Building a 68000 Single Board Computer - DTACK and BERR Control Circuitry (schematic page 7)

See https://github.com/jefftranter/68000/blob/master/TS2/v2/ts2.pdf

Each memory access cycle begins with the assertion of AS* by the 68000 and ends with the assertion of DTACK* (or VPA*) by the addressed device or with the assertion of BERR* by a watchdog timer. Schematic page 7 gives the diagram of the DTACK* and BERR* control circuitry on the CPU module.

Whenever a block of 16 KBytes of memory is selected on the CPU module, one of the four select signals, SEL0* to SEL3*, goes active-low. The output, MSEL, of the NAND gate U19A is then forced active-high. MSEL becomes the ENABLE/LOAD* control input of a 74LS161 4-bit counter, U22. When MSEL=0 (i.e. on-board memory is not accessed), the counter is held in its load state and the data inputs on P0 to P3 are preloaded into the counter, by default 1100. The desired preload value can be set using DIP switches. The Q3 output from the counter is gated, uninverted, through U10B and U7B to form the processor's DTACK* input.

When MSEL goes high the counter is enabled. The counter is clocked from the 68000's clock and counts upward from 1100. After four clock pulses, the counter rolls over from 1111 to 0000 and Q3 (and therefore DTACK*) goes low to provide the handshake required by the 68000 CPU. At the end of the cycle, AS* is negated and MSEL goes low to preload the counter with 1100 and negate DTACK*.

At the same time that U22 begins counting, a second timer, U21 (another 74LS161), also begins to count upward. The count clock is taken from the 68000's E output which runs at CLK/10. This counter is cleared to zero whenever AS* is negated. The rippled output from the counter goes high after the fifteenth count from zero and is inverted by the open-collector gate U4E to provide the CPU with a BERR* input. Therefore, unless AS* is negated within 15 E-clock cycles of the start of a bus cycle, BERR* is forced low to terminate the cycle. Note that the counter is disabled (Cep=0) in the singlestep mode (discussed later) to avoid a spurious bus error exception.

A useful feature of the DTACK* circuit is the addition of a single-step mode, allowing the execution of a single bus cycle (note bus cycle, not instruction) each time a button is pushed. This facility can be used to debug the system by freezing the state of the processor.

One of the inputs to the OR gate U10B is INHIBIT_DTACK. If this is active-high, the output of the OR gate is permanently true and the generation of DTACK* by the DTACK* delay circuit is inhibited. Therefore, a bus cycle remains frozen with AS* asserted, forcing the CPU to generate an infinite stream of wait states.

Two positive-edge triggered D flip-flops, U20A and U23A, control INHIBIT_DTACK. U20A acts as a debounced switch and produces an SS/RUN* signal fro its Q output, depending only on the state of the single-step/run switch. Unfortunately, it would be unwise to use the output of U20A to inhibit DTACK*, because changing from run to single-step mode in mid bus cycle might lead to unpredictable results. Instead, the output of U20A is synchronized with AS* from the processor by a second flip-flop, U23A. The INHIBIT_DTACK signal from U23A is forced high only when AS* is negated at the end of a bus cycle. The 68000 always enters its single-step mode at the start of a new cycle before AS* is asserted.

In the single-step mode, DTACK* pulses are generated manually by pressing the "step" switch. The output of this switch is debounced by flip-flop U20B. A second flip-flop, U23B, generates a single, active-low pulse, SS_DTACK*, each time the step button is pushed. SS_DTACK* is gated in U7B to produce the DTACK* input needed to terminate the current bus cycle.

There are two simple ways of testing the DTACK* control circuits. One is in the free-run mode and is done by connecting, say, SEL0* to AS*, so that a delayed DTACK* is produced for each bus cycle. The single-step circuit can also be tested in this mode. Another procedure is to construct a special test rig for the circuit, which simulates the behavior of the 68000 by providing AS*, CLK, and SEL0* signals.