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PLAnkton PLA replacement

Zoom image	from 18,00 EUR incl. 19% sales tax excl. Shipping Shipping time: 1-2 weeks Stock: 9 units No customer review available. Write the first one!

Model:
	Standard  (Stock: 5 units!)
	EV (Exact Voltage)  (Stock: 4 units!)		+8,00 EUR

Stock: 9 units!

It all began with Sam... some of our customers were not able to run Sam's Journey on their computer (sometimes other cartridges worked, but not Sam).
On our journey to find out what was the issue, we found that many C64s have partially broken PLAs!
Partially broken means that they fail only in very specific situations, such as when a cartridge uses a specific address line or function of the PLA.
Original PLAs are hard to come by, so we went looking for good PLA replacements and decided for PLAnkton!

PLAnkton has proven to be extremely compatible and comes up with a few more nice features:

• Minimal power consumption! Draws only 20mA, which is 1/5th of the power an original PLA needs
• no discernable heat production
• 100% compatible with C64 mainboards 326298, 250407, 250425, SX-64, 250466 (NOT compatible with board 250469)
• Compatible to C64 Reloaded Board MK1
• Gold plated pins for best reliability and longevity
• Each individual unit is fully tested before shipping
• 3 years warranty

PLAnkton now exists in two versions. The new PLAnkton EV (Exact Voltage) mimicks the voltage of an original Commodore PLA and comes with gold plated contact pins. A genuine Commodore PLA signals at a voltage between 3.7 and 4.5 volts. Usually hovering around 4.3 volts. PLAnkton feeds the XC9536XL core CPLD at 3.7-3.8 volts and while this is within the requirements to be representative of a good PLA, it is beyond the recommended operating voltage defined by the manufacturer. At the same time, it is somewhat too low when compared to a genuine Commodore PLA.

Also, even when using the low power mode of the XC9536XL and slew rate limiters built into this type of IC, PLAnkton's slew rate signaling remains much higher than a genuine old PLA.

PLAnkton EV resolves these issues by adding a CMOS buffer which will be powered at 4.3V while the CPLD is now powered at 3.3V. The buffer uses legacy CMOS technology which has a low slew rate nearly identical to that of vintage technology PLAs and is powered at a voltage which also allows it to signal a higher voltage, now also nearly identical to that of vintage technology PLAs.


No soldering required if your PLA is socketed!
Example Video: https://youtu.be/occ8JTayl08

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This Product was added to our catalogue on 2021-11-05.

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