Hi, as is customary for many a mailing list, I should
introduce myself first.
My name is David Rowntree, I am a systems engineer,
working for Philips Semiconductors, based in
Southampton, UK. My interests centre mainly on UNIX
systems, but I like anything computational and old.
I recently found my Research Machines 380Z in a pile
of junk, and got interested in it again. For those
who don't know, its a Z80 based CP/M machine sold in
the UK, mainly to schools and other educational
establishments. Mine came from Imperial College,
London, where I studied for my Meng in Electronic
engineering.
The box in question is a RML-380Z-D model, with dual 5
1/4" drives, and I think, 32K RAM. It has two video
boards (I believe this is the hires option) and an
additional ram board(cpu board with most bits removed)
an analog i/o card, and seems to have firmware
'COS4.2A'
The date of the box is '83, and is complete with its
keyboard, and even the dust cover!
Unfortunantly - NO SOFTWARE AT ALL. Not even cp/m :(
I know next to nothing about this box, so my query:
Does anybody have the system disks? How about
documentation of the firmware?
I've found various bits of cp/m source, but nothing
specific to the 380z. I believe it ran cpm2.
One other point - I believe you hit 'b' to bootstrap
the floppy - when I do this there is NO disk activity
(even with a floppy in the drive) I've tried both
drives, and both cable positions. The drive psu gives
stable volts, so that's not the problem. I'm sure it
should do something! There is an LED on the floppy
controller, it flashes with a kind of 'heart beat'
pattern i.e. Flash-flash--pause--flash-flash--pause
etc. Anybody know if this is normal?
You guys are possibly my last hope - I've spent a
total of over 20 hours scouring the web for info, and
have come up with very little. I'd like to get as
much on this box as possible, for preservation reasons
- and so I can build a website about it.
Many thanks in advance for anybody who can help me
out!
Dave.
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Received on Fri Nov 17 2000 - 07:56:29 GMT