Just for info.
The guy that wrote the bios implementation for CP/M replied back so i have sended him some quitestions.
So let see what he replies.
Hello Per,
Yes, I am the person who did that work. I’m not sure how much detail I remember after 40 years, but I’ll be happy to try to answer your questions.
Best regards,
Got some fast answer pasting in
Hi Per,
I think I can answer a few of these. I wrote the first CP/M BIOS for the OC88xx series as a consultant. My main technical contact at Monroe was Bill Wong (whose initials - WGW - you found in the code), who made some substantial upgrades to my original code. As a Monroe employee, Bill had access to a lot more of the technical data than I did, so I am cc-ing him in the hope that he may be able to fill in some of the details that I am lacking.
The typical configuration included two quad-density 5.5-inch floppy drives. There was an optional external hard drive. I believe there were Monroe-branded printers offered, but if I remember correctly the interface was the standard 25-pin parallel interface used by most printers of that time, so any generic printer of that period should be able to work.
There was a model with additional memory, but due to the 16-bit address bus limitation of the Z80 processor it worked by an external memory mapping arrangement rather than by direct addressing. I do not know how many of those were actually sold, but Bill and I had prototypes and did get MP/M running on it. I do not know which variations and software bundles were actually offered for sale but Bill may have that information.
I remember the group supporing the OC88xx as being rather small. Bill and I were the only ones working on the CP/M and MP/M implementations, but I have no information on the rest of the team.
I do not know much about OS8 and so cannot give you any comparisons. However, CP/M was pretty much the standard in the U.S. for machines running the 8080, 8085 and the Z80, and most of the popular software of that time required it. For this reason I doubt that many machines were sold without CP/M.
Hopefully Bill can provide additional information and correct any errors I have made.
These are great updates! Thanks for archiving those disks aleperez!
Per, Thanks for sharing the response you got from Bruce. If Bill does respond, please ask if he happens to have any of the schematics that he could share.
Talk about a blast from the past. I was the System Software Manager at Monroe for a number of years while this family was sold. I also made a number of trips to Sweden to work with the group that did the other OS and software. I would have to see if I still have any of the disks floating around. I don’t have any hardware at this point though.
The MP/M version we built took advantage of the additional memory and provided support for multiple text windows on the console.
I also did MS-DOS customization and wrote book about this early in my career.
-Bill
P.S. I am currently the Senior Content Director for Electronic Design and Microwaves & RF magazines.
Glad to know that more people want to discover (and repair) Monroe computers! I’m still searching for the keyboard microcontroller dump, I have the microcontroller but not enough time to build a reader for it. I have a TL086 programmer but it isn’t compatible with the microcontroller, so I want to have time to build a reader based on Arduino Mega. If you have any news about it let me know, when I can read it I will upload the dump to archive.org just like the others.
Hi all
Trying to figure out the 50 pin connector on the Monroe. Got some more leads from a picture that I got from a friend on Friday. It was an advertise which talked about Monroe.
He didnt have it just got a picture of it from another guy. But since he did see Monroe in it he forwarded the picture to me. I did think a bit about and got to my saved documents and realized that i did have it my self. So now its scanned as well. ABC80/monroe - Gogs
In the advertise there is a reference to the databoard 4680 card needed to hook up Monroe to Databoard4680. And i did have the schematics for that board in a big file with a lot of databoards
So now I’m here with the connector, still 3 pins to figure out what they are
Great - just for background, here’s an auto translation of one of the pages:
Build out Monroe.
The microcomputer from MONROE is designed in Sweden (by Dataindustrier AB) and made in USA (Litton Business).
Dataindustrier AB designed the ABC 80/800, and as a further development the more powerful MONROE computer. This means i.a. that BASIC programs (without PEEK/POKE functions) running in ABC/DTC computers can also be executed in the MONROE computer.
The OS8 operating system gives the MONROE computer very powerful features on par with the minicomputers and can in some cases be considered as such. Multiple tasks can processed at the same time (multitasking). Real-time functions are standard and real-time clock is included in all models.
With the expansion rack, you can connect most cards in the DataBoard series.
Unlike other microcomputers, or rather their operating system, everything is taken care of input and output (I/O) via interrupt control in OS8. Drivers for DataBoard cards can dynamically, i.e. without stopping OS8, added or removed during operation.
Programs written in different languages can communicate with each other via OS8. Four languages currently available: Assembler, BASIC, FORTRAN 77, and PASCAL. FORTRAN also includes real-time functions.
A program can be loaded, started and stopped by other programs during operation. OS8 handles prioritization and operator communication.
Thanks! A good read for the weekend!
I will try to get time to compare the DataBoard access control with Monroe MCA, a first look at the document shows several advanced features that I didn’t see in any other 8 bits computer, it looks really challenging
I made a test rom for the Monroe its just a bit change version of Adrian Blacks test rom for the TRS80 serie, but includes bank swap so all memory are tested in the 0xc000 to 0xffff area, ex the vram.
If any body finds a 256kb machine im pretty sure that i can change the rom to support it as well but today its only supporting 128kb machines
Have a nice X-mas
Per
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