Electronics > Repair
Vintage chip Programmer : " Micropross ROM 3000U "
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papardelle:
Hello all,
Even if this topic is a bit old, I'm posting here some news.
I found this blog and posts by chance, so I registered.
I'm one of the engineers who developped the Rom 5000/Rom 3000 devices. I don't take time to read all the posts, but perhaps I could help you on some topics, even if it's a very lod story. I don't have archives on the hardware parts, but I still have most of the sources of the software.
Should you be interested, let me know.
Vince:
Hello Papardelle !

Wow, thank you so much for stopping by, indeed !!

Information on these machines are so extremely rare that I will welcome absolutely ANYTHING you have up your sleeves ! :-+

You said you only have S/W left ? Were you a S/W engineer who developped said S/W ?

Or did you also work on the H/W and Firmware part of the project ?

Even if you did not, maybe you remember bits of information about the H/W, from discussions with your colleague at the coffee machine eh... so even though you don't have any HY/W related documents left, doesn't mean you are unable to help this the H/W side of things  ;D

How much data do you have related to this machine ? Could you upload it to some on-line storage facility ? A Google Drive or whatever people could access ?
this machine is very old so I doubt you will go to jail for sharing the information...  8)

Maybe we could talk over the hone about this ?
It's more practical than typing long messages here maybe... less work at least.

I will send you a PM with my info...

BTW, in case you don't know, there is a French technical forum that also discusses the ROM 5000:

https://forum.system-cfg.com/viewtopic.php?f=31&t=5743

It's 10 year old and only 8 pages long.

This was the only place on the web that I found, that talked about this machine.... it helped me start on my project, and I eventually realised that my 3000 was technically the same machine as the 5000, just headless. I introduced my ROM 3000 on page #5.  It appears I am the only one who own a 3000 models, the other guys on that forum have 5000, lucky them !

Then I created my own page here on EEVBlog about my ROM 3000, to document and archive all my work on it. For now I am the reverse engineering phase... so any help you can provide will be helpful.

Don't worry I am not going to bombard you with questions...

For now, my main problem is to get a proper video display from the internal video output, as it appears to use a proprietary protocol. Using a CGA adapter I can get "something", but it's not 100% perfect : the display rolls over the top by a few lines, and I also thing that a couple lines from the bottom aprt of the screen , are missing... which is annoying as these are the lines that display boot error codes... so I need to get these lines back to help me fix this machine...


I have not worked on this machine for well over a year, judging by the time stamp of my latest message here... shame on me.
Thing is, I have so many other projects going on, electronics related or not....

But OK, I will try to prioritize this project and put it back on the bench !!!


Thanks again for lending a hand, much appreciated !  :D



m k:
I'd like to have a source code, if possible.

After some reading I could give some educated guesses for why and how.
Maybe also a new function or two would be possible.

E,

Link to 15kHz monitors
https://15khz.net/

Other possibility is to lift the status line.

Since we have access to source we can dig up the byte where vertical position of status line is selected.
You can always program new zeros to EPROM, so least significant 1 to 0 and status line goes higher.

That change is also so simple that it can be made on the field, so to speak.
Just connect all pins and finally do a single address programming.

Better make a backup first.
Maybe the previous become a bit moot at that point.

Origo is many times low left.
Can't remember for sure, but recollection is that this picture is text line based.
For graphical representation this zeroing may not work.
With source that is not a problem, but new ROM is a must, I can send if old image is somewhere, can't remember.
papardelle:
That's unbelievable that some people around the world is interested by this old machine! That's electropaleontology...
Let me some time to find and gather the information I could have...
papardelle:
"The bad news : it IS indeed French ! ". It is funny.
Yes, it's french!

You really did a huge job, I wonder if I have anything else to help you.

The ROM5000 is a device programmer, and we spent years to add more and more programmable devices to the library. In the last decades of the XXth century, there were so many new devices!
The ROM3000 is a version of the ROM5000, without screen and keyboard, as at the time many customers asked for a remote controlled programmer instead of a stand alone.
But both machine share the same remote control.

Some documentation is available at:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/chlg8mkwc6mq4fy08w54y/ROM5000.zip?rlkey=c6hp39l33jwonsr6ax70jg43a&st=fjmag1lf&dl=0

- Logiciel du ROM 5000: a short guide to new developpers working on this device programmer. It's written in french, let me know if you need a translation. It contains a memory map of the ROM 5000, you may find it of some interest.
- User Manual for ROM5000
- sources: source files for the ROM5000. 6502 assembler. That's a jungle. All comments in french. For video part, see VIDxxx. I doubt you find anything useful.
- map.zip : The 6502 have 64 Kb adressable, that's not enough. Addresses from 4000 to 7FFF are mapped, so depending on the device to be programmed, a 'map' is selected to adress the correct page. This allow to extend the adressable space.

Unfortunately, no hardware documentation.

The disks are not PC compatible, as far as I remember the size of the sector differs (256 vs 512), but I know there was an utility to read or write ROM 5000 disks on the PC.

About Micropross: I joined Micropross a few month after it has been created, I learned at the same university that the founder. Micropross was really a small company, and when the ROM 5000 has been designed (1985), the company should be 12 people or around. We never were more than 50 people.

About the video: Yes, there is a character generator, I remember I filled the PROM by myself, even designing my own characters (Micropross logo for example)!

Two UARTS: one is for remote control, the second one is to connect the development system which will send the data to be programmed.

"Littered with gigantic horrific spelling mistakes,": Indeed. One of the technician was unable to write correctly... except for 6502! He was probably our best programmer, so we don't worry about the mistakes.






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