6 Feb
2015
6 Feb
'15
2:52 p.m.
On 2/6/2015 1:15 PM, Ian McLaughlin wrote:
The MAI Basic 4 system
which was based on the Microdata 1600 to my
knowledge was distributed via disk media. I did not see any half inch
tape with Basic 4 on any systems, which is the other alternative.
Basic 4 moved on to their own implementation which was somewhat binary
compatible with the 1600 implementation, which I think incorporated some
bit slice technology. The next turn moved to microprocessor designs. I
had a copy of the firmware from a system at one point in my pile from a
system I got the remains of.
On Feb 6,
2015, at 12:52 PM, Richard Swingwood <richardswingwood at gmail.com> wrote:
On 5 February 2015 at 21:19, Ian McLaughlin <ian at platinum.net> wrote:
Richard,
I sent a private message off to Jim explaining what I have (nothing other than
documentation) and what I would like to do (emulate any one of the Microdata-based
machines, but preferably the MAI Basic Four 1200 unit that I used to own many years ago).
In order to do any of this, there?s at least two pieces we would need - a dump of the ROM
from one of the machines, and a copy of some boot media for the same machine. There
doesn?t appear to be any copies of media publicly available. Long shot, but does anyone know of any available
disk/tape/paper tape/ROM
images for any of the Microdata machines (800/1600) or the relatives
(Intertechnique Multi-8/Multi-4, MAI Basic Four BB-II)?
There?s a bit of documentation available - Bitsavers has a bit, and I have
some MAI documentation that I?m in the process of scanning. I?m toying
with the idea of emulating this machine, but I?m having difficulty locating
any software for it.
I'm in the same boat though my interest is in the M1600 implementation of
Reality. At one point I started a SIMH implementation of the 1600 CPU but
didn't get very far before the idea of trying a FPGA/Verilog solution took
over. That has gotten a bit further but is not progressing very fast.
If you want to swap notes and ideas or even collaborate on an emulation
then I'd be happy to help (& be helped :)
Richard. If anything was to show up, I?d love to exchange notes
and ideas with you. I also dabble in FPGA, so the idea of an FPGA implementation is
intriguing to me.
Ian
Richard, please also contact me offline. I already got a reply from Ian
privately, and we can discuss things. I'd prefer that discussion method.
I have recently gotten a large stash of Multi 8, Intertechnique
documentation, which I will be getting to Al, as well. Intertechnique
made the first clone of the 1600 under license from Microdata.
If the media was available other than with the disks, I'd certainly like
to know, but I visited Basic 4, and I believe they used disk backup at
that time.
thanks
Jim