Home Page Forums MAME MAME Offer: Tandberg TDV2324 CP/M computer from the 70s

I have an old Tandberg TDV 2324 CP/M computer manufactured in Norway in 1976 or so. I've tried to sell it cheaply but for some reason nobody seems to want it.

If anyone is interested in emulating it I'm offering it for free if you pick it up in Stockholm, Sweden.

This is what I know about it:
* Z80 CPU
* 32 KB RAM
* 4 or 8 MB harddrive
* builtin modem
* Dual 8" disk drives
* Green monochrome monitor

There are lots of 8" diskettes, among other thing original, boxed versions of Microsoft MultiPlan, COBOL, FORTRAN and BASIC compilers for CP/M.

There are a few pictures here:
http://www.tradera.com/Tandberg-TDV-2324-CP-M-dator-8-disketter-COBOL-mm-auktion_340854_132095443

Please tell me if you're interested.

BTW, even if you aren't going to write an emulator for it, the offer still stands as long as you promise to take care of it and not throw it away. This baby is rare.

That would be kind of awesome given the boxed Micro-Soft stuff. Any devs or readers near Stockholm?

Well, I live in Stockholm and have space for it, and am very interested in it personally. However, I am not able to do anything emulation related. What is needed in order to emulate it? I could probably dump floppies and harddrives.

"I could probably dump floppies and harddrives."
Or maybe I spoke too soon here, given the age of the hardware.

Anyway, I am willing to pick it up and do anything within my abilities to assist in emulating it.

Well, maybe you can take the machine and send the ROMs/Disks to someone who can dump them? That should be way cheaper than sending the whole machine.

Will be not easy if the ROMs are unsocket.

In my experience the older the hardware the more likely the chips are to be socketed...

This can be, the hardware was expensive enough at this time.

Sure, I can definitely send anything removable and dumpable.

OK, just safely brought home this beauty with Tuxie's help. Thanks a lot!

It starts up and displays "insert monitor disk"

I haven't looked inside yet to see it the rom(s) are socketed, but is there anyone with the right equipment/knowledge to dump 8" diskettes and rom chips?

The guys at kryoflux.com can probably dump the 8" disks... they have some drives and the knowledge of ancient disk formats

Getting the ROMs dumped should be the easier part, virtually anyone can dump chips from that era...

-Darkstar

It would be nice to see this computer working in MESS...

OK, I took some half-assed pics of the pcbs:

PCB photos

Can you identify anything dumpable there? There's an additional PCB with a socketed chip on it which I can't reach with the camera. It's 24 pins with a sticker that says: "104521 F".

The 8" floppies are:

*Microsoft Basic version 521 - 2 copies, 1 with the seal sticker intact
*Microsoft Multiplan version 105, 1 diskette
*Microsoft Basic Compiler version 530, 2 copies both with seal sticker intact
*Microsoft Fortran-80 version 348(?), 1 diskette
*Microsoft Cobol version 466, 2 copies both w intact seal sticker

Manuals/documentation:

*for the above mentioned software
*owners manual for the computer
*CP/M MP/M
*Pascal MT+
*BDS C User's guide

Then there was a box full of 8" floppies which I forgot to bring
I will probably go and pick it up later.

Important would be something like a technical manual, anything of that sort in there?

Looks like everything that is required to emulate that computer is socketed: EPROMs, PALs/GALs, and one big chip that I couldn't identify. Or, to put it the other way, everything that is socketed (again, probably with the exception of that big chip) needs to be dumped ;-)

The IC you mentioned (on the additional PCB) is probably an EPROM too, so this also needs dumping.

The manuals are a nice find as well, the guys at bitsavers.org are probably interested in them, you can probably get them scanned and preserved by them as well

-Darkstar

There's a "Specifications & Installation Guide" with schematic drawings of the PCBs and other stuff. I'll scan that later and upload. I'll be willing to scan anything that there is interest in, in time.

What's the location of that one big chip you mention?

P1010038.JPG, on the bottom. It has MOSTEK printed on it, and while I can't identify the number(s) I guess that it's the processor (or a coprocessor) since MOSTEK manufactured mainly CPU clones (and DRAMs)

-Darkstar

I think it says MK3801N. Unfortunately, that part of the picture is really blurry.

Would make sense I guess:

MK3801N
Priority Interrupt Controller - Serial Interrupt Cntlr
Micro Processor Family=Z80

Mostek MK3801 Serial Timer Interrupt Controller (Z80-STI) emulation

src/emu/machine/z80sti.c by yours truly

Actually it says: "MOSTEK[encircled C]8424, MK3887N-4"

MK3887-N: Z80 Serial I/O Controller.

Datasheets are a bit hard to find but it's probably the same chip as the Z8440

-Darkstar

I can type down the labels for all socketed ROMs if that helps. Or any other chip that looks interesting

More details:

Mainboard (pictures P1010036 & P1010038)
*28-pin: D27128, L4267096S,...(occluded by sticker: "965268 1")
*40-pin: TMS9937NL, DB 336, ENGLAND
*40-pin: P8085AH-2, F4265030, C INTEL '80 (there are 2 of these)
*28-pin: JAPAN 8442, 00009SS0, HN4827128G-25 (sticker: "962107")
*22-pin: ER3400, GI 8401HHA
*The MOSTEK already mentioned
*20-pin: (sticker: "961420 0")
*24-pin: D2716, L3263271, INTEL '77 (sticker: "962058 1")
*3 tiny 16-pins which look socketed

FD/HD Interface Board (pictures P1010031 & P1010033)
*28-pin: TMS, 2764JL-25, GHP8414
*40-pin: MC68802P, R1H 8340
*40-pin: WDC '79, FD1797PL-02, 8342 16
*14-pin: MC4024P, MG 8341

The other socketed chip I mentioned sits on a third board referred to as Hard Disk Controller

Apart from this there's 1 diskette drive; 1 hard disk subsystem consisting of Hard Disk Drive, Hard Disk Controller board and Power Converter board; 1 Power Supply Board. There are unoccupied spaces for Cluster Connector board, Optional boards and Motherboard for Optional boards.

Probably a lot of redundant information here but posting it just in case.

Huh. A CP/M system with dual 8085s and TMS9937 video? That's different

While we're on the topic of free stuff in Sweden, would there be any interest in a Luxor ABC "Slutprov" testing equipment?

I've had this in storage for quite the many years and I've got to say, I'm not even sure what it was used for exactly. Google didn't help much either.

As far as I know it's some kind of testing equipment used by Luxor for the final part of the production-line of some, or all, models of the ABC computer. It seems to be at least a somewhat advanced piece of equipment, but so far I can't really give any detailed info on what kind of stuff is in it since I can't get the bloody thing open. Whoever built it must be related to Houdini.

Anyway, I can't say I know if it works or not, nor even if it's of use within MESS' spectrum, but even if it turns out to be of no use for the project I guess it'd be a cool addition to someone's ABC collection. It's probably a very rare piece of computer curio so I'd rather see it put to use than scrapped.

I'll get back with pictures and more information tomorrow.

Sounds like it's time to clean up the attic

I'm super interested if it has a CPU and some ROMs

Indeed.



Well, it took longer than I'd expected but here are some pics. I couldn't tell an EPROM from a horse's arse so I'll just let you do the judging. Sorry for the noisiness, but I hope it's adequate for identification of at least some chips.

http://www.multiupload.com/5TFVMUV0KB

There's an EPROM on it alright (the D2716 with the sticker on it).

I also see one SAA5052 (teletext generator with Swedish character set), another SAA50xx next to it and a MC1377 PAL encoder. The CPU is likely below the EPROM board.

It's an SAA5020.

The things I can spot under the EPROM board is an N8T245N, an SN74LS257AN, two SN74LS266N and two M74LS257AP.

SAA5020 is some teletext timing chip, the others are all logic chips, no CPU yet.

Then, as far as I can tell, it has no CPU. Unless it's hidden in the huge epoxy block on the PSU, which seems highly unlikely.

It seems to be a testing "cartridge" that plugs into the ABC bus. Has the same graphics chips as the color version of ABC800. If you could dump that EPROM...

Sorry, I don't have the equipment. But it's socketed so I'll gladly send it to anyone who could.

I can dump it for you (and of course, return it XD).

If your are interested, you can contact me via private message.

Just picked up the box of 8" floppies. Mostly backups, some copies of CP/M v 3.0 and a lot of unused diskettes.

So, reading the different replies here, I assume all chips mentioned, except the MOSTEK chip, the 2 8085's and the TMS9937NL, should be dumped. That leaves 13 chips. Is that right?

Now I'm either looking for someone willing to dump these, alternatively for a means to do so myself.
Is there anyone willing/able to dump them?
What kind of hardware is required if I want to do so myself, and what would the cost be?

In the meantime I'll contact the people at kryoflux regarding the diskettes.

Apparently there's a Tandberg operating system (TOS-II). Found a backup of it on a floppy, and it loads up fine:

PLEASE don't use kryoflux. Contact the discweasel folks, at least then the floppies will have been dumped by something reasonably open rather than people who constantly talk about how the software is coming "real soon now".

Yeah, contact phil pemberton regarding discferret stuff, or get the disks to someone who has a catweasel and an 8" drive.
SPS/Kryoflux have been stringing us along for years, and it has gone on for way too long.

LN

I agree, the Kryoflux guys are a bit too closed up, however, their hardware exists, is easy to setup (USB) and their current dump format is the most basic (and simple) you can imagine, it's basically just timings between the different bit cells. So it should be rather easy to write a small converter that takes these dump files and does an MFM decode (or FM, or GCR, whatever these old floppies use) on it. For basic MFM/FM/GCR tracks their software already offers that conversion, it only chokes a bit on weird (i.e. copy protection) tracks...

I would offer to dump the disks, however I don't have an 8 inch disk drive. I could also arrange to send my Kryoflux board to someone who has the drive(s), as long as I get it back sometime ;-)

-Darkstar

ok, that's good to know. I was hoping to get my own setup to dump the floppies, using this adapter and a kryoflux. Maybe I can use that adapter to connect the driver to my PC as a 3.5" drive and dump it that way?

That adapter should work fine with a catweasel, discferret, or kryoflux.

LN

That's what Tandberg used to do. One or two other Norwegian CP/M machine vendors also used the 8085. Very popular, for some reason. I've got a TDV 2300 mainboard here, a power supply, the FD/HD interface board, and a couple more boards. I don't own any of them but they are part of a repair kit which we have in storage at work - our hardware guy used to be the local maintenance representative for Tandberg terminals and microcomputers.
That machine listed by the OP is one I would've loved to have.. I was even in Stockholm a week ago :-) I understand JonasP has picked it up by now anyway, I'm sure it's in good hands. BTW the 8" floppies are probably in standard IBM CP/M 8" format and shouldn't be a problem to read. I used to read those with a tool I wrote for a NORD-10 computer. These days I'm working on getting that old program running in my ND-100 emulator.

I have a Kryoflux, the dbit adapter, two Shugart SA-800 8" drives, a power supply for the latter, and a PC set up to read old 5 1/4" floppies. I haven't had the time yet but the plan is to read old 8" CP/M and ND floppies either via the 5 1/4" setup for the PC, or, alternatively, via the Kryoflux. Whatever works. What I don't have yet is time, which doesn't seem to be as easy to acquire as the bits&pieces listed above..

-Tor

If there is PAL/GAL to dump I can probably help.

As per ElBarto's request I list all chips with a sticker which hasn't already been listed, to look for potential PAL/GAL chips.

All these are found on the Mainboard:

+B8412, DMPAL10L8NC
PAL... (can't remove the sticker to read the rest since there's electrical components soldered above the chip)
Am27S21DC, 835IDmm
AM27S13DC, 8402DM (x2)
TBP28L22N, GERMANY 406 A (x2)
PAL16L6CNS, 8406

I don't feel like desoldering these chips though since I don't want to risk breaking anything...

ermm...what? who does that? Soldering above the chip? Crazy...

And I perfectly understand your reluctance to soldering. Maybe you can ship the boards (only the boards) to someone who can unsoder, dump, and re-solder them for you (possibly socketing them in the process)? Guru comes to mind but he's a bit far away, I guess there are people much closer so that shipping isn't that expensive....

-Darkstar

yeah, it's soldered to pins on both sides of the chip...

I was hoping to be able to find equipment to dump it myself, but I see that is probably beyond my abilities. I don't really trust the mail service to handle the boards right, but seeing how many boards are shipped around within the dumping project I guess it's fine. I'll just have to buy a shitload of protective wrapping.

No, Australia isn't really the closest neighbour to Sweden... ElBarto, you already offered to dump PAL/GAL. Are you up for dumping the whole boards too? And ship them back of course.

Yeah sure, considering the age of this thing I think I can dump all the memory/pal and gal chips.

Scanned the Owner's Manual for this computer. Available for download here:

TDV2324 Owner's Manual

Part 5 of the manual is missing.

Thanks for the offer. I have already sent off the boards for dumping though.

Just a quick note: KryoFlux just released the specs to their raw stream file format here. This can be used to convert the lowlevel dump formats to any other, more convenient format. It's as close as you can get to the physical layer of the disk.

That's a positive step for SPS, but it's still far short of the openness they were promising back in, what, February?

Yeah, they believe that their IPF library is the apex of floppy disk emulation, as it's not just a file format reader but contains a complete floppy (hardware) simulator. This might be interesting for some emulator writers as they don't have to cope with the FDD emulation themselves, but if all you want is the raw (or interpreted) bitstream, their STREMAM format is more than enough.
I don't believe they're doing a bad job at what they are doing, it's just that they tend to over-complicate the licensing discussions a bit.

-Darkstar

ok, I was looking into buying a discferret, but looks like no new copies of it will be produced in a couple of months. It's also a bit more expensive than the Kryoflux.
Do I understand it correctly, that from a preservation perspective (i.e. getting the best possible backups of the floppies), I should opt for the Discferret? Does these news about the Kryoflux change anything in that regard?

It may be a bit of a stubborn attitude, but personally, until I see concrete specs of the ipf/kryoflux disk record formats and how they work, I wouldn't recommend the kryoflux. I'm HOPING the specifications become public soon, since it would be very useful to be able to support the images as created.

philpem said he'd be making another run of discferret pcbs in july/august, and I'd stick with those. I know I'm getting one, at least.

LN

The spec for the kryoflux format was linked above?

The Kryoflux is fine for all floppy based disk formats and creates preservation quality dumps. The specs of the format the current software creates are open now too. Not open-source yet is the client software (but available for a variety of systems) and the firmware of the controller.

Oh. well, in that case, assuming the format is detailed enough to actually create functionally identical disks, it is probably ok.

LN

Of course it is, thats the whole point of it isn' it? It has an option to output common decoded image formats in addition too (for example, Amiga ADF files).

JonasP: I'm sorry, I screwed up before. I apologize.
What you will need:
For connecting the 8" drive to the imager:
You will need a 50pin->36pin floppy adapter (iirc you mentioned that kryoflux or someone else sells one? that will probably work fine)

for imaging the disks:
Kryoflux will apparently work fine
OR
Discferret will work fine
OR
Catweasel + linux + posssibly custom format specifications will also work fine.

Catweasel + windows + latest beta drivers MIGHT work ok but it is closed source and I cannot test it nor vouch for it.

LN

OK, thank you for clarifying. I just got the FDADAP 50->36 pin adapter. I'll probably go for the Kryoflux since it's 1) confirmed to work with 8" floppies 2) is available now 3) is cheaper than discferret. I haven't looked closer at Catweasel though, but I don't use Linux.

Good idea.
Keep us updated how things go with the dumping!

LN

OK, got the Kryoflux and successfully dumped a floppy, Microsoft Basic Interpreter version 521. The raw stream file and a decoded version can be found in this thread: http://forum.kryoflux.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=159&start=30

Glad it worked out! Any progress on the ROM chips yet?

ElBarto has the boards. Haven't heard from him about any progress yet.

http://megadrive.org/~elbarto/tandberg.zip
All roms dumped.
PAL/GAL will follow soon.

962058-1 is the bootrom, disassembly: http://pastebin.com/W3uG4H2f

965268-1.bin is the char rom, (bitmap, 7 pixels wide)

(preview)

Awesome! Thanks ElBarto. Looking forward to the PAL/GAL:s and an eventual emulation of this contraption.

2 versions of the Tandberg Operating system is dumped and waiting to be run in Mess.

Finally got around to sorting out the dumps. The microsoft software is all dumped twice with matching reads (from different floppies where available), except for Cobol, where both floppies give hundreds of bad sectors...
also dumped a non-original floppy supposedly containing games.
I still have a pile of non-original floppies left, but not sure which ones are worthwhile to dump.
Anyway, I can upload the dumps somewhere if anyone's interested (maybe for a cp/m softlist)?

Good to see there's a skeleton Tandberg driver. I was wondering about this no-dump rom. Was there any problems with dumping it?

Hi!

@elbarto
don't forget to dump the proms! (TBP28L22N)
they are needed too!

if your programmer doesn't support them, send them to me, i will dump them and return them to you!! i'm located in austria!

Right now I'm moving to another town so it will be hard to dump them.
But I thought I've dumped all the roms, only PALS/GALS were missing ...

in this archive (http://megadrive.org/~elbarto/tandberg.zip) are no dumps of the proms...

so maybe you have dumped all eproms...but please also be sure to dump the two proms!! they are labeled "TBP28L22N"....and they are more important than the GALs or PALs!

most modern programmers don't support proms! so if you can't dump them, just contact me! btw. i can dump the GALs an PALs too if needed!

Something like Megaupload would work, PM me the link and I'll make a softlist for the Tandberg...

I'm trying to tape some organs onto the tandberg driver; is any of the documentation for it scanned yet? I did find that the weird-ass vdc it uses (tms9937) is compatible with the SMC crt5037, whose datasheet can be found here: http://www.datasheetcatalog.org/datasheets2/59/590424_1.pdf
If this is truly the vdc that it uses, then we *NEED* those proms, since its quite possible to poke that type vdc to auto-load the display settings from a prom attached to it, asyncrhronous to cpu.
Sort of a neat feature.

LN

Curt just checked in some work on the Tandberg driver, be careful

This was after his fdc cpu commit a few hours ago, don't worry.
EDIT: committed. hopefully this doesn't hulk-smash too much of Curt's work.


LN

I didn't yet have time to go back to it after the FDC thing, so no problem.

If you want to do more stuff to it, go right ahead. Without doing more research into whats being written to the i/o ports I have no idea what else goes where right now (though I sort of assume the WD1797/FD1797 FDC, which I assume is similar to the wd1770 or 1772 but cannot find a datasheet for, connects to the fdc cpu somehow)

LN

At the top of wd17xx.c is an explanation of all model variations: http://git.redump.net/mess/tree/src/emu/machine/wd17xx.c

Ok after reading the manuals JonteP scanned (see http://forums.bannister.org/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=70650#Post70650 ) and checking disassembly:
* The "Specifications and Installation Guide" chapter of the owner's manual doesn't have any extremely useful circuit-level schematics, but does hint at what processors run slave to which others, and what should connect to where.
* I'm fairly certain that 0xE6 read that happens on the maincpu is waiting for one of the two other cpus (the fdc?) to finish its self test and set a status flag before the main cpu will run. Despite what the manual says I have not found a maincpu or subcpu rom checksum test yet, but they may well exist. The fdc cpu clearly has one and it passes.
* I'm also not sure where the EAROM 'eeprom/nvram' chip maps to, nor am I sure it is dumped yet. I hope it still works, as those chips have a bad failure record on atari arcade boards.
* The main cpu is responsible for the serial interface ics, PROBABLY responsible for the interrupt controller, and the other two cpus run slave to it.
* The sub cpu should more properly be called the display cpu, and more or less implements a complete terminal of sorts within the system, and is also responsible for talking to the keyboard.
* The keyboard is rather complex, and almost certainly has a processor or mcu inside which is not dumped.

LN

Let me know if you need any photos of the inside of the keyboard

Those would be very useful!

Can you tell me what text is printed on the chip in P1010038.jpg location 15B/U121?

And also the labels for the PROMs/PALs in P1010036.jpg? They are all white in the picture.

ElBarto can probably tell you once he's unpacked after moving.

Exactly

Elbarto: as mentioned in a recent commit to svn, the tandberg keyboard has a 2716 rom in it which needs dumping. Is it ok for JonasP to send you that rom?

LN

I've already corresponded with him in private. All it takes now is for me to actually send it. Don't worry, it'll happen soon.

Here are 2 new dumps for the system in a different format:
http://www.2shared.com/file/bq0VSZY6/tosxmon_suprcalc.html

The format is:
sector 0: 26x128, FM
sector 1-76: 26x256, MFM

The first sector is empty in both cases.
The software is 1) x monitor + tandberg OS and 2) supercalc(?)

I am doing a bit of research on the predecessor for this machine, the TDV-2124. In that regard I have a dump of a system disk with TOS v2.3 which I believe is one of the very last versions of Tandberg OS. This disk is in the same format as the one Jonas mention in the previous message here from 10 years ago.

That being said, I see now that practically all links in this thread are dead. It would be amazing to have some of the manual-scans and files mentioned here, given the mentioned cross-compatibility between these machines.

A bit of history, the evolution of these machines is something like this:
* TDV-2000 (197?) - First terminal
* TDV-2114 (1976) - First computer (8080-based, 16-56KB RAM, TDV-2115 terminal hardware-module built-in)
* TDV-2124 (1980) - Same as TDV-2114, but with double-side double-density disk support. 56KB or 64KB RAM? (not sure if all 64K on the RAM board is available)
* TDV-2324 (1982) - Completely new design, 8085-based, 64KB RAM, HDD support, fully backwards-compatible with 2100-series

Another thing worth noting, the mentioned X-monitor seems to only be a loadable module for the TDV-2324, whereas on the TDV-21x4 it's permanently in ROM at the lower 8K of the memory map. Quite a lot of system functionality is in this monitor, and it is my guess that software uses this for everything instead of calling the hardware directly. This would also explain the good backwards-compatibility of the TDV-2324.

Looking a little bit on the disassembly, a ton of the functions in there (including every single interrupt-handler) also have optional hooks the OS can take use of. These hooks are stored (among other monitor-variables) as pointers in a reserved 2K area of RAM. On the TDV-21x4 series this memory area is made up of dedicated RAM chips on the CPU card, so it's guaranteed to be there even if there's no other RAM-expansion cards installed.