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acadiel

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Posts posted by acadiel

  4. Posted

    On 12/8/2020 at 9:44 AM, cbmeeks said:

    2019 was the worst year in my life.  I lost 5 family members including my mother around Thanksgiving.

     

    So while I am still grieving, 2020 turned out to be one of the best years in my life considering the circumstances.  I've been working from home since March 2020 and my stress has dropped...I've finished more projects at home and expanded my TI a little bit by buying a Nano PEB.

    Oh, man - sorry to hear that.  My condolences.  Losing a parent isn't easy, especially around the holidays.  I still have it rough after my mother's passing from cancer six years ago.  

     

    We're here for you - this is a pretty robust community that stands behind each other.  That's a super awesome thing about all these folks.  

    • Like 3

  6. Posted

    4 hours ago, fabrizio said:

    Thanks to the schematic I repaired mine, it had a faulty uln2003.  Simple enough since it drives the engine, now the problem is that it doesn't print well in the center, only by pressing lightly I can print.  Wonder if anyone had the same problem ...

    IMG-20201208-WA0007.jpeg

     

    Is the printhead spring providing enough tension (pulling back the printhead toward the platen)?  

  7. Posted

    The last thing in the "Morse Code" binder. 

    • Schematics for a "I/O Parameter Tester - Logic Board, Display Board" and a "Bug Box".
    • Something called a GROM MPX Tester by Mike Reeves - Feb 1980
    • Source for a Characterazation (sic) test for 0430 GROMS - tests, increases the voltage 100MV, and repeats  (probably stress testing GROMs)
    • Source for a series of production validation tests for the console, including I/O Parameters, GROM CRC, GROM Write, and Console RAM
    • Source for a compare program to compare two GROMs
    • BASIC SOURCE for some kind of testing program

     

    GROM_Tester.pdf

    • Like 2

  12. Posted

    Just to keep some of this info from disappearing in the ether.

     

    The CC-40 has two roms:  a 32K ROM (banked in 8K at a time from >D000->EFFF), and a processor ROM (2K, at the top end of the address space, >F800->FFFF).  The DEBUG program has a facility to bank switch, but it doesn't work (probably because the original designers didn't want people bank switching and dumping the ROM!  LOL)

     

    To dump the ROM, put a 32K RAM cartridge in the cartridge slot in the CC-40, and you can actually dump the cartridge using this assembly (input using DEBUG).  It copies each bank 8K at a time into the 32K RAM cartridge address space from >5000->CFFF.  You can then crawl the 32K RAM address space and spit out the ROM via RS232.  This is how I dumped the CC-40 ROM for use with the MAME emulation.  This will be useful for anyone who has a CC-40+ to dump it's rom, which is different from the -40.

     

    The 2K Processor ROM can be dumped directly from BASIC.  Note that the CC-40+ has a 4K Processor ROM (TMS70C40) because it includes cassette routines in the processor ROM (>F000->FFFF - note that >F000->F7FF is unused in the CC-40.)

      

    This works on a TI-74, with the appropriate addresses,
but I don't have a working CC40 32K cartridge to test it
with on a CC40. Let me know what happens... 

Jack

52 03 88 CF FF 5B 88 EF FF 59 A3 FC 19 94 19
9A 59 9B 5B DB 59 DB 5B 7D FF 59 E6 F3 7D CF
58 E6 EE C2 5D FF E6 E0 F4

Load address: >2000; Execution Address: >2000

Result:
ROM Pg. 3 copied to >B000 - >CFFF
ROM Pg. 2 copied to >9000 - >AFFF
ROM Pg. 1 copied to >7000 - >8FFF
ROM Pg. 0 copied to >5000 - >6FFF

     

    Converting cartridges to binary:

     

     

    • Like 4

  13. Posted

    Never seen before:  The DSR code built into a Hexbus peripheral (in this case, the Wafertape one), which was typically contained in the TMS70C20 processor (which had 2K MASK ROM onboard).  

     

    According to Steve Reid, you had development TMS70C20 processors with a piggybacked 27C16 2k x 8 EPROM onboard where these Hexbus DSRs could be developed before they were committed to the mask ROM.  (Which is an expensive process).  He said it was cheaper to just wire wrap a development board, plug in a normal processor, and run the TMS70C20 in what was called "full expansion mode".  The TMS7000 data manual refers to this being called "system emulation mode" - it bypasses the onboard ROM.  There's an external mode control pin, called MC.  If Logic 1 on reset, you run in microprocessor mode.  If it's at +14V, the chip runs in system emulation mode. 

     

    This attached code is the code written by Jef Winsor in August 1982, with the 70C20 clocked at 3.58MHz for the Wafertape drive.  I have a second set of code I'll be scanning separately from May 1982, where they used 2.5MHz instead.  

     

    There's some stories behind why the Wafertape drive didn't get released - I have literally three folders of documentation on all the QA and troubleshooting testing they did to get the root cause.  What was it?  It was with the actual TMS70C20A processor that runs the Wafertape drive.  The failure appears that the part is not able to be interrupted out of an idle state with an interrupt 2 from the timer.  The processor did not ever come out of the idle instruction when the code was executed.  It would be a simple correction to the CPUs, but they decided to just can the whole Wafertape drive because of the cost of fixing it.

     

    The result of this was that a Wafertape written on one drive wasn't always able to be read by another drive.  They worked fine on the same unit, though!

     

     

     

    1982-Wafertape_70C20_DSR_3.pdf

    • Like 5

  14. Posted

    7 minutes ago, dhe said:

    What board are you using to plug in to Tomy?

    Looks like the Pyuuta cartridge board that's plugged into the Pyuuta cartridge adapter.

     

    We can theoretically use the Pyuuta boards and cartridge expanders with the US Tutor, but from what I'm seeing, the 50 pin pinout is very different betweeen the two models.  We'd have to finishing doing a pinout of the systems (preferably with someone who had both kinds) and make an adapter to plug the Japanese boards into a Tutor.

     

     

  15. Posted

    Next up - Two versions of DSR Source for the TMS70C20 for the Waftertape drive.  These are the only known source code for Hexbus DSRs that exist.  According to Steve Reid, Hexbus DSRs normally live in the CPU ROM on the TMS70C20/040, and it's almost impossible to get to in order to dump.  Hope to have a chance to get to that next weekend!

     

     

     

     

    • Like 3

  16. Posted

    5 hours ago, acadiel said:

    Here are the overheads (which have all the ALCC survey results) and the actual ALCC survey that was used on the consumers in the summer of 1981.  Coming soon, a whole binder of the actual study - called "Understanding The Market Potentials For Advanced Language Calculator/Computer Products"

     

    1981-ALCC-Form_and_Overheads.pdf 26.67 MB · 6 downloads

    And here's the binder.  It's gigantic.  Numbers people like @Vorticon would love how much thought and math were put into making a decision about which ALC product to build, and numerically measuring each and every feature and how well they would sell.

     

    Names on the last page thanks to Steve Reid:

    - Doug Dobbs - Familiar, but not sure what he did

    - Tom Ferrio was a software manager and the person that hired Steve into TI

    - Randy Ahlfinger was a hardware EE, and later a manager after they moved to Dallas  Retired a few years ago as head manager at one of the larger wafer fab buildings at TI.

    - Jim Arnold - Hardware engineer

    - CB Wilson - hardware manager on the ALC and later Steve's boss in Dallas

     

     

    1981-Understanding_The_Market_Potential_for_TI_ALCC_Products_July_Binder.pdf

    • Like 4

  18. Posted

    12 hours ago, Ksarul said:

    GATB was always an interesting idea. Unfortunately, it never went too far (and the current compiler from @senior_falcon goes a lot farther than it ever did).

    I think I talked to Bill Gronos on Facebook and asked him if “he was that Bill Gronos” - and yep!  It was him.

    • Like 1
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