Computer

Laser XT/3 Bios

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As posted before

XT-CF-Mini Bootable 8-bit ISA CF Card Interface – XT-IDE

I really like GlaBios for my 8088, so today I got my Laser XT/3 8086 machine from the attic.

Mmm TWO ROM’s thats interesting

Looking futher in the schematics I found this. Apparantly there is a 8K ROM configured in a D0-D7 + D8-D15 setup. (16 bits)

Found a technical manual, this is a excerpt.

In Turbo XT, there are two 28-pin sockets for ROM, one of them is
occupied by a 2764 which stored the BIOS (Basic Input Output System).
The other empty socket is used to house a 32K ROM, such as the BASIC
ROM

And about the XT/3 version which I have.

In Turbo XT /2 and Turbo XT /3, there are two 28-pin sockets for ROM,
both of them are occupied by 2764 which stored the BIOS. The contents
of the two 2764 are identical. One of them contribute the ODD Byte to the system and the other EVEN Byte. Together they support 16 Bit BIOS
access.

This could be an interesting chat with Greg ..

Meanwhile i’m going to look how to split a rom into odd/even.
Maybe i have to write a little python program for this.

Well, thats enough for today.

Lets fix my Cat S60 Flir phone, so i can track the hedgehog in our garden. (Battery replacement and powerbutton fix)

Hard to remove backcover and a sh*tload of screws
At least the battery replacement was a breeze

I fixed several phones before, (broken screen. touch not working). But I hate how some manufacturers build them.

Music, Pipes / Folk / Instruments

Pipes played

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  • Lying down
  • In a trucks cabin
  • Elevator
  • Phonebox
  • Cruise ship to England
  • While riding a bicycle without holding the handlebars
  • Motor tricicle
  • Parking garage .. amazing echo
  • Churches
  • Toilets
  • Trainstation hal at night
  • Standing in a back of a bus ( drones through the sunroof )
  • In the back of a car
  • Upside down

Bus in motion on a highway
In a Car, had to take the top part of the bass drone
Cruise ship to England

Some funny pictures I found

Playing two chanters at once
Bunch ‘o pipes
Computer

XT-CF-Mini Bootable 8-bit ISA CF Card Interface – XT-IDE

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Today I got this card (I bought it on Ebay)

It’s fitted with a 64Mb card. Note: the XT at my parents place had a 20Mb harddisk!

It can boot / emulate a harddisk with MsDos installed.

Replace an old or dead hard drive in a vintage PC with a hassle-free, reliable CompactFlash card!
Plug-in and go! (well, as much as you can expect with these old machines)

Brand new!
Built and tested.

Open Source!

This bootable expansion card provides a Compact Flash card interface to 8-bit ISA systems such as PC/XT. Typically paired with a 64MB or 1GB CF card. Silent, and more reliable than an old mechanical hard drive.

By default the XT-IDE BIOS comes configured for:
XT(and higher)-compatible BIOS.
Use the XT-CF-Mini’s IDE interface at 300h, no IRQ.
Boot first hard drive unless user presses A for floppy.
Any of the above can be changed with the simple DOS utility and built-in switches.

Switches and jumpers control:
I/O port for the 8-bit IDE (CF) interface
I/O port for the Option ROM
Option ROM Enable
Option ROM Write-protect

Note: Not all CF cards will work. Most work, but some don’t adhere to the CF standard fully, and won’t work. The full size XT-IDE card with an IDE>CF adapter, is compatible with more CF cards.

https://github.com/Bluelavasystems/XT-IDE-CF-MINI
XT-CF-Mini Pcb designed by Monotech Pc’s and released opensource GNU General Public License v3.0

It is from Blue Lava Systems, who took the schematics from Sergey Kiselev, who took the design from James Pearce.

The harddisk extension is XT-IDE Universal BIOS.
And can be flashed.

Schematic below

pcmciacard-isa

ROM address D0000, and IO port 300h does not need a IRQ

After installing this on my 8088/v20 motherboard I tested this with GlaBIOS, but it gave me one beep, and after that it woukd reset the machine.

Testing with the original Phoenix Bios and PCXtBios worked for me.

UPDATE: Bad contacts and a eeprom I didn’t trust.
Greg gave me version 0.2.5 of Glabios, which I burned to a new eeprom. And I cleaned some contacts.
(Checksum rom changed with every reset)

The Card and my extension bios both run with all bios-ses

Boot
Ms-Dos
Writing assembly
Computer

Amstrad/Sinclair PC200 dualscreen

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While doing some wood work, routing and painting. I managed to have some time to experiment with my PC200.

The Amstrad PC20 / Sinclair PC200 was a home computer created by Amstrad in late 1988. The machine was available in two versions, Sinclair PC200 and Amstrad PC20. (US/UK?)

In addition to MS-DOS 3.3 and PPC Organiser (a memory-resident suite of utilities), the PC20/PC200 was supplied with GEM. (I do not have those disks)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEM_(desktop_environment)

The limited CGA graphical capabilities and PC speaker sound output were greatly inferior compared to other home computers of the time.
I has a modulator to connect a TV and could do hercules graphics on a sub-9 interface.

I got this computer a long time ago. (I still have to post pictures of my collection and getting them out of storage)

Info about this machine:

Build in 1988, Intel 8086 @ 8Mhz 512KB memory 3.5″ Floppy drive
TV Modulator Pal 640×200 CGA and Hercules

PC200

It still had a floppy in its drive, NIMMO Disk Juli 1992

Apparently this machine was used with a modem to do some interviewing for the University Amsterdam using Telepanel/Interview!

The ROM has several language options which you could set with dipswitches.

Debug part of ROM

Besides the machine having a “amiga” like case, it has two ISA slots behind a little trapdoor! How cool is that!

Dirty view of the ISA slots (One containing a RTC card)

Enabling only CGA on the machine and plugging in a Hercules card, you can do Multiscreen!
CGA and MDA addresses don’t conflict!
And if the ROM supports it .. dual screens baby!

Left Hercules and Right CGA

I used a debug command to fill the right screen

f b800:0 1000 ‘f a s h’

Cool little machine

Running old masm/precompiled machine code crashes. I’ll have to look into that.


Computer, IOT / Domoticz

433mhz sensors and Home Assistant

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I’ve got a lot of wifi sensors in my home automation.
But also the ones i’ve started with.
The 433mhz temperature,pir and doorsensors.

These are all connected to Domoticz via a rfxcom gateway.

I’ve previously posted about previous setups.
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2022/11/03/home-assistant-and-433-dimmers/
https://www.henriaanstoot.nl/2022/11/17/domoticz-nodered-homeassistant-mqtt/

The setup i’ve ended up with is this:

Under hardware in domoticz install the mqtt broker.
Configure your mqtt server (mine is mosquitto)
Add devices to floorplans to send these to Mosquitto

Now i can see the topics in MQTTExplorer

Install the home assistant websocket palette in NodeRed

Configure the nodes like above

These are some example flows (I’ll put the function code below)

Above are the NAMED entities in Home Assistant

CODE

//Code for NR temperature filtering on domoticz IDX
//A door censor uses nvalue instead of svalue1
//Humidity can be svalue2
//Check the Mqtt payload in MQTTExplorer which to use!
var varidx = msg.payload.idx;
var varnvalue = msg.payload.svalue1;
if(varidx == 3108)
{
msg.payload = {};
msg.payload = varnvalue;
return msg;
}

Example of the trigger node.
When a temperature sensor battery dies, and no new data arrives- in 1 hour, I get a pushover warning. (use pushbullet/email/TV notification whatever you want)

Computer

Compilers (mainly machinecode)

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A compiler is a program that converts instructions into a machine-code or lower-level form so that they can be read and executed by a computer.

Below are some machinecode compilers i’ve used.

FOR X86

Masm – Used this in Msdos
Need linker (link), can use macro’s
Most of my old stuff was written using masm

Tasm – Used this in Msdos
Need linker (tlink)
Some of my old stuff was written using Tasm (our boot demo was)

Fasm – Used this to compile for 8086/8088 under linux
Does not need linker, Open Source, Fast!, Written in fasm

Nasm – Used this for some machinecode under linux
Cross platform, can use Macro’s, Open Source

FOR 65xx

Acme – Multi-platform cross assembler for 6502/6510/65816 CPU
Used for my DIY 6502

CC65 – cc65 – complete cross development package for 65(C)02 systems
Used for my DIY 6502

Kickassembler – Java but works okay

Other compilers are for example the Arduino IDE or PlatformIO, which comes with AVR compilers. (Mostly C based)

FOR AMIGA

Seka – assembler

And a really old skool one i’ve used : PL/M-86 Compiler

I’m not sure i’ve used compilers for 8085/680x

Computer

Starfield in a bootloader (No OS)

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Here is the starfield running from a bootblock loader (No MSDOS)

I threw my back out last week, so I could not move the old 8086 to a better place. I wanted to prepare this machine to boot from floppy disk.

The starfield above boots into VGA mode 13h (320×200 256 colors)

This one also has a Sound Blaster, so I can test music in a boot sector also!

My 8088 (v40) board has VGA also now.
I’m waiting for my ISA-PCMCIA card as replacement for a harddisk/floppy

Photography

Camera bags

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I saw this article on Flipboard.

So true, we own several.

Am I happy with those? .. Well depends.

They all have their benefits. But I want the impossible.
One with all the benefits.
We choose the bag depending on the occasion, but for example a large bag is perfect for a far away vacation, sometimes we do daytrips which can be done with a smaller bag.
And I want an even smaller bag when going to the city to get something to eat when on holiday. Or the day trips to family or other cities in our country.

Also the means of transport matters.

Bike: Small one
Own car: Big bag and a small one
Plane: We have been all over the world, it depends on travel and transport in those countries.

I LOVE the ones with easy access. (Slingshot and mindshift)
Some of them have a way to take your tripod with you.

Sometimes we have to take two camera’s with us, so we don’t fight. (Vertex and Mindshift take two)

Lowepro Vertex 200 AW

Comes with a tripod holder, lots of pockets and easy adjustable. Plus it has a rain cover hidden in the bottom.

Hama

A real small bag. This one we use for day trips.
Holds camera plus a lens or our small binoculars.

Lowepro Slingshot Edge

This is another day trip bag. For when we need a little more room or take some food with us.
Love the sling concept, but not much used anymore.

Mindshift Gear Rotation 180 Horizon

I love this bag! We took this one with us to Peru and Bolivia.
Easy on the shoulders and back. I carried this one the whole day for several weeks.
The camera sling rests on your hips.

What we take with us in the big bags?

  • Filters: Polarisation/8x Stop filters + ring adaptors
  • My little screen magnifier
  • Many Sdcards
  • WD Passport for backup (see the New Zealand hack)
  • Multiple lenses
  • Cleaning material
  • Lens sunshades
  • Mini tripod
  • GPS tracker (To embed locations in photos)
  • Raincoat
  • Technochanter 🙂
Computer

Another logic probe

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I’ve build a logic probe a while ago. (Mentioned here)

Wire wrap

Today I got the EIStar LP-1. Its just a cheap easy probe, but does the job.
My version is only TTL and this one is TTL/CMOS (cmos is better when measuring arduino’s outputs)
TTL – Logic 1 = 4.75 -> 5V
CMOS – Logic 1 = more around the 3.3/3.7V

Only thing my version has which i’m missing is a pulse detector.
One millisecond puls gets clocked into a latch and keeps a led on.

Schematic I found (some similarities can be seen with my version)

From freeshell website

"If something is worth doing, it's worth overdoing."