MSX info

In 1984 I bought my first MSX, a Toshiba HX-10. A toy machine. Fun, but only suited for games. Z80, MSX-Basic, 64K, video (40×24 characters, graphics, color), audio cassette recorder for storage.

In 1986 the second machine, a Spectravideo SVI.738 Xpress entered my home. And that was not only fun, but a real computer: floppy drive, MSX-DOS, CP/M, 80 column screen. A real workhorse, with CP/M and Turbo Pascal! Mostly used with CP/M and a VT100 as console via the serial interface. Enhanced to MSX-2, two floppy drives, RGB output.

My interest in videoprocessing made me buy the quite expensive NMS8280 in 1992. Enhanced to MSX-2+ with memory mappers, slot expanders, SCSI hard disk interfaces, S-VHS video input/output. An impressive machine, but less a workhorse than I expected it to be. Video processing was very time consuming, I had two Panasonic S-VHS professional recorders, a video mixing tablet and the NM8280. It was not the success I hoped for, that had to wait for Adobe Premiere and full digital video editing with capturing analog video. A stream of IBM PC clones took the place of workhorse the years after and the MSX machines gathered dust.

Here I show scans and software for MSX I have personally scanned and dumped from floppy. A small subset and in no way intended to be the MSX Info Pages, just my scans and dumps.

 

History of MSX Info Pages

Around 2000 I started collecting retro home computers, MSX and many other 8 bit CPU based small computers. And developed the MSX Info website full with documents and software, initialy on the machines I owned like SVI.738 and NMS8280 and the interfacing with electronics. The house quickly filled with hundreds of machines, the website exploded with scanned documents and files.
All things come to an end, in 2012 I started selling the huge collection to enable a move to a smaller place and recover some of my investments. So in 2015 all was gone, the photos and files are all that is left.
I continued to update the website MSX Info Pages with what was sent to me or collected from the internet. In 2019 I decided to stop also with the website, thanks to the continued leeching and deep-linking by the unresponsive maintainers of msx.org. The quality content of the website, my pages, my scans, are what made the MSX Info Pages fun for me, not being used as free file storage to by the wiki maintainers of msx.org. So be it. The MSX scene is often an unpleasant environment.

 

MSX Info pages are closed as of April 2, 2019

A static copy, thanks to Arnaud de Klerk aka TFH, is available at at TFHs server.

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Convert hex formats V2

A program to convert between hex or binary files for 8 bit systems with a 64K address space.
V2 adds the Wozmon Apple 1 format and allow multipart Intel Hex, MOS Papertape and Motorola S records.

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Z80-Mini-EMUF

Based on the TMPZ84C015, a Z80 system-on-a-chip ‘Der Z80-Mini-EMUF was published in MC April 1989.
The EMUF family lived on!
Thanks to Bram Prosman for the scan.

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Z80-EMUF

Z80-EMUF, 1984 Issue 6

Z80 CPU at 2MHz, 2x Z80 PIO, 1x 2716 EPROM, 1×6116 SRAM

On this page the original article, the printed test program in listing and hex format.


0001   0000             .org 0000h
0002   0000             ; Testprogramm für Z80 EMUF:
0003   0000             ; auf den Ausgängen der PIO's
0004   0000             ; wird nacheinander gezählt
0005   0000             
0006   0000             RAM     equ 8000h
0007   0000             
0008   0000             PIO0    equ 0
0009   0000             PIO1    equ 10h
0010   0000             ; PIO Adressen:
0011   0000             ; PIO+0: Port A
0012   0000             ; PIO+1: Port B
0013   0000             ; PIO+2: Control Port A
0014   0000             ; PIO+3: Control Port B
0015   0000             
0016   0000 3E CF       EMUT1:  ld a,11001111b; Initialisierung aller Ports auf Einzelbit Ein- und Ausgabe
0017   0002 D3 02           out (PIO0+2),a
0018   0004 3E 00           ld a,0
0019   0006 D3 02           out (PIO0+2),a
0020   0008 3E CF           ld a,11001111b
0021   000A D3 03           out (PIO0+3),a
0022   000C 3E 00           ld a,0
0023   000E D3 03           out (PIO0+3),a
0024   0010                 
0025   0010 3E CF           ld a,11001111b; Initialisierung PIO2 analog zu PIO1
0026   0012 D3 12           out (PIO1+2),a
0027   0014 3E 00           ld a,0
0028   0016 D3 12           out (PIO1+2),a
0029   0018 3E CF           ld a,11001111b
0030   001A D3 13           out (PIO1+3),a
0031   001C 3E 00           ld a,0
0032   001E D3 13           out (PIO1+3),a
0033   0020             
0034   0020 06 00       LOOP:   ld b,0
0035   0022 78          L1: ld a,b
0036   0023 32 00 80        ld (RAM),a; RAM Adresse 00 .. FF wird angesprochen 
0037   0026 3A 00 80        ld a,(RAM)
0038   0029 D3 00           out (PIO0+0),a
0039   002B 05              dec b
0040   002C C2 22 00        jp nz,L1
0041   002F             
0042   002F 06 00           ld b,0
0043   0031 78          L2: ld a,b; jetzt 2. Port PIO0
0044   0032 32 00 80        ld (RAM),a;  
0045   0035 3A 00 80        ld a,(RAM)
0046   0038 D3 01           out (PIO0+1),a
0047   003A 05              dec b
0048   003B C2 31 00        jp nz,L2
0049   003E             
0050   003E 06 00           ld b,0
0051   0040 78          L3: ld a,b; jetzt 1. Port PIO1
0052   0041 32 00 80        ld (RAM),a;  
0053   0044 3A 00 80        ld a,(RAM)
0054   0047 D3 10           out (PIO1+0),a
0055   0049 05              dec b
0056   004A C2 40 00        jp nz,L3
0057   004D             
0058   004D 06 00           ld b,0
0059   004F 78          L4: ld a,b; jetzt 2. Port PIO1
0060   0050 32 00 80        ld (RAM),a;  
0061   0053 3A 00 80        ld a,(RAM)
0062   0056 D3 11           out (PIO1+1),a
0063   0058 05              dec b
0064   0059 C2 4F 00        jp nz,L4
0065   005C                 
0066   005C C3 20 00        jp LOOP
0067   005F             
0068   005F                 DS 1000h
0069   105F             .END        

Hex and listing of test program.

Photos and assembler listing from https://makerprojekte.de/z80-emuf-wiederbelebt/

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EMUF and MC

The EMUF pages are a tribute to the work of the editing staff of the German magazine MC Die Mikrocomputer-Zeitschrift on SBC’s.

EMUF stands for Einplatinen-Mikrocomputer für Universelle Festprogrammierung.

EMUFs SBC’s are programmable systems, without a monitor program: write a program and store it in an EPROM and run the application type of system. A bit like the modern microcontrollers like the PIC and AVR IC’s and also a bit like the Arduino’s. But with the technology of the 80ties: 8 bit CPU’s like the 65XX and Z80, I/O IC and EPROM and some RAM.

The first EMUF was published in 1981 in the second edition of the magazine. Later called the EMUF6504, since the CPU is the MOS 6504, a stripped version of the 6502.

Here you find on the following pages information on the EMUF and other SBC’s published in the magazine, Sonderheft and books:

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EMUF and MC Die Mikrocomputer-Zeitschrift

The EMUF pages are a tribute to the work of the editing staff of the German magazine MC Die Mikrocomputer-Zeitschrift on SBC’s.

The EMUF pages are based upon:
– the MC magazine: 1981 – 1987 (see archive.org for scans)
– the EMUF Sonderheft 
– the EMUF Sonderheft 2
– the book Mit Computern Steuern

From wikipedia.de:

Die Zeitschrift mc war ein von Januar 1981 bis mindestens Oktober 1996 monatlich erscheinendes deutschsprachiges Computermagazin.

„mc“ stand für Mikrocomputer, was sich auch im Untertitel der 1980er-Jahre Die Mikrocomputer-Zeitschrift widerspiegelte. Sie wurde von Herwig Feichtinger mitgegründet, der zunächst auch Chefredakteur war, und kostete zu dieser Zeit 6,00 bis 6,50 DM. Entstanden war die mc aus einer festen Rubrik der Funkschau. Zwischenzeitlich wurde der Untertitel geändert in Computerpraxis für den technischen Anwender, schließlich in Systemübergreifendes, technisch orientiertes Know-how. Mit der Ausgabe Juli 1994 erschien sie nur noch als Beilage zur Zeitschrift DOS International, hatte aber immer noch einen Umfang von etwa 45 Seiten. 1992 bis 1993 erschienen insgesamt fünf Sonderhefte mit dem Titel WINbox. Spezial-Magazin für Windows-Anwender.

Redakteur und später Chefredakteur der Zeitschrift mc war Ulrich Rohde, welcher 1983 auch den WDR Computerclub mitbegründete. Herausgegeben wurde die MC anfangs vom Franzis-Verlag, ab Juli 1994 in Form einer Heftbeilage vom DMV Verlag als mc extra.

Die MC befasste sich mit Computerthemen, Netzwerken, Hardware, Datenbanken sowie Programmierung. In den letzten Ausgaben gab es die Rubriken „Grundlagen“, „Programmieren“, „Technologie-Report“ und „Test“, in denen Beiträge als Einführungen bzw. Zusammenfassungen zum jeweiligen Thema im Stil wissenschaftlicher Fachblätter geschrieben wurden. Die Redaktion war mit Naturwissenschaftlern besetzt.

Eines der bekanntesten Projekte der Zeitschrift war ein auf dem Mikroprozessor 6504 basierender Einplatinencomputer namens EMUF.

 

 

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Talking Electronics TEC-1

Australian Z80 system, described in the magazine Talking Electronics.

I will start building a TEC-1D!

Posted in Z80
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RC2014 and 6502

About to start building RC2014 systems! Classic, Pro, 6502 based.

RC2014 and the 6502

I could not resist the black friday actions on the RC2014 system.

So I ordered the RC2014 basic kit, the PRO enhancement, experimenters cards and some backplanes and cards from Stephen Cousins.

Not only for the Z80 and CP/M (long time since I had a physical operational CP/M system, the SVI.738 Spectravideo Xpress!) but also for a 6502 system.
I found an interesting project for this: A 6502 CPU for RC2014

Here is another 6502 on RC2014 project My6502

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Talking Electronics and the Z80