Re: "First Light" Message #10 Posted by Monte Dalrymple on 24 June 2010, 7:58 p.m., in response to message #8 by Don Shepherd
The electronics is a form-fit-function (plus enhancements)
replacement for a fullnut HP41 CPU board. The board contains
a 2MByte Flash memory containing images of every HP plug-in
ROM, plus a number of others. The RAM on board is 512KBytes
that holds registers and full X-mem. The remainder of the RAM
can be used as program or data memory, RAM disk, etc. The CPU
contains a "turbo" mode that allows it to run at up to 50x
normal speed. Code is present that allows one to "virtually"
plug a ROM image or block of RAM into a port from the keyboard
or under program control. The board will work with HPIL, the
82143 printer, a wand or card reader.
There are still some bugs to iron out. For example, CAT 2
doesn't seem to work, I can't enter PRGM mode or XEQ a named
function. But it powers up and does keyboard functions, which
(at least to me) is no small feat.
More information is available at The NEWT status page
BTW, the BAT annunciator is on in the photot because I have
an error on the PCB that requires that I limit the power supply
to less than 4V. The rev of the PCB will correct that error.
Monte
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