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Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM

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  Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2017-06-06 15:04 +0200
    Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 06:05 -0700
      Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2017-06-09 11:56 +0200
    Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM rickman <gnuarm@gmail.com> - 2017-06-06 16:36 -0400
      Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2017-06-09 12:06 +0200
    Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM foxaudioresearch@gmail.com - 2017-06-06 15:28 -0700
      Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Cecil Bayona <cbayona@cbayona.com> - 2017-06-06 17:31 -0500
    Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Paul Rubin <no.email@nospam.invalid> - 2017-06-06 23:52 -0700
    Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM peter.m.falth@gmail.com - 2017-06-06 23:57 -0700
      Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> - 2017-06-09 12:09 +0200
        Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-06-09 04:59 -0700
          Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2017-06-09 14:13 +0200
            Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2017-06-09 06:11 -0700
              Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Lars Brinkhoff <lars.spam@nocrew.org> - 2017-06-09 15:52 +0200
    Re: Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM Rod Pemberton <NeedNotReplyHere@xrsevnneqk.cem> - 2017-06-10 08:33 -0400

#60384 — Retrocomputing Forth as BIOS option ROM

Dear Forthers,

this is an idea, not a finished implementation, which I want to share with you:

For the ones of you into retrocomputing, it is a good fluke to still have one
of the proud hard disks of the 1987 era still up and running. Mine just briefly 
emitted light together with its magic smoke this year...

Very old original IBM-PC have a ROM BASIC which can be used to boot up the machine,
but I have a Atari PC3 XT-clone and am out of luck.

I found the xt-ide bios, which allows one to write an EEPROM to be placed on
for example a network card, which, among other features, can boot over serial line
and relays disk access to a newer host machine.

There are a lot of nicely designed Forths around, but I have not found one which is
intended to be written into an (E)EPROM as an BIOS option ROM.

My idea:

A BIOS option ROM Forth which can be placed into PC XTs without drives, which uses the
underlying BIOS for terminal both on screen and keyboard and on the UARTs available.

This will allow to just play with the ancient hardware from time to time, and the
default open UART will allow to just switch it on and then have a script on a larger
host to launch it up, loading its memory with a ramdisk containing DOS and hooking
Forth interrupt handlers with maybe disk relay code into.

This Forth should fit into an 8 kb EEPROM...
And everything else necessary can be loaded remotely into RAM.


I am deeply into MSP430 and ARM, but I am not familar with the 8086.
Maybe one of you wishes to pick this up ?

Best wishes,
Matthias

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#60386

On Tuesday, 6 June 2017 13:59:08 UTC+1, Matthias Koch  wrote:
> Dear Forthers,
> 
> this is an idea, not a finished implementation, which I want to share with you:
> 
> For the ones of you into retrocomputing, it is a good fluke to still have one
> of the proud hard disks of the 1987 era still up and running. Mine just briefly 
> emitted light together with its magic smoke this year...
> 
> Very old original IBM-PC have a ROM BASIC which can be used to boot up the machine,
> but I have a Atari PC3 XT-clone and am out of luck.
> 
> I found the xt-ide bios, which allows one to write an EEPROM to be placed on
> for example a network card, which, among other features, can boot over serial line
> and relays disk access to a newer host machine.
> 
> There are a lot of nicely designed Forths around, but I have not found one which is
> intended to be written into an (E)EPROM as an BIOS option ROM.
> 
> My idea:
> 
> A BIOS option ROM Forth which can be placed into PC XTs without drives, which uses the
> underlying BIOS for terminal both on screen and keyboard and on the UARTs available.
> 
> This will allow to just play with the ancient hardware from time to time, and the
> default open UART will allow to just switch it on and then have a script on a larger
> host to launch it up, loading its memory with a ramdisk containing DOS and hooking
> Forth interrupt handlers with maybe disk relay code into.
> 
> This Forth should fit into an 8 kb EEPROM...
> And everything else necessary can be loaded remotely into RAM.
> 
> 
> I am deeply into MSP430 and ARM, but I am not familar with the 8086.
> Maybe one of you wishes to pick this up ?
> 
> Best wishes,
> Matthias

My Forth is in an EPROM on a plug-in cartridge.

http://turboforth.net/about_turboforth.html

But it's not for the PC :-)

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#60483

> My Forth is in an EPROM on a plug-in cartridge.
> 
> http://turboforth.net/about_turboforth.html
> 
> But it's not for the PC :-)

I like the TMS9900 instruction set, but my own fond memories are on
a Commodore 64.

Exactly this, just for PC.

Cool !
Matthias :-)

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#60407

Matthias Koch wrote on 6/6/2017 9:04 AM:
> Dear Forthers,
>
> this is an idea, not a finished implementation, which I want to share with you:
>
> For the ones of you into retrocomputing, it is a good fluke to still have one
> of the proud hard disks of the 1987 era still up and running. Mine just
> briefly emitted light together with its magic smoke this year...
>
> Very old original IBM-PC have a ROM BASIC which can be used to boot up the
> machine,
> but I have a Atari PC3 XT-clone and am out of luck.
>
> I found the xt-ide bios, which allows one to write an EEPROM to be placed on
> for example a network card, which, among other features, can boot over
> serial line
> and relays disk access to a newer host machine.
>
> There are a lot of nicely designed Forths around, but I have not found one
> which is
> intended to be written into an (E)EPROM as an BIOS option ROM.
>
> My idea:
>
> A BIOS option ROM Forth which can be placed into PC XTs without drives,
> which uses the
> underlying BIOS for terminal both on screen and keyboard and on the UARTs
> available.
>
> This will allow to just play with the ancient hardware from time to time,
> and the
> default open UART will allow to just switch it on and then have a script on
> a larger
> host to launch it up, loading its memory with a ramdisk containing DOS and
> hooking
> Forth interrupt handlers with maybe disk relay code into.
>
> This Forth should fit into an 8 kb EEPROM...
> And everything else necessary can be loaded remotely into RAM.
>
>
> I am deeply into MSP430 and ARM, but I am not familar with the 8086.
> Maybe one of you wishes to pick this up ?

Where would you get an XT motherboard and how would you connect the EEPROM?

Somewhere I have an XT technical reference manual.  It lists the contents of 
the boot ROMs.  I don't recall all the ways an XT can be booted, but it was 
pretty durn simple.

What would be the point of this?

-- 

Rick C

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#60484

> Where would you get an XT motherboard and how would you connect the EEPROM?

Simple: You have one ! Otherwise, this architecture is not my recommendation.

Many places inside may have EEPROM sockets, ethernet cards are nice.

> Somewhere I have an XT technical reference manual.  It lists the 
> contents of the boot ROMs.  I don't recall all the ways an XT can be 
> booted, but it was pretty durn simple.

I have the XT technical reference manual, too.

Yes, it is rather simple to boot an 8086 if you replace the main bios chip,
but mine is not a true XT. Atari has designed a lot of special features,
with the custom bios giving a "portable experience layer".

For example, it has an Atari ST style mouse port.

Therefore, interfacing with the main bios is a good idea if this
should run on different "XT" machines.

> What would be the point of this?

Showing old hardware some love ! (Or: Just for fun.)

It gets a serious task if you consider that machines with dead drives
are a conservation challenge...

I think I will go with

http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/

which offers boot over serial lines.

Matthias

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#60409

I have always been impressed with Pygmy Forth.  It's really fast and has tons of options.


B

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#60410

On 6/6/2017 5:28 PM, foxaudioresearch@gmail.com wrote:
> I have always been impressed with Pygmy Forth.  It's really fast and has tons of options.
> 
> 
> B
> 

Same here. I have it installed in a Windows 7 i386 PC.

-- 
Cecil - k5nwa

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#60423

Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> writes:
> There are a lot of nicely designed Forths around, but I have not found
> one which is intended to be written into an (E)EPROM as an BIOS option
> ROM.

I thought that's what OpenBoot was, more or less.

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#60424

On Tuesday, 6 June 2017 14:59:08 UTC+2, Matthias Koch  wrote:
> Dear Forthers,
> 
> this is an idea, not a finished implementation, which I want to share with you:
> 
> For the ones of you into retrocomputing, it is a good fluke to still have one
> of the proud hard disks of the 1987 era still up and running. Mine just briefly 
> emitted light together with its magic smoke this year...
> 
> Very old original IBM-PC have a ROM BASIC which can be used to boot up the machine,
> but I have a Atari PC3 XT-clone and am out of luck.
> 
> I found the xt-ide bios, which allows one to write an EEPROM to be placed on
> for example a network card, which, among other features, can boot over serial line
> and relays disk access to a newer host machine.
> 
> There are a lot of nicely designed Forths around, but I have not found one which is
> intended to be written into an (E)EPROM as an BIOS option ROM.
> 
> My idea:
> 
> A BIOS option ROM Forth which can be placed into PC XTs without drives, which uses the
> underlying BIOS for terminal both on screen and keyboard and on the UARTs available.
> 
> This will allow to just play with the ancient hardware from time to time, and the
> default open UART will allow to just switch it on and then have a script on a larger
> host to launch it up, loading its memory with a ramdisk containing DOS and hooking
> Forth interrupt handlers with maybe disk relay code into.
> 
> This Forth should fit into an 8 kb EEPROM...
> And everything else necessary can be loaded remotely into RAM.
> 
> 
> I am deeply into MSP430 and ARM, but I am not familar with the 8086.
> Maybe one of you wishes to pick this up ?
> 
> Best wishes,
> Matthias

I have some other ancient hardware where i can play with this:
Sun Ultra 5
It comes with Forth as it firmware. It is 64 bit has access to all
hardware. It is fun for at least 1 hour! Then I put it away and 
take it out next year

BR
Peter

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#60485

Indeed, it is fun ! What I love on my Sun Ultra 30 shoud be on PC, too !

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#60492

On Friday, 9 June 2017 11:04:04 UTC+1, Matthias Koch  wrote:
> Indeed, it is fun ! What I love on my Sun Ultra 30 shoud be on PC, too !

I'd like a Forth system for my Atari ST.

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#60494

Mark Wills wrote:
> I'd like a Forth system for my Atari ST.

Aren't there a few already?

I had a great time porting my Forth to run on top of TOS.  But I need to
make the image relocatable to run on a real machine instead of just the
emulator I used.

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#60495

On Friday, 9 June 2017 13:13:40 UTC+1, Lars Brinkhoff  wrote:
> Mark Wills wrote:
> > I'd like a Forth system for my Atari ST.
> 
> Aren't there a few already?
> 
> I had a great time porting my Forth to run on top of TOS.  But I need to
> make the image relocatable to run on a real machine instead of just the
> emulator I used.

I think there are some; I've read some reviews of various ST Forth systems.
I haven't across any downloadable binaries on the web though. Would be nice
to give them a blast in STEEM (emulator) or even the real hardware.

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#60497

Mark Wills wrote:
>> > I'd like a Forth system for my Atari ST.
>> Aren't there a few already?
> I think there are some; I've read some reviews of various ST Forth
> systems.  I haven't across any downloadable binaries on the web
> though.

There are a few:

https://github.com/ForthHub/OneForth
https://github.com/cstrotm/VolksForth
https://github.com/meshula/Fusion-Forth

That last one may not have any binaries, but the others seem to do.

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#60553

On Tue, 06 Jun 2017 15:04:03 +0200
Matthias Koch <matthias.koch@hot.uni-hannover.de> wrote:

> Very old original IBM-PC have a ROM BASIC which can be used to boot
> up the machine, but I have a Atari PC3 XT-clone and am out of luck.
> 
> I found the xt-ide bios, which allows one to write an EEPROM to be
> placed on for example a network card, which, among other features,
> can boot over serial line and relays disk access to a newer host
> machine.

If the lack of a drive is the key issue, 8-bit IDE adapter with an IDE
to compact flash memory adapter card might work:

XTIDE - XT IDE BIOS
http://www.xtideuniversalbios.org/

XT 8-bit IDE adapter
https://www.lo-tech.co.uk/tag/xt-ide/

Syba IDE to compact flash memory adapter
http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=610
http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=603
http://www.sybausa.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=609

The XT-IDE adapter board seems to be out of stock.  You might need to go
to eBay and search for XT-IDE to get a board.

The Syba adapter is supposed to allow booting, but I was never able to
get that to work.


Rod Pemberton
-- 
The Paris Agreement is irrelevant. A carbon tax is futile. The only
solution is technology. Please tell Elon Musk that he is not being a
technology visionary.

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