Altair 8800 Clone, Operator'S Manual

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Page 2: ...tration Menu 9 PART 3 TERMINAL EMULATOR 13 A Overview 13 B TeraTerm Terminal Emulator 13 C Installing TeraTerm 13 D Configuring TeraTerm 13 E Using TeraTerm 14 PART 4 ALTAIR 8800 DEMONSTRATIONS 15 A Kill the Bit Front Panel Game 15 B Loading and Using 4K BASIC from Paper Tape 17 C Loading and Using 8K BASIC from Cassette 20 D Loading and Using Disk BASIC from Floppy Disk 24 E Loading and Using Alt...

Page 3: ...ing orig inal Altair documentation and software Original documents and supporting software are under the Support link on the AltairClone com website It is recommended that you download the full Clone support package by clicking on the All Manuals and Software as a zip file link then extracting all files to your disk Start your research by looking at the Altair 8800 Operator s Manual Keep in mind t...

Page 4: ...ess 0 1 Second port from 88 2SIO board at I O address oc tal 22 23 88 SIO port at I O ad dress 6 7 the Altair cassette serial port The serial ports are wired as follows Pin Signal 2 3 4 5 7 XMT from Terminal out to Clone in RCV to Terminal in from Clone out RTS from Terminal out to Clone CTS in CTS to Terminal in from Clone RTS out Signal Ground By default pin 4 RTS which becomes CTS inside the Cl...

Page 5: ...C Board Interrupts in the Altair 8800 Clone can be generated by the serial ports 2SIO and or SIO for both transmit and receive the floppy disk controller sector true interrupt at the start of each sector and by the real time clock present on the 88 VI RTC board The 88 VI RTC Vectored Interrupt Real Time Clock board prioritizes interrupts to the 8080 processor from the vectored interrupt lines VI0 ...

Page 6: ...d manage floppy disks Flop py disks are byte for byte images of actual Altair floppy disks and are ini tially uploaded to the Clone from a PC Floppy disk content is stored in non volatile RAM inside the Clone and once uploaded is always available When the floppy disk option is selected from the main menu the content of each drive is shown The drive numbers listed are the same drive numbers used wi...

Page 7: ...loppy description New Disk Step 1 Set terminal computer baud rate to 115 2K Step 2 Start XMODEM file SEND after setting the new baud rate XMODEM transfer occurs here Return terminal computer to 9600 baud then press return If the XMODEM transfer must be aborted first stop the transfer from the PC end then abort the Clone s reception by raising and releasing the left AUX switch 3 Save Floppy Content...

Page 8: ...u is used to insert and remove PROMs Eight slots are provided for PROM content Each slot is up to 2K bytes in length PROM content is up loaded from a PC in binary bin or Intel Hex hex format Once uploaded PROM content is non volatile PROM content can also be disabled without actu ally removing the PROM so that it can later be re enabled without having to re upload the content from a PC When the PR...

Page 9: ... Altair Clone can be configured in a variety of ways to match the requirements of the software to be run By default port 1 is a 2SIO port Motorola ACIA at octal address 020 021 Serial port 2 defaults to an SIO port at address 006 007 the cassette interface port If you pur chased an assembled Clone serial port 1 is the upper DB 25 on the rear panel and serial port 2 is the lower connector If using ...

Page 10: ...ory 3 Set CTS RTS Usage This option only affects a serial port configured as a 2SIO port The ACIA on the 2SIO board allows use of handshake lines CTS and RTS On a real 88 2SIO board if the user did not want these signals to affect operation they could be tied active or inactive as needed This menu option allows configuration of how CTS and RTS are used If CTS is set to Not Used CTS is permanently ...

Page 11: ...ration Menu When Admin Menu is selected from the main menu the administration menu is displayed Administration Menu 1 Interrupt Vector Assignments 2 Line Printer Controller 3 Turnkey Module 4 Floppy Drive Type 5 Floppy Performance 6 Baud Rate for Floppy Load Save 7 Single Step Down Options 8 Restore Defaults 9 Update Firmware x Exit this Menu 1 Interrupt Vector Assignments The 88 VI RTC Vectored I...

Page 12: ...at normal serial port functions of port 2 still work when routing 88 LPC output through the port For example serial port 2 can be used as the cassette interface to load and save programs and to also see line printer output Line Printer Controller Current setting Line Printer Enabled on Serial Port 2 1 Enable Line Printer on Serial Port 2 2 Disable Line Printer Output x Exit this Menu 3 Turnkey Mod...

Page 13: ...mance 2 Maximum Floppy Performance x Exit this Menu 6 Baud Rate for Floppy Load Save When transferring floppy data from to the PC see Floppy Disk Menu a higher baud rate is used to speed up the transfer process The default trans fer rate is 115 2K baud This menu allows selection of a different rate Set Floppy Load Save Baud Rate Current baud rate is 115 2K 1 9600 2 19 2K 3 38 4K 4 57 6K 5 76 8K 6 ...

Page 14: ...ave been instructed to perform the update See also the Cold Start Update Procedure Update Firmware This operation updates the Altair 8800 Clone firmware Do not perform this operation unless you have been instructed to perform the update Continue y n Cold Start Firmware Update If the Altair Clone is unresponsive the firmware can be restored without us ing the Configuration Monitor Terminal emulator...

Page 15: ...eraTerm maintained at the link above is much newer than the version found at the TeraTerm Home Page The latter is not recommended C Installing TeraTerm Installation files for TeraTerm are available on the AltairClone com website under the Support link The installation files are also included in the All Manuals and Software as a zip file link Follow these steps to install TeraTerm 1 Extract all fil...

Page 16: ...s complete click on the log taskbar tile and then click the Close button to complete the file receive operation File Transfer Xmodem Used to send and receive files using the XMODEM protocol The Configuration Monitor uses XMODEM transfers to exchange floppy disk content with the Clone Also the CP M utilities PCGET and PCPUT use the XMODEM protocol to transfer files between the Al tair and a PC Setu...

Page 17: ...of the Altair and does not require connection to an external teletype or terminal Following is the assembly language listing of the program Kill the Bit game by Dean McDaniel May 15 1975 Object Kill the rotating bit If you miss the lit bit another bit turns on leaving two bits to destroy Quickly toggle the switch don t leave the switch in the up position Before starting make sure all the switches ...

Page 18: ... and release RESET to force all address lights back to zero 7 Verify the data shown on lights D7 through D0 matches the data byte for the current address If the value is correct go to step 9 otherwise go to step 8 8 Put the correct value in switches 7 through 0 then raise DEPOSIT 9 Depress EXAMINE NEXT 10 Repeat steps 7 through 9 to validate entry of the entire program Once the program is entered ...

Page 19: ...rial Port menu in TeraTerm Also confirm that the Transmit Delay fields are both set to zero To load 4K BASIC we must first enter a small program via the front panel called a bootstrap loader The job of the bootstrap loader is to receive a second loader from paper tape called the checksum loader The checksum loader is at the beginning of the BASIC paper tape Once the checksum loader has been read i...

Page 20: ...ly address lights A12 and A4 A0 should be on 2 Transmit the paper tape image by using the File Send File menu op tion in TeraTerm Browse to and select the file 4K Basic Ver 3 2 tap which is located in the Paper Tape and Cassette folder inside the BASIC folder Be sure the binary checkbox at the bottom of the send file dialog is checked when sending a paper tape file 3 Loading BASIC will only take a...

Page 21: ...gain BASIC ignored the nulls un til valid data at the start of the next line was received Rather than inserting nulls after each line in the program source files Ter aTerm can be configured to delay after each line of code to accomplish the same effect Go to the Setup Serial Port menu in TeraTerm and enter 300 in the msec line field This provides a 0 3 second delay after each line to give BASIC ti...

Page 22: ...figuration for port 2 You can confirm or change the Clone s serial port configuration if needed See Serial Port Menu in Part 2 Configuration Monitor of this manual The default baud rate for the cassette SIO port on the Clone is 9600 baud While this is much faster than the 300 baud at which the real cassette in terface operated we recommend using 9600 baud for this demonstration Buffering in the PC...

Page 23: ...n raise DEPOSIT 4 Put the data for the next address in switches 7 through 0 then depress DEPOSIT NEXT 5 Repeat step 4 until all bytes have been entered 6 Raise and release RESET to force all address lights back to zero 7 Verify the data shown on lights D7 through D0 matches the data byte for the current address If the value is correct go to step 9 otherwise go to step 8 8 Put the correct value in ...

Page 24: ...cores Here is a simple program you can key in and RUN 10 FOR I 1 TO 20 20 PRINT LOOP I 30 NEXT I Loading a BASIC Program from Cassette Tape In 8K BASIC the CLOAD and CSAVE commands can be used to load and save programs from cassette The CSAVE command writes an image of the program as it exists in RAM to the tape Since the program in RAM is already pre processed and encoded to run this format loads...

Page 25: ...tration Choose the Setup Serial Port menu option in the console TeraTerm window and enter 300 in the msec line field This provides a 0 3 second delay after each line to give BASIC time to process the line of code You may have to increase the delay to 500 msec line to load larger programs since the line encoding process gets slower as the program size increases Program files compatible with 8K BASI...

Page 26: ... need to repeat this step unless you over write the floppy with other content Follow these steps to boot Altair BASIC from floppy disk 1 Turn the power switch on 2 Raise and hold the STOP switch in the STOP position then raise and re lease the RESET switch Finally release the STOP switch This performs a hard reset on the computer and sets all address lights to zero 3 Set switches A15 A8 to the up ...

Page 27: ...IC Program through the Console You can also load a BASIC program through the console in the same manner as detailed in the 4K BASIC and 8K BASIC demonstrations This allows you to load new programs from a PC and then save the program to the floppy disk The SAVE command writes a program in memory to the floppy disk For exam ple to save a program in memory to the file name NEWPROG type the follow ing...

Page 28: ...on after uploading to assign the floppy to drive 0 Once uploaded you do not need to repeat this step unless you over write the floppy with other content Follow these steps to boot Altair DOS from floppy disk 1 Turn the power switch on 2 Raise and hold the STOP switch in the STOP position then raise and re lease the RESET switch Finally release the STOP switch This performs a hard reset on the comp...

Page 29: ...e source file for an assembly language program that echoes typed characters back to the screen through serial port 2 not the main console port You can view the source file by typing EDIT ECHO 0 and then pressing P at the editor s prompt as detailed above for PRIME To assemble the program type ASM and press RETURN When prompted for the file name type ECHO 0 without the leading and press RETURN The ...

Page 30: ...start the linker At the prompt type the object file name PRIME followed by RETURN to load the object file The REL extension is assumed if not specified When the prompt re turns type E and RETURN to link the object file with the FORTRAN librar ies load the executable into memory and exit to Altair DOS This step may take a while At this point the PRIME program is in memory and must be saved to a fil...

Page 31: ...e and re lease the RESET switch Finally release the STOP switch This performs a hard reset on the computer and sets all address lights to zero 3 Set switches A15 A8 to the up position one and switches A7 A0 to the down position zero This represents the start address of the Disk Boot Loader 177400 octal or FF00 hex 4 Raise the EXAMINE switch to load this address into the processor 5 Depress the RUN...

Page 32: ...6K WM HLP 4K DUMP COM 2K NSWP COM 12K SUBMIT COM 4K XSUB COM 2K FORMAT COM 2K PCGET COM 2K SURVEY COM 2K LOAD COM 2K PCPUT COM 2K VIEW COM 2K 18 File s occupying 92K of 296K total capacity 46 directory entries and 204K bytes remain on A A The programs PCGET and PCPUT make it easy to transfer files from a PC into CP M PCGET and from CP M to a PC PCPUT For example you might start with a program sour...

Page 33: ... instance of TeraTerm to use as the op erator s console and terminal 1 then start a second instance of TeraTerm to use as terminal 2 You ll probably receive a Cannot Open Serial Port error when you open the second TeraTerm window In the second window go to the Setup Serial Port menu and choose the COM port that second se rial port from the Clone is connected to In the terminal 1 TeraTerm window ch...

Page 34: ... prompt key in PASSWORD and press RETURN The password can be any string up to eight characters in length and is required to mount or dismount a disk At this point Timesharing BASIC displays version information once again but this time on both user terminals You can type an immediate command like PRINT 2 2 and press RETURN on either terminal window and BASIC will display the answer Loading a BASIC ...

Page 35: ...the File Send File menu option in TeraTerm to browse to and transmit the BASIC program you want to load 3 The program will display on the screen as BASIC reads it in The file transmit dialog box will close before the PC actually finishes trans mitting the program This is normal Once a program is in memory you can save the program to floppy disk using the SAVE command For example to save a program ...