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Old 22nd Jan 2021, 1:06 am   #121
ortek_service
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Originally Posted by ChrisOddy View Post
Hi All

I've finally decided to register on the forum as the Softy thread continues.

I am still waiting for my Softy 1 Replica PCBs to arrive, they are probably on a plane somewhere between Hong Kong and here ! Everything is ready to load and test the board when it arrives, I'll keep you posted on progress (or watch out at http://www.theoddys.com/acorn/PROMs%...1/softy_1.html).

(Owens friend) Chris
Welcome Chris!

I presume you've now switched your existing website hostname to use your RPi webserver (unless you've updated your original hosted one) - So no longer need to specify an IP-Address to get to Softy info.

You may unfortunately find the PCB's get delayed more in the UK -post at the moment as it seems Royal Mail have staff shortages in many areas including ours, but hopefully won't be long now.
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Old 26th Jan 2021, 9:04 pm   #122
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Default Re: Softy 1

The SOFTY PCBs arrived today, I've just fitted the IC sockets and popped a few of the larger parts in to check sizes. I've been saving some turned pin Augat sockets for the right job and I think they look good.
The small PCB is an adapter to allow 2716 EPROMs to be read as a way of transferring data to the SOFTY.
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Old 26th Jan 2021, 10:16 pm   #123
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Originally Posted by ChrisOddy View Post
I've been saving some turned pin Augat sockets for the right job and I think they look good.
Thats either brave or very confident, I think I would have saved those for a second build and built the first board with cheap sockets for testing the pcb.

They do look very nice on the black pcb.
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Old 26th Jan 2021, 11:31 pm   #124
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Default Re: Softy 1

Looks great, I bet you can't wait to juice that up. What sort of keyswitch is that?
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Old 26th Jan 2021, 11:40 pm   #125
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Default Re: Softy 1

I’m going to take a guess at 12x12 tactile switch with a plain square cap, but a lot of the tactile switches I see have a smaller cap to fit a clear cover, but they don’t always supply the covers. Also looks like an option for d6 switches.
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Old 27th Jan 2021, 5:48 pm   #126
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Originally Posted by ChrisOddy View Post
The SOFTY PCBs arrived today, I've just fitted the IC sockets and popped a few of the larger parts in to check sizes. I've been saving some turned pin Augat sockets for the right job and I think they look good.
The small PCB is an adapter to allow 2716 EPROMs to be read as a way of transferring data to the SOFTY.
Oh looks lovely...
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Old 27th Jan 2021, 8:14 pm   #127
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Default Re: Softy 1

The keyswitches are Omron B3F-5050 with B32-1380 keycaps (from Digikey), these are the same as I used on my replica Mk14 (http://www.theoddys.com/acorn/Replic...lica_mk14.html), except they're a different colour of course !

The PCB also accepts D3 switches as they are quite common and perhaps could be used with a frame ? (though I forgot to add any mounting holes !)

I havn't been able to find keyswitches with clear caps, that would have been my preference for both projects ?

Work has got in the way for the last couple of days but I should be able to crack on tomorrow.

Chris
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Old 1st Feb 2021, 12:32 am   #128
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Default Re: Softy 1

Well if you are after an interesting use for the SOFTY you may enjoy watching this short film I came across... The MK14 fans will also be interested...

https://youtu.be/RdrgBwSH9W8
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Old 1st Feb 2021, 12:47 am   #129
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Can't believe you managed to find a video with a mention of the Softy in it. Was he really saying that he wrote that game in hand coded assembly language which he then typed (as hex) into the Softy, which he had mapped into some part of the Spectrum memory map? Very hardcore.

I agree AA was a good game and a good early example of the 'Survival Horror' genre - although certainly not the first, what about 3D Monster Maze (ZX81) for a start? You could also argue that some of the early text adventures like 'The Count' (Scott Adams) were also SH games.
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Old 1st Feb 2021, 1:01 am   #130
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It is my research skills at its height or perhaps ACC's invented word serendipity...

Yes indeed he is saying that - logically I suppose it saved having to trust your data to a cassette tape and was probably pretty quick to make mods if you had a few EPROM's - I assume Softy can read back one into memory - you can make mods and then write it back. It was probably also the way he had learned to code up until then using HEX entry - if the only tool you have is a hammer screws look like nails or some such...

I wrote all my early ZX81 and even Spectrum code hand assembled but, I used BASIC to POKE it into memory until I purchased a commercial monitor.

I would agree on the survival horror with 3D Monster Maze - good point - I suppose otherwise you could argue that text adventures were not action survival horror.
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Old 1st Feb 2021, 1:14 am   #131
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Surely Haunted House on the Atari 2600 was the original Survival Horror game?

There had already been "dungeon exploration" games such as Rogue on mainframe minicomputer systems with cursor-addressable terminals, but Haunted House really made you feel as though you were stumbling around a crumbling old mansion on a dark and stormy night, with just 99 matches in your pocket for illumination. The primitive sound system managed to produce some really convincing atmospheric noises; footsteps, creaking boards, tones rising or falling in pitch as you climbed up or down the stairs that led from each level to the next; thunder, just after a flash of lightning which let you see briefly beyond the range of a match; gusts of wind which also blew out your matches. We must have been more easily amused in those days, I suppose! And it's obviously where Resident Evil came from .....
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Old 1st Feb 2021, 1:19 am   #132
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I'm trying to think how using the Softy would have worked, I know the Spectrum had a mechanism which allowed you to 'page out' the BASIC ROM and swap your own in just with a couple of signals on the rear edge connector. Did it also have a similar mechanism for allowing you to replace the onboard RAM with your own externally connected RAM? It's been so long I honestly can't remember.

Julie: I know I started it, Mea Culpa, but we should probably start a new thread if we want to talk about vintage computer games.
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Old 3rd Feb 2021, 9:31 pm   #133
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Default Re: Softy 1

In this instance Ant Attack was a 16K game so he could just have made the Softy appear at the 32K boundary on the edge connector if that was the machine he had?

I also came across the attached advert for the Softy in December (Edit September) 1979 Practical Computing - it also has an article on John Drury / Kemitron whose board expansion system is mentioned in the Beefing up the MK14 article and who says:

"Most people think it's a (the SC/MP) useless processor I don't,"

which is nice of him...
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Old 3rd Feb 2021, 9:37 pm   #134
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Default Re: Softy 1

Wow! Practical Computing! I used to get that all the time but I had completely forgotten about it. That advert is the one I was remembering and couldn't find!
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Old 3rd Feb 2021, 9:47 pm   #135
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Wow! Practical Computing! I used to get that all the time but I had completely forgotten about it. That advert is the one I was remembering and couldn't find!
Glad I found it finally - the issue is the one with the chess pieces on the cover and the review of the Acorn System 1 which was why I procured this particular copy - and when I checked it was the Sept 1979 issue sorry.
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Old 3rd Feb 2021, 9:49 pm   #136
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Originally Posted by Timbucus View Post
Quote:
Originally Posted by Slothie View Post
Wow! Practical Computing! I used to get that all the time but I had completely forgotten about it. That advert is the one I was remembering and couldn't find!
Glad I found it finally - the issue is the one with the chess pieces on the cover and the review of the Acorn System 1 which was why I procured this particular copy - and when I checked it was the Sept 1979 issue sorry.
I actually bought that issue and probably read the print off it I expect it went into the loft and got thrown out a decade later in one of Dad's "tidy ups"
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Old 11th Feb 2021, 6:42 am   #137
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Default Re: Softy 1

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Originally Posted by julie_m View Post
Surely Haunted House on the Atari 2600 was the original Survival Horror game?

There had already been "dungeon exploration" games such as Rogue on mainframe minicomputer systems with cursor-addressable terminals, but Haunted House really made you feel as though you were stumbling around a crumbling old mansion on a dark and stormy night, with just 99 matches in your pocket for illumination. The primitive sound system managed to produce some really convincing atmospheric noises; footsteps, creaking boards, tones rising or falling in pitch as you climbed up or down the stairs that led from each level to the next; thunder, just after a flash of lightning which let you see briefly beyond the range of a match; gusts of wind which also blew out your matches. We must have been more easily amused in those days, I suppose! And it's obviously where Resident Evil came from .....

Yes, I remember buying Haunted House, when it came out for the Atari VCS.
It was one of the later-released cartridges, and I recall not being that impressed by it (Although not as bad as the infamous ET, they literally buried)
But shortly after, ended-up selling the Atari VCS to get a Spectrum.

I thought it was released after 3D Monster Maze (Which I was very impressed by at the time, being the first 3D Maze one I'd ever seen, and must have inspired so many later ones) And the info here seems to agree that HH wasn't released until Feb'82 rather than 3D-MM's 1981 release:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_Monster_Maze

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_House_(video_game)
(The release date was mising from the atariage page)
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Old 11th Feb 2021, 7:04 am   #138
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Default Re: Softy 1

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I'm trying to think how using the Softy would have worked, I know the Spectrum had a mechanism which allowed you to 'page out' the BASIC ROM and swap your own in just with a couple of signals on the rear edge connector. Did it also have a similar mechanism for allowing you to replace the onboard RAM with your own externally connected RAM? It's been so long I honestly can't remember.
The Spectrum had a nROMCS pin on the edge-connector, and you could either permanently replace the 16K ROM with a games cartridge, or just switch it out when accesses to a certain memory location eg 0008h? were made in order to add support for extra BASIC commands by intercepting the error-handling of these - This is how the Interface-1 worked, for the microdrives. But not quite as neat as Acorn's Sideways ROM system, where the O/S passed unrecognised * commands etc. through all ROM slots 0-15.

Sinclair deleted the nRAMCS line from the Spectrum's edge-connector, that was on the ZX81 - I guess because the Spectrum supported internal fitting of the maximum 48K RAM, with the remaining 16K of the 64K address space for the ROM. This did mean that you couldn't have an external ROM > 16KB, without implementing a paging register.
- Something they did internally on the 128 / +2 / +3, which could restart with the other half of the 32K ROM selected, to choose between original 48K mode and the enhanced '128K' mode. Although there were some slight-mods to original 48K ROM, for the newer hardware. And mapping / paging of the 8 x 16K banks of the 128K RAM was a bit involved, with some accessible in more than one 16K slot.
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Old 11th Feb 2021, 7:30 am   #139
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Default Re: Softy 1

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbucus View Post
In this instance Ant Attack was a 16K game so he could just have made the Softy appear at the 32K boundary on the edge connector if that was the machine he had?

I also came across the attached advert for the Softy in December (Edit September) 1979 Practical Computing - it also has an article on John Drury / Kemitron whose board expansion system is mentioned in the Beefing up the MK14 article and who says:

"Most people think it's a (the SC/MP) useless processor I don't,"

which is nice of him...
IIRC, from when I played it, Ant Attack was released first on the Spectrum, and there wasn't a ROM-cartridge version of it. So I probably wasn't possible to map out the lower 16K RAM from the edge-connector, and some internal mods would be required - Unless code was fully-relocatable and did access any of the 'O/S' ROM routines.

That Practical Computing advert seems rather better than the ones in Wireless World, where originally it was only advertised by a few distributors with few details.

The designer of the Softy was obviously a bit of a fan of the SC/MP, as it was also used on the Softy-2 (essentially a revised form-factor version, but with switch from 3-rail (only) to single rail (only) EPROM's, and twice the RAM / EPROM page size).
Although it's a bit unclear what happened when GP Industrial design appeared to dispense with supporting the Softy (which they only advertised in WW themselves for a brief-period, after 'Softy' (aka Dataman) had advertised it first), before Dataman (Designs) took it over - when their (own?) Softy'2
version (confusingly, often advertised as just the Softy) - as to whether the slight re-design was all done by Dataman (Designs), or whether the original (Barry Savage?) designer was still involved.
It seems the Softy-2 was maybe around for quite a bit longer than the original - with Maplin still selling it until at leat 1989 catalogue, before Dataman Designs eventually replaced it with the S3, they first started advertising in 1989 - which seems was totally their design with their name on the Mask-ROM Z80-like uC

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Old 11th Feb 2021, 8:29 am   #140
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Default Re: Softy 1

Dataman is Barry Savage.
The Annual Report 2019 for Dataman Programmers Limited lists Mr B Savage and Mrs C L Savage as the Company Directors.
No quick hits for GP Industrial Electronics - long defunct precursor?
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