Atari Portfolio Technical Reference Guide
The Atari Portfolio Technical Reference Guide is the developer's hardware and software reference for the Atari Portfolio. The hosted scan is the first edition, dated September 1989, published by Atari Corporation of Sunnyvale and marked confidential; the copyright in the guide, the Portfolio software and the hardware drawings belongs to Distributed Information Processing Ltd. (DIP), which designed the machine. The scan has 84 pages.
The guide was written for third parties developing hardware and software for the Portfolio. It describes only what is specific to the Portfolio and refers the reader to IBM's and Microsoft's publications for standard PC hardware, BIOS and MS-DOS (p. 1-1).
Contents
[edit | edit source]Page numbers are the guide's own, with the PDF page in brackets.
| Section | Page |
|---|---|
| 1 Technical overview of Portfolio | 1-1 (4) |
| 2.1 System description: 80C88 at 4.9152 MHz, 128 KB static RAM, 256 KB ROM, LCD, tone dialler, ASIC, keyboard, card connector, expansion port, power supply | 2-1 (5) |
| 2.2 System memory | 2-4 (8) |
| 2.3 Memory cards: RAM, OTPROM and mask ROM cards, card pin-out | 2-6 (10) |
| 2.4 Custom ASIC chip: clock, timer, keyboard controller, interrupts, soft contrast | 2-8 (12) |
| 2.5 Power supply unit: power modes and the 5VS, VCC, VRAM, VEXT and BATD lines | 2-9 (13) |
| 2.6 Portfolio expansion port: 60-pin connector pin-out and comparison with the IBM bus | 2-11 (15) |
| 2.7 Peripheral design issues: terminating and through peripherals, peripheral ID bytes | 2-17 (21) |
| 2.8 LCD display | 2-21 (25) |
| 3.1 Software, general description (3.1.3 is a short troubleshooting note on running PC programs) | 3-1 (26) |
| 3.2 Differences between the Portfolio BIOS and the IBM PC BIOS | 3-4 (29) |
| 3.3 System-specific BIOS: Int 61h services, disk services | 3-6 (31) |
| 3.4 Differences between Portfolio DOS and MS-DOS | 3-23 (48) |
| 3.5 Device drivers and peripheral software, ROM extensions | 3-24 (49) |
| 3.6 Memory cards: format, autoboot, running programs from a card | 3-28 (53) |
| 3.7 Screen handling | 3-30 (55) |
| 3.8 Power management | 3-31 (56) |
| 3.9 Special file formats | 3-33 (58) |
| 3.10 IBM PC development system | 3-37 (62) |
| 4.1 Portfolio serial communications: 82C50A, connector pin-out, SIVR register | 4-1 (63) |
| 4.2 Smart Parallel Interface file transfer protocol | 4-3 (65) |
| 4.3 IBM PC Card Drive | 4-4 (66) |
| 4.4 EPROM writer adaptor boards (HPC-501, HPC-502) | (67) |
| Appendix A: example .RUN program | A-1 (68) |
| Appendix B: Portfolio character set | (75) |
| Appendix C: example peripheral design, an LED that flashes with the system tick, with its schematic (p. C-2) and ROM-extension source | C-1 (76) |
What it does not contain
[edit | edit source]There is no schematic of the Portfolio itself, no parts list and no component values; the only circuit diagrams are the block diagram, the peripheral examples and Appendix C. There are no disassembly, adjustment or repair procedures. The power-supply section gives the supply lines, their modes and the 40 mA peripheral limit on 5VS, but not the regulator circuit, the value of the RAM hold-up capacitor or an LCD bias voltage.
Pages that cite this document
[edit | edit source]- Atari Portfolio: processor, memory, display, keyboard, memory cards, supply lines and power modes
- Atari Portfolio General Maintenance: the step-up supply, the RAM hold-up capacitor, card cells, contrast, the keyboard and the power-down time-out
- Atari Portfolio Troubleshooting Guide: the supply-line table, low battery behaviour, the serial port's SIVR register, the parallel transfer protocol and the software compatibility note
- Atari Portfolio Capacitor Replacement Guide
- Battery Refurbishment