*** M E M O R U M ***

"Z80 Applications", James W. Coffron. A good book in general. Taught me most of what I know about microprocessor interfacing.

I tried to upload a scan of the chapter but the file is too big

Edit: Found a Google link to a similar description here

One of my Z80 hardware books recommends a test / debug method called "static stimulus testing". The idea is you remove the Z80 and replace it with switches and resistors. Then you can put any state you like on the buses and control lines, and check all the decoding logic. Much easier than trying to ...

A few years back I had an idea for a slightly more complex test board, which would solve the display issue. If you pull the Z80 /BUSREQ pin low (which is on the edge connector) the Z80 stops and floats all the signals. It is then possible to probe all the hardware from outside. So my idea was a boar...

It occurs to me that the reason that MC on the MTX is always at the top of a program is that if you put it anywhere else, editing the Basic code usually moves the MC and invalidates all the addresses. Building upon the code above, it should be possible to write a routine to put at the top of a progr...

This arose from a question Paul asked me. If writing a program containing mixed Basic and Machine Code, the first line of the program typically looks something like: 10 CODE 4007 RET ; Do nothing when executed 4008 JR ENCODE ; Jump table to M/C routines 400A JR DECODE This works fine when working on...

F: is usually a RAM disk not a Silicon Disk. It uses the pages above 64K on the MTX. So you should see activity on the page port (0x00) not on the Silicon Disk I/O ports. SIDISC formats both RAM disk and Silicon disks.

At this point I retire from tape cleaning and move on to something else. Attached is the latest version of my program. It has some additional scanning modes. It also the ability to manually edit the pulses. To do so: Choose a scanning mode and parameters to do the best you can in interpreting the fi...

Patience.png A last one from me. I never managed to fully read the audio files for Patience. They have relatively large system variables blocks, in which I invariably drop bits. However I think I managed to read the Basic block (with some manual editing of the pulse train). I then turned this into ...

If is anybody else wants to have a play with TapeView, source code and compiled (Linux x86) version attached. It should be possible to compile for RPi (easy) or Windows (more work required), although I have not done so. Some cautions: The code is not well structured, it just grew. It is not commente...

One more success. This is a program in Basic.

The remaining files are proving more challenging.