20 Jul
2002
20 Jul
'02
11:01 a.m.
Still plugging away of a TTL style cpu in a FPGA I have found some terminals
localy. How ever I am still looking for a serial RS232 mass storage device
in Canada that is not tacky looking like a old Pee-Cee. For now I am using a
old 486 with a serial program to download bootstrap programs but looking around
since summer is a good time to collect stuff. Baud rate of 300 or better would
be nice.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
20 Jul
20 Jul
1:30 p.m.
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1:40 p.m.
Not RS232, but fairly easy to interface, would be a
Commodore 1541 or
similar. It wouldn't take much extra logic to send it enough commands to
read back a file, I think.
You might also look for one of the Model 100 series RS-232 floppy drives.
I'm trying to teach an NEC 8201A how to talk to one of these.
--
----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
Cameron Kaiser, Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser(a)stockholm.ptloma.edu
-- He is rising from affluence to poverty. -- Mark Twain ----------------------
3:08 p.m.
On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Tony Duell wrote:
This reminds me (for no stringently particular reason) that I have an
interesting Anderson-Jacobsen ASR terminal that has a disk drive instead
of paper tape for storing the data stream.
This is only slightly more interesting than the TI Silent 700 Model 733's
I have that use digital cassette tapes.
http://siconic.com/computers/ASR733-1.jpg
I've actually played around with them quite a bit by way of a data
recovery job I did. Very neat machines. They store data in something
like 66 byte chunks. The tape drive actually advances in discrete steps
that you can observe. It writes start and end marks for each block, and
also has an ASCII search capability.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Still plugging
away of a TTL style cpu in a FPGA I have found some terminals
localy. How ever I am still looking for a serial RS232 mass storage device
in Canada that is not tacky looking like a old Pee-Cee. For now I am using a
There have been paper tape punches/readers, digital tape drives and even
disk drives with RS232 interfaces. But most of them didn't have any form
of block addressing -- they just saved data to replay it later. Would
that be any use? 
21 Jul
21 Jul
3:37 a.m.
I had a couple of Disk-A-Tape units from a CNC systems that were controlled by a
PDP-11/04s. They appear to have RS-232 I/O and a parallel port that emulates a paper tape
reader. I don't know if the parallel port handles input too so that data can be saved
to disk or if they output only. They have a 360k floppy drive in them and used it for
storage but looked like a paper tape reader to the rest of the system. There's a
calcualtor like display and keypad on the front that I'm guessing allows the operator
to select the block of data to be used. They look interesting and I've fired them up
and they appear to work but I have no idea how to connect or operate them so I gutted all
of them except one for parts.
Joe
At 09:07 AM 7/20/02 -0700, Sellam wrote:
On Sat, 20 Jul 2002, Tony Duell wrote:
This reminds me (for no stringently particular reason) that I have an
interesting Anderson-Jacobsen ASR terminal that has a disk drive instead
of paper tape for storing the data stream.
This is only slightly more interesting than the TI Silent 700 Model 733's
I have that use digital cassette tapes.
http://siconic.com/computers/ASR733-1.jpg
I've actually played around with them quite a bit by way of a data
recovery job I did. Very neat machines. They store data in something
like 66 byte chunks. The tape drive actually advances in discrete steps
that you can observe. It writes start and end marks for each block, and
also has an ASCII search capability.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger http://www.vintage.org
* Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *
Still
plugging away of a TTL style cpu in a FPGA I have found some terminals
localy. How ever I am still looking for a serial RS232 mass storage device
in Canada that is not tacky looking like a old Pee-Cee. For now I am using a
There have been paper tape punches/readers, digital tape drives and even
disk drives with RS232 interfaces. But most of them didn't have any form
of block addressing -- they just saved data to replay it later. Would
that be any use?
20 Jul
20 Jul
6:05 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
There have been paper tape punches/readers, digital
tape drives and even
disk drives with RS232 interfaces. But most of them didn't have any form
of block addressing -- they just saved data to replay it later. Would
that be any use?
This is for bootstrap/diagnostic style programing similar to a pdp-8 with 4kw of
memory and a TTY. The current CPU design on reset will load a RIM style program
from a bootstrap device that is currently the serial
port. In time I get a PCB
board made and burn a erial prom for the FPGA and add a
real floppy disk or IDE
interface i/o board.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
9:47 p.m.
Ben Franchuk wrote:
This is for bootstrap/diagnostic style programing
similar to a pdp-8
with 4kw of memory and a TTY. The current CPU design on reset will
load a RIM style program from a bootstrap device that is currently the
serial port. In time I get a PCB board made and burn a erial prom for
the FPGA and add a real floppy disk or IDE interface i/o board.
Just store your RIM loader in the serial PROM after the FPGA configuration.
After the FPGA is configured, it can read the serial PROM into memory.
21 Jul
21 Jul
5:07 a.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Just store your RIM loader in the serial PROM after
the FPGA configuration.
After the FPGA is configured, it can read the serial PROM into memory.
If the FPGA
design used a micro-controler and Flash memory I would have no
problems with that idea. The design uses a One-Time-Programable serial prom
Altera EPC1441 in a 20 pin PLCC package. A rather hard part for me to find and
get programmed localy. Thanks for the idea however.
8:55 a.m.
Just store
your RIM loader in the serial PROM after the FPGA
configuration. After the FPGA is configured, it can read the serial
PROM into memory.
If the FPGA design used a micro-controler and Flash memory I
would have
no problems with that idea. The design uses a One-Time-Programable
serial prom Altera EPC1441 in a 20 pin PLCC package. A rather hard
part for me to find and get programmed localy. Thanks for the idea
however.
10:07 a.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Why not use the Atmel or Xilinx reprogrammable parts?
They will work
fine with Altera FPGAs. They don't have special programming requirements,
so you can burn them yourself, over and over without spending more money.
Since I live in "The Great White North" all electronic components have to be
ordered thru the mail and information pulled off the web. Programing the FPGA is
not a problem for testing as I have a download cable. Right now I have about 20
pages of TTL schematics that need to tested for the CPU design once I re-write a
assembler for new opcodes. About 2 ALU logic boards and 3 Control boards if I
used TTL. Other than finding 16x4 Non Inverting RAM (low power) I can still get
all the LS parts needed, but I am using the FPGA becase it handy.
Also, I don't see any reason why you'd need a
microcontroller to be
involved. Some of my FPGA designs read extra data from their own config
PROM, with no microcontroller involved. I just hooked up the config pins
to some I/O pins. During config, all the I/O pins are high-Z, so they
don't interfere with the configuration.
Nice but I am emulating a PDP-8/TTY style computer system.Built in Bootstrap is
the primary input method. Even if I used non-volitile memory I still have to
have "nnnn nnnn ?" entered from the bootstrap device.
Thanks again for your help.
11:05 a.m.
On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Eric Smith wrote:
Why not use the Atmel or Xilinx reprogrammable parts? They will work
fine with Altera FPGAs. They don't have special programming requirements,
so you can burn them yourself, over and over without spending more money.
Another option is to use a SST45LV010 (1 mbit) serial flash chip and an 8 pin
PIC. The combination costs less than the Xilinx or Atmel PROMS and the FPGA
configuration can be downloaded to the flash chip via a standard serial
port...
Just store your RIM loader in the serial PROM after
the FPGA
configuration. After the FPGA is configured, it can read the serial
PROM into memory.
If the FPGA design used a micro-controler and Flash memory I
would have
no problems with that idea. The design uses a One-Time-Programable
serial prom Altera EPC1441 in a 20 pin PLCC package. A rather hard
part for me to find and get programmed localy. Thanks for the idea
however.
Also, I don't see any reason why you'd need a microcontroller to be
involved. Some of my FPGA designs read extra data from their own config
PROM, with no microcontroller involved. I just hooked up the config pins
to some I/O pins. During config, all the I/O pins are high-Z, so they
don't interfere with the configuration.
Peter Wallace
Mesa Electronics
11:27 a.m.
Peter C. Wallace wrote:
Another option is to use a SST45LV010 (1 mbit) serial
flash chip and an 8 pin
PIC. The combination costs less than the Xilinx or Atmel PROMS and the FPGA
configuration can be downloaded to the flash chip via a standard serial
port...
Good for new designs but the FPGA prototype board I have still uses the Altera
serial prom. I would like to use a fuse-link FPGA and have it boot up like a
real CPU but is more a wish list idea. Also to add to my wish list I am looking
for manuals ( service/use ) at low cost for the B&K 1460 scope.
--
Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
20 Jul
20 Jul
3:36 p.m.
There's a surplus dealer in the Calgary "oilpatch" called GEOS that seems
to have an amazing amount of stock that they sell mainly on E-Pay. Their
Can. shipping is also very reasonable.
Lawrence
Still plugging away of a TTL style cpu in a FPGA I
have found some terminals
localy. How ever I am still looking for a serial RS232 mass storage device in
Canada that is not tacky looking like a old Pee-Cee. For now I am using a old
486 with a serial program to download bootstrap programs but looking around
since summer is a good time to collect stuff. Baud rate of 300 or better would
be nice. -- Ben Franchuk - Dawn * 12/24 bit cpu *
www.jetnet.ab.ca/users/bfranchuk/index.html
lgwalker(a)mts.net
bigwalk_ca(a)yahoo.com
8011
days inactive
8012
days old
12 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
ard＠p850ug1.demon.co.uk -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
eric＠brouhaha.com -
foo＠siconic.com -
lgwalker＠mts.net -
pcw＠mesanet.com -
rigdonj＠cfl.rr.com -
spectre＠stockholm.ptloma.edu