Building a NEW Atari ST motherboard
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- Amiga's have their various remake boards....the Atari ST has the Phoenix H5 board. In this video, I run through what the board is, build it up...forget to read the instructions and eventually get it working.
Much more information can be found here
www.exxosforum...
and here
www.exxosforum...
#vintagecomputing
#retrocomputing
#atari
#atarst
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
Another run of these boards has been announced and will be available in the near future. Forum post here: exxosforum.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=89&t=6655&start=40
When they are available to be ordered they will be found here in the store under the "motherboard" section: www.exxosforum.co.uk/atari/store2/
Thank you for being the first Atari-RUclipsr to cover the amazing H5 board! The Atari community often ask 'why don't we get nice things' and this is a perfect example, the H5 has been out for a long time now and has hardly had any RUclips coverage! Thank you for supporting Exxos! Thank you for being a true Atari fan!
Oh, man… I’ve only watched the first minute or two of this video and I’m already excited about it. I totally want to build one of these! OK, getting my popcorn…
I think it is also worth mentioning, when you talk about the need for this kind of board, you talk a lot about other computers and leaky caps and batteries destroying boards. The Phoenix H5 doesn't really exist for that reason, it isn't just a replacement for a broken board. The reason it's called Phoenix is because like in legend 'rises from the ashes' and becomes something new - it allows for massive customisation and expansion with the 5v 68k sockets (for legacy upgrades) then with the 3v3 sockets it allows modern low voltage upgrades, which can allow FPGA upgrades etc. There is also the MIDI header which allows you to add a wavetable midi module, so you can play games using full MIDI music on the regular sound output!
I totally agree, but I believe there is more demand / need for the Amiga replacement boards due to their nature to “self destruct” and why we see them so much more often.
Phoenix.
@@powerofvintage9442 That is exactly why. The battery damage that happens on the 2k, 3k, 4k due to the evil Varta batteries pretty much just wreck the motherboard. The only batteries that came with the Ataris is the Dallas on the Falcon, and easily replaceable ones on the TT/Mega STe. The Falcon would be a nightmare to transplant the components to a new board, it's easier to desolder the Dallas and pop in a modern replacement (I've done it twice now!)
Hoping they make more of these. Sold out by the time I’d found it.
Part of the reason I made this is to let more people know it exists and if that drums up more demand then I’m certain that more boards will be made available.
So glad to have found this video and channel, have subscribed, and I’m looking forward to binge-watching EVERY video, and learning as much as I can… Thanks for your great work!
Used to fix these back in the day, they were a much nicer board to work on than the Amiga, never failed to fix one :) Now if only someone would make a new PCB for a Sega System X I'd be very happy!
Thanks for taking us along for the built. It's relaxing repopulating a fresh board like that
I worked at an Atari dealer (Computers-R-Us in Springfield, MO) for a while, and honestly we had almost no motherboard related issues. The few there were with 520s and 1040s mainly due to drinks spilled into the computer. Some power supply issues, or power related issues (surge), but otherwise yes they were nearly problem free for what they were.
I still have both my 520 and MST4. I need to dig them out sometime and see if I can also spin up and read the old full-height (previously Intergraph) SCSI drives that I used for the BBS. There's some source code on there for Fidodoor that would be fun to have if nothing else.
It sounds like you had a similar experience to me albeit the ST's I'm looking at are 30+ years old and still in working shape (for the most part). PSU and floppy drives = most issues, then a couple of IC's occasionally going bad (just a couple) and then down to only one motherboard with issues that weren't readily fixable (by me at least).
What a great video and an amazing new board, My STE is happy but if it ever goes totally wrong This will be a great board to consider. So love the current times with new solutions to keep the 8bit and 16bit dreams alive :)
Lol I like that he silkscreened a "bad DMA" joke on it.
Looked like a lot of fun - thanks for sharing. I have me a spare 520STFM and this, or a uATX format, would be my preferred option.
Incredible channel. This is such an interesting project, above my league, but very interesting. You have an incredible knowledge of (Atari) hardware, and more importantly, you are able to explain it in a very calm and (even for a noob like me) understandable way. A joy to listen to. Keep up the great work, Greg.
Thank you so much!!
What I'd like to see is a mechanical replacement keyboard for the ST / Falcon (the beauty is they'd be interchangeable, just need different color keycaps).
Looks fantastic. Anything that keeps the ST alive is God's work.
However, if I had the capabilities of the designer I would have made it an ATX board so it can fit in a standard PC case. Then it would awesome.
There is a project doing that as well! In fact in the 1990’s there were cards you could add to PC’s that allow them to boot TOS…not sure how many sold but I saw adverts for them in vintage magazines.
I saw them for Amiga. Not seen an ST one though 😢
Exxos rulez! I gonna order this board too, cos I've want to restomod another ST, which has unfortunaly the funny board with the CPU under the floppy. Would be also a nice base for future experiments with the PiStorm.
Be sure to let Exxos know in the forum that you want one. There are currently sold out in the store, but with enough demand I'm certain he'll get more produced!
@@powerofvintage9442 Thanx for the advice!
Nice board, fortunately my 1040 STE still works but, I know someone who has 3 non-working ST's and this new board would be better than trying to consolidate them into one working computer.
Have you tried all of the Atari things on the MiSTer FPGA? The ST in MiSTer stands for Atari ST.
That’s quite nice to have a replacement board 💪 may you can test some full screen demos just to check if also the cycle timing for sync coding works as the original?
I'll take a look at a few I know of. Any suggestions of demos you think would properly test out the board?
@@powerofvintage9442 The Dark Side of the Spoon starts right away in full screen and the main menu is also full screen
@@arnolttbromanskie9733 Just ran through a chunk of this demo and everything looks great. Get some footage of it running this one and a few others and post it as a follow-on video....I'll try and get it shot, edited, and uploaded by the end of the week.
@@powerofvintage9442 great thanks 👍, just to make sure: common demos did not use sync code, only full screens need special timing on the video chip to open the borders. So it would be nice if u try some full screen demos If you haven't already done so. 😊
I pulled a few from the list of top demos on Atari Mania including: Overdrive, Dark Side of the Spoon, Punish your machine, Ecstasy, 20 years Atari
Just as a note, I wouldn't place the bare board on a conductive Mylar bag.
I have 2x stfm mainboards and would like to max them out. I have stl siles for a Falcon housing, this would be an amazing projet to make the fastest Atari PC
Awesome. The ST536 is probably your best bet for a cpu acceleration for an STFM (I have a video on installing one in my 520ST). With some clever hackery you can also set up an ISA VGA card to run as well within an ST. There are semi-plug and play versions for the mega st / mega ste, but for an ST or STFM you need some heavy duty soldering skill to make it happen.
I've been thinking I should go ahead and transplant the things from a 1040ST that I have with a gnarly shifter circuit. Then again, I think it's just a cap that popped off at some point.
I want one of those MB's
Personally, would love to see someone make a new STE motherboard, but have it fit in the early ST cases that don't have the PSU and disk drive built in. I just do not like the joystick and mouse port locations on the later case design, and the the early case is a bit smaller, which really goes along way
14:04 this foil is an antistatic one from a mainboard right? They are slightly conductive so I'm not sure that this is a good idea to put it underneath the board and power it up. Sure, they have high resistance but still.
It is...I wasn't measuring any conductivity on it and I've used these in the past in a similar manner. I was more worried about bits of metal on my tabletop so I placed this underneath the board to minimize that risk.
@@powerofvintage9442 I think it's the inside that's conductive, isn't it?
@@thetechnoshed just measured the inside as well with no conductivity...don't even get a resistance reading, so nothing getting through at least in the case of this bag. I'm sure there are others that might be conductive....so it definitely makes sense to check first (which I didn't do originally)
Since the Atari St and the Atari Falcon share the same case could an Atari Falcon board be made so that ST owners can upgrade their dead Atari ST cases to the Falcon level? This would bring higher speeds, bigger RAM, more than 16 colours at once and IDE compatibility to the platform.
VGA monitors and HD TVs have become the same thing so this is no longer an issue.
I believe the main reason we don't have a Falcon board is the rarity of the custom IC's for the Falcons. There would need to be some FPGA or other solution to solve that. At a certain point, wouldn't it just basically be a MiSTer with a Falcon core?
@@powerofvintage9442 If components of the original Falcon are now obsolete and unavailable would it not be possible to emulate them with newer and more powerful components effectively making a Mk2 Falcon?
Great video! I see this is currently out of stock. Does anyone know when it might be back in stock or how often a new batch of these become available? I'm assuming Exxos is the only source of these but please let me know if not so. Thanks.
Yes Exxos is the only source.
@@powerofvintage9442 Ok thanks. Here's hoping he decides to do another batch.
Finally, something for my broken 520STFM. Is it possible to get a complete board from u? With this, I only need to swap out the old board with the new board.
For the time being, no. However check out the links in the description below. They are out of stock at the moment, but with enough demand, I'm sure Exxos will kick off a new batch.
Also if enough people want them fully populated, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible.
I wonder if you can mod a TRS-80 model 16 to run Amiga,ST or Macintosh software. It has a 68K processor.
would love to get a h5 board, but my soldering skills are worse than zero, if it was just plugging in the chips, it would be a no brainer.
How much is this wonderful product?
The mostly assembled motherboard less the ports and donor IC's is listed for 137.78 UK monies which as Chris Edwards would translate to about $175 freedom bucks. If you already have a donor board with all the Atari custom chips, then another $30 USD or so for the ports and din connectors. If you need the IC's they add a bit more to the total cost. Exxos has everything needed on his webstore (including Atari IC's!)
@@powerofvintage9442 thanks for the info!
Surprising you went to the trouble of migrating, but kept the old 68000.
Good question! I kept the original 68000 to troubleshoot and set up. Kept it simple to begin with to isolate the variables. I have a part 2 that I’m working to edit that adds a TOS decoder, tests a TF536 68030 @ 50mhz accelerator, and trying to get a 68000 running at 16mhz (boosted speed). I also show adding the cartridge port and printer port. Along with testing the cartridge port. So coming soon!
@@powerofvintage9442 Ah, you are going from resto-mod, to hot-rod. Just read that you might run Linux on an 030.
Does adding the blitter make it an STE?
Not exactly. It adds a big part of the enhanced capabilities of the STe but there were some audio and graphical palette upgrades to the STe that just a blitter won’t provide.
An unfortunate IC socket position for the "shifter"! 😂
Would be interesting if a graphics card could be installed like on the mega st 🤔
I'm sure a CPU socket to ISA adapter could be made to plug into one of the expansion sockets. The Mega ST megabus is essentially exactly that with a different form factor
@@powerofvintage9442 Cool, would be nice, because there are great word processing and programming tools for TOS, where a higher resolution would come in handy 😊
Now all we need is a case that doesn't break if you look at it and say "boo".
100% agree!
How did the Atari ST compare to the Amiga? Which one had the better games?
Haha! I might someday make that video, but it’s a tremendous minefield of a question / comparison.
If you asked that in the 80s you started a school yard fight
@@br9809 based on some comments in the comments section of previous videos, some people would still want to start a fight...
@@powerofvintage9442 Archimedes was laughing while the Amigas and Ataris were fighting.
@@br9809 I had an Amiga back in the day, and the games were amazing. But then in the early 90's some powerful video cards came out that made the PC much better for gaming, vs the Amiga. And that was the beginning of the end for Commodore Amiga .
I was searching for a replacement for my old 1040 st
.
Found one on eBay from a seller in Florida. I called them and asked if I could drive to their store to pick it up. Even offered to charge it in my card .
Drove for four hours. They sold it out front under ne and didn't have other. They had piles of amegas but no ataris. I'm still pissed off at them
.it was a shitty thing to do .
Sorry to hear about that. Some folks are just looking to make a quick buck.