately in this case it is useful because without the 4xIDE Buffered IDE interface
the CF<>IDE adapter inserted in the trapdoor on the right side of the amiga which uses an IDE cable longer than 10-15cm, DOESN’T WORK generating a mix of reading/writing errors from the CF.

Aware of the problem, i still wanted to try, in fact in an old Amiga 1200 i had the IDE-Fix Express with IDE-Express Adapter bought 12 years ago, then sold.

So i confirm it doesn’t work, even if they write exactly the opposite (see ebay announcements)

Gallery of the useless update:

source: amigaisdead.com amigastore.eu amigakit.amiga.store

The return of the Hybrid Sid Player by xAD/Nightfall & Gianluca Renzi (RetroBit Lab)

Based on the Project and Hardware Schematic by Markus Gritsch released in the years 2011-2015 on the forum dangerousprototypes. Thanks Markus.

Changelog:

v1.15 – 26/9/2021

Updated:

• Slightly improved the CIA timing, now the SID tune “https://hvsc.csdb.dk/MUSICIANS/P/Page_Jason/25_Hurts.sid” and probably some others they sounds fairly well without “clicking/noise/beeping” in some parts of the song. *
• Slightly improved the VBI timing, now the SID tune “https://hvsc.csdb.dk/MUSICIANS/S/Stinsen/Freeloader.sid” and probably some others they sounds fairly well without  “clicking/noise/beeping” in some parts of the song. *
• When the (Auto/Random/Intro) MODE is used the brightness of the oled is restored on each change of music until the default timeout is reached.

* I’ll never stop saying we are far away from my personal feeling of absolute perfection but sound ok for 90% of peoples, luckily there aren’t many SID sound purists :-D
Many people still think that a SID played with a SID emulator on a Mobile Phone or PC sounds absolutely identical to the one played with the SID in the original hardware version :-|

Fixed:

• In some cases the choice of subtunes is no longer displayed if the SID supports the multi-tunes after the implementation of clock speed emulation display.
• Fixed subroutine which takes care of loading and initializing the SID tune with SUBTUNES, were are missing some variables such as the “show_sidinfo_model” and some debug strings.
• LAX Opcode $AB instead of LXA (https://www.oric.org/ftp/ceo/ceomag/downloads/ebooks/nomoresecretsnmos6510.pdf) Used by this SID Tune: https://hvsc.csdb.dk/MUSICIANS/H/Holt_Hein/Whats_Your_Lame_Excuse.sid

The Texas Instruments Compact Computer 40 or CC-40 is a battery-operated portable computer developed by Texas Instruments and released in March 1983.

An improved model, the CC-40 Plus, was in the final stages of development and included a cassette port. The project was canceled when Texas Instruments discontinued the 99/4A and left the home computer field.

Repair:

The computer was compressed inside the shipping package, obviously it was very badly packed.

The PCB that is installed on top of one of the two motherboards of the computer (see photo) is broke, interrupting some pcb tracks, it was enough to reconstruct the pcb track and the computer started working again.

Gallery of the repair: