UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Powered By Google Custom Search Vintage Radio and TV Service Data

Go Back   UK Vintage Radio Repair and Restoration Discussion Forum > Specific Vintage Equipment > Vintage Computers

Notices

Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

Closed Thread
 
Thread Tools
Old 11th Apr 2019, 3:02 pm   #161
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

The online emulator is unusable, slow and unresponsive on its default settings - you have to ramp the cycles per second value up to the maximum and I find I have to change the display type as well to get it to run at a reasonable speed - and also it only seems to respond on the keypad meant for tablet users as well, for me - sorry I can't be more specific but it has been a while since I used it.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 14th Apr 2019, 1:17 pm   #162
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Again keeping more general MK14 stuff in this thread - following SH's suggestion of looking through Practical Electronics I started with the original review (which is reproduced in text on the net) in the May 1979 issue. Off Topic I was shocked when the cover featured the IC insertion tool I had used to help build my replica - surprised I still had it and the elastic was still working! I only lamented it was too small for the 18pin PROMS and RAM!

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...9-05-S-OCR.pdf

I had read the text but, with the photo's I notice that the VDU board he mentions is not the SoC one but, the one built and described in PE itself over three issues from Oct 78 to Dec 78. - just change the number in the url to 11 and 12 to get to the other two parts...

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...cs-1978-10.pdf

This solves the problem of slowing the MK14 and and using its memory with its own onboard 1K. The review also describes the changes needed on Rev I-IV boards to remove the PROM shadow - which is where they map the Video RAM.

I have the parts on the way to build the SoC one but, that looks like an interesting project to reproduce the PCB - not sure if any of the chips are still available...

again as an aside I still have some 7400 chips with the free stickers from the Oct 1978 cover on them...

Click image for larger version

Name:	PEfreebies.jpg
Views:	152
Size:	41.1 KB
ID:	181342
Timbucus is offline  
Old 14th Apr 2019, 6:08 pm   #163
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Yes, the PE VDU was a much more sensible beast than SOC's own effort. I've never seen one.

For the SOC VDU, be aware that one of the ICs on that - the character generator IC - is quite a specialised IC and may be hard to find now. It was actually an option which did not automatically come with the VDU kit, you had to pay extra for it. It still sort of works without it, but only in dot-matrix (graphics / pixel) mode. If you want to use it in its text / character output mode you'll need the character generator IC.

If Slothie manages to track the VDU connections to the rear edge -and- removes the images from 0200-07FF (a big ask) then there is the possibility to place a 'ram pack' in between the MK14 and the original SOC VDU, or just by itself to give the machine a respectable extra 1.5K of RAM.

Unfortunately the butchery required to my issue II board to get rid of the images in that range would not only be too great now, it was too much for me to consider then and I never did it.

Even when hooking the VDU into the MK14 in the manner intended there were a few required changed such as track cuts and a change to a 4Mhz crystal, so it was quite a destructive process. Mine still bears the scars, even though I have modified it back to near original state, except for the keypad of course.

..I remember those stick-on IC diagrams, a good idea I thought but of course you always ran out of the common ones pretty quickly.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 15th Apr 2019, 12:42 am   #164
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

... Just caught up with your latest MK14 article finds.

That one with the image of the super-early-version MK14 is great, I don't think I have ever seen that one before. I have never actually heard of, or seen, an actual issue I MK14. All the ones I've ever seen are issue II or later.

Yes, an acknowledged weakness of the cassette audio signalling format is that it starts sending significant information immediately - this was addressed in later Sinclair machines by sending a long preamble of steady tone to let the recorder AGC settle before starting to send significant data.

I've never heard of the interesting HF injection method to pre-adjust the AGC action before but another forum member here (Gert?) had the brilliant idea of inverting the data before sending it to the cassette interface so that the signalling is done, not by silence broken by 4ms or 16ms bursts of tone, but by interrupting the otherwise continuous audio tone for either 4ms or 16ms. That would provide a lead-in tone for the recorder to adjust its gain on before any significant information begins to be sent.

I was actually wondering if we could (or should) collect all the links to known sources for MK14 software and hardware projects into a thread of its own, which might also incorporate some discussion about actually programming the machine - there's a lot of interest in recreating the hardware but people rarely write anything new to run on them (I am as guilty as anyone else).

I've been contemplating the idea of setting up a small model railway circuit and trying to do some basic PWM speed control and automatically starting from / stopping at a station - I have some (N gauge) sectional track and a few models to put on it, but no electrically controlled points, so it would have to be quite basic. I think this is the sort of experimental Arduino-like hobby control application the MK14 was originally aimed at.

Another, less physically complex and more self contained project might be to connect an alphanumeric LCD display to one or both of the 8154's I/O ports and recreate the 'Message' program with the message scrolling on the LCD display with no crippling literary limitations imposed by there being no Letters 'K', 'M','P','Q', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', and 'Z'.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 15th Apr 2019, 8:25 pm   #165
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

As regards the SoC VDU - Martin has a substitute part a DM86S64CAB which he has managed to get - not sure how much stock he has but, its a useful source with the PCB.

I think the idea of collecting articles and links in a thread is great - this one is sort of doing it. I have been pulling together a set of personal notes on topics which may help form an FAQ. A wiki would be ideal somewhere perhaps...

That's funny I describe the MK14 to people as the Arduino of 1978 so a model train controller seems ideal...

I am also guilty of not doing any coding (yet) - as a Z80 programmer I am having a bit of a shock reading what is available on the SC/MP II first!

The Alphanumeric LCD display ties in very well with my first intended project which is to port my adaptation (which is 256 Z80 bytes) of an i2c and RTC driver from the Next! That is what I am working up to... now I have actual hardware and a cross assembler.

Other magazines of the time may have something of interest if not directly MK14 then SC/MP (E.g. Elektor who had the designs for a machine based on one if I remember correctly). One I quite fancy having a go at is 2 dimensional version of Conway's game of life described in Issue 12 of the 1978 Byte:

https://archive.org/details/byte-mag...78-12/page/n69

The magazines suck up research time ( I have to stop )...

I have also just been naughty and bought a copy of Issue 2 of Personal Computer World (May 1978) as they are not archived online anywhere. It has a review of the MK14 in it (I noticed as the listing included the contents page) which I will obviously scan - interestingly it is written by Nick Toop. I think it may be the same person who in PE of April 1979 provides an MK14 diagnostic program written in NIBL BASIC - he is described as working for SoC then and is credited as the designer of the VDU board... He has a further article in the Dec 1979 PE issue with an Output Flag multiplexer and falling man animation for the VDU.

The bit that really interested me in the above is the mention of NIBL at SoC I wonder if they had somehow put the ROMS (2 off 2316A for £46.90 from Greenbank Electronics) into the MK14 memory map or were using a more powerful SC/MP system. That started me thinking that if the top four address bits were latched and some mods to the onboard address decoding were done it could appear as another 4K Page... only problem would be the SCIOS reliance on the RAM at FFF appearing to wrap below 000. A future project...
Timbucus is offline  
Old 15th Apr 2019, 10:58 pm   #166
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

I love Z80, when I was playing about with my Maplin Z80 system a while ago I was struck by how luxurious the instruction set seemed. I remember a lot of the opcodes even to this day. Of course, this marks me out as coming from the Sinclair tribe - I still have my original ZX81 and 48K Spectrum, along with a couple of other Sinclair machines which were not originally owned by me.

The main things I wish the SC/MP had are CALL and RET instructions and a proper stack pointer to support those.

Having a cross assembler for SC/MP is the final link in the chain - once you have that and combine it with some way of getting your assembled code into the MK14, the MK14 is almost as much fun to play with as an Arduino, PIC or AVR, although of course all of the latter have extra goodies like built-in UART, I2C, SPI, Timers, analogue inputs, PWM outputs...
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 24th Apr 2019, 9:29 am   #167
Slothie
Octode
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

I've been looking at my latest PCB design and to correctly decode the ROM to allow extra memory in the lower 2k is going to require an extra logic IC and the requisite rework to squeeze it in somewhere and still make it look authentic. Still, perhaps that will give me something to think about! I've attached the schematic up here and perhaps you could tell me if the connections on the bottom row (P4) look good to connect the VDU. Note that due to the orientation of the connector, the power (+5) is on the right under the top power connections, and the address lines will be on the right hand side (IE nearest the vertical resistors).

PS I'm back in action after my operation though it will be a month or so before I discover how successful its been - so till then I'm a one-eyed sloth!!
Attached Files
File Type: pdf mk14_2.pdf (225.9 KB, 246 views)
Slothie is offline  
Old 24th Apr 2019, 8:59 pm   #168
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Best wishes, obviously, for a good outcome from your eye surgery.

I just had a look through, looking at your diagram and my VDU and the list of connections - I think you've done a nice job with the connections in the right order and running in the right direction. I notice you've included the write signal, which, although not needed by the VDU, would be needed by any external memory or any other useful sort of peripheral IC, such as a UART or ADC or DAC connected this way.

You might conceivably need more than just one 0V and one +5V connection because individual edge contact connections tend not to be very good load bearers - probably why SOC placed the +8V and 0V input connections on groups of several edge connections each on the upper side.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 24th Apr 2019, 10:14 pm   #169
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Looking at my board from Martin it follows the schematic

Click image for larger version

Name:	MK14_VDU-schematicV3.jpg
Views:	277
Size:	78.0 KB
ID:	181803

so D0 to D7 are actually on pins A18-A25. NRDS is on A28 and NENIN is on A31 with VCC on A32 under FL1

The spares are A26, A27 and A29/A30

Here is a closeup:

Click image for larger version

Name:	VDUdiagramedge.jpg
Views:	158
Size:	40.7 KB
ID:	181804

and a photo of the bottom of martin's unpopulated clone - the only pin that connects on the top of the PCB is the Reverse Pages pin B15 that emerges on the Via in the bottom left up to the OR gate out on IC1. So all the traces can be seen and the bottom right is IC16 and the Data lines can clearly be seen clustering towards it. I also attach a photo of how I intend to connect them and still leave the option of a memory shim board - or even a backplane if I can get enough connectors...

Click image for larger version

Name:	IMG_1386.jpg
Views:	169
Size:	47.1 KB
ID:	181805 Click image for larger version

Name:	IMG_1388.jpg
Views:	176
Size:	56.0 KB
ID:	181806

SH so is your VDU board different? Martin has a photo on his site with both an original and his clone side by side so maybe there are different revisions?
Timbucus is offline  
Old 24th Apr 2019, 11:05 pm   #170
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

No, mine is a revision 2, photo-identical to that one in your photos with all the tracks near the edge connector arranged the same way. My documentation / wiring up information also matches the circuit diagram you've posted.

Slothie's mission was only to try to lay out the connections for the VDU in the same order and in the same direction so that each required connection faced its counterpart across the gap when the two boards were laid next to each other, making it easy to wire up an appropriate lead with a 32-way edge connector at one end and a DIN connector at the other without having to criss-cross any wires.

That Martin has already tracked the required lines to the underside edge connector is complete news to me, as I have never seen one of his PCBs. It makes me wonder if SOC finally did get around to doing this on the issue V.

One thing that is missing from Slothie's diagram, I have just noticed, is the clock-out signal from the MK14 which needs to go into pin b27 of the VDU, which despite being called X-OUT is an input on the VDU. The original wiring instructions tell you to take that clock signal directly from the SC/MP (pin 38).
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 25th Apr 2019, 12:11 am   #171
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

SH sorry perhaps I misled you Martin's issue 5 board edge is in the second photo and it only has the pads ready to patch too. It is the VDU board you can see all the tracks on.

It just seemed to me that it would be ideal to have them match 1:1 so that instead of an edge connector you could solder on a DIN4162 at the top of a patched Issue 5 or a Slothie v2... in fact rather than doing all the messy patching on Martin's board maybe I will wait for a Slothie v2 for myself if he does change the D0-D7 location as it is a right shift of a group that should be possible - the other couple of lines might give him a headache though - especially if we can find a way to get the Issue 5 memory decoding and the different RAM chip stuff he has included...

This example of an issue 5 has done just that by the way so it is authentic:

https://twitter.com/mk14man/status/892508941170733056

Slothie hope the eye op goes well - understand if you do not make the the above change(s) on your board. It just occurs to me that we effectively have a useful standard connector for VDU and maybe an external RAM/ROM board between the MK14 and the VDU that can be used with anything people like. Indeed you could actually solder a right angled edge connector on the VDU - I cant find where I found this one but, that was done on there so I assume they could just plug it directly onto the MK14!

Click image for larger version

Name:	IMG_2695 (1).jpg
Views:	174
Size:	92.2 KB
ID:	181810

The VDU Manual says that the PADS are present on Issue 4 and Issue 5 but, you still needed to do your own patching - we still don't know when the memory decoding improvement happened though unless someone has a reference but, it was on the Issue 5 so again if you can put that on it would be authentic - maybe using the original gates and then just a new gate for your memory patch and reset solution... or not they will be functionally equivalent.
Timbucus is offline  
Old 25th Apr 2019, 1:12 am   #172
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

According to my MK14 edge connector diagram from the manual the 32 pins of that connector (top side) are numbered 1 (nearest the regulator end) to 32 (nearest the vertical resistors). Place the VDU card in its logical location next to the edge connector and the first thing you see is that the numbering on the VDU pins runs the other way. Awkward.

The other problem is that there are more lines connected to the 'b'; row than that single track you see going to b17 on the top side. Other 'b' row pins are reached by Vias coming from the track side of the PCB.

If we line them up anyway, the connections on the MK14 top side and VDU top side ('b' row) line up as per the attached diagram.

This is not as bad as it could be, with most of the VDU 'b' row control lines ending up connected to 8154 I/O pins which can then be used to drive or read them, as applicable.

The problems are the VDU 'Reverse page' input (b15) which finds itself connected to the MK14 interrupt input, and the VDU clock input (b27) which gets shorted to 0V.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	MK14_VDU_topside.jpg
Views:	174
Size:	95.1 KB
ID:	181811  
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 25th Apr 2019, 1:15 am   #173
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Cross posted with you Tim: I agree that it would have been sensible to do it the way you thought it was actually done, very sensible. If even Martin's PCB does not have the buses tracked, then you may as well do it that way, bearing in mind the minor anomalies which will happen when you connect the 'b' row one-for-one to the MK14 top side connections, as stated in the previous post.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 25th Apr 2019, 9:33 pm   #174
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

That was a bit more difficult than it needed to be - my archived copy of the source code for the VDU 'Demo' wasn't the final version - I have no idea where that got to - so I had to debug the next most recent version all over again.

Ordinarily, I would connect the MK14 VDU or my ZX81s to a nice little mid-late seventies B/W portable TV that I keep for the purpose, but that is mothballed just now so I dug out my Philips CM8524 Composite / RGB video monitor and fed that with composite video taken from the input of the VDU's UHF modulator.

Attached image #1, the VDU fitted with RS sourced SN74LS365s in place of its original 80L95s and displaying an appropriately informative text.

The VDU is of course monochrome, but the Philips (colour) monitor has a 'Green' switch which puts it into a mode where monochrome is displayed as restful green on black instead of white on black. The image is absolutely rock steady - the Philips has always been a great monitor for me - I bought it to use with my Atari ST in the mid eighties and it is still regularly used with that same Atari. I had to replace the power switch once, but that's all.

The SN74LS365s were two from the same batch which all worked in place of the 80L95 on the MK14 - looks like they work OK as IC9 / IC10 in the VDU as well.

Doing this reminded me again just how primitive the VDU is - only 16 characters maximum across, I had to leave a blank line between each line of text because they are insufficiently spaced out otherwise, there are only 64 characters in the character set (no lower case, and only a limited subset of 'other' characters available).

Image #2 (displayed in conventional white) is more or less centre justified within the active screen area. It gives a better idea of where the left and right boundaries are and clearly shows that even with the correct 4MHz clock the active screen area is noticeably off-centre towards the left.
Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	SOC_VDU_with_LS365s.jpg
Views:	181
Size:	31.3 KB
ID:	181848   Click image for larger version

Name:	SOC_VDU_message.jpg
Views:	196
Size:	31.6 KB
ID:	181850  
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 25th Apr 2019, 10:58 pm   #175
Slothie
Octode
 
Join Date: Apr 2018
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,287
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Pictures I have seen of what I believe to be Rev V boards appear to have just pads on the bottom, and no actual connections to them.
While I have no problem with putting XOUT on the connector, I am reluctant to put it in the middle of all those 0v connections on the top, I'd rather put it on one of the "spare" connections on the bottom.
Again, I can't see any real problems in shifting the D0-D7 connections etc to their correct place, but that will still leave you with problems with clashes on the top connector as Sirius has pointed out, requiring mods to your VDU card to resolve.

If I take out support for 65X61 memory devices I might free up enough gates to be able to fully decode the PROM enable - but at the moment these memory chips are reasonably easy to find for reasonable(ish) amounts on ebay/aliexpress wheras the 2111 or AM9111 are only popping up occasionally, usually for £££s.

Decisions decisions! I hate decisions!!!
Slothie is offline  
Old 26th Apr 2019, 10:38 pm   #176
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Slothie -yes you are correct the one I linked to above and another I found online have patch wires, close up here of both for convenience:

Click image for larger version

Name:	TwoMK15Patches.jpg
Views:	160
Size:	110.0 KB
ID:	181912

One seems to roughly follow the VGA layout the other looks like it is almost the same patch pattern but, totally reversed! the one that seems to be following the VDU for direct connect also has some resistors patching something. Would be nice to work out what is going on there.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projec...4-restoration/

I should have credited this link as the source of the VDU board I posted with the edge connector on it. I have just noticed looking at it again I think it carries out the trick I am planning. As you say XOUT should be on the bottom - I suggest on the pin below no A27 as that is unused so would be easy to bend back the pin on the connector and then just bridge the pads...

Click image for larger version

Name:	XOUTpatch.jpg
Views:	137
Size:	26.6 KB
ID:	181911

I can just do a similar thing with B15 the Reverse Pages (input) pin - bend the pin up and patch it over to B8 which will mean it appears on the IO Chip A3 line... it even has a neat via I can pick it from or the hole itself...

We just need to work out what the default effect is on all those ports at reset... Maybe one or two need inversion to ensure display is on or off etc...

The only public software I know of for the VDU is the falling man animation in Dec 1979 PE - that does not seem to write to the I/O chip so doing this is unlikely to break major software...

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...9-12-S-OCR.pdf

SH- you may like the submitted subroutine handler in there as well if you haven't seen it - clever bit of code for larger programs... The offset calculator is also better than the one in SCIOS as it patches the whole program.

The other circuit I want to try and may interest others is in the 1980 August Issue of Practical Electronics which is a circuit by Anthony D. Love of Swansea that uses a 74LS32 to allow Bit 6 of the character code to invert individual characters to Black on white! Page 48

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...0-08-S-OCR.pdf

As regards the Memory - there are some notes posted somewhere (by SH I think) on the gates they used on the Issue V to remove the multiple PROM images so it is possible with only what is on the board.

The would mean that the additional chip you add would be for the alternate memory option - this should also mean only that change has a routing difference to the real MK15 Issue V. UTsource have AM2111 at 5.95 each at the moment - they do not show stock levels but seemed happy when I put four in my basket - delivery is slow or steep though...

SH - thanks for doing all that testing... - at least you have a sketch (it was an arduino you used?) now you can share for people to test a VDU board

I have received my two MM80C95N as well which I will try in the VDU when I build it and get it working. One of them certainly works on the keypad IC11 i/f which we are discussing in the other thread. I didn't think as a CMOS part it would have enough fan out but, maybe the other chips are not being driven as it is a bus... so they need the EN or CS asserted for that. I will study a bit more the VDU schematic how they are used there, as this is at the limits of my electronics knowledge...
Timbucus is offline  
Old 27th Apr 2019, 9:22 am   #177
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Again, some nice information mining there. We're going to have to make you the official MK14 historian / repository. I remember running the 'Falling man' animation on my VDU / MK14. That comment by Paul Robson (-The- Paul Robson?) is quite new, I only just noticed it myself.

The VDU 'demo driver' PCB is a Microchip '44 pin demo PCB' of the type which was included with PicKit3 programmers - the chip on it is a PIC18F452, chosen because it has a 'PLL' clock mode which allows it to effectively run at 40Mhz with a 10Mhz clock crystal. I rigged that up a few years ago now after seeing the VDU PCB sitting unloved in a drawer for decades and finally feeling sorry for it.

In theory you can test the VDU just by programming an eprom with some test text or a test bitmap image and connecting the address, data and RD lines to the appropriate connections on the VDU. (You will need to generate a 4MHz clock for it as well).

Tie all unused eprom pins - higher address pins, OE, etc to 0V and other pins to whatever state is necessary to get the chip into read mode.

On the VDU, tie all of its control lines into the obvious required states and you should get a nice static image of whatever you have programmed the eprom with.

Character mode is the easiest to try this with since the relationship of screen ram locations to screen character locations is exactly as you would expect, screen ram location zero is the first (upper left) character on the screen, screen ram location 511 is the lower right character on the screen.

In graphics / bitmap mode the relationship between screen ram locations and pixel locations is not quite as simple as you would expect, I'll go into that in more detail some other time. There's a reason why the 'Falling Man' animation scrolls downwards rather than across... I'll also post the VDU's reduced ASCII character code set as well, as I don't know if it is documented anywhere.
SiriusHardware is offline  
Old 27th Apr 2019, 2:35 pm   #178
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

I did say I was a bit obsessive about information on a topic... I am trying to record all this in one place but, it is getting so big and interconnected I think maybe it will be enough for a book!

I only have a PIC16 kit I picked up recently - never done anything with them so it was a curio. I will probably have a go at KarenO's machine one day as a suitable project to find out about them. I have a few blank EEPROM's so that sounds like a good way to try it - thanks.

I will look forward to your insights on the Graphics modes.

If you really want to blow your mind read the Manual update letter - it is full of interesting snippets...

http://www.computinghistory.org.uk/d...Update-Letter/

> An updated PROM was available that supported a teletype terminal - that makes the EX42/44 project more interesting in relation to this - I wonder if any of the boards still in existence have that instead...

> They were planning a 2K Memory expansion card (so our intention is in keeping) and it confirms that 1,2 and 4 boards can be modified (wonder what happened to III). And that Issue 5 are already done.

>A 16 way A to D card.

>Advanced calculator interface - to use the calculator as a maths co-pro!

Really interesting:

>BASIC Language board - this seems to support my theory that the published NIBL BASIC program in PE April 1979 was perhaps done on a prototype MK14 BASIC expansion... definitely worth doing now...

They say this needs the VDU card (which they hoped to release in January - (1979 I assume) and the also announced 40 Key Keyboard which would came with another SCIOS update... - other items due March (again I would assume 1979)

I also notice that https://twitter.com/mk14man has started posting again intending to get his AVR based one finished. His latest tweet also posts the link to the Powerpoint he gave at the ParlaBytes Spanish Retro event in 2015 which I had discovered recently. There is also a video of the talk online as well (in English):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH5T4OQJ5yE

and here is the link to the Powerpoint as it is hard to see in the Video...

http://www.auic.es/contenido/documentos/charla-Mk14.ppt
Timbucus is offline  
Old 30th Apr 2019, 10:08 pm   #179
Timbucus
Octode
 
Join Date: Mar 2019
Location: Barry, Vale of Glamorgan, Wales, UK.
Posts: 1,362
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbucus View Post
The only public software I know of for the VDU is the falling man animation in Dec 1979 PE
Actually I was wrong there - looking back through my notes I had also found that PE August 1981 has some nice programs for the SoC VDU board. They say they get a lot
submitted for the device which it also informs us is sadly no longer available from SoC;

A Clear Screen routine, A Logic Display of the IO ports and a Horse Race - it also includes the design for an RTC not specifically for the MK14 but, generally...

https://www.americanradiohistory.com...cs-1981-08.pdf

Last edited by Timbucus; 30th Apr 2019 at 10:38 pm.
Timbucus is offline  
Old 30th Apr 2019, 11:53 pm   #180
SiriusHardware
Dekatron
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Newcastle, Tyne and Wear, UK.
Posts: 11,471
Default Re: MK14 schematic revisions

I missed those, although a CLS routine is not a difficult thing to do - just fill the screen area with either 0x00 in graphics mode or 0x20 (Space) in text mode.

I have been meaning for years to do something more than just the static text display with that VDU demo jig - I changed the demo code a couple of days ago to put the VDU into graphics mode for probably the first time since it was attached to the MK14 at least 40 years ago. There appears to be a small problem with my timing in graphics mode as there is some interference / flickering on two of the vertical pixel lines. I'll have a look at it again if I get time.

Getting a PIC to react to a change in address and supply the data meant to be coming from that address at the same sort of speed as an SRAM was surprisingly hard, as I remember.

One problem is that the VDU takes the RD line low for the whole of the time it takes to read one horizontal line's worth of text or graphics RAM, so there's no falling RD edge each time the VDU wants some new data. It just keeps RD low, changes the address it's sending out to the host RAM, waits a short time for the new data from the RAM to settle and reads the next data in, repeating that until it has read the data for the whole line. Then, RD goes back high.

When RD falls low at the beginning of the line I do the first address read and data output. The rest of the read address / output data cycles on the line are timed by watching for changes of state on the VDU's A0 line.

The (theoretical) advantage of using a PIC to do this is that, in the period outside the time when the VDU is demanding to be fed data, the PIC could spend a bit of time manipulating / animating the screen ram contents, whereas if you use an EPROM to store a test image it will just be that fixed image - although you could store a different text page or bitmap image every 512 bytes in a very big EPROM and run a binary count-up on the remaining address pins, either slowly for a 'slideshow' or quickly to do a flicker-book 'animation'. (My animation skills are definitely not up to that).
SiriusHardware is offline  
Closed Thread

Thread Tools



All times are GMT +1. The time now is 8:08 am.


All information and advice on this forum is subject to the WARNING AND DISCLAIMER located at https://www.vintage-radio.net/rules.html.
Failure to heed this warning may result in death or serious injury to yourself and/or others.


Powered by vBulletin®
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, vBulletin Solutions, Inc.
Copyright ©2002 - 2023, Paul Stenning.