Date   : Fri, 05 Nov 2004 15:28:08 +0000
From   : Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...>
Subject: Re: RE:Prophets...?!

On Fri, 2004-11-05 at 14:44 +0000, Andrew W wrote:
> In <URL:news:local.misc> on Fri 05 Nov, Jules Richardson wrote:
> 
> > 
> > <rustle rustle>
> > 
> > http://www.8bs.com/see/atomzx2.jpg
> > 
> > I'm still keeping an eye out for a colour board; they don't seem at all
> > common. Not sure why - maybe they came too late and the BBC was just
> > around the corner?
> > 
> > I wonder if I could fit a BBC BASIC board, Econet board, disk drive and
> > Colour Card all to the same Atom? :)
> Can you fit extra RAM to an Atom?  

Yep, I think they'll take 12K maximum on board (then if I remember
right, the BBC BASIC board has a few more KB on it). I think the maximum
of 12KB was necessary as part of fitting the BBC BASIC board actually.

Whether there were 3rd party boards specifically for the Atom to add
more than that I don't know; I've never heard of any though. Having said
that a quick google suggests that a maximum ROM available on an Atom was
12KB, and that the BBC BASIC board uses 4KB ROM. Presumably there's
scope for adding an extra 8KB of static RAM into the aux ROM sockets on
the BBC board in addition to the 12KB on the Atom mainboard.

There's probably plenty of scope for bodging things via the expansion
connector though. I was surprised when I took my Atom disk drive apart
that the interface board inside appears to be the same disk controller
as in the System series, suggesting that the Atom's expansion connector
mimics the System's backplane (anyone confirm that?). That gives lots of
potential for using System series cards on an Atom... (my System 5's got
one non-Acorn memory expansion in it, so they certainly did exist by
third parties)

cheers

Jules