[sebhc] H17 ROM ?

[Dave Dunfield]

At 09:43 21/05/2004 -0400, you wrote:
>Dave,
>
>Look in the PAM-37 Panel Monitor Operation/service Manual. That book
>contains a listing with routines for and references to all the disk types.
>
>Ron

Hi Ron,

I could only find one PAM37 manual in the archives, which is entitled something
like "Using your H8 computer with PAM-37 - OPERATION".

It consists only of infomation on how to use the front panel commands. The only
disk information is under "booting" it describes how to use the monitor to boot,
and mentions the I/O addresses where the boards normally go - I could find no
references to ROM subroutines for disk access or any other detailed technical
material.

>From disassembly of the ROM, and some of the source code that Steven has posted,
I've get a bit of information as to the H17 control registers, and the names of
most of the bits in them - no details at all on timing requirements etc. - have
to reverse engineer from above materials to find this.

I am very suprised that Heathkit did not provide technical documents on the H8
cards - For the S-100 cards that I have from that era, I have detailed technical
manuals which tell you exactly how to comminocate with the device at the I/O port
level. With this documentation you can easily sit down and write a drive (or an
emulator) - everything you need to know is there.

It looks like Heath may have created the first "Application" personal computer -
no need to know technical details - just use our software!  Seems odd for the
time period.

If anyone knows of any material in the Archive which gives a clear and concice
description of how software controls the disk controller at the register level,
please let me know.

Regards,
Dave
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dave04a (at)    Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot)  Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com             Vintage computing equipment collector.
                http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html

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