Re: S-100 6502 CPU poll

[lynchaj <lyn...@yahoo.com>]

Hi Neil!  Thanks!

You and Rich probably know more about the S-100 6502 CPU board theory
of operations than anyone else.  As I recall, the IO space and EPROM
must be in memory somewhere.  I don't think the EPROM can be switched
out "on the fly" for a full 64K of SRAM like some Z80 and 8080 CPU
boards can (N8VEM SBC V2).   I don't think that will be a problem
though.

Rather, I think you can deselect the onboard EPROM via jumper but you
must have some way to bootstrap the system.  If not using the onboard
EPROM you'll need an external EPROM board to start the 6502 CPU.  As
you pointed out, the key to bootstrap is to set the vectors in high
memory which usually means the onboard EPROM is in place.  We had
similar issues on the ECB 6x0x host processor board.

Probably we can improve this scheme quite a bit, however, my goal with
this board is to capture the intent as best possible and get it out to
the builders before the idea is lost forever.  Once the board exists
we can make improvements and respin the PCB easily enough.  There is a
rather large prototyping area specifically for builders to make their
own tweaks and we'll see what good ideas filter out of it for V2.
We've done at least three revisions of the S-100 IDE board as the
concept is refined over time.

My personal preference would be for the design to allow an "on the
fly" reconfiguration of RAM/ROM to allow as much free RAM as possible
after bootstrapping.  Maybe that's something we can add later in the
V2 version.  However the IO page is probably not optional ever since
it allows the 6502 CPU to communicate with the S-100 external IO
devices.  I think we can make the existing design work.  At some
point, the idea has to get off the blackboard and into reality if it
is going to survive!

I very much appreciate the effort you've already done.  Given what's
happened so far, it is not an exaggeration to say you've literally
saved the project!

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

On Nov 27, 5:22 pm, Neil Breeden <nbre...@comcast.net> wrote:
> Yes, the Beta board has an 8 position DIP switch to set the 256 Byte I/O block and the start of the on-board EPROM address. A8..A15 are configurable via it.  I would assume the re-spin boards will follow the same configuration design
>
> Keep in mind however that the design works as follow:
>
> If A8..A15 match the DIP switch setting then the P=Q output of the 74LS682  is LOW meaning that the current memory address is in the designated 'act as port I/O block'.
>
> If A8..A15 are greater then the DIP switch setting then the P>Q output of the 74LS682 is LOW meaning that the on-board EPROM is enabled.
>
> if both P=Q and P>Q are high then the system assumes RAM is being accessed. This means that if you set the DIP Switch to all 0s (all closed) the addresses 0000..00FF would be the I/O space, 0100-FFFF would be considered as ROM. There are some config jumpers that allow you to gate A11 and A12 into the mix as well; I haven't used these.
>
> The onboard EPROM is laid out for a 2732. As the 6502 at reset jumps to the RESET vector address (found at addresses FFFE and FFFF) you will typically want to have EPROM in upper memory so the RESET vector is not volatile. Assuming you need the full 4K for the EPROM (F000..FFFF) you would jumper the I/O space at EF00 resulting in I/O at bytes EF00..EFFF then the EPROM mapped at F000..FFFF.
>
> With I/O at F800 (DIP Switch set to F8) it places the I/O space at F800..F8FF, EPROM is then enabled at F900..FFFF which become physical EPROM address 900..FFF, EPROM bytes 000..8FF are not accessible. This is neat way of allowing you to only use the amount of EPROM needed (up to 4K) freeing up as much RAM as possible. Note that when I program a 2732 for the board I end out outputting a BIN file from the assembler; then when I load it into the programmer I manually offset it by 900 (option in my programmer software), If I use Intel HEX files the offset doesn't work; I am assuming because the actual load addresses in the EPROM are in the HEX file.
>
> It took me a few days to wrap my head around this as it's different from the 8080 and Z-80 CPU cards I'm used too.
>
> -Neil
>
> On Nov 24, 2011, at 2:33 PM, lynchaj wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi
>
> > Yes, the IO and ROM space is selectable.  However the ROM monitor code
> > is designed to have the IO at $F800-$F8FF and the ROM at $F900-$FFFF
>
> > Of course you can adjust it with your own code or modify the source as
> > you see fit.
>
> > The documentation, schematic, PCB layout, and ROM monitor code, etc
> > are on the N8VEM wiki here
>
> >http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=S-100%20...
>
> > Neil was able to get the Apple I software to run on the S-100 6502 CPU
> > board and it worked well.
>
> > There is a large prototyping area too so if you want to include your
> > own TMI circuitry that's possible and/or your own IO devices.
>
> > Once you get it working though please send the schematic back to me so
> > I can roll those changes into the S-100 6502 CPU V2 board.
>
> > I am trying to gauge whether to do a run of PCBs with this version or
> > wait until all the features are included.  The wait for V2 will likely
> > be months though.
>
> > Thanks and have a nice day!
>
> > Andrew Lynch
>
> > On Nov 24, 4:55 pm, "j....@cimmeri.com" <j....@cimmeri.com> wrote:
> >> Can that address space start address be made selectable?
>
> >> lynchaj wrote:
> >>> Hi
>
> >>> More information on the S-100 6502 CPU board
>
> >>> The S-100 6502 as a specific range ($F800-$F8FF) of memory mapped to
> >>> the S-100 IO space.  You can use standard S-100 IO boards like normal
> >>> which you access by sending the 6502 to a specific range in memory.
> >>> It works amazingly well and you can use the regular S-100 peripheral
> >>> boards like Serial IO, etc.
>
> >>>http://n8vem-sbc.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder¶m=S-100%20...
>
> >>>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgFUeJdO7-E
>
> >>> Thanks and have a nice day!
>
> >>> Andrew Lynch- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -