> On 01/24/2023 11:09 AM CST Tony Duell via cctalk <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>
> A couple of questions if anyone has experience of this machine :
>
> 1) There is a 5 pin DIN socket for connecting an external video
> monitor. The signals seem to be TTL-level separate syncs at European
> TV rates (15625Hz horizontal, 50Hz vertical) and separate (not
> composite) 4-level analogue video.
>
> I believe Philips sold a 12" monitor to connect there. What was the
> model number? Is a service manual availabe?
>
> Has anybody linked other monitors to that socket?
>
In the US in the late 80s and 90s, there were a crap ton of similar monitors
(without case) sold on the surplus market. I had one. I believe they were
mostly Mitsubishi / Panasonic. Most of them were 9" with a lesser number of
12". They had an edge connector for the power, ground, H sync, V sync, and
video inputs. Of course, in the US, they were 15750 / 60 Hz sync. I can only
guess what their original purpose was, but they were easy to connect to a PC
RGB video card (four resistors got you 16 gray shades.) So that interface
wasn't too uncommon. Perhaps there is/was something similar available on the
other side of the pond?
Maybe the reason you can't find any trace of the Philips add-on is for the same
reasons you suggest -- marketing realized it was of little value prior to
releasing it.
> 2) There is a 50 pin card edge for a SASI interface. I think the
> Philips hard disk unit used the Xebec S1410 controller. I've
> downloaded the user manual for that from bitsavers which at least
> gives me the command set.
>
> Does anyone have experience of a SASI-flash memory interface? Any
> recomendations for things to look at? Or should I design my own, it
> doesn't appear too hard?
>
I have an Ampro Little Board Plus, which is a single-board Z80 computer the
size of a 5 1/4" disk drive. The "plus" means it has a SCSI interface. A
couple of years ago I was planning to build a flash disk for it and dug through
a lot of specs and bios code. Original SCSI was almost identical to SASI and
they were often interchangeable. The protocol is rather simple, as you stated.
What I found in the Ampro bios code was that for reading and writing only
about 4 commands were used. Another small number were used for formatting. I
think, iirc, there were two types of read and two types of write. I never got
around to building the thing, but it should be pretty simple. I would also be
rather surprised if no one else has done it. But if you have the P-2000 bios
code, you could take a look. I suspect it would be very similar to the Ampro
code.
Will
