Re: N8-2511 VDP (TMS9918) Success

[Douglas Goodall <douglas...@mac.com>]

Thanks Neil,

That is a good reality check for me. Once I get CP/M up,
I can go back  to the SDCC build and make sure it is binary 
identical. Then move on from there.

The benefits have to be clear if I expect anyone to take the
transition seriously. The unified bios project has lofty goals,
but I am sure it is achievable.

I have been driven half mad trying to use usb->serial dongles
attached to Windows machines running hyperterm.

I got out one of my vintage Compaq Portable (plasma dispay)
machines that had dos 5 on it, and  loaded up procomm. The
Compaq actually has a real UART and is not flaky like those
dongles and hyperterm. 																																									

Embedded development is so gratifying when things have been'
sorted out. But there are quite a  number of skills and tricks you 
need to know.

Once I get a handle on the software (and of course get my N8
stabilized, I can start taking advantage of the benefits of a 
library of hardware support modules. You can see the beginnings
of that already in the ubios source tree.

I believe we can build the SBC V2 ROM, the N8 ROM, the 
SCSI2IDE rom, and a collection of diagnostic roms, all out of 
the same set of source modules.

Thanks for your interest in the ubios. It won't be long and it will
start bearing fruit for us.			...		

Regards,

Douglas

 
On Aug 1, 2011, at 12:50 PM, nbreeden wrote:

> I'm using the "hc_cpm22-06-07-11-MS" CPM image, tweaked to allow me to
> run an 18.342MHz crystal.
> 
> Edit dbgmon-hc.asm - make this change (from 01 to 21)
> 
> LD	A,21   ; 01  ; NBBII - 21 for 9600 BAUD at 18.432MHz
> OUT0	(CNTLB0),A"
> 
> I added MBASIC.COM to the file hc-romimage.bin using
> 
> cpmcp -f n8vemf hc-romimage.bin MBASIC.COM 0:MBASIC.COM
> cpmls -f n8vemf hc-romimage.bin
> 
> then rebuild it using "build-rom.bat"
> 
> I then burned hc-romimage.bin to a 27C801, boot the system, enter c at
> the monitor prompt and am using MBASIC as my test platform.
> 
> I'm still playing with the SDCC build but have had no luck so far.
> 
> -Neil
> 
> 
> On Aug 1, 11:35 am, Douglas Goodall <douglas...@mac.com> wrote:
>> Neil,
>> 
>> What software are you using?
>> 
>> Are you switching to the SDCC build?
>> 
>>  I am still struggling to get my system to do anything.
>> 
>> Debugging with the PLCC CPU chip is new to me.
>> 
>> Douglas
>> 
>> On Aug 1, 2011, at 11:15 AM, nbreeden wrote:
>> 
>>> I've been able to get the VDP working under CP/M 2.2, it suffers from
>>> the same issue as the PSG in that the the /RESET signal is being held
>>> low. Again this looks to be a software issue the ACR /RESTMS and /
>>> SYNTMS signals. I've bypassed the VDP /RESET pin forcing it high. I'm
>>> able to clear the video memory, create a test character set and
>>> display the test characters using an MBASIC program.
>>> -Neil
>> 
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>> 
>> ---
>> 
>>   ‎//* * \\
>> (/(_•_)\)
>> _/''*''\_
>> (/_)^(_\)
>> 
>> Douglas Goodall
>> douglas_good...@me.comhttp://www.goodall.comhttp://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasgoodall
>> 
>> "Did Goloka think the Ulus
>> were too ugly to save?"

---

  ‎//* * \\ 
(/(_•_)\)
_/''*''\_ 
(/_)^(_\) 

Douglas Goodall
douglas...@me.com
http://www.goodall.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasgoodall

"Did Goloka think the Ulus
were too ugly to save?"