EmulatorII-list

It could be done by a flash or eprom, but that would need at least
some extra circuits for chip/address multiplexing and severe code
rewriting. Using a fpga pretending to be a disk drive and interfacing
to a SD card is much easier, I think.

For any serial control, it is in already, I only have to get the right
command sequences. I did some logging on the serial port with a
converter to RS-232, and my God, it's full of numbers!™

About paying, if this project should ever come to an alpha state and I
put parts of it online, please feel free to donate any money to a
charity project you like to support. The most probable things to see
the light of the world are in fact some disk backup utility using the
Catweasel MK4, something with serial communication and more stuff that
can be done by reverse engineering. Any new or reused code altering
the function or behaviour of the EII depends on the permissions of the
copyright owners if it should be for more than my private fun.

Greetings,
Hoschi

--- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "magmusic75" <john-m-junk@...>
wrote:
>
> Hello I fully support your effort. I think that somehow getting the 
> floppy OS (Disk Overlay) onto an EPROM and then having it programmed 
> so the EII looks for the OS on the EPROM or some kind of flash memory 
> would be great. Then add one new feature to the (SPECIAL) command set 
> called "Serial Control". Now in this feature you would hand over 
> control of the EII to a PC or Mac Running some custom software 
> control application. This app should have the standard EIl features 
> such as "Disk, Voice Definition Ect... but at a minimum it would just 
> be great to be able to power up the EII right from rom.
>  Anyway as I said I fully support this effort and would be glad to 
> pay for these new features! As would many other I suspect.
> 
> John
> 
> ======================================================================
> 
> --- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "hoschi1103" <totti@> 
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi all,
> > 
> > there were no news from me for a long time, as I'm always busy doing
> > other things.
> > 
> > Disassembling of both ROM nearly finished. Main ROM does contain
> > memory and peripherial init, disk I/O, some serial port stuff (see 
> 1st
> > request below) and a really big (for ancient times) table of initial
> > data for all devices in the system. Scanner ROM holds all I/O stuff 
> as
> > described in the service manual and some system init, too.
> > Interesting solution for system init: Main CPU and Scanner CPU start
> > async, Scanner CPU turns LEDs on and waits for Main CPU. Only if 
> Main
> > CPU passes the peripherial init, it signals Scanner CPU. Scanner CPU
> > then turns off LEDs and just displays "Insert diskette". That's how
> > the system assumes everything is ok, a reason for defect memory not
> > detected, as the main CPU only fills memory with 00 without really
> > checking.
> > 
> > As the ROM holds only basic functions, everything else is done via 
> the
> > overlays from any diskette. That leaves some perspective to play
> > around :D. I finally received my Catweasel board, so next thing
> > is to write a char reader to dump the disks to PC and start 
> analyzing
> > them.
> > 
> > After that: Proof that external device or software in fact is taking
> > full control over EII and controls everything like EII itself would
> > do, by dumping communication on the serial port. If it does like 
> this,
> > as I assume from the code I've seen so far, the EII can be 
> controlled
> > by any device with a serial port interface :-) (Assuming you have 
> all
> > neccessary port interfaces and some code to come...). I always 
> thought
> > that it must do so, because that's the only explanation why SDII and
> > the external CD-ROM (on the other port) did work at all.
> > 
> > Now for my requests:
> > 1. Does anybody have ROM images earlier than the ones available 
> here?
> > Please provide them, it could help a lot. The main ROM still 
> contains
> > the remains of the serial monitor mentioned in the service manual,
> > only some bytes at the beginning are NOPed out and it will RET
> > immediately. I suppose it was used by setting the NMI to it to debug
> > the system.
> > 
> > 2. Can anybody make a portlist from the schematics? I tried myself,
> > but my knowledge (and my rooms walls) is not big enough to draw it 
> out.
> > 
> > 3. Does anybody know a serial port monitor for PC (Linux or Win) 
> that
> > only records signals coming in, without caring for any protocol? I
> > used to do it with my old NEC serial linemodem analyzer, but it only
> > outputs to its CRT, which does not help much.
> > 
> > That's all for now,
> > Hoschi
> >
>