22 Dec
2013
22 Dec
'13
2:52 p.m.
On Fri, 20 Dec 2013, Steven Hirsch wrote:
On Fri, 20 Dec 2013, B. Degnan wrote:
What OS are
you using? I understand that the original OS had an OS bug
related to direct hard drive booting. I can check around if you have not
yet resolved the problem
I think you are close. Yesterday I discovered their
'boot.com' utility. It
is intended to cold-boot the machine from any arbitrary attached device
regardless of DIP switch setting. In looking at the source code, I
discovered that it can also read an arbitrary file from disk and use that
instead of the boot PROM on the system board. When I told it to use the
'maxrom13.com' image on the CP/M distribution diskette, lo and behold it
booted the hard drive!
I popped open the unit and sure enough the PROM was labeled "Lobo 1.2". So it
looks like the fix went in with version 1.3 and I'll need to blow a new PROM.
After correcting my self-induced hardware problem in the keyboard decoder,
I programmed the 1.3 firmware image into a 74LS472 PROM and gave that a
try. Now it boots from the hard drive with no issues. Life is good!
If any MAX-80 owners need the 1.3 PROM, get in touch with me via e-mail.
Now that I have the personality module built for 512x8 20-pin PROMs it's
simple to program more.
Steve
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