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Author Topic: Your Computer Jan 1984 photo with names (Read 16664 times)

Offline Tuby128

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Re: Your Computer Jan 1984 photo with names
« Reply #15 on: 2022.January.09. 21:04:09 »
I found that picture about the Apple IIe without the cover:
https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_IIe_Inside.JPG
 According to the wikipedia Apple II had the same CPU as the Commodore 64. So from the Z80 totally different instruction set. Was it necessary to develop tools for apple II at all?

When the cover was removed you probably placed the monitor behind the computer. Which is good, to hold distance from the eyes. :D

 Why did the company choose the Apple II for development? I saw that it was shipped with diskette drive, which is probably important to delvelope software fast.
 Who wrote the Apple software to connect to the Z80 via parallel port? Was that an inside tool, or did you get it from some other company?
 
« Last Edit: 2022.January.09. 23:25:51 by Tuby128 »

Offline BruceTanner

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Re: Your Computer Jan 1984 photo with names
« Reply #16 on: 2022.January.09. 21:46:27 »
I used a similar Apple setup before we got original IBM PCs. The z80 was on an expansion card inside the Apple, which allowed it to run CP/M. I remember using Wordstar a lot to create documents. Mine had the lid on with a monitor and disk drive on top. Using CP/M you could run Microsoft M80/L80 assembler/linker and so produce a z80 program that could be transfered to a "different" z80 system.

Offline Tuby128

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Re: Your Computer Jan 1984 photo with names
« Reply #17 on: 2022.January.09. 23:51:34 »
Quote from: wikipedia
The Z-80 SoftCard is a plug-in Apple II processor card developed by Microsoft to turn the computer into a CP/M system based upon the Zilog Z80

This gives Apple II users access to many more business applications, including compilers and interpreters for several high-level languages.
Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard

According to the schematic there was no RAM on the Z80 expansion card, it took the memory from the Apple II. So practically the computer was converted to a Z80 based computer, because of the available software.
Schematic:
https://mirrors.apple2.org.za/Apple%20II%20Documentation%20Project/Interface%20Cards/Z80%20Cards/Microsoft%20SoftCard/Schematics/

 So this Apple system was connected to the real EP via Parrallel port.

 Do you still remember how the EP received the data from the Apple? I mean the Z80 was stopped and the memory was overwritten, or the Z80 of the EP has done the byte receive and memory filling? Was this connection also a debbuger where you could set breakponts and load the memory of the EP back to the Apple to review it?
 

Offline BruceTanner

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Re: Your Computer Jan 1984 photo with names
« Reply #18 on: 2022.January.10. 11:19:10 »
I remember lots and lots of EPROM blowing and erasing! :lol:

We worked in a large room with the EP prototype in the middle of the room and our desks around the edge. We had to share the EP prototype. So there was no connection between our editing/assembling computers and the EP.

But in the early stages of development we also had a hacked version of ZSID the Z80 CP/M debugger working on the EP prototype.  It did character I/O through an extra hardware add-on to a terminal, either a parallel port or a serial UART I can't remember. But sorry I can't remember how we got the code into the EP memory. :(