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- Adding an extra SID 6581 chip
-
- This is not a project to be tackled
- by the sqeamish or people who are
- deathly afraid of opening their
- computer just to take a peek inside.
-
- Now let's get rid of the nasty stuff
- first. No liability is assumed with
- respect to the use of the following
- information. In other words if you
- screw-up trying to install this
- modification, then it's your
- responsability.
-
- YOU DO THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!!
-
- If you do not feel up to it PLEASE
- take it to a Commodore repair center
- or a repair service that can work on
- computers and let them do the
- installation.
-
- You can make your own piggy back
- board or you can do what I am going
- to describe (since it is a little
- hard to put a schematic in a text
- file, well not hard just cumbersome).
-
- You should ground yourself with a
- static guard wristband (such as what
- Radio Shack sells). Even though the
- chip is quite durable, just the right
- static discharge can ruin all or part
- of the SID chip.
-
- For those of you that are not
- familier with the way pins are
- numbered on an IC chip here is a
- short explanation. On one end of the
- IC you should find a little notch,
- looking at the chip with the notch at
- the top the numbering goes this way.
- The upper left corner of the chip is
- pin 1 and they are numbered
- consecutively, counter-clockwise
- around the chip. Some chips do not
- have a notch in one end, but instead
- dot is placed in one of the chip
- corners to designate that pin 1
- starts in that location.
-
- notch
- ----,,----
- 1-!. !-8
- 2-! dot !-7
- 3-! !-6
- 4-! !-5
- ----------
-
-
- You need the following parts.
-
- 1 - 6581 SID chip
- 1 - 2N2222 transistor
- 2 - 470pf capacitors
- 2 - 1k ohm 1/4 watt resistors
- 1 - .001 pf capacitor
- 1 - 10k ohm 1/4 watt resistor
- 1 - 10 uf electrolitic capacitor
- 1 - 5 inch length of wire
- 1 - 5 inch length of shielded cable
- 1 - surface mount female RCA plug (this
- is what you normally find on the
- back of your stereo.
-
- First bend out pins 23, 24 and 26 and
- cut them off of the 6581 SID chip.
- These are for the two analog and one
- audio input lines. They will cause
- problems if connected and since they
- will not be used it is best to remove
- them.
-
- Now bend out pins 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 27.
-
- Solder one of the 470pf capacitors to
- pins 1 and 2 then solder the other
- 470pf capacitor to pins 3 and 4. The
- capacitors control the upper and
- lower frequency range of the SID
- chip.
-
- Solder one end of your wire to pin 8
- of the SID chip. This is for the
- chip select line. We will connect
- this to the main mother board, so as
- to provide the addressing for the new
- chip (described later).
-
- Now solder the remaining pins
- (excluding the ones we have bent out
- and also removed 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 23,
- 24, 26 and 27) to the sid chip
- currently in your computer. You may
- have to bend those pins inward just a
- little for them to get a good grip on
- the SID chip. Be very careful not
- leave the soldering iron on the chip
- TOO long as you could ruin BOTH SID
- chips. Make sure there is good sized
- gap between both chips to provide
- air circulation. Since they do get
- very hot at times you may have to
- heat sink AT LEAST the bottom one
- (both if you can).
-
- Now that you have the chips soldered
- together (place the SID chips back in
- the socket if you removed them),
- solder the wire from pin 8 (on the
- SID chip) to pin 9 of IC U15
- (chip 74LS239).
-
- Now partially reassemble your
- computer (be careful that nothing
- shorts out the pins still sticking
- out). Turn the computer on and load
- a program that will produce sound on
- all three voices. If you get sound
- then so far so good. Turn off the
- computer and disassemble the case.
-
- Drill a hole in the back end of the
- computer just large enough to anchor
- the RCA plug. Then solder the center
- wire of the shielded cable to the
- center post of the RCA plug. Insert
- the wire through the hole you have
- just drilled and anchor the plug to
- the case. Now solder the ground wire
- to the ground tab on the RCA plug.
-
- Here comes the difficult part to
- explain. This is the coupling
- circuit for the audio output. Here
- is a rough schematic.
-
-
-
- Pin 27 on 12volts dc
- SID chip resistor !
- --. 10k ohm !collector
- 27!----.--/!/!/--.-----O 2n2222
- --' ! ! !emitter
- ! ! !
- <resistor ! !
- >1k ! ! +
- <ohm ! :--!]---to RCA
- ! ! ! 10 uf
- ! ! !electrol cap
- ! ! !
- ground--- ! !
- - ! <resistor
- ! >1k
- ! <ohm
- ! !
- ! !
- ! !
- ! ---ground
- ! -
- !
- === .001 pf
- ! capacitor
- !
- ---ground
- -
-
-
- You can get the 12 volts you need for
- the transistor from one of the following
- electrolitic capacitors. Start with the
- first one in the list. The farther down
- the list you go the more noise you may
- notice in the output. If all else fails
- you can get it directly from pin 2 of
- voltage regulator VR1 (I strongly do not
- recommend this!!!!).
-
- Connect to the PLUS side of the electrolitic
- capacitors.
-
- C94 - located at the lower left corner
- of the metal box housing the
- video chip.
- C62 - located between the SID chip and
- the metal box.
- C57 - located just below the voltage
- regulator VR1 (just as well
- connect it to pin 2 of VR1).
-
-
- If you need any help on constructing
- this circuit check out any of the
- many books that have schematics on
- the C-64. This is an exact duplicate
- of the one already inside the C-64.
-
- The ground wire from the RCA plug can
- be soldered to the main grounding
- strip between the serial and video
- ports. The center wire will be
- connected to the negative side of the
- 10uf electrolitic capacitor.
-
- I still think you should have someone
- familier with electronics install
- this circuit for you.
-
- If you have a problem with some
- cartridges, you will have to install
- a switch between pin 9 of IC U15 and
- pin 8 of the piggybacked SID chip.
- When the switch is off the SID chip
- is dropped out of the address matrix
- and invisable to the system. When
- switched on the chip is addressed at
- 57088 decimal or $DF00 hexadecimal.
-
- A good place to mount the switch and
- RCA plug in on the back of the
- computer and above the monitor jack.
-
- Good luck on the construction.
-
-
- Mark A. Dickenson