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Post by expertsetup on Jan 13, 2008 22:25:36 GMT -5
Hello, This thread will describe the process I used to convert a PAL DTV2 into a NTSC unit. brick  Materials required:
1 PAL DTV2 or DTV3
1 Hummer DTV game
Video Display capable of NTSC and PAL (I used capture card on PC for PAL)
Patience 1 Soldering Iron 1 De-Soldering Iron or Solder Sucker 1" or more length of rosin core solder (.022 is what I use) I used a 1541 disk drive but alternatives may be used. You will need a copy of the patched Hummer Kernal. I used the Kernal patcher program available from TLR's site to create my copy of the kernal. TLR's site is here: www.kahlin.net/daniel/dtv/flash.phpYou will need the kernal patcher and the flash utility to complete the conversion. In the following series of posts I will provide a step by step conversion of my second DTV2 into an NTSC unit. More to follow. |
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Post by racob on Jan 14, 2008 6:52:30 GMT -5
Welcome back Expertsetup!
Thank you in advance (i was also on a hiatus period on my DTV prjects - being out of the country) but is looking forward to be back on my projects this 2008.
I will be watching your subsequent posts as I know you did the first conversion of the PAL to NTSC DTV.
It will be of big use to me as a GUIDE.
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Post by splurge on Jan 16, 2008 18:33:07 GMT -5
Very cool! Since I bricked my Hummer during its kernal flash, I am a little apprehensive on overwriting my kernal again. I got my PAL unit in today, so I'm anxious to get started again.
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 17, 2008 12:34:04 GMT -5
After work tonight I will get the ball rolling on this. I have been distracted by refurbishing a small stereo tube amp. For the last month or so I have been absorbed by all things tube.
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Post by gmoon on Jan 17, 2008 17:18:15 GMT -5
After work tonight I will get the ball rolling on this. I have been distracted by refurbishing a small stereo tube amp. For the last month or so I have been absorbed by all things tube. Oh, man. That's just weird... That's what's kept me from hack the DTV for several months. I just posted a tube amp rebuild/mod project on instructables a month ago (and I'm currently working on a Princeton clone...) |
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 17, 2008 21:03:53 GMT -5
After work tonight I will get the ball rolling on this. I have been distracted by refurbishing a small stereo tube amp. For the last month or so I have been absorbed by all things tube. Oh, man. That's just weird... That's what's kept me from hack the DTV for several months. I just posted a tube amp rebuild/mod project on instructables a month ago (and I'm currently working on a Princeton clone...) A search on google came up with that post/writeup a few weeks ago when I was looking for info on tube radio capacitor replacements etc. I giggled a bit when I saw that you had used the trash-o-caster to play your restored amp. ;D In my case it's AA5 am radios and an Emerson stereo 'high-fidelity' three tube amp (1x12AX7, 2x50EH5), ha ha. The Prince clone sounds quite nice, looking forward to hearing how great it will sound when you complete it. I guess if it isn't retro, refurbished or rebuilt it doesn't rate.  Now back to C64-DTV before I get in trouble. |
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Post by racob on Jan 18, 2008 0:05:34 GMT -5
...and I thought I am the only one getting crazy with tube amplifiers. I was looking at my unfinished (2) compactron tube stereo amp project (after I saw a new German tube amp for Ipod selling for about $750 CDN retail).
...my add-on comments...Now back to watching for Expertsetup's write-up...coming soon?
....my add-on comments..now back to watching for Expertsetup's Write-up..coming soon?
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 18, 2008 1:37:30 GMT -5
....my add-on comments..now back to watching for Expertsetup's Write-up..coming soon? I pulled a new hummer out of hiding tonight and am moving forward. It will be a two way conversion so I will have a PAL hummer when I am done as well as a NTSC DTV2. |
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 20, 2008 20:28:15 GMT -5
I have disassembled both units and am now adding the basic connections required for this conversion. I will add both the IEC port and PS2 keyboard lines to a header. I have a module with the IEC and PS2 connectors so I only need to add headers to each board and then connect the module when I need the IO lines. Here is the module I built from some spare parts.  |
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 21, 2008 14:44:30 GMT -5
After adding the header to both units I was able to boot to basic. I flashed the hummer in advance with the DTV kernal available in the flash 1.0 package. I then used my solder sucker and iron to remove the crystals and exchange them on both units. After the swap both units were fully functional. I then went to flash the PAL DTV2 with the hummer kernal and had no problems with the flash. However after exiting the flash program the system crashed. Despite my success with the first conversion and David's success with a conversion as well I am afraid that I have been unable to duplicate my results. The Hummer works fine as a PAL unit and is giving me no problems. The DTV2 however will not boot or post. Of course these are far from the anticipated results and for all practical purposes my precious PAL DTV2 has been converted into a nice paper-weight. At this time I am a bit unclear as to why the conversion failed and so will be working out via a few experiments just where the fault occurred. It's not impossible for me to recover this unit and I have plans to give it a shot. To make an effective repair of this unit I will need to remove the SMD flash and replace it with a preprogrammed chip. Typically a heat gun would be used for this type of SMD device removal so I will have to pursue that solution. The biggest problem I have with replacing the flash chip is finding a new chip that has been programmed. I don't have equipment to program a flash chip with 16 megabit capacity (unless I use the flash from the hummer). Since I do not know the source of the fault with this conversion at this time, I can not recommend the conversion until I have more information. Sorry for the rather disappointing results, I had expected a bit more.  |
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Post by tlr on Jan 21, 2008 16:20:51 GMT -5
After adding the header to both units I was able to boot to basic. I flashed the hummer in advance with the DTV kernal available in the flash 1.0 package. I then used my solder sucker and iron to remove the crystals and exchange them on both units. After the swap both units were fully functional. I then went to flash the PAL DTV2 with the hummer kernal and had no problems with the flash. However after exiting the flash program the system crashed. Ouch!  Which steps did you do to program? Did you use the "program range" function or something else? EDIT: also try to hold (and not hold) <ctrl> during reset. At this time I am a bit unclear as to why the conversion failed and so will be working out via a few experiments just where the fault occurred. It's not impossible for me to recover this unit and I have plans to give it a shot. To make an effective repair of this unit I will need to remove the SMD flash and replace it with a preprogrammed chip. Ziili has succesfully performed this operation after a user error on his part... PM him and he can tell you what he did. An additional note: You should ideally use a DTV patched kernal but with hard coded NTSC timings instead of using a Hummer patched kernal. The difference is not critical, but some DTV features like holding the left button to call code in ram at $018000 will be remapped in a hummer kernal. |
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 21, 2008 20:06:47 GMT -5
After adding the header to both units I was able to boot to basic. I flashed the hummer in advance with the DTV kernal available in the flash 1.0 package. I then used my solder sucker and iron to remove the crystals and exchange them on both units. After the swap both units were fully functional. I then went to flash the PAL DTV2 with the hummer kernal and had no problems with the flash. However after exiting the flash program the system crashed. Ouch! Which steps did you do to program? Did you use the "program range" function or something else? EDIT: also try to hold (and not hold) <ctrl> during reset. I must admit I took a rather cavalier attitude this time around. Here is how I bricked it. Boot system to basic, load flash application. In flash app: Load file to buffer: filename:hummerpatched start offs:00E000 raw data:n loading from $00E000 to $010000 OK. W toggle low mem w/p program range: start $00E000 end $010000 (off by one error by me?) and then after the process completed, no errors reported it locked-up on exit. The system displayed an off color border with a lighter background. No text, similar to when a large file load from basic spills into the $D000 range. I got the two colors border and background with CTRL and the black screen on straight boots. Now however the screen is black if I hold CTRL down or not. I hope there is still some life in this poor object. At this time I am a bit unclear as to why the conversion failed and so will be working out via a few experiments just where the fault occurred. It's not impossible for me to recover this unit and I have plans to give it a shot. To make an effective repair of this unit I will need to remove the SMD flash and replace it with a preprogrammed chip. Ziili has succesfully performed this operation after a user error on his part... PM him and he can tell you what he did. An additional note: You should ideally use a DTV patched kernal but with hard coded NTSC timings instead of using a Hummer patched kernal. The difference is not critical, but some DTV features like holding the left button to call code in ram at $018000 will be remapped in a hummer kernal. THanks for the lead, I hope the system is still functional, in my panic after the crash I may have connected the 5v ps in revers polarity. Would that cause instant death to the DTV core? Is there a simple way for me to look for a signal somewhere that would indicate life? I really came unglued when it failed. I still have the original NTSC DTV2 and a few hummers working perfectly so I guess all is well. I started fooling about with my 1541-III-DTV units last night to help lift my spirits.  |
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Post by tlr on Jan 22, 2008 4:06:41 GMT -5
Boot system to basic, load flash application. In flash app: Load file to buffer: filename:hummerpatched start offs:00E000 raw data:n loading from $00E000 to $010000 OK. This loads the file at offset $00E000 in the buffer, which is the problem here! program range: start $00E000 end $010000 (off by one error by me?) This is correct, but a programming operation will always flash from the start of the buffer. Because the kernal has been loaded with an offset of $00E000 bytes up, you flash old data still present at the start of the buffer. After this operation you unit basically has no kernal... Ziili and I discussed a few ideas how to fix this, all of which unfortunately involves soldering flash chips. You could theoretically avoid desoldering the old chip if you are skilled enough to piggy-back a new one on top, but with separate CS-wires. This way you can switch which flash to enable, run-time. |
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Post by spiff on Jan 22, 2008 5:59:01 GMT -5
Boot system to basic, load flash application. In flash app: Load file to buffer: filename:hummerpatched start offs:00E000 raw data:n loading from $00E000 to $010000 OK. This loads the file at offset $00E000 in the buffer, which is the problem here! program range: start $00E000 end $010000 (off by one error by me?) This is correct, but a programming operation will always flash from the start of the buffer. Because the kernal has been loaded with an offset of $00E000 bytes up, you flash old data still present at the start of the buffer. After this operation you unit basically has no kernal... Ouch. This is a nasty error, although the flash application apparently does what it has been told to do. Perhaps a sanity check remembering what area was last loaded in the flash application, and a prompt if you really want to do this, in case you are trying to flash a section which has not been loaded, could help in this case. But of course it should not be impossible to do it, since this is basically what is done when flashing the file system transferred directly into the buffer with dtvtrans. Sorry about your loss, expertsetup.  Ziili and I discussed a few ideas how to fix this, all of which unfortunately involves soldering flash chips. You could theoretically avoid desoldering the old chip if you are skilled enough to piggy-back a new one on top, but with separate CS-wires. This way you can switch which flash to enable, run-time. That is pretty clever. I think if I had a bricked DTV I would try to make a "debricking adapter" with a new flash in it, as you describe. |
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Post by expertsetup on Jan 22, 2008 17:07:14 GMT -5
Hi TLR, I can't figure out why I used offset on the PAL unit and not the hummer, I guess I just had a moment of insanity. In retrospect I should have known better than to do this. Good to know I am still full of human error. haha THanks for the info about Ziili's experience, I should be able to solder at this fine of a level but it does induce stress.  I guess it would be less solder connections and potential for error to just piggy back a second chip with the CS sent to a toggle as you describe. I still have the problem of flashing it with known good kernal and a source for the flash chip. Sounds like it's time to ask Ziili a few questions. Keeping my hope up and taking things a bit slower now |
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I guess it would be less solder connections and potential for error to just piggy back a second chip with the CS sent to a toggle as you describe.