Latches

Parts

The slideshow of circuit diagrams in the Utilities Menu show how to assemble the unit electrically. It requires the following parts:

In addition, the prototype RAM disk used 2 x 628128 SRAM chips (i.e. 256k in total), though any combination up to 8Mb can be added with a little extra circuitry.

Benefits

• Single board decodes and cleans up all the 1MHz bus signals making future projects easier to build
• Can be mounted internally to the case
• Use of a diode and 4.5v battery makes the RAM disk permanent
• No more grinding of precious floppy disks
• Fully featured RAM filing system already available

How To Build

1. Carefully consult the circuit diagram and manufacturers' data sheets displayed at the bottom of this article for the logic ICs, to arrive at a strip board layout.
2. Be sure to terminate the data bus with 3.3k resistors to 5v and 0v to stop reflections over long cable lengths.
3. The decoupling capacitors (33nF) should be mounted as close to the latch and tristate buffers as possible to stop noise on the power lines.
4. It's arbitary which latches and tristate buffers you use for each of the eight data lines from the BBC,but be consistent and label the final board!
5. The RAM chips are best mounted on a small 'daughter' board as this makes the wiring from the latches to the RAM address lines easier - busses are very hard to implement on stripboard.
6. It's arbitary which order the RAM address lines are joined to the main board since bytes will be read back from the same place they were written, so it doesn't matter.
7. The board should be attached to a regulated supply capable of supplying about 250mA.

Hints

• Below around 2.5v the contents of SRAM may become corrupted or lost.
• You can dramatically reduce the number of chips you need and (more so) the wiring between the chips by use of 74ALS990 read/write buffers.
• The board appears at &FC00, &FC01, &FC02 for the three address registers which is the 'test hardware' allocation in the 1MHz bus memory map. Read/writes to the RAM occur at &FC03.
• The use of both latches and read back tristate buffers makes ?&FC00=?&FC00+1 in BASIC possible, or INC&FC00 in assembler which have great speed increases over having to keep copies of the registers in the BBC's RAM
• Interrupt routines concerned with hardware on the 24bBC board must preserve the current address by reading FC00/01/02,and restoring this before exiting.

Figures