13 Jul
2005
13 Jul
'05
4 p.m.
Well, I have my HHC working pretty much. I replaced the batteries but
that didn't really help the "insufficient memory" errors. I'm
wondering if it is necessary to expand the memory to use the Basic ROM.
Does anyone have a copy of the HHC documentation or any information
on programming it either in Basic or SNAP?
Thanks,
David
On Jul 12, 2005, at 1:46 PM, Roger Merchberger wrote:
Rumor has it that David Betz may have mentioned these
words:
I finally received my HHC Basic ROMs yesterday
and they seem to work.
(Thanks Roger!)
I *think* (and with the minimal remaining number of functional
neutrons in my head, that's a toughie! :-O ) I have everyone caught
up on the HHC Basics. To those people who were severely delayed on
receiving their chips, I publicly apologize -- It was never my
intention to let this project go "lax" like it did.
If I did forget you, please raise your hands! Then lower them
again, and type out an email to me, and I'll get you taken care of.
I currently have a couple of days of "minimal insanity" with which
I can clean up any last loose ends.
I do have a problem where it claims I have
insufficient memory to
save even the smallest program. I seem to remember hearing someone
else complain of that problem as well but I never saw anyone post a
solution.
That would've been me; I may have an idea to the cause, but I've
not had a chance to try it. See below.
Has anyone been able to save programs? Is there
some trick
involved? This is the first time I've used the machine and I suppose
there could be left over stuff in RAM that needs to be deleted.
I found that I could get 1 program entered and running, by manually
deleting everything I could find in the 'filesystem' and
immediately going to the Basic and setting it to program input
mode. [[ This is the first time I'd used the machine as well... ]]
However, there was other 'flakeyness' with my HHC as well, and so I
don't think it's a 'Basic-only' problem.
I would think it would have disappeared long ago
though since the
batteries were dead when I bought the machine and I am only able to
run it off of the power supply. Has anyone had success saving
programs?
I *think* (and knowing near nothing about this machine, I really,
really stress *think*) that the batteries _need_ to be functional.
A lot of portable machines of this era used the batteries as an
oversized 'smoothing capacitor' for lack of a better term and would
not operate correctly without a working battery pack. (I have a
Tandy 600 which exhibited similar memory wackyness when running it
from AC only with no battery pack installed.)
I have not had time to test this theory, however, so I might be
'full of condensed milk' as my father-in-law used to say.
Also, my machine has a menu entry offering to run
SNAP programs but I
have been unable to find a description of the SNAP language. I
believe it is a Forth derivative. Can someone point me to a
description of the SNAP language?
Wish I could; SNAP sounded kewl. What I can tell you is the machine
uses a CMOS 6502, so if anyone can find a way to read the internal
ROMS or figure out the BASIC enough to program a ROM dump utility,
should be pretty easy for one who's good with 6502 disassemblers to
maybe glean some knowledge about it. (M'self, I'm more a 6809 kinda
guy...)
As I have some really good soldering/desoldering tools now, I could
take a stab at desoldering the ROM chip[s] and reading 'em
directly... tho:
1) I wouldn't know where in memory it resides without manually
tracing address lines & whatnot (which I don't have time for) ...
or ...
2) I wouldn't have time to do this for at least a couple of months.
But hey, we've been waiting almost 10 years now for Basic, right???
;^P
HTH,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger | "Profile, don't speculate."
SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers | Daniel J. Bernstein
zmerch at 30below.com |