CCing the list back in, and still looking for someone in the NY area with a Displaywriter (with disk drive) that could help me take some logic traces -
==== Quoth Nigel: just in case you missed it your reply only went to me. On Mon, Apr 22, 2019 at 1:45 PM Anders Nelson <anders.k.nel...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nigel - Wow, very cool! I assume you dumped a ROM feeding an 8048 inside the 6360 drive housing? Someone dumped the original ROM, it is in the github repo too. > FWIW, I also found a Displaywriter withOUT keyboard or disk drive: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1984-IBM-6580-Display-Station-Word-Processor-and-Monitor/303132621814 If you want a 6580 keyboard you either have to get lucky or outbid the mech-heads...be prepared to bid a lot though. Estate sales are the thing to haunt to get one intact. ==== Thanks Nigel, more below! -- Anders Nelson +1 (517) 775-6129 www.erogear.com On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 11:45 PM Anders Nelson <anders.k.nel...@gmail.com> wrote: > Nigel - Wow, very cool! I assume you dumped a ROM feeding an 8048 inside > the 6360 drive housing? > > I agree a logic dump would be invaluable so if I can get in front of a DW > I'll capture and share all I find on my blog (and wherever else). > > Al - I found a USB conversion kit for this keyboard and it's all > open-source, so by reversing the key-matrix decode step in the kit's MCU > firmware we might be able to feed the original keyboard controller with > keystrokes from, say, another USB keyboard. A very roundabout hack but it > seems these keyboards are rare. Here are the conversion kit sources: > > Forum: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=58138.0 > Direct: http://downloads.cornall.co/ibm-capsense-usb/ > > Any chance someone knows the original keyboard controller pinout and > protocol? > > FWIW, I also found a Displaywriter withOUT keyboard or disk drive: > https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1984-IBM-6580-Display-Station-Word-Processor-and-Monitor/303132621814 > > =] > -- > Anders Nelson > > +1 (517) 775-6129 > > www.erogear.com > > > On Sun, Apr 21, 2019 at 11:12 PM Nigel Williams < > n...@retrocomputingtasmania.com> wrote: > >> Hi Anders, >> >> good luck with your exploration of the 6360. >> >> Back in Jan-2017, I assisted Sergey who did the MAME implementation of >> the Displaywriter, as Al Kossow mentioned in an earlier email the code >> is here: >> >> >> https://github.com/mamedev/mame/blob/97b67170277437131adf6ed4d60139c172529e4f/src/mame/machine/ibm6580_fdc.cpp >> >> During this process I started disassembling the 6360, attached is a >> file that I developed with comments. It is incomplete but might help >> understand the protocol. >> >> One thing to keep in mind is that the Displaywriter is made up of >> (almost) standalone subsystems, so the floppy drive unit has its own >> 8048 microprocessor and accepts high-level commands from the system >> unit. >> >> Sergey and I were chatting about returning to work on the MAME >> Displaywriter implementation at some point. We really need a >> logic-analyser dump of the startup since it is very convoluted (it has >> a large section of code attempting to check that all the hardware is >> working so it is doing all manner of tricks to check things). >> >> cheers, >> nigel. >> www.retroComputingTasmania.com >> >> >> On Mon, Apr 1, 2019 at 6:42 AM Anders Nelson via cctalk >> <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: >> > Can anyone help with the protocol? >> >
