Josh,

Yes it will be blind tonight.  For the life of me
I can't find my serial stuff.  All I need is a F-F
gender changer.  I'll stop by Radio Shack and buy a 
cable or stuff to make my own.  

Just curious, your firmware looks for any COM port
that will answer and then 'talk to it' by default ?

When I set up my first Imsai to boot with North Star DOS;
I had to boot from DOS blind and go to a certain location
and read/set the bits to my COM port and I/O status bit's
so the terminal would work.

Todd
 


----- Original Message -----
From: "Crusty OMO" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2015 6:03:54 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central
Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:6372] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help.


Todd, 

It doesn't have to be blind, the firmware was designed to first talk to the 
UART on the 8080 board. 
I would even suggest trying to run the board stand alone with the front panel. 
Connect a terminal at 9600 baud to the serial port. 

Regards, 
Josh 



> Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2015 12:39:23 -0600 
> From: [email protected] 
> To: [email protected] 
> Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:6350] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help. 
> 
> Thanks Josh, 
> 
> Now I know what to expect. 
> 
> I did try a different CPU and reburned v2.3 Rom, still 
> had the same results. I even burned the v1.2 Rom and was 
> able to see the SD led come on for a bit. This of course 
> was in the blind as the Prop I/O displayed nothing. 
> 
> I'll look at the memory circuits tonight if I get a chance. 
> 
> Todd 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: Crusty OMO <[email protected]> 
> To: [email protected] 
> Sent: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 21:41:52 -0600 (CST) 
> Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:6346] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help. 
> 
> Hi Todd, 
> 
> If you press nothing, then after 5 dots, the SD LED should light while it's 
> initializing the SD Card to read fat files. 
> It will then load the default "BIOS.HEX" file and execute it at the first 
> loaded address of the file. This will load the Monitor/BIOS file that was put 
> into the earlier version 1.2 EPROM. On my screen picture, I then pressed a 
> lower case 'c' to "Boot CP/M". 
> 
> But you are not getting anywhere near this. The D command should INIT the SD 
> card then dump a list of files... as shown in pic 2, it lists all the files, 
> then you can enter any file name you want (I am entering 'bios.hex', since 
> it's the only hex file there). The R command (pic 3) should run a ram test on 
> the system RAM at F000-FFFF, then load BIOS.HEX (with View Load flagged). 
> View Load only sets a flag that will display the hex file as it's loading. 
> This will let you see the hex file as it's loading, incase there's any 
> issues. It's not very helpful with the Console IO board, but if you use the 
> serial port on the 8080 board, you will be able to capture the hex file and 
> compare it with the original. 
> 
> I suspect you have RAM issues... I don't know why your RAM test fails, then 
> reports an address outside the testing range... maybe on the weekend, I'll 
> have a chance to look at the source code. 
> 
> But at least you can see what it should be doing... you should see less dust 
> on your monitor :) 
> 
> Regards, 
> Josh 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> > Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2015 19:11:21 -0600 
> > From: [email protected] 
> > To: [email protected] 
> > Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:6342] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help. 
> > 
> > As a general question to those that have built this board, 
> > 
> > What is "normal operations ?" 
> > 
> > IE: 
> > 
> > You boot it up and get the menu/prompt. 
> > 
> > Then it displays five dots and a space and starts over. (mine repeats 
> > forever) 
> > 
> > Is it polling for a input of D, R or V from keyboard or trying to load the 
> > SD card? 
> > 
> > Is this normal for others ? I have yet to see the SD LED Flash. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > ----- Original Message ----- 
> > From: "Crusty OMO" <[email protected]> 
> > To: [email protected] 
> > Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2015 7:40:17 AM GMT -06:00 US/Canada Central 
> > Subject: RE: [N8VEM-S100:6340] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help. 
> > 
> > 
> > Todd, 
> > 
> > Looks like you've found a bug in my RAM test routine. When it errors, it 
> > should report the location of the error, since it's only testing F000-FFFF, 
> > then it shouldn't report 042A. But since it is giving an error, and this 
> > doesn't happen on my board (I better recheck it tonight after work), then I 
> > would think there's something wrong with the RAM circuit. Perhaps their 
> > could be a problem with some types of RAM? Maybe even the CPU chip might be 
> > causing the trouble? 
> > 
> > Well, time to run to work.... 
> > 
> > Cheers, 
> > Josh 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2015 19:48:45 -0800 
> > From: [email protected] 
> > To: [email protected] 
> > Subject: [N8VEM-S100:6340] Re: IMSAI 8080A CPU board help. 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > Thanks, My Prop was similar except this 
> > was how I had it strapped for my setup; 
> > 
> > P77 P76 
> > x-x x-x 
> > x-x x-x 
> > 
> > I changed it to your setup and now it displays key-press 
> > except, it only responds to 'R' key-press. 
> > 
> > > . . r 
> > Testing SYSTEM RAM @F000-FFFF 
> > RAM PAGE MARCH . 
> > FAILED AT:042A - SYSTEM HALTED 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > When does it try to boot to the SD card ? 
> > If you have time, how is your CPU board strapped ? 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > On Monday, February 16, 2015 at 1:45:14 PM UTC-6, Todd Miller wrote: 
> > 
> > 
> > Booting up Crusty's 8080 CPU board with ver 1 of 
> > the Prop I/O card. The Boot loader flys off the screen 
> > like a key is being held down. I can see the message; 
> > 
> > Altair/Imsai <banner> 
> > 
> > <D> Directory 
> > <R> Ram Test 
> > <V> View Load 
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > First few boots I missed it, too busy looking 
> > at the SMB, but then caught it out the corner 
> > of my eye. Rebooted and stopped the CPU after 
> > I saw the menu. 
> > 
> > I'm guessing I don't have the Prop I/O set up 
> > for the correct "status bits" for KEYBOARD 
> > in/out. I recall dealing with this to match 
> > it up to my ver Dos. 
> > 
> > What should it be set to ? 
> > 
> > 
> > JP8/JP9 all jumpered 
> > JP10 no jumpers, don't understand... 
> > 
> > -- 
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > "N8VEM-S100" group. 
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > email to [email protected] . 
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout . 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > "N8VEM-S100" group. 
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > email to [email protected] . 
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout . 
> > 
> > -- 
> > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> > "N8VEM-S100" group. 
> > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> > email to [email protected]. 
> > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. 
> 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "N8VEM-S100" group. 
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to [email protected]. 
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. 
> 
> -- 
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
> "N8VEM-S100" group. 
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an 
> email to [email protected]. 
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. 


-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"N8VEM-S100" group. 
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected] . 
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout . 

-- 
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups 
"N8VEM-S100" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email 
to [email protected].
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Reply via email to