dkgrizzly / 4952oss Goto Github PK

I have an HP 4952A as well and want to start playing with its brains but I have a few questions.

How are you getting your custom code onto the machine? I do not have a floppy drive so I am not sure what I will need for a mondern computer. USB FDD, FDD Emulator?
LIF_Utils says the disks are:

lifversion: 010708
Volume : HP4952 
Tracks: 77 Surfaces: 2 Blocks per Track: 16 Total size: 2464 Blocks, 630784 Bytes
Directory start : 2 (0/0/3) end : 11 (0/0/12)
User data start : 12 (0/0/13) end : 448 (14/0/1)
EXTD_ASYNC  ?(C403)     22784/22784                     
COPYDISC    ?(C403)     12544/12544                     
DEMO_DATA   ?(C402)     41216/41216                     
TERM        ?(C403)     22784/22784                     
IPARS_MEC   ?(C403)     12544/12544                     
5 files (80 max), last block used: 448 of 2464

I have been able to pull off programs and open them in ghex. I see the structure your /lib/header.asm and similar files are refering too. I assume you destructed these programs to figure out the required file structure. I do not see anything on the hackaday.io page on how you actually achieved figuring this out. I assume dumping the ROM's and looking at all OUT commands then manually poking them?

I decided the easiest way to find the keyboard I/O was to do a read scan of all the I/O addresses I found the HP firmware to be reading... This did the trick!

At this point I have deciphered the menu data formats, the runtime linker used in HP's applications, and how to do some basic text output.

Have you figured out which of the 5 processors is ACUTALLY the main CPU? On my hackaday page I have identifed as many systems and groupings of chips as I could on a busy weekend but I literally pulled both main board z80's, the 8051 and 68008 on the memory board and had the disk board removed so no 8088. I pulled EVERY ROM except system ROM_1 and I could still use the UI and run the self tests. This means the main prcessor is still magically in there. I summerised it had to be in that custom chip on the memory board.

Anyways, If you have some time can you summerise HOW you got to where you are and I will hopefully be able to help out! My neck of the woods as no computer clubs so it's slow going alone.

z80asm version 1.8 segfaults when building tetris,

$ z80asm --version
Z80 assembler version 1.8
Copyright (C) 2002-2007 Bas Wijnen <[email protected]>.
Copyright (C) 2005 Jan Wilmans <[email protected]>.
...
$ z80asm -v -o tetris.app tetris.asm
Assembling....
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

If there's a working version (or any help I can give), would love to try!

Tetris.asm seems to be missing routines _getkey_raw and _getkey_cooked.