emulatorII-list

[:)] Yes Floppy emulation does seem like a more practical solution.
Like I said at a minimum it would be great just to be able to boot and
load the OS from some kind of rom or ram instead of floppy disks. And it
would AWSOME if not only could you boot from rom or ram but if it were
possible to save the banks to the SD card WOW! I suppose you would have
to make the EII think it's an EII-HD model so it thinks the memory
card is a hard disk, then you would be able to scroll through the banks
on the card, select the one you want then load. Imagine how many banks
you could store on a modern memory card!

Thanks again.

John

====================================================


--- In emulatorII-list@yahoogroups.com, "hoschi1103" <totti@...> wrote:
>
> 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
> > >
> >
>





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