If you're lucky, it might just be a cap - Or two... ...
On 2/9/17, Christopher C <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for letting me know that it went to a good home. > > I have a similarly ‘damaged’ machine, with slightly different symptoms. > I will have to check on whether or not the disk is functioning, but it > starts up to the menu, the clock at the bottom is working, but it does not > respond to keystrokes, other than the power button. > The history of this one is that it was ‘exposed’ to a 12V center positive > adapter by mistake. > > I was kinda happy that the damage wasn’t worse, until I noticed that the > keys would not move the cursor. :-( > > cmc > > On Feb 9, 2017, at 11:10 AM, Brian White <[email protected]> wrote: > >> I appreciate that offer to fix it and return it, but I was asking if >> someone just plain wanted it, to keep. And sorry for this, someone claimed >> it a couple days ago. >> >> It's going to Jayeson Lee-Steere, the guy who designed the new ram module >> and made it public domain. >> >> -- >> bkw >> >> On Feb 9, 2017 12:36 AM, "Christopher C" <[email protected]> wrote: >> Brian, >> >> I would be able to take a whack at curing the problem 600, it as long as >> you’re not expecting it back right away. Let me know. >> >> cmc >> On Feb 5, 2017, at 4:37 PM, Brian White <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> Are you up to a little component level repair? I have 2 600's >>> >>> My first one was working except for the floppy drive, and some keyboard >>> keys were corroded. >>> >>> I took it apart to replace the batteries and clean up the keyboard keys. >>> >>> Afterwards, the machine boots up and the system manager loads, but there >>> is no response from any keyboard keys except the power button, and the >>> clock on the screen does not advance. >>> >>> I have a 2nd fully working 600, and I have verified that the keyboard, >>> it's cable, screen, it's cable, and the daughter card the screen connects >>> to, are all good. They all function fully when connected to my other >>> 600. >>> >>> Similarly, plugging the known good copies of all those from the good 600 >>> into the bad 600, I get the same locked up behavior. >>> >>> I haven't yet swapped the floppy drives to see if the floppy drive >>> problem was in the drive or on the motherboard. I will, but that's a >>> separate issue. Previously everything worked fine aside from the floppy >>> drive, and that includes both with and without a 96k ram board installed, >>> that includes after I had replaced both the memory battery and the main >>> battery. >>> >>> So, the problem is on the motherboard, and somehow allows the boot >>> process to go far enough to load the system manager. The main cpu clock >>> must be ok or else that couldn't happen. A lot of things must be ok or >>> else that couldn't happen. Yet once the manager loads and draws the >>> initial screen, that's it. No further action. The clock doesn't even >>> advance. The keyboard which might have been questionable since I had it >>> out and apart and drenched in DeoxitD5, has been proven good. Same for >>> the screen and daughter card, though I never messed with those so they >>> weren't suspect anyway. >>> >>> If you think you have a shot at diagnosing that (without any model 600 >>> service manual, since no one has one these days), you can have this >>> machine. Same goes for anyone else reading this if not you. >>> >>> I have to say, even having a fully working unit, WITH basic installed, >>> this thing is terrible. 9 1/2 lbs and almost useless, even compared to >>> other machines of the day. >>> >>> >>> Everything is incredibly slow for a machine with an 8088 in it. There is >>> almost no software for it, and there might have onlybever been a single >>> 3rd party machine language program for it, which we don't have a copy of, >>> just a review describing it. What little software there is is a mix of >>> interesting but very low level utils, like utility.lib, and utter >>> crapware games. I should make a video of actually using art.bas and >>> playing spider.bas . There isn't even a ram test app, which I would like >>> to test the new ram modules designed by Jayson Lee-Steere after I build >>> the first set. >>> >>> The development kit is lost to time. Although we have a manual that >>> describes it and it seems to be tantalizingly simple. So there are no 3rd >>> party machine language programs, nor the tools to make them any more. >>> >>> But *almost*. The way the manual describes the executable format, it's >>> basically compiled with a standard DOS 8086/8088 compiler, but your code >>> just does things that wouldn't actually work on a dos machine, and a >>> post-processing step strips off a dos exe header. So it's like it might >>> be a very small step from a ms-dos 8088 compile to a model 600 compile. >>> >>> We do have a small handful of executables to examine to reverse engineer. >>> There are all the files from the utility floppy. There is basic.!55. >>> There are all the "files" in the system roms and multiplan rom which can >>> be copied to stand-alone files from the system manager. So it might be >>> possible to make a new toolchain to produce new machine language >>> programs, in theory. >>> >>> We also have a full proper manual for BASIC now (I scanned it and >>> uploaded to archive.org last week). So, BASIC.!55 plus UTILITY.LIB (which >>> provides peek and poke and similar) and the basic manual, and the new ram >>> modules so no one needs to be stuck with 32k or 96k any more, means at >>> least the stuff is available now to make the most out of basic at least. >>> >>> One positive factor when it comes to trying to diagnose and fix the >>> hardware without any service manual, apparently it is all 100% generic >>> parts. No asics, fpgas, cplds, gals or pals. So no mystery chips or >>> unobtanium chips. Should be possible in theory to debug it 100%. I don't >>> claim it would be worth the time it might take, only that it falls on the >>> right side of possible vs not-possible. >>> >>> -- >>> bkw >>> >>> On Feb 5, 2017 4:13 PM, "Willard Goosey" <[email protected]> wrote: >>> Just when I'd convinced myself that I don't need more old computers, you >>> have to go and get me all interested in the T600! ;-) >>> >>> I was sort of interested anyway, because it's the only 8088 box I've ever >>> heard of that runs neither MSDOS or CP/M-86. OTOH it was such a failure! >>> >>> >>> I don't actually have anything useful to say, besides "good luck". Now >>> I'm going to go *stay off ebay*. :-) >>> >>> Willard >>> Sent from Samsung tablet >>> >>> >>> >>> -------- Original message -------- >>> From Brian White <[email protected]> >>> Date: 02/05/2017 12:42 PM (GMT-07:00) >>> To Model 100 Discussion <[email protected]> >>> Subject [M100] Model 600 basic rom >>> >>> >>> I started to try to tease apart whether the basic.!55 file is maybe a >>> copy of the option rom, even though it's too large to fit on a chip. >>> >>> I was thinking, maybe someone copied the option rom to disk via the >>> system manager, and the disk/ram copy just gets some kind of headers or >>> tails added to it which could be stripped off to get a rom image. >>> >>> To find out, I looked at the multiplan rom. I took a direct dump of the >>> multiplan rom in an eprom programmer, which makes a guaranteed exact and >>> working copy, because I then flashed that image back to a new eprom on a >>> molex carrier and it worked. >>> >>> Then used the system manager to copy plan.!50 from rom to disk. Then >>> removed the rom. Then copied from disk to ram. Then used xmodem to copy >>> to a modern machine. >>> >>> Then compared those two images. Also armed with a tiny bit of info about >>> rom structure from one of the developer manuals scanned in archive.org >>> >>> I seem to have found the opposite of what I was hoping. The the rom dump >>> of multiplan is larger than the ram copy of the very same physical rom >>> chip. >>> >>> The bulk of the two images are identical in the middle, but the rom image >>> has 64 bytes of header prepended and 64 bytes of tail appended. And both >>> versions have some dead space at the end, though the ram copy fills it >>> with spaces and the rom image fills it with nulls. >>> >>> So basic.!55 remains a mystery. It's a ram/disk executable, which is >>> larger than a rom image is possible to get. >>> >>> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bys6eLbSbYyhNHBIdk1rSlZORlk >>> >>> https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0Bys6eLbSbYyhSFhFZ29TSEZkTUk >> >> Regards, >> >> Chris >> [email protected] >> >> > > Regards, > > Chris > [email protected] > > >
