Hi, Adrian!
If you're going to have "old" hardware, you're sooner or later going to have to
deal with DIY, since you can't hire out repairs of the sort you'll both want and
trust. OTOH, if you put forth a bit of effort, mostly in the form of study, and
invest as much as you can comfortably invest in test equipment and supplies,
you'll most generally be able to handle the repairs you need done. This is
especially true since you can get lots of help on this forum.
Learning to operate an eprom programmer should be the least of your worries, not
because it's unimportant, but because it's easy.
A big part of getting the appropriate equipment is learning enough to know
what's appropriate. Starting out small and simple is probably the best route.
Since we've established that you'll have to do no soldering to (1) replace the
EPROMs you lack, and (2) insert the CPU, you can probably breathe a sigh of
relief, in light of your apparent aversion to attempting such things at this
juncture. Perhaps that's just as well for now.
If you replace your missing CPU with one that's as old as the original, you'll
have little trouble. Back when the PET was built, there was only one type of
6502. That's the type you probably want. The CMOS versions were the ones that
came up with extra instructions, and, coincidentally, without the undocumented
ones that existed in the original.
You might visit www.6502.org to get a bit more info about this.
If you want, I'll mail you an old 1 MHz 6502, but, since it involves going to
some trouble, please be sure that you've covered the other bases, so to speak,
so the effort won't be in vain. In general, it might not be a bad idea to find
someone in your area who has a working version of what you've got under study,
just to see if you know what it looks like when it's working right. Moreover, a
momentary parts swap can be VERY revealing.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "Adrian Vickers" <avickers_at_solutionengineers.com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 1:17 PM
Subject: Re: CBM 8032 SK
> At 09:32 am 22/08/2001 -0600, you wrote:
> >Well, if you can get the EPROMs programmed and just lack a 6502, I imagine
> I can
> >find you one in the basement if you can't get one locally.
> >
> >Let me know if that's all that stands in your way.
> >
>
> Hi Dick,
>
> Well, there's a few things which are standing in my way....
>
> 1) I'm a complete newbie to microprocessor designs & troubleshooting
> (although I intend to rectify that, and have bought some books on the
> subject. Maybe I'll get into embedded systems using Z80s or similar...
>
> 2) I lack the tools to diagnose faults, again rectifiable from a nearby
> electronics store
>
> 3) Although I don't have an EPROM burner, I can get one. Learning to use it
> might be something of a challenge, but I'm sure I'll get there...
>
> Other than that, yes - it's just a case of getting a 6502... Interestingly,
> both of the versions that are currently available have extra
> instructions... I don't suppose that will affect the operation of existing
> CBM software, but it'd be a bit of a bummer if i wrote some m/c which
> worked in one machine and not another...!
>
> As for the offer - hold on for now, I may just bid on the German 8032SK,
> and fix this the easy way. But I definitely seem to have been bitten by the
> "DIY" bug.... time to subscribe to that home-made computer news group, I
> think...
>
> Cheers!
> Ade.
> --
> B-Racing: B where it's at :-)
> http://www.b-racing.co.uk
>
>
Received on Wed Aug 22 2001 - 14:56:23 BST