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One of us seems to be completely confused. And it's me. In this thread on May 19:
Timelord wrote:
This all makes me curious how hard it would be to use a soft-switch to bank different ROM contents into memory, perhaps using I/O reads from the keyboard; or to select which ROMset you want via a menu or a hotkey on startup. Sort of OT, but an interesting notion.
So what has changed? You still seem to be hung up on needing to use the keyboard on startup. THAT'S NOT TRUE.
If you set Bank 7 as the default and set the delay to 0, then yes every time you power on the machine it will INSTANTLY boot into Bank 7. EVERY time, until you change it. Does that work for you? Of course, without the delay you would need to run the disk software to change the dafault but it sounds like you wouldn't be doing that very often. I suspect most people will be willing to accept the small delay for the OPTION to run the Menu software - IF THEY CHOOSE TO - during startup. Also, just to be clear, there will not be a manual switch for ROMX. Technically, the ROMLink header could be used for this (by reprogramming the CPLD) but I see zero reason to do it.
Hopefully I've answered your question and you are no longer confused either. BTW, I'm probably just as much an old geeser as you (67) but I like seeing new products with newer technology keeping our beloved Apple's alive!
Also, I'm just confirming Jeffs earlier comment about the normal wait time with the vintage RAM between powering off the machine and powering it back on. With the ROMX in there you can switch the machine on and off at the power switch as fast as you possibly can, and it will boot flawlessly every time :)
Disclaimer : Whilst this may be viewed as cruel, no power switches were harmed during this procedure :)
Ok - so ROMX will let you select from 1 of 16 different text ROM's via the ROM-LINK interface between the two boards. So far I've only come up with 4 options!
1. Regular Applesoft
2. Lowercase Applesoft
3. Pigfont
4. J Plus
Does anyone have any other character ROM's that I can include in the image? The Text ROM isn't updateable like the ROMX, thus I want to ensure I can cover off as many options as possible. For the text ROM I'll burn a standard image onto them as they are manufactured.
Hi Dean, YES, there are others, such as the Dan Paymar Font set, the Videx Font set, A font set I custom made back in the day, (I was doing this for work also) and a couple others I will dig up to send to you.. Stay tuned on that. Got a lot going on with KansasFest this week, trying to finish up a couple other projects of my own here but I will get the Character sets organized and sent your way as soon as I can.
Ok great :) KansasFest - yes - would have been cool to promote ROMX there. When do the sessions kick off? I have a local event here (WozFest) on the 25th -Im not sure whether there will be a video hookup between the two events. Is there an email distibution list for KansasFest? I have a flyer :)
For the distribution list, I would contact CHris Torrence. I'm sure he has it. KansasFest would be the perfect venue for this.
Pre-production boards have finally arrived! I'll be building up these for testing before the final boards are ordered. Final board has a different JTAG header.
PCB's.png
Excellent Dean!
I would like to request you order some in GREEN if I may.
Thanks for doing this project. It will be a popular one for sure.
Here is the green - its quite bright versus the original (dusty) motherboard green - the black looks better (IMO) - if I had the rest of the original ROMS still plugged in you would barely notice it (with a black 6 pin ribbon cable for production boards versus the 10 pin cable I was testing with!). I'd honestly rather just stick to the one colour if possible, but a second colour option is certainly possible :
Green.png
So yes, I tested the new boards :) I couldn't find my 6 pin IDC connectors so I used a 10 pin cable off my JTAG programmer for testing, but as mentioned., the production cable will be 6 pin (so smaller) plus I'll use black ribbon cable (red pin one stripe) so it will blend in much better as well. Of course the Text ROM is optional, in which case you dont see a cable at all :)
ROMX - Pre production.png
ROM-Link cable leads to..... the 2316B SPCL text ROM - currently has 4 fonts installed :
ROMX - 2316B SPCL.png
Including Pigfont :
pigfont.png
Text ROM selection is through the menu - I will do a video so you guys can see it operating.
Testing.png
:D
I do see what you mean with the black. If you build a few green ones, I will buy them. If no, then I will get black.
Website is a work in progress, but up : www.theromexchange.com
Nice!
About the only suggestion I have is put what currency you're charging in more prominently somewhere. I'm assuming USD?
Cheers!
Thanks - I've amended the page for now - will update the flyer. Yes it is USD. Damn exchange rate makes that quite a bit more "down under", but its a pretty neat product (IMO!) and quite a bit of development effort has gone into it - especially on the software side. Jeff's been quite busy working on various updates and there could well be updates post-release once more user feedback has been gathered. The bundle price is quite reasonable (a stock 2316B SPCL chip sells for $35). Pig Font is quite interesting, and the other lower case ROM's could be handy too. ROM X gives you the opportunity to play with various system ROM's or even have a go at making your own! Linking the two together via ROM-LINK gives you the ability to try for example The Freeze's monitor ROM along with the Pig Font character ROM - as it was intended :)
It will be awesome in whatever color! :-)
Exciting news!
Firstly the production boards are all on order but more exciting is that Jeff has built a basic RAM diagnostic into the ROM X recovery firmware! You can read some more about it here
At this stage it tests the lower 16KB only, but that's a critical block of memory and an excellent start :)
Sorry - my mistake - at this stage just the first 2KB is tested - that's more than enough to be able to get the ROM X menu displayed though, after which you can run further diagnostics if required.
The advertised price of USD$49.95 or USD$74.95 with the text ROM bundle was more of a guide, and will be discounted to the early adopters. How does a $65 bundle price sound? Keen for your feedback. How many are interested in the text ROM as well?
I'll happily pay full price, simply because I'll avoid doubling the cost just for postage :-D
(I'd be sorely tempted by the bundle. Hell, I'll commit right now to one.)
Chesh
Along with the "dead boot" RAM test previously announced, we have added the Apple Diagnostics Card image. This performs 4 tests on the Apple II and Apple II+ motherboards:
Diag.jpg
I also found a French version in case anyone's interested...
How do we get a copy?
Buy the ROMX of course!
Seriously though, the images are available online and will be added to TheRomExchange.com library as soon as we get that up and running.
The original image ran on the Apple Diagnostic Card and our image is only slightly tweaked to run on the ROMX board.
Works great - you can see a bit more of it here : https://theromexchange.com/blog
Production PCB has been tested - all good!
One other obscure ROM option that I know exists, is a CP/M boot ROM. That might be useful, but IDK if a dump exists:
https://ct6502.org/product/multirom/
That product has it as one of the available ROM images.
Thanks Timelord - yes David Mutimer provided me with a copy of that one - I haven't tested it yet though. Will have to give it a go. At the moment I'm rushing around trying to find video ROMs that I can include on the character generator - not too many around!
Do you need a Z80 card and software to run those tests? I posted some CP/M software to Asimov recently (Zork, Zork II, and Zork III), that would be a useful proof. I can loan a Z80 card, if needed.
I would love to see this in a final version.
I know of two major video ROMs. I don't thiink that this one is a major concern. It's nice to have optiions here, but don't let this hold up the project. You can offer updates, later.
Thanks - I have a Z80 card or two - will give it a go. The neat thing is that even if this ROM isn't included by default, you can very easily add it afterwards :) There are lots of different F8 ROMs out there including that CPM one.
Once the dust has settled I was going to write a small app for windows/Mac OS (linux would be good too!) that lets you assembles a ROM image from the individual D0,D8,E0,E8,F0 and F8 binaries along with the metadata entry for ROM X (description and info data) and writes it out to a file (.romx). That utility would also optionally name the file such that ciderpress can pull it in at the right memory address ($2000) for the ROMX.DISK utility (appends #062000 on the end of the file name).
The same utlity would also allow you to extract the individual files from an existing image - so you can pull an F8 out of a .romx file and insert it into another for example.
Any programmers out there that would like to give this a go? Pretty simple app, but I'm a bit out of date on windows apps (last time I wrote code in anger for windows was back in the VB6 days). I was going to have a look at something quick to learn and cross platform (like Xojo) but I don't care what language its written in as long as its easy to use (GUI) and does the job :-) Ideally though a language that packages required runtime files into the main executable would be good - I think Xojo and Delphi do this - .net has the runtime requirement but I guess that's fine too as its installed by default these days.
I would absolutely not use .net. That is not on W7 by default, or older W32, and it is not portable.
Delphi is fine, though. I use Lazarus, but I'm too tied up to figure out the functions reuired to do what you wabt, in a timely manner. Laz is good if you want simple cross-platform GUIs, as the same code produced the same output on Windows (32,64), Linux, and OSX.
cool - I'll check it out :)
EDIT : Lazarus looks pretty good! I'd be a total noob at pascal, but willing to have a crack at it. I'd be coming in as a total noob to Xojo as well (though its very VB6 like), which was my other contender - Laz is free though whereas Xojo is not.
If you need help I'm willing, but I have no clue how you want to handl extracting partial ROMX, nor how your write cycle works. I have done uite a lot of Pascal, and Laz is the best kit for it.
The major conversions from C are learning if->then, end instead of brace, case instead of switch-case, and general syntax (e.g. declaration assign and equality).
Should you have C (not C#' !!) code to do what you need, I can likey convert it.
Laz is fantastic, free, and patfom agnostic.
I'd still prefer to see the CP/M ROM as a base tool, but I can understand the limited interest.
I have a GH repo for a multiplatform Laz UI is that'd help at all. Noe that OSX has those fun .app pseudo-directories, so tou need to deep that iin mind.
Hello ,
I just got an Apple J-plus from Japan that I'm restoring and I stumbled upon this thread while searching info about its Roms.
Just for reference I publish a couple of pictures of the ones my Apple came with, because I did't see those Apple part numbers around.
IMG_20200911_142142.jpg
IMG_20200911_111150.jpg
Rom X is a great project, I'll get one for sure if possible.
Luca
Cool :)
Some good news with the text ROM - I've managed to locate a bunch of fonts that I've been converting and the text ROM will have all 16 slots filled!!
the lineup is likely to be :
I'll post images when I have them all done and tested.
Okay - here are the fonts :-)
That's an awesome collection Dean!
FYI a little history on the Lowercase Z ROM, that was a Font set I created back in the very early 1980's when Lower Case was starting out.
I created that Font set to display what I thought was a "more accurate standard", but as time shows, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ;-)
The Font goes with my Apple ][ Z-ROM set, which allows the display of Lower Case without loading the language card with modified Basic.
Thanks for posting. Can't wait until this is all ready to ship.
I realised that Blippo and Roman are VERY similar - I might look at swapping one of those out. I have Greek and Cyrillic but I'm not sure people would really run those day to day - might see if there is another general purpose lower case one we can use. Anyone know what WizChip II is?
I substituted Blippo Black for Pudgy - web page updated. Committed this ROM set to a master flash image. I think its a good set - some interesting fonts there,
Slight change - Blippo back in (has a more consistent Q), and Roman swapped for Pudgy! I'm also going to add lowercase to Katakana and then that's it.
Maybe not quite it - macnoyd supplied the Dan Paymar lowercase ROM!
Dan Paymar.png
Jeff pointed out that given its historical significance, perhaps this should be substituted for one of the existing. Perhaps Pudgy? Interested in your thoughts!
A couple of days ago I thought I'd never fill 16 slots!
I think you could fill 32 slots!! :-D
I have a fonts disk (somewhere!) that uses the Hires pages to display them. Should we consider? Or is enough -enough?
Shoot them through and I'll check them out, but I think we have a good set now that I've swapped Pudgy for Dan Paymar (web page updated).
We are shipping units! If you are in the USA and want to secure one from the first batch (being sent to Jeff tomorrow), please shoot me an email (deanclaxton at gmail dot com)
Sent an email req for two units. May be interested in more in bulk if you are interested in a reseller for spefcific PCB and other variations.
For most of you following this thread, you already know that ROMX has started shipping, albeit with pre-release firmware. We just posted Ver 0.963 which is available on the website . It adds a new feature that allows having a second (or more) bank load whenever an image is launched. As a great example, we have included a DOS 3.3 image that can be linked to any other bank. Thus when you boot Applesoft or Integer BASIC, you can have DOS automatically loaded with it. This is a real time saver and by setting the Delay to 0 you can have a machine that is instantly ready to go as soon as you turn it on.
The details for creating a secondary image are also very simple and will be posted shortly in a ROMX API Guide. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions please feel free to post here or message me. Also on the roadmap is a program to modify Descriptions, Additional Info, and Defaults from an Applesoft program.
LATE EDIT: I just added a DOUBLE DOS image that lets you work seemlessly with both 3.2 and 3.3 disks at the same time. Really cool!
Coming soon, a sneak peak at Ver 1.0 software!
ROMX 0.963.MOV
Jeff, that is flat-out awesome! This was a major feature of the QuikLoader and you've just stuck the entire function in a slot-less ROM.
This will sell like hot-cakes. Prepare to lose your mind!!!
Thank you for putting this function in the code.
Excited to see the version 1 release.
I received the kits that the company ordered for me. I will be testing them in the coming weeks, and posting my thoughts. TY Dean.
This just keeps getting better and better. So impressed with this totally elegant solution you 2 guys have come up with.
Always looking forward to next episode of the blog on the Romx site. Great Reading.
I'm loving the 8th of October post. ;) Purely selfish reasons.
Been busy adding some cool new features to the ROMX firmware. You can now edit the Description and Additional Info fields directly within the porgram. And of course there's the new DOS 3.3 + LINK image that allows linking to a third bank. So you can have Applesoft loaded along with DOS and also have the Language Card loaded with Integer BASIC instantly when powered on.
So now I'm back to final testing on the Release Ver 1.0. This means that the introductory pricing on the board will end soon. We also have some other major announcements coming shortly.
In the meantime, enjoy this sneak peek at the future of ROMX:
ROMX 1.0.MOV
That embedded media does not play anything for me. Do you have an external URL for it?
I modified my lang card and all is well with my first installation, although I seem to have issues with it reverting from selecting Applesoft, lowercade by default, and it selecting bank A, but that may be user error.
Will the new DoubleDOS and other images be in bthe 1,0 firmware, and what other diags did you put together?
P.S. I noticed that if there is only 16K in a system, that ROMX does not boot into its menu--it just crashes. IDK if this is a bug or a limitation.
That's weird since the media is hosted on Applefritter. Try this direct link: https://www.applefritter.com/files/2020/10/30/ROMX%201.0.MOV
All of the DOS (and other) images are available for download on our website. You do not need Ver 1.0 software to use them. I do have another Diagnostics image in the works, but we also encourage others to contribute their own images as well. So if you have a Diagnostics or other ROM image that you'd like to share, please send it to Dean (the Upload Image feature of the site is not working yet). There's also an API guide for those wishing to write their own programs that take advantage of the ROMX.
As noted on the front page of our site, the current pre-release ROMX software requires 48K of RAM. This is because DOS + 12K image + ROMX/System software need that.
Version 1.0 when released will only require 16K of RAM and will be able to download images directly from disk at power on (see above video). If you only need the Bank switching capability of ROMX, you can install the ROMX4K.FIRM supplied on the utility disk. This firmware will run on machines with as little as 4K of RAM. It will display a menu and let you select images (including Text ROMs) but that's all. To use this firmware however, you will have to configure the board on another machine before installing in the 4K computer.
Hope you enjoy the ROMX and that it has everything you want. Except of course the hardware switch :)
I was more or less hoping that it could be used to diagnose bad RAM in < 48K systems, and to diagnost bad lang cards at some point. I was shocked when it refused to boot with < 48k as the RAM diagnotics do not do much without that.
I installed on in my nearly pristine ][+ and the other is eventually goinmg into my ][, but for the present, it is on my workbench. I have been testing 4116s and going through RAM cards, and I built the test board back up to 48K, but I canna test Apple lang cardds with it installed, so it is a toss-up.
I can't see this as a test bench tool, but it certainly works as advertised otherwise.
I would rather wait to reflash the firmware and ROM images in one go.
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