The DVI boot code could run on a Z80 emulator however it would be quite a lot of work and the DVI boot code is heavily intertwined with the CRTC and FDC chips as to make it a fruitless exercise. The boot code on the DVI actually formats the sectors for the disk and simply uses the FDC to perform the analog functions. Even for the CRT operations the code does a lot of VRAM manipulation to format the screen. You would need to emulate those two chips very closely to make it work at which point you might as well start from scratch since you would want to use an SD-Card and either VGA or HDMI. The mail box communications used by the model Ts on the DVI interface is quite primitive and very easy to implement, it is about 20 lines of C-code to get the interface talking, I think it is fewer lines of ML on the Model T :)
It is quite amazing what was achieved with so little memory by the designers of the Model T. From: M100 <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> on behalf of you got me <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Reply-To: <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 at 7:57 PM To: Model 100 Discussion <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [M100] What would it take to build a modern DVI? I'm barely into programming so I can't completely visualize how this would be done. I'm thinking you would still need the m100/m102/m200 cable. Then interface the cable to a USB i/o device like https://ameridroid.com/products/usb-io-board<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fameridroid.com%2Fproducts%2Fusb-io-board&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cb82f13254a4b4cf283e808d5f2a39843%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636681706799511914&sdata=s6pfiZ7JuskvfDNx1WPHaNPDdQ2hxkjmu3VEy2tXLgs%3D&reserved=0> The device connects to a modern computer that is running a Z80 emulator with CRT support like http://www.z80.info/z80emu.htm#EMU_CPU_PCDOS<https://nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.z80.info%2Fz80emu.htm%23EMU_CPU_PCDOS&data=02%7C01%7C%7Cb82f13254a4b4cf283e808d5f2a39843%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C636681706799511914&sdata=rpZGcyOx5ecGhHDr7B6Yd%2Fcthree4D7XII%2BGK9fhbmI%3D&reserved=0> Now, could the emulator work properly with the data from a copy of the DVI ROMs? I know one is bios and the other a character set? Does someone have a binary file of the boot disk?
