Re: HP 16C machine emulator? Message #2 Posted by Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil) on 24 Oct 2001, 4:51 p.m., in response to message #1 by Anil Patel
Just to start the thread...
Hello;
I read many information about the Voyager that was posted here by some contributors, mostly by Tony Duel (Hey, Tony, where are you?), and I will reproduce them here: (O.K., Tony?)
"The original Voyagers contained 2 chips. The smaller one is a Nut CPU (similar to the CPU in the HP41 -- the data sheet gives the differences, mostly to do with voltage levels). As in the HP41, it contains the keyboard scanning logic. The larger chip is called R2D2 (ROM/RAM/Display Driver) [Seriously], and is what it says it is. As it contains the ROM, it is machine-specific. I'd always assumed that the third chip in the 15C was ROM/RAM, but I have no definite proof of this."
My question at that time was about a freaky 11C with more than 400 available program lines.
I also believe that hardware emulation IS feasible, possible and, if well designed, would run the ROM image for the emulated calculator. You face the same problems I faced before.
Another contributor that has dealt into the 41´s guts is Pavel Korensky. Mr. Cameron Paine wrote an HP16C emulator that runs on the Win-PC structure (runs a lot well!). If I am not wrong, Cameron wrote the code itself. The HP16C is mostly based on digital logic, so the emulator would use part of the digital resources already available in the processor and emulate special characteristics - operating stack, registers, program-line codes, etc.
Pavel found a very good microcontroler from ATMega that I believe has features enough to emulate most of the 16C. I believe another one to scan the keyboard and drive the LCD and the rest is a lot of sweat and time, knowledge, neural activity, time spent...
Let’s keep this thread... Come you all, Pavel, Tony, Cameron, any... Let's go for it.
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