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Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment.

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Old 30th Apr 2019, 12:58 am   #21
Timbucus
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Default Re: Did the SC/MP find its way into any home computer or game console?

Some nice finds there - I had been working my way through a few Elektor as a result of the NIBL-E research (that May 1979 issue is really good) the preceding article to that may interest people as it discusses how the SC/MP is built for Multiprocessing with a good general guide to the chip.

NIBL-E moves the Interpreter to Page 1 (to avoid the Elbug on Page 0) - this I think would be how to do it on the MK14 - it means 1 BASIC page is lost (assuming you add 7 pages of 4K...) - it would seem that the SCIOS using the Page wrap would not be an issue as all the pointer registers do not carry from Bit 11 which I never knew only XPAH and XPPC can affect the Page - that snippet is in the Dec 1977 issue.

The Nov 1977 issue you start with has a great front cover featuring the SC/MP and the Dev Board - this uses a similar technique to SCRUMPI using DMA to program with Switches - which must be the one that you (SH) were referring to as using?

The article on dos4ever was where I discovered them as they refer to the Dutch issue:

"NIBL-E - een BASIC-interpreter voor het Elektuur SC/MP-systeem in samenwerking met D. Hendriksen", Elektuur, no. 187, mei 1979, pp. 5.63-5.66

https://www.dos4ever.com/SCMP/SCMP.html

This page also mentions a floating point interpreter for SC/MP at #D000 to #FEFF - the HEX dump is there for that and for NIBL-E (he typed it in originally and preserved it...) so probably a good candidate for a Disassembler!

The other articles to mention are March onward which contains "A Guide to BASIC" built around NIBL.

I have been delving into the origin story of that language as well as the TINY BASIC manual (for the single chip machine it documents) on the dos4ever page credits the NIBL version as well as TINY itself which can be found in Volume 1 Number 10 of dr. dobb's journal of (Tiny BASIC) Calisthenics & Orthodontia - it was actually only called that for Issue 1, the mention of BASIC was dropped in issue 2

https://archive.org/details/dr_dobbs...vol_01/page/n1

The Dr Dobbs article says Star Trek would be "a Herculean and indeed foolish task." in NIBL

"If PAGE is modified by a NIBL program during execution, control will be passed to the first line of the NIBL program in the new page. This transfer would be effected by a statement such as PAGE = 6 or PAGE = PAGE + 1. Thus, several NIBL programs residing in different 4K pages may be linked together as one large program, if need be. This would allow one to write a 28K STAR TREK program in NIBL, a Herculean and indeed foolish task."

Sounds like a challenge...
............................................._____
Great list of useful signals like USED on Page 331 just before the NIBL code...

For those who want the real origins The NCS Tiny BASIC manual credits its origins to NIBL and The Peoples Computer Company Vol 3 Number 4 (March 1975) and Volume 4, Number 1 (July 1975)

https://searchworks.stanford.edu/?ut...5&commit=Apply

Note that the second referenced issue of PCC July 1975 contains a letter from Michael Christoffer from Seattle (he uses the term "on line" by the way meaning running a computer!). He is advocating for FP to be added by a calculator interface as the SoC MK14 Update Letter implies will be made available... it gives a contact for more details on such an interface of Dr Robert Suding WOLMD, The Digital Group.

Of course with enough memory you also have the FP routines (slow I expect) linked above. The calculator interface sounds fun though and maybe a use for the board made spare by extracting a display...
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Old 30th Apr 2019, 2:37 am   #22
SiriusHardware
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Default Re: Did the SC/MP find its way into any home computer or game console?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Timbucus View Post

The Nov 1977 issue you start with has a great front cover featuring the SC/MP and the Dev Board - this uses a similar technique to SCRUMPI using DMA to program with Switches - which must be the one that you (SH) were referring to as using?
Yes, that was the very first 'programmable thing' I ever programmed, so by the time the MK14 finally arrived I had some idea of what I was supposed to do with it. The owner / builder of that project was also my source for Elektor as he bought it every month, so I must have read every single one through the mid seventies to nineties but have very few copies myself.

I sought that project out because of its likely similarity to the Scrumpi which I only vaguely remember, and unlike that machine the circuit, PCB layout and monitor firmware are all well documented, so it would be a good candidate for a reproduction.

The owner never did take the next logical step of adding the hex keypad and display stage, which was a pity. Those 'Schadow' keyswitches which Elektor were so fond of were really nice so the machine might have been a pleasure to use.

Instead he focused his energy / money on a much more serious kit called a 'Powertran Sci Comp 80' which was Z80 based and had a lot of potential, but for some reason never really worked properly. Finding out why was beyond the limit of our combined (teenage) knowledge and test equipment at the time. In one case that I still remember we discovered that one particular fault went away whenever we put a scope probe on a certain IC pin. Unable to find out why, we 'fixed' it by soldering a 1M resistor and 50pf capacitor from the offending pin down to 0V.
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Old 30th Apr 2019, 8:12 pm   #23
Timbucus
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Default Re: Did the SC/MP find its way into any home computer or game console?

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Originally Posted by SiriusHardware View Post
Unable to find out why, we 'fixed' it by soldering a 1M resistor and 50pf capacitor from the offending pin down to 0V.
Sounds like you fixed it using a technique I was told later after I used it a lot was called experimenting using empirical methods... also known as 'poke and hope' by my Dad.

The music thread made me read The October 1978 ETI lunchtime for the review of the SCRUMPI 3 (which was great) and spot another thing the SC/MP was in and that is the Chess machine (TOLINKA) described in that issue and the next issue - there is an advert for it on Page 84 which says it was used by the BBC at the Chess Championships!

As an aside there is also an update to their MK14 review saying they had received the updated PROM!
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Old 30th Apr 2019, 8:59 pm   #24
Timbucus
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Default Re: Did the SC/MP find its way into any home computer or game console?

Also before I forget ETI October 1977 contains on Page 15 a One Armed Bandit discussion/ outline design by John Miller-Kirkpatrick... guess what - it uses an SC/MP. No code though.
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