New Member saying hello

Section where new members can tell us a little bit about themselves (and their own set-up) and existing members can say "hello and welcome" to them?
SchmitS
Posts: 16
Joined: 27 Nov 2020 09:30
Location: Luxembourg

New Member saying hello

Post by SchmitS »

Hello everybody
My name is Schmit Stéphane and I live in G-D-Luxembourg.
I have been retired since last year after 39 years in industrial electronic.

I'm the owner since March 1984 of a MTX512 with 128k memory extension board and RS232 too.
The printer DMX80 is also in the package.
In February 1986 I bought a FDX with 2 Floppy drives and 80 columns monitor board.

Until 1993 I wrote a lot of programs in Basic and Assembler to develop and build interfaces with my Heathkit ETA-3400.
I had to stop because I was too busy with my job.

For 2 weeks I unpack and reinstall the old "Micros" and I till now I was able to restart everything.
I still have to make some cleaning operating and also technical upgrades ...
CPM is running again, to see the heads moving over the floppies is amazing.
For the programs still on tape it's more critical ... it seems to load but the program is not started or the ready is not back ... if you have some ideas

I was also surprise to found on the net a lot of informations and documents about the MTX world, it's really great that I found your forum.
Now I have to find 2 LED monitors with video inputs ... If you have good suggestions.

I want to thank you for accepting me in your community.

Have a nice day.
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Dave
Posts: 1280
Joined: 11 Aug 2012 18:16
Contact:

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by Dave »

Hi - Welcome!

It may be a silly question, but when you don't see the game output, you are connected to the MTX video output or TV output aren't you?

The 80 column board in the FDX does not display output from the MTX Video Chip. You can "LOAD" programs from FDX Basic, but if the output is from the VDP, you need a 40 column monitor or TV connected too

Getting modern monitors to work with these old computers is a little more challenging.

Some info here . . .

http://primrosebank.net/computers/mtx/mtx512_video.htm

regards
Dave
SchmitS
Posts: 16
Joined: 27 Nov 2020 09:30
Location: Luxembourg

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by SchmitS »

Thank you Dave for your reply
I discovered, last week, that web site during my research about MTX512. My printers are still warm.

My last contact with MTX was to put all item's in some boxes 30 years ago.
Now I unpack, devices, listing, discs, tapes, ..., and I make trials before a complete reinstallation.

MTX512 & FDX connected together, no problem at all, the 2 floppy discs, the 2 video outputs and keyboard are working under CPM and FDXB.
All the programs stored on floppy are healthy ...

MTX512 alone, flat cable disconnected, I wanted to load programs from tapes.
It finds the program on tape, I hear the "bit" song, but and the end the program doesn't start or the flashing cursor doesn't come back.
If the cursor comes back, some strange characters are displayed on 40C screen and the LIST command is empty.

It's not really critical, but for some programs I don't have listings anymore and I have no copy on floppy.
The FDXB was not able to manage the "audio" tape recording and I don't know if FBASIC has been released or an other update/upgrade was published.
I just try to find a solution to copy tape to floppy if it's still possible.

Before I never had contact with other owners of MTX, that the first time, I was living in Belgium and I didn't know anyone with such computer.
The seller and the exporter went bankrupt in 1987, impossible to solve the issue.
No other choice,I solved my troubles alone.

When I will be again "expert", I will publish some programs of mine ... just for the fun.
ex: Programs to draw double sided printed circuits, to design new characters on monitors and DMX, ...

Best regards
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gunrock
Posts: 245
Joined: 28 Oct 2020 21:17

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by gunrock »

Hi Schmit,

Welcome to the forum. I am new here and a recent MTX owner (maybe you could say a long-time devotee? :) ).

Good luck getting your tapes dumped.

Steve
Steve G
Danish Memotech MTX 512, MFX and loving it
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Dave
Posts: 1280
Joined: 11 Aug 2012 18:16
Contact:

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by Dave »

Hi Again,

It sounds like you may just be suffering the same problem that many people do when trying to use 30 year old tapes. It could just be bad tapes or a dirty tape player. You could try cleaning the tape player playback head, you might have a cleaning cassette, but you might also want to give the head a more thorough clean with some isopropyl alcohol on a cotton bud.

I assume that you will have tried different volume (and tone, if your player has that control) settings? If the tapes are readable, which is not always the case after all this time, the settings on the tape player can be critical. If you have not already done it, try messing with the playback settings - start with the volume at around 80% and then adjust it a little each time to see if you can get a tape to load. Try louder and softer.

I would also see if you can write a short BASIC program, save it to tape, then load it back again. That should help demonstrate that the tape player and MTX tape circuits are working

http://primrosebank.net/computers/tapes.htm#problems

regards
Dave
SchmitS
Posts: 16
Joined: 27 Nov 2020 09:30
Location: Luxembourg

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by SchmitS »

Hello Steve
Hope you will enjoy as I did in the 80's. This computer is very interesting because you can access each part to learn, to test, to create, ...

Dave

Yes I suppose it must me the case, I try every tapes, also the original "TOADO", with 3 different old "defected" players (volume pot, belt, ...).
I also have no brand new tapes, but I placed orders for spare parts and tapes ... 8-) A technician never give up :geek:

Thanks for your help and comments.

PS: my mother language is French, but I can communicate in English (not too bad :roll: ), in German and Luxembourgish

See you soon (à bientôt, bis bald, bis geschwënn)
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Dave
Posts: 1280
Joined: 11 Aug 2012 18:16
Contact:

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by Dave »

We are pretty lazy in the UK, since English is in widespread use, foreign language teaching leaves lots to be desired here - and a lot of us even struggle to manage English :lol:

I "studied" French at a basic level in school, along with an even smaller amount of German - sadly, I am unable to do anything of note in either. Though I have mastered the essentials so can order beer in those languages :)

If the tapes are faulty, there are a couple of guys on here who might volunteer to help (you know who you are :) )

They have been able to recover data from corrupted tapes


regards
Dave
Bill B
Posts: 593
Joined: 26 Jan 2014 16:31

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by Bill B »

If you are able to use an audio capture program (on a more modern computer) to turn the tapes into WAV files you might then see what TapeView can make of them.
Bill B
Posts: 593
Joined: 26 Jan 2014 16:31

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by Bill B »

SchmitS wrote: 01 Dec 2020 15:29 ex: Programs to draw double sided printed circuits, to design new characters on monitors and DMX, ...
My own PCB design software for the MTX can be found on Dave's site http://primrosebank.net/computers/cpm/c ... _progs.htm. I used it to create a number of PCB's back then.

My more recent PCBs have been done using Kicad instead.
SchmitS
Posts: 16
Joined: 27 Nov 2020 09:30
Location: Luxembourg

Re: New Member saying hello

Post by SchmitS »

Hello

Bill B: Thank you for your infos.

Best regards
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