MTX+ Running BASIC

[Martin A]

I/O board for the MTX+ isn't fully wired yet, but it's sufficient to allow the keyboard to work.

CPU is clocked at 4Mhz, 512k ram visible to basic

VDP board fitted with 128k, although MTX basic only uses the 16k of the 9929A it expects to see.

15 pages of ram seen

512k basic.jpg (42.44 KiB) Viewed 19342 times

The first test pogram

first basic.jpg (67.18 KiB) Viewed 19342 times

[Dave]

Hi Martin,

Not that it needs it, but, as you know, the video board can take another 64k of VRAM. Are you short of the VRAM chips? I have some spare that Lez sent me if you want a couple?

Regards
Dave

[Martin A]

Printer output tested and running to spec.

Shame about the output, that was a previously un-opened ribbon, I guess 25 years in storage has taken it's toll on the ink, sealed or not.

Printer Connected

printout.jpg (43.52 KiB) Viewed 19338 times

System test at 8Mhz was partially successful, BASIC booted and ran as expected there were a lot of graphical glitches as the VDP minimum access times weren't being met.

16Mhz was way too fast for any meaningful VDP output, the Video routines will need altering before BASIC can run at that speed.

[Martin A]

Hi Martin,

Not that it needs it, but, as you know, the video board can take another 64k of VRAM. Are you short of the VRAM chips? I have some spare that Lez sent me if you want a couple?

Regards
Dave

I've got more chips, the board is wired for them, however at the moment I can't see any real need for them. It'll need a lot of work just to get the system to use the VRAM it's got.

[1024MAK]

Printer output tested and running to spec.

Shame about the output, that was a previously un-opened ribbon, I guess 25 years in storage has taken it's toll on the ink, sealed or not.

A short spay of WD40 may help to sort that out

Mark

[thewiz]

Just like to say well done. Not being a hardware whizz this is just like magic to me.

[lezanderson]

The Beast Lives Dr Frankenstein ! Yes Igor it's alive !!

Awesome Job.....

[1024MAK]

I've just looked at the pictures again (last time, I was on a mobile ithingy device).

Now I'm sure that Master is calling the shots

Mark

[Martin A]

I've just looked at the pictures again (last time, I was on a mobile ithingy device).

Now I'm sure that Master is calling the shots

Mark

The Master that has been cleverly modified to run with the power off....

Actually the Master has a Gig or so of CF storage hanging off the back.

It would be nice if we could have the MTX+ have full access to a CF, at the moment all we have is the ability to read one sector to a buffer.

[Bill B]

Dave should have a copy of my CP/M code for reading and writing FAT format disks. You would need to replace my code for reading/writing 512 byte sectors from the SDX drive with your CF sector read/write code.

Not that my code is a full implementation, it only processes files in the root directory, but good enough to use to transfer files between MTX and PC.

There is also a small Y2K issue with displaying the file dates that I have never got around to fixing.