electronizer Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Thanks to bob1200xl, I finally have dumps of the OS and handler ROMs from the 1400XL I found at a garage sale. I'm attaching a copy of the atr, which has the OS (OSLOW.OBJ and OSHI.OBJ) and the handlers (DRVR.OBJ). I haven't had a chance to compare these ROMs with existing dumps from other machines (e.g. here), but maybe someone else wants to take a first look. Here's what the ROMs look like in my machine: 1400XL_OS_and_Handlers.atr 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Garage sale? Oh please do tell us a story... (why do I think I've asked for that before? hmm.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Has anyone assembled this into a monolithic .rom file? I'd love to boot this with an emulator just for kicks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Alright sure. The disk has 3 files... DRVR.OBJ - DOS Binary save, headers indicating $4000-4FFF OSLOW.OBJ - DOS Binary save, headers indicating $4000-$5FFF OSHI.OBJ - DOS Binary save, headers indicating $4000-$5FFF I extracted the raw binary segments using Omnivore: oslow-raw.dat - 8192 bytesoshi-raw.dat - 8192 bytesdrvr-raw.dat - 4096 bytes And appended OSLOW+OSHIGH together to make: 1400XLOS.BIN - 16384 bytes. Should be able to burn this to a 27C128 and stick it in an 800XL or try in an emulator as you mention, but it might have a dependency on that handler ROM somehow... Files ZIPped and attached! 1400XLOS.zip 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+x=usr(1536) Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 Garage sale? Oh please do tell us a story... (why do I think I've asked for that before? hmm.) Yes, please! That's quite a find. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 I think I'll flash it to my Syscheck board and try it out on my new 1200XL PBI. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted September 13, 2018 Share Posted September 13, 2018 1400XLOS.BIN MD5 = 06DAAC977823773A3EEA3422FD26A703 Checking against the list of known Atari OS on Jac!'s Atari ROM Checker page, identifies this as: 16 KB 0x1f9cd270 06daac977823773a3eea3422fd26a703 Atari OS SYSROM_BB01R2 REV. 2 1983-05-10 PAL/NTSC Production ROM, OS from Atari 800XL and early Atari 65XE/130XE C061598B 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
electronizer Posted September 13, 2018 Author Share Posted September 13, 2018 Thanks Nezgar for the help in converting to standard ROM files and the info from Jac!s page. Interesting that the ROM checker says its a production ROM, I would have assumed the OS is different from the 800XL because when you cold boot the 1400XL into the self test, it talks to you! Does this mean I could swap in the OS from one of my 800XLs and it would have the same result? I posted some of the story last year when I was asking about the pinout for the power connector, happy to tell it again I saw an ad in Craigslist for a garage sale that just mentioned Atari stuff. When I showed up, there were some Atari 8-bits and STs on a bench on the side of the garage. The seller told me he was moving and had been a huge Atari collector in the 80s and 90s, but hadnt really used any of it in years. He was going to have several sales to get rid of everything but hadnt yet dug out the bulk of his collection. I made him an offer on a Percom drive and after we talked some more, he said, you know, I have an Atari prototype computer that was never released. Are you interested? Well, of course I was! He invited me to return to his next sale and said hed have to find it before then. I watched Craigslist like a hawk and went back to his next sale. Sure enough, he brought out a roughly 1200XL sized package wrapped in a large anti-static bag. When we unwrapped it I was staring at a 1400XL with a smooth plastic prototype case and missing name badge. The seller told me he got it from a former Atari employee who advertised it in the newspaper classifieds sometime in the late 80s or early 90s. He also told me the original owner said it needed some work. I dont know if he ever tried to turn it on. After I made a cable to supply the correct power inputs from a PC power supply, the only thing I had to do to get it working was reseat the chips and replace the 1200XL keyboard Mylar. The seller ended up having several sales after that and eventually sold off rooms full of Atari stuff. I ended up getting some early serial number 1200XL and 600XL plastics, a bag of random ICs including several CTIA chips, an Atari Service banner, and the mysterious Video Chess cartridge I posted about earlier, among other things. I still havent gone through everything, including the piles of magazines and newsletters he gave me. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 Interesting that the ROM checker says its a production ROM, I would have assumed the OS is different from the 800XL because when you cold boot the 1400XL into the self test, it talks to you! Does this mean I could swap in the OS from one of my 800XLs and it would have the same result? Interesting... well, the CRC matches what seems to be a common 800XL OS, so my only guess about the "Talking" would be the extra handler ROM. the 600/800XL OS added PBI support, and the T: and V: handlers in the 1400XL are technically PBI devices, so maybe they get initialized by the selftest somehow! Would be interesting to confirm if your self test indeed continues to work with a different 800XL OS. Maybe some of the other PBI gurus on the forums can see how the handler ROM might map in to be used, and who knows maybe eventually it could be emulated in Altirra or something 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Level42 Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 (edited) Awesome find.....Id feel like that finding a regular 1200XL over here in Europe... What voice synth chip was used in the 1400 XL ? EDIT.....found it ...Votrax SC01, same as Alien voicebox. This was also used in the Qbert arcade machine....man imagine a Q*bert port with arcade accurate voice sounds ..... Theyre very hard to find and very expensive now....and probably impossible to recreate.... Edited September 16, 2018 by Level42 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kr0tki Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 Interesting... well, the CRC matches what seems to be a common 800XL OS, so my only guess about the "Talking" would be the extra handler ROM. the 600/800XL OS added PBI support, and the T: and V: handlers in the 1400XL are technically PBI devices, so maybe they get initialized by the selftest somehow!The V: handler intercepts DOSVEC when initialized, so when the boot process ends, it jumps through DOSVEC, causing the speech to run. Then the V: handler jumps through the original DOSVEC location, ie. to Self Test. Everything is done by the handlers downloaded via PBI. The OS itself, including all known prototype 1400/1450 versions, contains no special code for handling the V: and T: devices, only the common PBI routines. Would be interesting to confirm if your self test indeed continues to work with a different 800XL OS.The Self Test is part of the OS ROM. It's already confirmed that the ROM from this 1400XL is a standard 800XL OS. Maybe some of the other PBI gurus on the forums can see how the handler ROM might map in to be used, and who knows maybe eventually it could be emulated in Altirra or something I don't know about Altirra, but the V: device is emulated in Atari800, provided that the handler ROM is present. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
_The Doctor__ Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 replicate handler rom for all ataris, possibly add handler for alien group sio in place of pbi votrax, using handler rom in all Atari make interesting possibilities.. handlers drivers, patches etc.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 So I randomly search eBay for 'votrax' and come across a dozen SC-02's for $80 each, and noticed seller is Kevin Savetz (of the ANTIC podcast ) (The votrax is the intro voice to most of the podcasts) I wonder what the story behind those is... According to http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/1400xl/1400.html- 1400XL used a Votrax SC-01, and 1450XLD used SC-02, so even though they are incompatible, I wonder if there is an intact 1450XLD PBI handler rom that could be swapped into a 1400xl with an SC-02 etc... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtariGeezer Posted September 16, 2018 Share Posted September 16, 2018 (edited) According to http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/1400xl/1400.html- 1400XL used a Votrax SC-01, and 1450XLD used SC-02, so even though they are incompatible, I wonder if there is an intact 1450XLD PBI handler rom that could be swapped into a 1400xl with an SC-02 etc... My 1450 XL also uses the SC-01A... Edit: there are 2 flavors of the 1450XLD's. Edited September 16, 2018 by AtariGeezer Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+kheller2 Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 My 1450 XL also uses the SC-01A... Edit: there are 2 flavors of the 1450XLD's. Righto. There are three boards actually: 1. 1400 used in the prototype development of the 1400XL - This is almost identical to the 1450 board, minus floppy header power etc.. 2. 1450 used in the development of the 1400XL and 1450XLD. This is the board you most often see, and the one that people hand built here a few years back. 3. TONG used in the 1450XLD that was being designed when the previous 1400XL was scrapped. TONG had its own on board floppy controller. The 1450 boards however, I think had at two floppy designs. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gunstar Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 Hmm...maybe I still need to ad the SC-01 to my 1200XL "poor man's 1400XL" before I call it complete... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+DrVenkman Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 Hmm...maybe I still need to ad the SC-01 to my 1200XL "poor man's 1400XL" before I call it complete... How ‘bout the modem? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Nezgar Posted September 17, 2018 Share Posted September 17, 2018 How ‘bout the modem? Because a PBI 300bps modem will of course be faster! but it probably would let you access SIO disks simultaneously without having to close the modem IOCB... And it looks like it has a small buffer of 50 bytes combined. Maybe can be explored for a simple PBI2PC (as opposed to SIO2PC) or PBI232 The 1400XL "Direct-Connect Integral Modem" - CO62062 - so not sure what that chip is really is under the hood.... Funny, I see the handler has a command to auto answer, set a voice mode ,and send POKEY/Speech audio OUT the phone line! (and/or the TV speaker) So you could code your own voice response answering system? It also specifies where each 1K handler in the 2K ROM maps in the ROM (T: at 0800-0FFF, and V: from $1000-17FF), and when selected map to the I/O area D800-DFFF Gleaned from: http://www.atarimuseum.com/computers/8BITS/XL/1400xl/1400.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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