I have put in a order for the next batch of these Falcon Buffer Boards. The first batch of 10 I did sold faster than I thought! So its left them out of stock for a while now. Several people have emailed me over the past weeks wanting to know when they will be back in stock, and they will be soon! check my store every week , they will appear sometime over the next few weeks!
My buffer board replaces any other/older boards/hacks which may be in the Falcon already. There are so many "versions" of this mod its unreal. Though I designed this board to clean the clock lines up and buffer them while reducing ringing in the signals.
The problem with the Falcon is the source of the 16MHz clock came from a single source which wasn't really strong enough to drive everything which was connected to it. Atari split this clock line 3 ways and added some small resistors (which is a good idea). Though unfortunately, this resulted in "back ringing" on the signals where noise on one line would couple to noise from another. With such low resistor values and various lengths of tracks running all over the place, it basically turned into a mess. All buffer boards aim to buffer these 3 signals but in multiple ways, where some could actually make things worse!
Some (or most) buffer the signals with a small buffer IC. This is great, but the signals still had bad ringing and only "better" buffer mods aimed to reduce this, mostly C-lab and Steinberg etc. I had not heard of any Falcons having this mod, so not sure what the outcome was.
In anycase, I started with a buffer IC and added in resistors to reducing the ringing on the inputs and outputs of the clock lines. Each resistor was chosen for the best "compromise" between voltage levels and noise levels (both are conflicting requirements unfortunately) on each signal patch. This way all 3 clock lines are driven separately and have the buffer resistors to reduce the ringing which could cause "double clock pulses" and cause glitches in some parts of the Falcons DMA circuit.
These boards offer a low cost compact solution to solving the noise on the clock lines and have solved a lot of various issues people have been having.
MORE INFO
http://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/falcpatch/index.htm#EXXOSMOD
WEB STORE LINK
https://www.exxoshost.co.uk/atari/last/storenew/#0073
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