Hello there !
I am Philippe from France... buiding electronic things and also restoring old tubes receivers, vintage hifi, vintage computers, vintage scientific calculators etc...
When I was young I build a Elektor Junior Computer running KB9 Basic. Some years after I got an Amstrad CPC6128, need place and put the Junior to scrap (we could be idiot sometime...).
In 2013 I start to rebuild this Junior, put pcb layouts in decent software etc...
And time after time I got everything (expansion board, memory board and floppy interface, all from Elektor) to give a try to OS65D.
Today I got a success, warm thanks to OSIWeb archive and OSIHFE software ! OS65D load from a Gotek with FlashFloppy... and i can also write to floppy image !
Now I have to learn to use it... I am cumfortable with cpm, msdos and linux console but this look very different !!!
Anyway I am happy !
Regards.
Philippe
Elektor Junior Computer
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wawa.voun
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 5:59 pm
Elektor Junior Computer
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billdrom
- Posts: 55
- Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2009 4:08 pm
- Location: Somerdale,New Jersey
Re: Elektor Junior Computer
Hello Philippe, Welcome to the group!
I never even knew about the Elektor Junior or that it could run OSI software.
Wikipedia says it was some sort of a clone of a KIM-1.
Does that mean I should try to figure out a way of booting a KIM-1 to OS-65?
Anyway good luck and post more information about your system.
Its very interesting.
I never even knew about the Elektor Junior or that it could run OSI software.
Wikipedia says it was some sort of a clone of a KIM-1.
Does that mean I should try to figure out a way of booting a KIM-1 to OS-65?
Anyway good luck and post more information about your system.
Its very interesting.
-
wawa.voun
- Posts: 49
- Joined: Sun Nov 22, 2020 5:59 pm
Re: Elektor Junior Computer
Hello,
It's real that the Junior in his original configuration is more or less a Kim-1 clone !
The thing is that because it is a modular system
- there is a 6502 bus extension
- the memory size could be easily increased (dram board for 16 Ko then modified for 64 Ko)
- the addresses decoding is flexible for both eprom and ram, ram $0000 --> $BFFF continuous, eprom $F800 --> $FFFF
- Elektor made a floppy interface board with Motorola 6850 and 6821 chips also located at the right address
- Elektor write a bootstrap eprom (ESS515) able to
* load OS65D (V3.1 or 3.3 as far as I know) from floppy
* give basic i/o capability (rs232 and floppy)
* manage hex display and keyboard
* modify OS65 with the hex display after the very first load to fully adapt them to the system (~10 octets to modify)
I am not a Kim specialist but if this is achievable on a Kim why not ? This could be very interesting...
There is some ram extension for the Kim on the internet.
The floppy interface could be mechanically adapted to the Kim bus, nothing complicated...
The asm listing of the bootstrap is available on the internet (key in "Hans Otten retro" in Google then on his site look at "Junior Paperware-2").
Regards.
Philippe
It's real that the Junior in his original configuration is more or less a Kim-1 clone !
The thing is that because it is a modular system
- there is a 6502 bus extension
- the memory size could be easily increased (dram board for 16 Ko then modified for 64 Ko)
- the addresses decoding is flexible for both eprom and ram, ram $0000 --> $BFFF continuous, eprom $F800 --> $FFFF
- Elektor made a floppy interface board with Motorola 6850 and 6821 chips also located at the right address
- Elektor write a bootstrap eprom (ESS515) able to
* load OS65D (V3.1 or 3.3 as far as I know) from floppy
* give basic i/o capability (rs232 and floppy)
* manage hex display and keyboard
* modify OS65 with the hex display after the very first load to fully adapt them to the system (~10 octets to modify)
I am not a Kim specialist but if this is achievable on a Kim why not ? This could be very interesting...
There is some ram extension for the Kim on the internet.
The floppy interface could be mechanically adapted to the Kim bus, nothing complicated...
The asm listing of the bootstrap is available on the internet (key in "Hans Otten retro" in Google then on his site look at "Junior Paperware-2").
Regards.
Philippe