Atari Quantum Reproduction - my little contribution

Tronic

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Atari Quantum Reproduction - my little contribution

I know a few people have known about me doing this, and some people won't care at all, but I thought some may be interested in my progress. This means alot to me because it took me so long to complete.

I have always wanted a Quantum, like some others on here and during my past 10 years of collecting I have seen a few up for sale, but never went after them because of price and priorities. I did think about using some old skills I have though to make one of the harder items to find... The Quantum Main PCB.

I used to design and layout PCB's about 8 years ago for my job, but kept a copy of the software and still dabbled with it making an OBDII interface for my car, and drew up a few small boards for video games that I never sent off but did for fun anyway.

Then last year I thought I would look at the Quantum board and see if there was enough info to actually completely reproduce the board. I found numerous pictures on the PCB from different places, had the schematics and parts list. It appeared like there was and I talked it over with my wife to see what she thought of me taking this project on. I knew it was going to take alot of time, and sometimes alot of my mental capacity to complete. She said go for it, she would allow me time and also push me to get it done. The problem was I didn't have an original board to use.

So...


After a year of burying myself in this project...


It's done, I have a working reproduced brand new Quantum PCB
 

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I tried to get screenshots of the game working but they turned out too dark in pics and you can't see through the glass to see it's working.


Here is the board running on my Tempest using an adapter. While you can start and play the game, since it's a spinner, it only moves back and forth and not in circles like it will once I get a Quantum harness made up and hook it up to a trackball.
 

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One thing I want to add is a big thanks to Mark Spaeth and Ted (Seawolf).

Mark sent me the Quantum to Tempest adapter and a couple of AVG replacement boards to use with this. Also having him to bounce idea off of while I was first getting this thing going was priceless.

Ted was helpfull in getting me an original but non-working Quantum pcb that I was able to use late in the process to go over the one I made up. The two boards are basically exact in every way except I included the factory mods into the layout I did.
 
So what is the long term plans with this project?

Are you going to offer them up for others to purchase? Is that even an option?

very cool by the way

nice work buddy
 
I've thought about it if there is enough interest I could offer the PCB blanks to those that want to build them up.

I don't have any interest in selling fully assembled boards, to much time soldering and then providing a warranty, etc. But someone else could take that on and make a profit if they want to.


On a different note, I am looking into doing the Atari Major Havoc PCB next. This one should be a bit easier since I have a working original loaned to me to start with.
 
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Aside from the AVG, are all the parts available?

If so, it sounds like aside from the torture of all the soldering, populating the board would be do-able by most with moderate skills.

Any idea what you'd sell bare PCBs for?
 
Intersted in the blank board if you're able to provide instructions.

I've thought about it if there is enough interest I could offer the PCB blanks to those that want to build them up.

I don't have any interest in selling fully assembled boards, to much time soldering and then providing a warranty, etc. But someone else could take that on and make a profit if they want to.


On a different note, I am looking into doing the Atari Major Havoc PCB next. This one should be a bit easier since I have a working original loaned to me to start with.
 
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Aside from the AVG, are all the parts available?

If so, it sounds like aside from the torture of all the soldering, populating the board would be do-able by most with moderate skills.

Any idea what you'd sell bare PCBs for?

I talked to Mark and he is willing to sell the AVG replacements he designed, not sure what his price would be.

I ordered a AVG replacement from Arcade shop to test and see if it works with Quantum, I know it says it won't work with some boards so we will see...


Not sure until I get a real interest list, but I think if I can get at least a preorder for 25 of them, I could bring the price down to $185 per blank PCB.
 
I talked to Mark and he is willing to sell the AVG replacements he designed, not sure what his price would be.

I ordered a AVG replacement from Arcade shop to test and see if it works with Quantum, I know it says it won't work with some boards so we will see...


Not sure until I get a real interest list, but I think if I can get at least a preorder for 25 of them, I could bring the price down to $185 per blank PCB.

I understand if you don't want to say, but can you give a rough estimate of the sum of parts, if bought from Mouser or something. Just curious what the total DIY build cost would be for this?

Also, did you socket every chip?
 
Intersted in the blank board if you able to provide instructions?

Yes, well sort of. I would provide an 11"x17" assembly diagram that shows where all the parts go.

Also I can provide a Bill of Materials generated from my CAD program which shows all the part numbers and quantities need. I even added in the mouser part numbers and prices so you can get an idea of a middle of the road price to populate the board.

I can create a mouser project with all the parts that mouser has if needed. At least it would get you started.
 
Really... a working board from scratch... is that all you got ? !!!

Seriously, that is an amazing feat. It looks like it was made from an original Atari board ( i mean that in a good way).

Anyone that buy$ a blank and need$ $omeone to populate it, come $ee me.
 
I understand if you don't want to say, but can you give a rough estimate of the sum of parts, if bought from Mouser or something. Just curious what the total DIY build cost would be for this?

Also, did you socket every chip?

I socketed every chip, but not everyone has too. I did it mostly for testing purposes.


Middle of the road, or even a maybe a little on the high side the price in parts comes to $350. You can probably shave a $100 off in parts if you look around.

Here is the BOM in excel format with the price totalled at the bottom.

I may need to make some small revisions to this BOM but for the most part you can order right from it.
 

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That's just f'n cool.... nice work tronic!

I kept seeing people say that the Quantum PCB was the hardest part to attain, so I thought I would fix that problem. Plus this will help keep the original games alive longer since new boards can be made.
 
Pretty impressive. I'm sure there will be naysayers and how you should have updated the design, but this is direct recreation of original, not-easily-available hardware. Very nice.
 
Pretty impressive. I'm sure there will be naysayers and how you should have updated the design, but this is direct recreation of original, not-easily-available hardware. Very nice.

Actually I am glad you pointed this out, I already thought of that and as time permits I may move this to a more "advanced design" with modern parts that are more readily available.

The problem with doing that from the start is nobody had a working netlist until now. The schematics were wrong in places You sort of need a working starting point or you will be in for a mess.

But it won't happen anytime soon. Plus alot of people like the reproductions to be as close to original as possible from what I have seen. This allows people to troubleshoot using existing knowledge.
 
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