Epson HX20 question

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_netcom.com>
Date: Sun Aug 1 14:59:43 1999

  At the SoCal TRW swapmeet yesterday, I couldn't resist buying an
Espson HX20, in it's brown plastic Epson carrying case, which
included a couple of microcassettes.

  It powers on ok and basically seems to work, giving:

CRTL/_at_ Initialize
1 MONITOR
2 BASIC
3 SkiWriter (TM)

on the display; pressing 'MENU' or 'BREAK' restores the display,
however choosing Basic or SkiWriter from the menu traps to:

_
 _
Trap!
 A=00 B=02 X=00FF
 C=D0 S=04AA P=00FF

  [Actually B=02 for Basic and 03 for SkiWriter.]

  Five ROMS are mounted, four for Basic and one for Ski.

  The dipswitch SW6 is 1,2,3=ON 4=OFF.


  That's all I know about it so far. I picked this up because it's a
'nostalgia' machine for me... I first saw one in the wretched
computer store I worked at in the early 80's and couldn't afford it
then. Later I did buy and use an older Epson Equity II (which I
still have BTW).


  Any suggestions on how to make this little rig smarter?

  Cheers

John.


  PS: The TRW Swap was great fun... Marvin, his friend Gyuari (from
Hungary), Aaron Finney, and Dave Dameron stopped by... Paul Passmore
showed up and we all looked for Mike Ford but he was in 'stealth'
mode and eluded us. Marvin scored some cool vintage 8-bitters and I
got some Real Old software and Games from a cow-orker that I need to
sort out and offer to The List.

  Oh yeah... I bought a forlorn AT&T 3B2 700 in unknown shape,
although the guy said it came out of service working fine.. When I
get a Round Tuit, I'll probably have questions about the pinouts of
the USOC jacks.. but for now on the shelf it goes... and it's
*heavy*.
Received on Sun Aug 01 1999 - 14:59:43 BST