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- The memory system was wirewrapped on a 4.5in by 8.5in board perforated on
- .1in centers. This is a standard size available from several vendors. A
- connector to fit the Amiga expansion connector is mounted to the board such
- that the board will stand beside the Amiga extending from the rear up near
- the mouse/joystick connectors. The board is slightly higher than the Amiga
- but hasn't gotten in the way for me. The memory array (four rows of eight
- chips) is at the top of the board. A fifth row contains the buffers for the
- array. Next is the connector for the Amiga. Three rows below the connector
- are used for timing logic and the clock. The chips all face the Amiga so
- that the wire wrap pins of the chips and the connector face out for easy
- testing. (I hope this isn't an issue for you, but I did a lot of it.)
-
- The connector is spaced away from the board by placing a 1/2 inch wide
- strip of plastic (made from the tubes that wire wrap sockets come in)
- between the rows of pins. This leaves just enough room on the pin on the
- back side of the board for one wire to be wrapped on the pin. This allows
- the connector to reach into the Amiga and leave room for the chips between
- the board and the side of the computer.
-
- TOP
-
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- | H1 | H2 | H3 | H4 | H5 | H6 | H7 | H8 |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- | G1 | G2 | G3 | G4 | G5 | G6 | G7 | G8 |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- | F1 | F2 | F3 | F4 | F5 | F6 | F7 | F8 |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- F | E1 | E2 | E3 | E4 | E5 | E6 | E7 | E8 |
- R +-------+-------+-------+--+----+---+---+-------+-------+-------+ B
- O | D1 | D3 | D4 | D5 | D7 | A
- N +---+-----------+----------+--------+-----------+---------------+ C
- T | C O N N E C T O R | | K
- +---+---+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+ C8 |
- | C1 | C2 | C3 | C4 | C5 | C6 | |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+---------------+
- | B1 | B2 | B3 | B4 | B5 | B6 | B8 |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
- | A1 | A2 | A3 | A4 | A5 | A6 | A7 | A8 |
- +-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+
-
- BOTTOM
-
- View of board from wire wrap pin side. You are looking at the right
- side of the Amiga if the board is installed. The chip locations are called
- out in the schematic and parts list.
-
- The connector is numbered like this:
-
- 1.5.........................85 From same view as above.
- 2...........................86
-
- The schematic calls out pins on this connector like [nn]. If you look in the
- hardware manual (preliminary) you may think the connector looks like:
-
- 123.........................43
- ............................86
-
- This is WRONG.
-
- If you cannot find an 86 pin connector with .1in spacing (sometimes called a
- 43 pin dual row connector) you can cut down a longer connector. I easily
- found 100 pin connectors. If you do this be careful when installing the board
- that the connector is aligned with the cardedge in the Amiga. It is very
- easy to have it slip to the side with one end missing. This will harm the
- computer.
-
- When looking at the chips from the back side (as viewed above) the pins are
- like this:
-
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
-
-
- 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9
-
- For 16 pin chips. For other sizes of chip, the numbering goes clockwise as
- shown.
-
- All chip sockets, except the 24 pin socket for the MC146818, have a .1uf
- capacitor connected between the corner pins 8 and 16 (or 7 and 14 or 10 and
- 20). There are two techniques that I find convenient. If the type of socket
- and the type of capacitor permit, the nicest thing to do is to attach the
- capacitor to the socket pins before the socket is pushed into the board. The
- socket may permit the capacitor to fit into the cavity usually found between
- the rows of pins. The wires will raise the socket only slightly off the
- board. If this won't work because of the parts at hand, I usually solder the
- capacitors on last, after all wirewrap connections are made. Any other
- approach tends to make wirewrapping difficult because the capacitor is in
- the way.
-
- I would wrap the power and ground connections first. Make a grid of these
- wires such that each ground pin is connected to its nearest neighbors in all
- four directions. If your sockets won't accept four levels of wrap, connect
- at least three ways so that as much of the grid structure as possible is
- maintained. The memory array has many pins that are common to all 32 chips.
- These connections are also best made with a grid like pattern. The idea is
- to connect all the relevant pins with a minimum of inductance. Since, with
- wire wrap, there is no other parameter under your control, redundant
- connections are the way to achieve this.
-
- The other connections can be made in any order you like. Minimizing total
- wire lengths when connecting several pins is nice, but not strictly
- necessary. I made some effort in this direction when I placed the parts and
- wired them, but the layout is not optimal in this sense. I don't think it is
- necessary to be too concerned with the wirewrapping "rules" for this board.
- One thing to attempt to do is to keep wires on the same "level". If you have
- four pins (for instance) you connect the first and second, then the third
- and fourth, and finally the second and third. Doing things this way means
- that when you make a mistake you only have to remove at most three wires to
- correct it. You cannot unwrap a wire and re-use it, (if you do, the
- connection will probably fail in a few months) so any misconnected wire
- must be completely removed. This means any wire covering it must be removed.
- Don't daisychain yourself into a situation where many wires must be removed
- to correct an error.
-
- There is a variable capacitor in the clock circuit. This is used to adjust
- the clock so that it keeps proper time. The capacitor should be mounted so
- that it can be adjusted with the board installed and running. Since there
- are many styles of capacitor, I cannot suggest any particular method.
-
-
-