Altair 8800 Clone Operator's Manual
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Altair 8800 Clone Operator's Manual

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Summary of Contents for Altair 8800 Clone

  • Page 2: Table Of Contents

    OPERATOR’S MANUAL Version 1.8, September 2014 TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ............... 1 PART 1 – ALTAIR 8800 CLONE HARDWARE SPECIFICATIONS ......2 PART 2 – CONFIGURATION MONITOR ..........4 A. Floppy Disk Menu ............4 B. PROM Menu .............. 6 C.

  • Page 3: Introduction

    (or more!) and may send you down the wrong path at times – that’s part of the fun! If you want some help along the way, the Altair Experience link on the Al- tairClone.com website provides a great list of topics and tutorials you may want to work through on your Altair Clone.

  • Page 4: Part 1 - Altair 8800 Clone Hardware Specifications

    D. Line Printer Port The Altair Clone implements the Altair 88-LPC line printer interface board. This board is supported by Altair BASIC, Altair DOS, CP/M 1.4 and CP/M 2.2. When prompted for the printer type in Altair BASIC or Altair DOS, choose “O”...
  • Page 5 If the 88-VI/RTC board is not enabled, then the default interrupt structure of the Altair (PINT with RST7) is used. In this case, all devices can be tied into the PINT line at the same time as the emulated devices all drive the PINT line with open collector outputs.

  • Page 6: Part 2 - Configuration Monitor

    PART 2 – CONFIGURATION MONITOR The Configuration Monitor is used to manage the physical and virtual hardware in the Altair 8800 Clone. The monitor is a simple menu driven program built into the Clone. Communication with the operator is always via serial port 1 at 9600 baud, 8N1.
  • Page 7 9600 baud. The new baud rate can be seen in the Ter- aTerm title bar. This sequence is shown below: ===== Insert Floppy (Load Content) ===== This will over-write "Altair DOS." Are you sure (y/n)? y Enter floppy 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...

  • Page 8: Prom Menu

    “eject” a floppy you’re no longer using by changing the de- scription to “Scratch Disk” (or any similar description) to indicate the drive is free to use. From the Altair’s perspective, a floppy disk is still present in the drive, just consider it a blank or scratch disk.

  • Page 9: Serial Port Menu

    ------------------------------------------- C. Serial Port Menu The serial ports on the 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).
  • Page 10 These are the most common versions of the SIO board and are referred to as “not Rev 0” or “Rev 1” in Altair manuals. Serial port 1 is at address 0/1 and serial ports 2 and 3 are at address 6/7 (matches the SIO port used with the Altair cassette interface).

  • Page 11: Load .Bin Or .Hex File

    8080 processor from the vectored inter- rupt lines on the Altair bus (VI0-VI7). In a real Altair, a device’s inter- rupt output is connected to the desired vector line using a jumper. This menu allows specification of that connection.
  • Page 12 Altair DOS, choose “O” (capital letter “oh”) to select the 88-LPC interface. In the Altair Clone, data sent to the 88-LPC can be routed to serial port 2, which in turn, can be connected to a terminal emulator window to view printer output, or connected directly to a serial printer.
  • Page 13 4. Floppy Drive Type This option is used to select between the Altair 8 inch floppy or the Altair Minidisk. All three drives are affected. After switching drive type, be sure to upload disk images appropriate for the drive type selected.
  • Page 14 9. Update Firmware The “Update Firmware” menu option is used to install a firmware update into the Altair 8800 Clone. Only perform this step if you have been instructed to perform the update. See also the “Cold-Start Update Procedure.” ===== Update Firmware ===== This operation updates the Altair 8800 Clone firmware.

  • Page 15: Part 3 - Terminal Emulator

    PART 3 – TERMINAL EMULATOR A. Overview A terminal emulator running on a PC is a convenient way to duplicate the functionality of a teletype, paper tape reader/punch, CRT terminal, cassette interface, capture printer output, etc. To provide these capabilities and other useful functions, a terminal emulator with the following capabilities is recommended: •...

  • Page 16: Using Teraterm

    E. Using TeraTerm The most commonly used menu options are: File->Send File Sends a file over the serial port with no protocol (e.g., paper tape or cassette, or non-XMODEM “Send File” operations in the Configuration Monitor). Be sure the "Binary" checkbox at the bottom of the file dialog box is checked.

  • Page 17: Part 4 - Altair 8800 Demonstrations

    Altair DOS disk and on CP/M disks. A. Kill-the-Bit Front Panel Game Kill the Bit was one of the first games for the Altair. It runs on the front panel of the Altair and does not require connection to an external teletype or terminal.
  • Page 18 Addr Data Addr Data Addr Data ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- Follow these steps to enter the program: 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.

  • Page 19: Loading And Using 4K Basic From Paper Tape

    BASIC from the remainder of the paper tape. The code for the bootstrap loader is provided by Altair in the BASIC manual. Different versions of the bootstrap loader are required based on the version of BASIC and the type of interface card being used.
  • Page 20 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.
  • Page 21 8N1 and to set the transmit delay back to zero. This helps avoid problems and confusion with the next exercise you may try! More Information Be sure to look at the 1975 BASIC manual (Altair Manuals\BASIC Manual 75.pdf) for more information about 4K BASIC. - 19 -...

  • Page 22: Loading And Using 8K Basic From Cassette

    88-SIO serial interface board. The SIO board provided the data in- terface with the Altair bus. The digital content present on the cassette tape for loading BASIC was the same data and format as used on paper tape.
  • Page 23 BASIC from the remainder of the cassette tape. The code for the bootstrap loader is provided by Altair in the BASIC manual. Different versions of the bootstrap loader are required based on the version of BASIC and the type of interface card being used to load BASIC.
  • Page 24 A10-A9, and A4-A0 should be on. 2) Use the “File->Send File” menu option in the cassette TeraTerm window to transmit the cassette tape image to the Altair. Browse to and select the file “8K Basic Ver 4-0.tap” which is located in the “Paper Tape and Cassette”...
  • Page 25 8N1 and to set the transmit delay back to zero. This helps avoid problems and confusion with the next exercise you may try! More Information Be sure to look at the 1977 BASIC manual (Altair Manuals\BASIC Manual 77.pdf) for more information about 8K BASIC. - 23 -...

  • Page 26: Loading And Using Disk Basic From Floppy Disk

    D. Loading and Using Disk BASIC from Floppy Disk In this demonstration, we will boot and use Altair Disk BASIC version 5 (spe- cifically version 300-5-F). Computer Configuration Serial port 1 on the Altair Clone (the upper DB-25 connector) should be configured as a 2SIO serial port at octal I/O address 20/21.
  • Page 27 “Floppy Disk Menu” section of Part 2, “Configuration Monitor” to write the floppy image to a file on your PC. More Information Be sure to look at the 1977 BASIC manual (Altair Manuals\BASIC Manual 77.pdf) for more information about all versions of Altair BASIC. - 25 -...

  • Page 28: Loading And Using Altair Dos

    12) In response to “HOW MANY RANDOM FILES” key in “4” and press RETURN. At this point, Altair DOS is up and running! The DOS prompt is a period. All commands must be in upper case. When backspace is typed to correct an error, Altair DOS echoes each character as it is deleted.
  • Page 29 TeraTerm connected to serial port 2 on the Altair Clone. See the 8K BASIC demonstration for how to setup serial port 2 for the cassette – the steps required to use the ECHO program are the same.
  • Page 30 Compiling and Linking a FORTRAN Program Microsoft’s FORTRAN compiler (F80), macro assembler (M80) and linker (L80) are present on the Altair DOS disk. Note that these programs do not use the leading character file naming convention that Altair DOS does, so when a source file name is specified, the leading “&”...

  • Page 31: Loading And Using Cp/M

    To boot a floppy disk, the “Disk Boot Loader” (DBL) PROM was typically in- stalled in the Altair. Refer to the “PROM Menu” section in Part 2, “Con- figuration Monitor” to see if this PROM is already installed in the Clone.
  • Page 32 “notepad” to edit the file. When ready to assemble the program, use PCGET on the Altair to move the source file from the PC to the Altair, then assemble the program using ASM. Repeat the edit and transfer cycle until the program works as required.

  • Page 33: Loading And Using Timesharing Basic

    To boot a floppy disk, the “Disk Boot Loader” (DBL) PROM was typically in- stalled in the Altair. Refer to the “PROM Menu” section in Part 2, “Con- figuration Monitor” to see if this PROM is already installed in the Clone.
  • Page 34 16 and 18 at level 2 are the I/O address of the two terminals assigned to in- terrupt level 2. These are the same I/O addresses of the two serial ports used in the Altair Clone. The “Reconfigure (Y, N, L)?” prompt is displayed again. This time, type “N”...
  • Page 35 PC. More Information Be sure to look at the Timesharing BASIC manual (Altair Manuals\MITS Time- sharing BASIC.pdf) for more information. Note: The manual is for Timesharing BASIC version 2, but the version running on the computer is version 1.1, so there are a few differences between the manual and the running version.

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