On 7/8/21 10:06 AM, Justin Poirier wrote:
It appears that Club100 on bitchin100 only have a handful of ROM images. Where
do I go to find SuperROM, Disk+ and those others? They have generic enough
names that Google has been of very little help.
I have been working on an inexpensive carrier solution (for myself, mostly)
that will hold (8) ROM images that are selected with a group of DIP switches on
the carrier itself. Nothing fancy, but if I like the results, I could probably
crank them out, burned and ready, in the $20-$25 range. Not committing to
anything at all, since I’m still in prototyping, but with (8) ROM slots, I’m
not sure what to put in them. So far, I made one that has TS-DOS, Ultimate,
Cleusseau and TS-Random. And since I have twice as much space as all that, it
includes those titles in both the M100/102 versions as well as the M200
version. That seems wasteful. Maybe I’m wrong!
How are you connecting up to burn them? Through the edge connectors with
a reverse pinout adapter? DIP-28 test clip on the outside edges with the
wires arranged into a reverse pinout adapter? Or are you just burning
before soldering and no re-writing after that?
I made this single-rom carrier that, since it's an SOIC package, and I
have a resistor rather than a trace for /WE, is easy to just connect
normally with a soic test clip to program.
http://tandy.wiki/Teeprom
But that 28C256 is now OVER $10 just for a single 32k, and I'd like to
try to ditch the requirement for the test clip if possible, and
definitely don't want to require an actual Molex socket. (I have molex
sockets, but I'm trying to make a design anyone can use, not just
something for myself) So I tried this
https://github.com/bkw777/Teeprom/blob/master/Teeprom2.md
4 or 8 roms (that's just a 4-rom version but 8 would be a
straightforward progression from there) and no special parts needed, and
it's even both cheaper and more convenient than the soic-28 test clip,
and the flash part is both more readily available (multiple
manufacturers still) and just over $1 instead of over $10.
Which *almost* works as envisioned. The programming adapter is built out
of all normal off the shelf parts, and the connection between the
programming adapter and the carrier is made by dint of having the holes
on the carrier be offset staggered so they work against each other. I
think I just need a different stagger pattern, and slightly more offset
to the stagger. I was able to get it to work by tediously testing each
pin for connection to identify a handful that didn't connect, and
bending the pins manually until they all worked.
Not practical.
But that was only the first proof of concept, no iteration yet, so maybe
with a little dialing-in the idea would work out.
But then again maybe that many little pins in that kind of arrangement
is just never going to be reliable.
So I was thinking of next either using pogo pins, because those are
actually cheap now, or using long wire-wrapping pins to make something
that can act like a DIP test clip that can just contact all the edge
contact pins on the outside like a normal socket does. That would make
the carrier a LOT simpler!
I really thought those pins were slick ;) If they would just all
actually make contact, it does pretty much work as expected, meaning it
wasn't too hard to build and that carrier pops right onto the programmer
simply and even with polarity enforcement.
I've gathered links to all the roms I've seen here:
http://tandy.wiki/ModelT_roms
Most you can get all in one spot from Steve's REX docs on bitchin100
(link in there), but there are a few other oddballs.
Documentation has not been gathered into one convenient spot that I know
of, other than club100 which is a good start but incomplete, and not
going to get any better, it's a static site now just being presereved.
You get info from searching through the M100SIG
https://archive.org/details/M100SIG
, club100, scanned magazines on archive.org, and general google for info
on other vintage computer sites. I don't have a link farm handy to list
those.
--
bkw
—Justin
On Jul 8, 2021, at 9:48 AM, Greg Swallow <[email protected]> wrote:
Justin,
Having just gotten a Portable Computer Support Group (PCSG) Rom Bank with Disk+
and adding SuperROM, I would be intersted in burning some ROMs. Would like to
know your process. Or, maybe ask if you'd be willing to burn a couple.
Anyway, I'm an ol' PCSG Lucid fan and use Lucid under DOS and Windows 3.1x. My
choice then is SuperROM to get Lucid and Write ROM in one swing. The database
is quite useful as well. Add to that Disk+ for easier external storage
management. Other's will go the Traveling Software route and want Ultimate ROM
and TS-DOS. Both are great and even with Disk+ I want TS-DOS in ROM to work
with my TPDD2.
Other ROMs are useful, but you'd have to read about them to decide if they
would be useful to you.
God Bless,
GregS <><
Jul 8, 2021 6:14:59 AM Justin Poirier <[email protected]>:
I’ve been using my M102 (and later as $$$ allowed, M200s) since the early ‘90s,
but have just gotten into burning my own ROMs for the ROM slot, now that I’m in
a position to fabricate the carrier boards. I’ve found a half-dozen ROM images
(separate images for both the 100/102 and the 200), but no real descriptions of
what I should be looking into. TS-DOS is a must-have since I have a disk drive,
and that works great, but Sardine, Random, etc all look like they need
additional “support” ROMs, or extra hardware, or are application-specific in a
direction unknown to me. Are there other ROM images that most people find
useful, or are part of the “must-have” collection? Where do I find them, if
they exist?
I realize I’ve just asked a question like “what is the best brand of motor oil”
on a car-enthusiasts forum, but if anyone could throw me a bone and get me
pointed in a good direction, I’m pretty good at finding the rest of the details
myself.
Thanks a lot!
—Justin
--
bkw
