Re: S-100 68K CPU board status

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

Hi John!  Thanks!  Wonderful news!

Yes, the CompuPro documentation is excellent as is the DRI material.
It seems the "default" case in the DRI documentation is a $0400 loader
and a 128KB version of CP/M-68K.  If the same can be done with the
CompuPro binary images that would be a good place to start.

Assuming you are using an S-100 4MB SRAM board, the most direct path
may be to just use the debug monitor to load the default CP/M-68K
binary image into RAM and tweak the CBIOS from there.  The DRI
documents say for a "bare bones" CP/M-68K the CBIOS needs about a
dozen functions or so like the console in and out and those for the
disk.

I imagine the code required for interfacing to an S-100 IDE or S-100
ZFDC could be considerably simpler than a Disk1A.  Still a lot of work
but doable.

Once even a bare bones CP/M-68K is running then its own tools are
available to help fill out the rest.  Its that first step that's the
big one!

Good news on the S-100 68K CPU board PCB trace routing.  As of last
night there were 584 vias and overall trace length at 1450" or so.  At
the rate it was going it should complete a full pass in 2-2.5 days.
This is huge progress and the board has finally turned the corner.  It
still needs to lose about 200 vias to be even reasonable to make a
prototype but at least it is visibly moving.

This is very exciting.  With Leon's Z80/8086 multiCPU running "in the
field" I can see a day in the not to distant future of a Z80/8086/68K
multiCPU S-100 system.  More to come for sure!

Thanks and have a nice day!

Andrew Lynch

On Dec 27, 5:13 pm, "John Monahan" <mon...@vitasoft.org> wrote:
> My first choice would definitely be using the Godbout 68K image and splicing
> in a BIOS written in assembly. The Godbout/CompuPro systems we're
> outstanding. The documentation was great with great examples. That would be
> my first choice. It would be real easy to splice a BIOS into the very simple
> monitor I wrote,  see here:-
>
> http://s100computers.com/Software%20Folder/68000%20Monitor/68000%20Mo...
> tm
>
> As to a windows based 68K assembler. I would highly recommendhttp://www.easy68k.com/
>
> It is just fantastic for a job like this.
>
> John Monahan Ph.D
> mon...@vitasoft.org
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: n8vem...@googlegroups.com [mailto:n8vem...@googlegroups.com] On
>
> Behalf Of Mike
> Sent: Tuesday, December 27, 2011 12:47 PM
> To: n8vem...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [N8VEM-S100:607] Re: S-100 68K CPU board status
>
> On 12/27/2011 03:28 PM, lynchaj wrote:
> > Woof!  OK, that's weird.
>
> > My guess is Alcyon C compiler is really old and predates much of the
> > now more standardized C conventions.
>
> > I've never seen or heard of anything like you just described.  This
> > must be really obscure stuff.
>
> > Here is a post on comp.os.cpm which seems to discuss the unnamed
> > structs
>
> >http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.cpm/msg/398560ac7ef058b6
>
> > Forgive my ignorance but do you think the Alcyon C compiler is capable
> > of successfully compiling the CP/M-68K sources?
>
> > Thanks and have a nice day!
>
> > Andrew Lynch
>
> Ha. Okay, so I'm not alone! :)
>
> Yes, I would say almost certainly it should be able to compile the CP/M-68K
> sources, as it appears to be the exact compiler used to compile them
> originally.
>
> --Mike
>
> http://8bit.zapto.org- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -