Documents Archive

 

I've accumulated, and continue to accumulate, a load of documents, from users' manuals to chip data sheets. What I have presented below only scratches the surface.

For files substantially in excess of 2mb or so in size, I provided the file size in megabytes so that one can estimate download times. Here's what I have scanned so far, categorized by platform:

Altair

The Altair documents archive has been moved to the Altair32 Technical Links page.

Ampro LittleBoard/186

    Information on this system is on its own page here.

Apple

I have several Apple systems in my collection: a ][+, //gs, ///, Mac 512k (aka "Fat Mac"), a Mac SE/30, a Mac IIci and a PowerBook 540c. The Fat Mac was the first Apple I bought with my own money (not my parents like the VIC-20 below). I would have to pull out my original invoice, but I think I paid $2795 for the Mac, $495 for the ImageWriter, $495 for the 1200 baud modem, $295 for the external 400k floppy drive, $99 for the numeric keypad, $99 for the padded case, and then a thousand dollars or more for the software (Microsoft Word, MacTerminal, Microsoft BASIC, and the 68000 PDS).

The other machines were either given to me (the ][+, ///, and SE/30) or purchased on eBay (the //gs, IIci and 540c). The PowerBook is handy because I can do all sorts of cross-platform archiving right at my desk without having to go to my lab in the basement.

I have lots of manuals and things for these machines, some scanned and some not. I still really haven't taken a full inventory of what books and manuals I have. For some of the manuals on the bookshelf behind me, I've collected scans from elsewhere on the Web just so that I don't have to scan them myself.

This past week (4/27/23), I received an updated copy of the Apple Red Book 30th Anniversary Edition from the original author, Gary Graham. It has numerous corrections, updates, and corrected typography and formatting. Thanks very much Gary for providing the updated copy!

Apple ][+

Apple //gs

General Apple Topics

 

Commodore/MOS (including KIM-1)

In addition to the CSG data sheets that I have, I have service manuals for some of the Commodore hardware that I own. I also have the original letter from CSG and the business card of the person who sent me the information (Denise Olds, Headquarters Marketing)

I also have several MOS/CSG books which were for the 6500-series chips, describing them from both the hardware and software aspects. These books were frequently purchased with a KIM-1 or other early Commodore machine. For later machines, this information was integrated in the technical reference manual for that machine.

KIM-1 Specific Information

Jack Rubin scanned and sent me several issues from the Compute! and Compute II series of magazines. Compute! Magazine began as KIM-1 Notes. Later, Compute! had a single-board computer section (for the KIM, AIM, SYM and Elf computers) in the main issue which ultimately was spun-off into a separate magazine called Compute II. Both of these are on the Magazines page.

There were also many third-party suppliers of enhancements for the KIM-1, SYM-1 and AIM-65 and other single-board computers using the KIM-4 bus structure.

Forethought Products (Coburg, OR 97401)

RNB Enterprises (2967 W. Fairmount Ave., Phoenix, AZ, 85017)

VIC-20 Specific Information

The VIC-20 was the first machine I ever bought (well, my parents bought it for me). I started off with the main unit and added the printer and disk drive within the same year. It is another 6502-based microcomputer with 5k of RAM and great color capability for the time and price ($299 initially I think).

Here are some more formal specifications:

I still have a bunch of games and hardware for it. Here are the manuals:

One of my long-term projects is to have a complete source listing for the VIC-20 BASIC and Kernal ROMs. The Kernal is done, as is an "include" file containing variable definitions. One should note that the Kernal program actually begins at $E500. I suspect that the code from $E000 to $E4FF represents the BASIC program overhanging the page boundary. The INCLUDE file contains variable names used in the BASIC ROM, which I have yet to decompiled. Those will disappear once the BASIC ROM is done.

C-64 Specific Information

I didn't get a C64 until many years later when a friend was giving his away. The C64 was initially sold in a case very similar to that of the VIC-20, but there were many subsequent versions. While the VIC-20 was popular, selling about 800,000 units in its lifetime, the C64 was outrageously popular, selling almost 30 million units in the 10 years it was available. The great graphics and sound, in addition to backward compatibility, were driving factors.

Here are some specifications on the C64.

    Here are some books and manuals specific to the C64:

Random Commodore hardware manuals

Other Resources

 

 

Hawthorne Technologies TinyGiant HT68k

    Information on this system is on its own page here.

 

Heathkit H-11

    Information on this system is on its own page here.

 

Hewlett-Packard

    I have an HP 4952A Protocol Analyzer for which I have scanned copies of the manuals and have copies of the utilities disks. It's not a piece of classic hardware per se, but I've found it useful for troubleshooting RS-232 problems on my classic machines. I'm including them here because it took me a long time to locate copies of these so I want to make them available to others.

IMSAI

   I moved the information on my IMSAI system onto its own page here.

International Business Machines

Even the old PCs are not really classics, unless you have one of the original PCs with the 4/24/81 BIOS date or the first PC Portable IBM PC. None the less, I have some technical information on the PCs. The two Technical Reference guides contain full schematics, theory of operation, and troubleshooting information for the respective models, and include complete BIOS source code.

I've completed the BIOS source first, in editable text files.

Interestingly, the original BIOS is designed as a monolithic program (i.e., one code module in one source file), but the PC/AT BIOS is modular. This means that, theoretically, one could replace each module with one containing his own code. For example, one could re-write the "video.asm" file to redirect all TTY output to the serial port, or to ignore graphics modes. However, I don't think that anyone licensed the IBM code directly, so I'm sure that this was just a product of better programming structure or multiple development teams rather than adaptability to other uses.

Micromint

    MPX-16

In 1983, BYTE Magazine ran a series of articles by Steve Ciarcia, one of the best electronics and computer hobbyists of the day. Steve parlayed his article writing for BYTE into a business called Micromint, and he created a magazine called Circuit Cellar INK (now just Circuit Cellar).

The MPX-16 was a build-it-yourself IBM-PC compatible motherboard which included a few neat features like a serial terminal console capability and a built-in monitor (making it much like a large industrial SBC). A few expansion cards were available, including a keyboard-sound card. Micromint also made a PC-style metal case which made the MPX a desktop computer. According to the person I got my boards from, Micromint made about 400 units, most of which were used in Micromint's office.

The primary floppy operating system for this board was CP/M although an OEM version of MS-DOS 1.25 was supposedly in the works, but never released.

While cleaning the shop, I came across a small stack of disks which appear to be the source code for the ROM BIOS for the MPX-16 (with the latest date being 9/7/83) and a copy of MS-DOS 1.25. I have a board but it's working status is unknown. It has "SN 1211 Rev E" scrawled on the board.

Disks (zip images; Teledisk 2.16)

ROM BIOS source files (zip dated 8/25/83)

ROM BIOS source Later version (zip dated 11/7/83)

ROM Dump from board (zip). The two ROMs are TMS2732JL-45 and have the following label "Micromint MPX16 5/8 PC/Term 3/1/84"

 

Original BYTE article:

    SB180/COMM180

This was another Steve Ciarcia project that ran in BYTE magazine. It was a 6MHz HD64180-based (Z80 instruction superset) SBC and companion communication board with included an NCR 5380-based SCSI interface and a telephone audio modem interface. The 64180 is to the Z80 what the 80186 is to the 8086 -- instruction compatible but containing lots of on-chip peripherals. The 64180 includes an MMU, dual-channel DMA controller, two ACIAs, two 16-bit counter-timers, a 12-level interrupt controller, and is both 68xx and 80xx bus compatible, all on a 64-pin CMOS chip.

There was also a graphics board, the GT180, which stacked on the main computer and enabled it to display high-resolution color graphics.

Z8 Computer System

This Z8-based microcontroller system was featured in the July and August, 1981 issues of BYTE and was a single-board computer based on the Zilog Z8 microcontroller. Although the article featured the Z8 with embedded TinyBASIC (making it like the Intel 8052-BASIC chip), it was also available in a FORTH version for $150 more. The Z8MC family included the CPU card (Z8, RAM, serial interface, EPROM), a memory/IO/cassette card, an EPROM programmer, an ADIO card, a serial board and a 16k memory board, all held together with a 5-slot backplane. Cross-assemblers for various host platforms and a triple-voltage power supply rounded out the system.

Kipp Yeakel was kind enough to scan the manuals that he had, including two for the SweetTalker speech board (not a Z8 peripheral, but available at the same time).

Here are the manuals I have so far:

 

Motorola Educational Board

Paul Santa-Maria was kind enough to scan for me the instruction manual which was included with the MECB.

Here is the link to Xinu, a GNU-licensed operating system (ES), as well as a copy of a nice BYTE article on the board.

I just ran across a copy of TinyBASIC for the MECB which was based on Palo Alto Tiny BASIC as it appeared in the 5/76 issue of Dr. Dobb's Journal. This version was modified for the MECB by Gordon Brandly. This should work on the HT68K board I have, so the next project is to port the I/O routines and give it a go.

This version of TB has a somewhat unique syntax, but seems to work well. The archive includes a few BASIC programs, which is nice.

I got my board originally from a rescue at Temple University, and I never used it. This past week (11/2020) I built a serial cable for it and gave it a go. It works! I'm kind of amazed, actually.

For building the serial cables, I would note that the card edge connectors (2x10 IDC, CW Industries CWR-170-20-0003) are getting hard to find (the manual has 3M, AMP and BERG numbers, but I couldn't find those). The DB25F IDC connectors, thankfully, are still readily available. The configuration is already NULLed, so you just need a DE9F-DB25M "AT Modem" cable adapter, and you're good to go.

On the terminal side, I use 9600,8N1 with a 15ms/75ms character/line pacing for ASCII transfers. It's very easy to get BASIC running this way just by uploading the S-Record file.

 

National Semiconductor

I have a load of documents on National's old "TinyBASIC" single-chip microcontroller with BASIC, the INS8073 (thanks to Scott Vitale for many of these documents):

NorthStar

When I adopted a NorthStar Horizon, the gentleman gave me all of the hardware manuals that he had. Here's the list of what I had. I have since given the system away.

Random Other Docs

I have an assortment of docs for various S-100 and related hardware, in addition to things that don't fit anywhere else:

Rockwell

I have a complete manual set for the Rockwell AIM-65 SBC. The "R6500" books are generic 65xx platform books which go into great detail about system design and programming the 65xx series of MPUs and peripheral chips. You can even see the similarities between the Software Guide and the Commodore VIC-20 Programmer's Reference Guide -- typography, layout, and content are identical. The set consists of five books, as follows:

Mike Stein sent me some information and a ROM dump from the AIM Bubble Memory Module

Here are a bunch of schematics and application notes provided by Dave Colglazier at Original Woodworks and and Jörg Schöning:

I have a few random AIM-65/40 items, and Dave and Jörg Schöning periodically send me AIM-65/40 related materials, so I've aggregated them here since that system seems pretty rare for some reason. Not really sure why (cost/limited units).

 

BASIC, and the integrated assembler. I also received a ZIP file from Bill Dawson containing ROM images for FORTH and PL/65 (a PL/I interpreter). Thanks, Bill!

Paul Santa-Maria contributed a copy of the manual and a disassembly to go along with the PL/65 ROMs above. Get it here.

I also received recompilable copies of the AIM monitor ROM in an A65 version and a TASM version. Here's a cached copy of A65 v1.04, the assembler used for the A65 source files. The TASM files can be compiled using the Telemark table assembler (TASM) from Squak Valley Software. My personal preference is TASM, which I use for all of my 6502- and 8080-based cross-assembly projects.

Philippe Elie from France sent me ROM dumps of Siemens PC100 BASIC ROMs. Here is the ZIP file with each ROM position indicated. Thanks Philippe!

Philippe Elie and Fabio Polo worked on getting two different versions of Extended BASIC validated. Version 2.1 by GWK and Version 2.3 by GWK are available now. Thanks Philippe and Fabio!

Jeremy Barr-Hyde contributed a copy of the AIM 65 Laboratory Manual And Study Guide by Leo Scanlon. Thanks Jeremy!

I also received a note from Santo Nucifora about his archive of RM65 Development Control System documents. Here's what I have from Santo. Thanks!

 

Synertek Systems SYM-1

Massimo Sernesi sent me PDFs of the SYM-1 manuals and related items. The SYM-1 was essentially a KIM-1 clone with an expanded feature set.

Massimo also sent me a ZIP file containing the ROM images for the 4k system ROM (v1.1) and the 8k BASIC ROM (v1.1). These are straight binary images and can be programmed using conventional tools (except the 6530s). Here is a second ZIP file containing the ROMS for the 6530s.

Tandy/Radio Shack

I have only a couple Tandy machines in my collection -- a complete Model 100 system, a Model I, and a Tandy 2000.

Totally unrelated to the below, while I was trying to add a floppy drive to my Tandy 2000, I came across this document that's a consolidated list of ALL jumpers for every Tandy computer product and peripheral. This is the first time I've seen this service document, so I'm adding it here.

Here's some info on the Tandy systems I have:

   Model 100

This was a great little system. Made by Kyocera, this 2.4MHz 80C85-based computer was the first true "laptop" computer at 3.9 pounds. It ran for up to 20 hours on four "AA" batteries and it had a very readable 40x8 character LCD display and a 56-key full-stroke keyboard. For ports, it had parallel, serial, cassette, modem, and bar code reader ports. Well into the 1990's, the trusty 10x series was used by newspaper reporters all over the world.

It is also distinguished as being the last computer for which Bill Gates himself wrote the code.

In addition to manuals, I have included a compressed audio image which can be played back into the Model 100 from the PC sound card with an appropriate audio cable.

My system consists of the following (RSC-11/1984 prices listed except where noted):

Manuals and Cassette WAV Images

I also have the following software on cassette or ROMs:

   Tandy Model 2000

The system I had was the Tandy 2000HD (26-5104). This was an 80186-based computer that was famous for being a non-compatible IBM-compatible. It ran DOS 2.11 and any application that used only MS-DOS API calls. Any application that called "standard" IBM BIOS calls wouldn't work because the BIOS in the Tandy 2000 was a boot ROM only and not a true BIOS in the IBM fashion.

Further, it used 720k DSDD 5.25" floppy drives manufactured my Mitsubishi. The DSDD drive was a short-lived drive format used by only a handful of manufacturers, and was replaced by the 720k 3.5" drive introduced shortly after. The good news is that the DSDD drives could read and write standard IBM-formatted 360k floppies, so you could transfer programs back and forth, subject to the compatibility issues above.

There is a little program called 800.com (local copy here) which acts as a device driver for regular MS-DOS on a regular PC with a 1.2mb 5.25" floppy drive which enables MS-DOS to read and write T2K disks.

Complicating matters further, Tandy selected a graphics chipset from SMC that wasn't compatible with the IBM standard CRTC. So, any IBM-compatible program that directly accessed video hardware wouldn't work either.

There's more information about my Tandy 2000 restoration projects on this page. I also started an emulation project but shelved it due to its inherent complexity. I may go back to it at some point.

My machine was equipped with the following hardware (11/1983 prices shown, but this was listed in the RSC-11 catalog as a "New for '84" product):

Also, I've discovered that the 10mb Tandon TM-502 drive (MFM, 306/4/17, 5.25" full-height) seems to lose its low-level formatting over time. I replaced it with a Seagate ST-225 (612/4/17), which is a 20mb 5.25" half-height drive. It works like a charm. The only caveat is that you have for format it with DOS 2.11; nothing later. The structure of the hard disk format (i.e., the addition of a partition table) occurred during DOS 3.x and is therefore incompatible. DOS 2.11 appears to be comfortable with any drive less than 32mb.

Software/Firmware

Manuals

   Other Tandy/Radio Shack Products Related to the Above

 

 

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Last Updated 04/29/2023 16:38 -0500