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rfka01 #75828 01/04/12 11:58 AM
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Hi,

thanks for new links. about keyboards, thing is that most of them have MCU (micro controller unit) that mostly have protected rom content, so in most of cases we simulate them, and this is case in "detached" keyboards (since they use serial communication over a cable), "integrated" keyboards mostly have some kind of simple matrix and supported electronics for direct read.

As I see in technical documentation there is 24K rom in form of 3 * 8K and also 4K rom for char gen, video chip is same as in VT100 so that is good since we made it already.

So we need those 4 chips dumped in this case.

rfka01 #75830 01/04/12 12:52 PM
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I just found this

Model B Rom Images

with the Rainbow 100 Model B ROM images. Wiki mentions that instead of three, it only uses two chips for the ROM, this is consistent with my mainboard.
The third EPROM must then be the character generator which I'll try to dump tonight ... I'll bring out my old DELA Eprommer II ;-)

Robert


NCR DMV- DEC Rainbow- Siemens PCD- ITT 3030-Oly People- Acorn A5000- Olivetti M20
rfka01 #75831 01/04/12 12:56 PM
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ok so it's probably different mainboard then, since there was 3 * 8K and here is 2*16K that makes it 32K instead of 24K.

Nice find anyway.

Micko

rfka01 #75833 01/04/12 01:09 PM
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Also it would be nice if you could give DEC part numbers for these two roms and one to be dumped. (those should be written on rom itself)

rfka01 #75848 01/04/12 11:19 PM
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I have a number of IBM incompatibles in my collection. I'll attempt to list them -

NEC APC

NEC APC III w/SLE board

Mindset

Tandy 2000

Epson QX-10 w/Titan (arguable a *real* compatible though I guess, w/addition of Titan board. QX-16 was more or less the same AFAIK)

Xerox 16/8

Canon AS-100

IBM Displaywriter (?) - not a DOS puter

DEC Rainbow

Canon VP-3000 (a dedicated word processor, doesn't run any form of DOS AFAIK. If anyone has disks or images for it though, please let me know).

Televideo Personal Mini PM/16T (I think that's the model I have, not a DOS puter per se)

Northstar Dimension (also not a DOS puter, at least not natively)

AT & T 6300 (largely a compatible I guess)

Research Machines NIMBUS PC-1? motherboard only

that's all I can think if right now. Getting images made of these dinos will take time, seeing I have a hernia or something, and can't lift much.

Do you mean to tell me creating a hex dump w/BASIC isn't a useful image (of sorts)?

rfka01 #75849 01/04/12 11:27 PM
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That's a nice collection!

For machines of that age, a hex dump in BASIC (or DEBUG.COM) is fine if you don't have any access to an EPROM reader.

R. Belmont #75851 01/04/12 11:42 PM
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thank you. I broke my back getting some of it.

how about we dedicate a thread or part of this one to naming E-V-E-R-Y pseudo compatible out there? I name a bunch on the front page of the Tandy 2000 yahoo group, and that reminds me of a few other:

Sanyo MBC-555 (nominally a real compatible, in the same way a PCjr was anyway (i.e limited by memory capacity and such).

Victor 9000/Vicky (portable version)

Texas Instruments Professional/Portable Professional

there are quite a few others (which I don't own). Seiko, Mitusbishi, 2 rather phenomenally gorgeous units generally only found in Japan.

rfka01 #75853 01/05/12 12:18 AM
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Ooh you have a vicky? can you dump the bios roms from that? we have the f3f7 universal roms and one older rom in mess but there's supposedly at least half a dozen versions we're missing including the slightly older f3f6 universal version, and several from machines with 2 floppy drives and no SASI hdd.
Edit: wait, are you ChrisM from the classiccmp list? I remember talking to you back in 2007 re:vicky and v9k machines, if so.
google for 'f3f7 universal victor' without 's and you'll find the thread.


LN

Last edited by Lord Nightmare; 01/05/12 12:24 AM. Reason: add note

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I am

Is this Jonathan G.? I was corresponding w/he and another guy in the Seattle area. Sorry I never got you rom dumps, and the Vicky - I'm not sure which storage unit it's in (in any event, buried deep). I will get to this stuff (I might need you to send me another boot disk though wink. Actually I'll just read over your method of creating one from an image. I saved the correspondence. You're a maniac for that nefarious piece of wickedness by the way wink

rfka01 #75855 01/05/12 12:45 AM
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Yes, this is he!
Edit: Crafting a victor bootdisk from an image is non-trivial: it can be done on a catweasel or similar hardware, but is best done from another working victor machine, due to the weird drive.
Contrary to what was said in that thread in 2007, my victor machine does not have any special 1.44mb MFM drive; its the normal 1.2M custom-variable-speed-chuck-peddle-GCR one that all victors/sirius1 machines came with.

LN

Last edited by Lord Nightmare; 01/05/12 01:16 AM.

"When life gives you zombies... *CHA-CHIK!* ...you make zombie-ade!"
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