Compukit UK101 core

[EeDee]

I think the Ohio version got graphics and sound upgrades at some point.
I like the idea of the basic 101 although 48x16 switchable to 48x32 resolution http://anachrocomputer.blogspot.com/201 ... eslide&m=1
and an ROM or two maybe?http://www.flaxcottage.com/UK101/Default.asp

[danielb]

Hi,

Selectable 64x32 screen in the next version of the core.

It seems to more or less work, but some more testing and debugging is necessary before releasing it into the wild.

D.

[EeDee]

Looking good!
Thanks

[danielb]

Hi,

Here is a test version with switchable resolution.
Unlike the previous incarnation of this feature, switching screen size actually changes the screen resolution and refresh rate, and the display will resync. If you want to avoid this, or if your monitor can't handle the higher refresh rate, you can add

[UK101]
vsync_adjust=0

to your Mister.ini file.

Changing resolution only works under CEGMON, and requires a reset to activate the patched screen definitions.

D.

[danielb]

Hi all, I pushed a new version with the 64x32 screen mode to the main repository.
To go with this, I am attaching a Scramble game that I downloaded from here: http://osi.vintagecomputers.square7.ch/seite3.html, that runs on a 64x32 screen under Cegmon. It's machine code so load it via the monitor. It's apparently called Super Scramble, by Adventure 10, 1982.

D.

[EeDee]

Thanks for the update and all the effort you've put into the core. I've been messing around with it and liking it. The link is also welcome as I don't think I've come across it before.
Hopefully this is not the end and we'll hear/see more from you at some point.

[danielb]

Hi,

Well, the core is basically complete, and appears to be working rather well.

That said, there are a few expansions that were available for the original kit:

- Floppy disk system. This would be very difficult, at least for me. To do this, you would need precise documentation of the actual interface, and the original DOS ROMS. Some of this does exist for the Superboard, but even so, I suspect this is beyond my FPGA coding skills. There are some disk images on the web for the Superboard, but I don't know whether they would even theoretically work on the UK101.

- AY-3-8910 sound card - this would probably not be hard because it is the same sound system that is in a lot of other computers from the time. It should be very similar to the sound system of the Oric, for example. I don't know if any existing software supports this, and programming it from Basic would be a huge POKE-fest.

- Other monitor ROMs. There were several other monitors made for the UK101. Not sure whether there is much advantage in using them over what the core already has. There are also upgraded Basic versions available.

Another thing I can think of is variable clock speeds. This should be fairly simple, but may create side-effects that I would have to deal with.

Anyone have any preferences, or other ideas?

D.

[Moondandy]

Wow, you've really put a shift in on this, well done getting it so feature filled.

Could this system make use of an RTC or does it predate utilising one?

[danielb]

Wow, you've really put a shift in on this, well done getting it so feature filled.

Could this system make use of an RTC or does it predate utilising one?

Thanks!. I've no idea whether one was ever made available as an add-on, but most computers did not have one at this time, or even a few years later.

D.

[EeDee]

Hi,

Well, the core is basically complete, and appears to be working rather well.

That said, there are a few expansions that were available for the original kit:

- Floppy disk system. This would be very difficult, at least for me. To do this, you would need precise documentation of the actual interface, and the original DOS ROMS. Some of this does exist for the Superboard, but even so, I suspect this is beyond my FPGA coding skills. There are some disk images on the web for the Superboard, but I don't know whether they would even theoretically work on the UK101.

- AY-3-8910 sound card - this would probably not be hard because it is the same sound system that is in a lot of other computers from the time. It should be very similar to the sound system of the Oric, for example. I don't know if any existing software supports this, and programming it from Basic would be a huge POKE-fest.

- Other monitor ROMs. There were several other monitors made for the UK101. Not sure whether there is much advantage in using them over what the core already has. There are also upgraded Basic versions available.

Another thing I can think of is variable clock speeds. This should be fairly simple, but may create side-effects that I would have to deal with.

Anyone have any preferences, or other ideas?

D.

Hi Daniel

Would adding a Superboard mode with NTSC ect help/be feasible?
I also came across this and wondered if it would be of any use regarding disk drive implementation https://hackaday.io/project/173783-osi- ... em-osisdos
Sound and RTC sound good and swapping ROMs in and out also sounds like a handy option.
You mentioned variable clock speeds. That and an AY-3-8910 sounds good.
I suppose, to me, a core with lots of options is more interesting.

[danielb]

Hi,

Well, the core is basically complete, and appears to be working rather well.

That said, there are a few expansions that were available for the original kit:

- Floppy disk system. This would be very difficult, at least for me. To do this, you would need precise documentation of the actual interface, and the original DOS ROMS. Some of this does exist for the Superboard, but even so, I suspect this is beyond my FPGA coding skills. There are some disk images on the web for the Superboard, but I don't know whether they would even theoretically work on the UK101.

- AY-3-8910 sound card - this would probably not be hard because it is the same sound system that is in a lot of other computers from the time. It should be very similar to the sound system of the Oric, for example. I don't know if any existing software supports this, and programming it from Basic would be a huge POKE-fest.

- Other monitor ROMs. There were several other monitors made for the UK101. Not sure whether there is much advantage in using them over what the core already has. There are also upgraded Basic versions available.

Another thing I can think of is variable clock speeds. This should be fairly simple, but may create side-effects that I would have to deal with.

Anyone have any preferences, or other ideas?

D.

Hi Daniel

Would adding a Superboard mode with NTSC ect help/be feasible?
I also came across this and wondered if it would be of any use regarding disk drive implementation https://hackaday.io/project/173783-osi- ... em-osisdos
Sound and RTC sound good and swapping ROMs in and out also sounds like a handy option.
You mentioned variable clock speeds. That and an AY-3-8910 sounds good.
I suppose, to me, a core with lots of options is more interesting.

Hi,

I'll find out what's involved in creating a Superboard version. I think the Superboard lasted longer than the UK101, and had several versions, so it could be interesting. Also, thanks for the disk interface info. This also could be interesting if there is something there I can use.

The UK101 was a kit computer for tinkerers, so any addition over the base spec is in the spirit of the original, even if it's not completely period authentic.

D.

[EeDee]

I came across this Today. It's just a couple of Weeks old
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9gyoZeYk0w

[danielb]

New test version with switchable clock speed. Gives speeds between 1 and 10 Mhz. Higher speeds are hilarious. Playing Scramble at 2 or 4Mhz is actually a big improvement.

I want to clean up the code for this a bit before making it official, so it might be a while.

D.

[juandyzz]

Does anybody knows where to find games in txt format for this system?, I have few but I think I'm missing si much...
Thank you very much!!!!

[EeDee]

Hi all, I pushed a new version with the 64x32 screen mode to the main repository.
To go with this, I am attaching a Scramble game that I downloaded from here: http://osi.vintagecomputers.square7.ch/seite3.html, that runs on a 64x32 screen under Cegmon. It's machine code so load it via the monitor. It's apparently called Super Scramble, by Adventure 10, 1982.

D.

@juandyzz Try the link above

[EeDee]

New test version with switchable clock speed. Gives speeds between 1 and 10 Mhz. Higher speeds are hilarious. Playing Scramble at 2 or 4Mhz is actually a big improvement.

I want to clean up the code for this a bit before making it official, so it might be a while.

D.

Hi Daniel
Thanks for the addition. It'll help make some of the games written in basic more tolerable
I have observed, though, that auto-repeat speeds up as clock speed increases.

[danielb]

Hi,

Yes, this will be fixed in the next release.

D.

[danielb]

Hi,

Variable clock speed is now official, including a fix for the key repeat speed.

D.

[EeDee]

Thanks for the update. I've been having a fiddle and all appears to be working fine.
Core is getting better you're doing really well.

[EeDee]

- Floppy disk system. This would be very difficult, at least for me. To do this, you would need precise documentation of the actual interface, and the original DOS ROMS. Some of this does exist for the Superboard, but even so, I suspect this is beyond my FPGA coding skills. There are some disk images on the web for the Superboard, but I don't know whether they would even theoretically work on the UK101.

Not just for you I think: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13550 (3rd post down and Link in the last one)

[danielb]

- Floppy disk system. This would be very difficult, at least for me. To do this, you would need precise documentation of the actual interface, and the original DOS ROMS. Some of this does exist for the Superboard, but even so, I suspect this is beyond my FPGA coding skills. There are some disk images on the web for the Superboard, but I don't know whether they would even theoretically work on the UK101.

Not just for you I think: https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?t=13550 (3rd post down and Link in the last one)

Wow, there are some pretty hardcore UK101 people on that forum

Meanwhile I have been messing about with the OSI emulator on this site http://osi.marks-lab.com/index.php. It supports the UK101, and several different models of OSI computer. It also comes packaged with quite a lot of software, including disk images. My original intention was to try to use the emulator to export files from the disk images and see if I could get them to run on the core. I was able to export a couple of files, but they were for a more advanced OSI model and didn't run properly.

This got me wondering what it would take to get them running...

D.

[EeDee]

There are
How about a 48x32 mode (it was a common double the Video RAM mod) which would be a useful addition I think. And maybe a way of saving without requiring serial?
You could leave the rest for future development if you ever felt like coming back to it.

[danielb]

There are
How about a 48x32 mode (it was a common double the Video RAM mod) which would be a useful addition I think. And maybe a way of saving without requiring serial?
You could leave the rest for future development if you ever felt like coming back to it.

48x32 shouldn't be that hard, I think.

As for saving, not sure what's involved. Might be useful if people actually intend to write programs using the core

One thing I have found out is that the OSI machines apparently had a different character set, and that some games written for them don't look right on the UK101 for that reason. Adding a selectable character set should be trivial.

D.

[RedskullDC]

Hi DanielB, et al.

One thing I have found out is that the OSI machines apparently had a different character set, and that some games written for them don't look right on the UK101 for that reason. Adding a selectable character set should be trivial.

VHDL code for the OSI charater set is in the archive I posted earlier (if you want to use it):
http://www.crisis.com.au/images/OSI_Searle_Q17.zip

OSI machines also clock out the video bits in the reverse order to the UK101.

Perhaps UK101 designers trying to make it a bit more different for copyright reasons?

Cheers,
Red

[EeDee]

48x32 shouldn't be that hard, I think.

As for saving, not sure what's involved. Might be useful if people actually intend to write programs using the core

The idea of writing and saving on old computers, I owned in the past, was one of the reasons I was attracted to Mister as a platform but that aspect has been the biggest letdown for me as it's, mostly, not implemented for whatever reason. It seems to be of little interest to most. Playing games is the main attraction, which is fine, but not the main interest for me. I was entertaining the hope that this may be the one for me
Having said all that it's been interesting watching your core develop. You're doing a good job

[danielb]

Hi DanielB, et al.

One thing I have found out is that the OSI machines apparently had a different character set, and that some games written for them don't look right on the UK101 for that reason. Adding a selectable character set should be trivial.

VHDL code for the OSI charater set is in the archive I posted earlier (if you want to use it):
http://www.crisis.com.au/images/OSI_Searle_Q17.zip

OSI machines also clock out the video bits in the reverse order to the UK101.

Perhaps UK101 designers trying to make it a bit more different for copyright reasons?

Cheers,
Red

Thanks very much.

I really need to find out exactly what the differences were between the UK101 and the OSI machines, and also the differences between the different OSI models, before proceeding with an OSI mode for the core. As I mentioned before, three months ago I'd never heard of any of them, so this is still all new to me.

D.

[danielb]

48x32 shouldn't be that hard, I think.

As for saving, not sure what's involved. Might be useful if people actually intend to write programs using the core

The idea of writing and saving on old computers, I owned in the past, was one of the reasons I was attracted to Mister as a platform but that aspect has been the biggest letdown for me as it's, mostly, not implemented for whatever reason. It seems to be of little interest to most. Playing games is the main attraction, which is fine, but not the main interest for me. I was entertaining the hope that this may be the one for me
Having said all that it's been interesting watching your core develop. You're doing a good job

I will definitely be looking at saving basic programs to text files using the core.

D.

[RedskullDC]

Hi DanielB, et al.

I really need to find out exactly what the differences were between the UK101 and the OSI machines, and also the differences between the different OSI models,

Main differences:

Default Screen size: UK101 = 48x16, OSI C1p = 32x32, OSI c2,c3,c4,c8 = 32x32 or 64x32
(Normally 24x24 would be visible with a C1p, as it doesn't account for the front/back porch area in the video signal).
32x32 mode on the C1p is addressed differently to that on the bigger end models too.

Keyboard addressing:
UK101 and OSI C1p are the same.
OSI C2,C3,C4,C8 all have the bits inverted. (Check my keyboard code)

Monitor roms:
Different variations of the monitor. Individual 256 byte routines can be addressed anywhere between $F000 and $FFFF in the bigger models.
This is a minefield
check out the discussions on this topic in the forums at osiweb.org

ACIA addressing.
Large models have the serial/parallel chips addressed at different locations to the C1p/UK101.
Again, this doesn't help compatibility between OSI models at all.

Probably a few other minor things, but nothing of note I don't think.
Manuals for all models are on osiweb.org

Hope that helps.

Red

[EeDee]

I will definitely be looking at saving basic programs to text files using the core.

D.

That would be great. Thanks

[EeDee]

@RedskullDC
You seem to have an interest in this line of computers