Hi Heinz,
Thanks for the very useful information.
>Not, it's not a SuperPet. Not even close. Noting shared
>with Commodore's schematics. No memory mapped video,
>no VIAS.
>From what I can tell, it is/was intended to run the same
Waterloo software as the SuperPET (in 6809 mode) - the document
that I have describes the microWAT and SuperPET as separate
hardware (which they obviously are!), but makes very little
distinction once it gets into the software.
>It used a bank switched eprom board (2532's ?) to run boot/
>the monitor and Waterloo Structured interpreted languages
>(Which were themselves written in a weird C-like compiled
> language called WSL= Waterloo Systems Language)
This is probably how the microWAT and SuperPET are "the same"
when the hardware is different ... It appears that WSL is used
to make the same software run on both platforms. From the
document I have:
"SOFTWARE PORTABILITY
When the 6809 was chosed as the microprocessor for the microWAT
and SuperPET, we realized that microcomputers which incorporated
other microprocessors such as the 68000, 8086, 8088 and Z8000
were about to be announced, and some were even available. It
would, therefore, be unwise to prepare extensive software systems
specifically for the 6809. The systems language WSL is ment to
produce code which is portable. By using WSL to write the language
interpreters, the editor, the library the assembler development
system, and in fact the WSL compiler itself, it should be a
relatively easy job to move or "port" the system to other machines
and interface it with their operating systems."
>The most interesting thing in that whole system was that
>Wes Graham (of Watfor fortran compiler fame) had
>written a copyrighted poem (Haiku) that was an unencrypted
>key required to run the software. The designers chose the rarest,
>hardest to program most obscure Harris 3 supply fuse proms to use,
>so it could not be easily copied.
Can you provide more information - at some point I, if I can gather
enough material together, I would like to try and get the thing to
run - do I need to provide this "key"?
Also, can you shed any light on the 1/2 height completely potted
(ie: sealed from tampering) card that I found wrapped up inside
the system? (See previous posting for complete description).
Any other information/resources you can point me at would be
greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave04a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools: www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.parse.com/~ddunfield/museum/index.html
Received on Sun Jan 02 2005 - 10:08:01 GMT