HP-41 Question about transferring ROMs from HP-IL tape to NoV-64

[Mark Power]

I've just got a NoV-64 from Diego Diaz, which is a fabulous bit of kit and I wonder if anyone has solved this problem regarding loading old MLDL-OS format ROM images from HP-IL tape:

Back in the 1980s I used an ERAMCO RSU with ERAMCO MLDL software. All the ROMs I wrote were transferred to/from tape using the SAVEROM/GETROM functions in the MLDL-OS software. This format appears to be incompatible with the HEPAX READROM/WRTROM functions.

I've managed to load the original MLDL-OS software into NoV-64 from a bootstrap file I saved back in 1986 using just the ZENROM. This saved the MLDL-OS ROM to tape as a 820 register data file and I reloaded manually it using the sequence:

SIZE 205
0 "MLDL-OS" SEEKR
0.204 READRX
MCED GET hex133 dec205 ADR B000
READRX
MCED GET hex133 dec205 ADR B400
READRX
MCED GET hex133 dec205 ADR B800
READRX
MCED GET hex133 dec205 ADR BC00

So now page B of my NoV-64 contains the MLDL-OS with SAVEROM and GETROM functions. However when I execute GETROM to load one of my many other ROM images, which are 640 register data files, the tape appears to go through the motions of loading the ROM image, but when I look in the relevant memory page it is empty, apart from some junk value in the first byte of the page.

That the ZENROM and HEPAX modules use the m-code WROM instruction to write to ROM, ERAMCO RSU, MLDL, etc. and this is supported by NoV-64 suggests that MLDL-OS also should work.

Any suggestions would be appreciated as I really don't want to manually enter 12KB of hexadecimal by hand. I'd debug the code in GETROM, but the first ROM I want to load from tape is my m-code Debugger :-\