SWTPC 6800

[william degnan]

On Aug 4, 2016 2:54 AM, "jim stephens" <jwsmail at jwsss.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 8/3/2016 10:58 PM, Brad H wrote:
>>
>>      Thought I would post this here in case it reaches eyes my forum
posts don't.  So I finally got my hands on a SWTPC 6800!
>> This machine is chock full of boards.. 4 ram boards, the cpu card (with
SWTBUG ROM), MP-S, MP-C serial cards, a floppy controller, some little
custom board, a sound card.. etc.
>> This presents some challenges obviously, since the machine has been
altered from stock it could be tricky getting it running.
>> Before I had it stripped down, I tried powering up as is (i pulled the
older MP-C card and put MP-S in slot 1).  This produced little except for a
string of random characters that would repeat every time I hit reset,
exactly the same number.
>> I tried stripping it down to CPU card, MP-S, and the RAM board
designated as '0'.. but all I get at the terminal end is a single random
character on power up.
>> I then thought I'd try my luck putting the CPU card in my working MSI
system (taking out its card).  Nope.
>> Now, because my CPU card has been modified to accomodate SWTBUG and
possibly something else, I'm not sure if it'll even work in a stripped down
config.  Not sure about the interplay between boards.
>> Anyway.. if anyone has any thoughts to point me in the right direction
I'd be most appreciative.  Ultimately I'd like to get this beast working
with my CT1024 terminals.
>> Brad
>>
> I saw an SWTPC booth registered at VCF West, maybe you should drop by.
I'll look in and see what they have and maybe they can help too.
>
> Only SWTPC gizmo I have is one of their audio amplifiers somewhere in the
pile.  Picked up at TRW Swap Meet.
> Thanks
> jim

You need to start with the power supply.   Verify it's ok. Then work
through each card's jumpers to see how they are set.  For example the MP-S
has baud rate setting options, and the card can be used with a Teletype or
RS232 terminal.  1200 is max baud.

If you're getting a consistent but garbled output to the screen did you
confirm the baud rate you're using matches the MP-S jumpers?

All of this is well documented online, Mike Holley has a step by step set
up on his site.  A few years ago I retyped the entire code listing of TSC
BASIC which can be downloaded into  bare bones SWTPC 6800