Intel ROM images

[William Beech]

Guys,

As I am working on the upgrade to my Web pages, I have found I hold the
following Intel ROM images:

Mode                 LastWriteTime Length Name
----                 -------------         ------ ----
d-----         12/4/2024   5:04 PM 000000_Intellec_8_80_Monitor_V1.0_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:05 PM 000000_Intellec_8_80_Monitor_V2.0_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024   4:51 PM 000000_Intellec_8_80_Monitor_V3.0_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024   5:07 PM 000000_Intellec_8_80_Monitor_V4.0_ROM
d-----         12/3/2024  10:52 PM 000000_Intellec_8_8_Monitor_V3.0_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:21 PM 000000_iSBC_544_V0.3_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024   5:02 PM 000000_iSBC_80_20_Monitor_V1.2_ROM
d-----         12/2/2024  11:20 PM
000000_iSBC_80_30_MON810_Monitor_V1.2_ROM(no)
d-----         12/4/2024  11:50 AM
000000_iSBC_80_30_MON830_Monitor_V1.2_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:10 PM 000000_MDS_II_IPB_Monitor_N1.0_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:07 PM 000000_MDS_II_IPB_Monitor_V1.1_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  11:52 AM 000000_MDS_II_IPB_Monitor_V1.2_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:08 PM 000000_MDS_II_IPB_Monitor_V1.3_ROM
d-----         12/2/2024  11:30 PM 000000_ROM_ASM80_V1.1_1977
d-----         12/2/2024  11:31 PM 000000_ROM_EDIT_V1.1_1977
d-----         12/4/2024  12:42 PM 000000_SBC80P_Monitor_V1.1_ROM
d-----        12/10/2024  12:08 PM 000000_SDK80_Monitor_ROM
d-----        12/10/2024  12:05 PM 000000_SDK85_Monitor_ROM
d-----         12/3/2024  11:00 PM 000000_SIM8-01_Rev_4_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:08 AM
101539_iMDX_511_IOC_Character_Generator_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:08 AM 104566_iMDX_511_8041A_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:13 PM 104584_MDS_II_IPC_Monitor_V1.3_ROM
d-----         12/4/2024  12:14 PM 104586_MDS_II_IPC_Monitor_V1.4_ROM
d-----         12/2/2024  10:52 PM 104594_iSBC_80_05_Monitor_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:08 AM
104675_iMDX_511_IOC_Enhanced_Keyboard_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:08 AM 104675_iMDX_511_IOC_Monitor_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024   9:58 AM 104689-ISIS_Cluster_Monitor_V1.1_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:28 AM 145068-145071_8086_ROM
d-----         12/2/2024   2:54 PM 174106_iSBC_544_V1.7_ROM
d-----         12/2/2024   2:54 PM 175332_iSBC_544_V2.3_ROM
d-----         12/6/2024  10:09 AM
9100121_9100122_iMDX_511_IPB_Monitor_V1.2_ROM
d-----         12/9/2024  10:56 PM iSDM_Monitor_ROMs
d-----         12/4/2024  11:34 AM Zendex_AQ85_Monitor_V1.5_ROM

I am missing the actual Intel Order Number (which would be on the label
on original ROMs) for many of these ROMs.  If you have more information
from looking at original ROMs, I would appreciate if you would send it
to me.  If you have ROM images I don't list here, please send me a
short  description or Intel Order Number for it so I can see if I am
missing it.

Thanks!

Bill

[Herbert Johnson]

Glad to see you at work, Bill, on these ROM images.

Just to be clear: are these actual dumps from actual Intel ROMs? or are
they from reassembled codes? I'm being picky to make the point that
physical ROMs from Intel are a distinct thing with, as you point out, a
part number and a date-in-time. An assembly from sources could come from
anywhere, have errors or revisions and so on. Also, listing out the
label would provide an Intel part number and possibly date information.

Case in point is the recent devsys V1.2 discussion. My Web site instance
of the V1.2 is from your (Bill's) assembly of OCR/eyeball source. Scott
Baker found transcription errors. Bill, if you have an original-ROM
really-ROM image, it would be a cross check of the assembly. I bury all
my v1.2 stuff on this Web page:

https://www.retrotechnology.com/restore/mon80_proms.html

I'll update it, Bill, to point to your ROM images after you upgrade. I
was *just* about to revise my Web links to your site. You're a moving
target! ;)

Regards Herb
best of the holidays

> --
--
Herb Johnson, New Jersey USA
http://www.retrotechnology.com or .net
preserve and restore 1970's personal computing
email: hjohnson @ retrotechnology dot com
or try later at herbjohnson @ comcast dot net

[William Beech]

Herb,

I am doing this to update my web site.  I prefer to provide the software
as the original ROM images, the assembler source code, and some batch
files and a "d:\bin\" directory containing the tools to build the actual
source into a final ROM image, and lastly, verify it against the
original ROM.  As a minimum I have the source code, batch files, and
tools to produce a ROM image.

Some are actual dumps I or others have taken of a set of EPROMs. With
those, I would hope to get the Intel Order Number and a date. Some are
from OCR work on the actual documentation, even if I start with ROM
images.  I have used actual Intel Order Numbers where I have them.  But
we know ALL of this stuff form the mid 70s on had an Intel Order
Number.  I am just trying to maintain the true history of this code.

It will be noted, that from the early Intellec 8/80 days forward, the
Monitors are all similar in the code they use.  They replaced the BPNF
ROM file format with BIN file format, but most of the other code is very
similar.   This spanned the mid 70's to the late 80's.

I am trying to include source code I can assemble without error and
produce an operational ROM image.  I usually test the ROM image with a
SIMH simulator to verify it works and the command work.  This is a VERY
time consuming operation, as you well know.  The directories in the list
with a (W) after them are being worked on, and don't meet my standard as
stated above.

PNG's of disk labels and possibly ROM labels would certainly meet my needs.

I have seen Scott's comments on the V1.2 work and will correct it. I am
just a human as you all are and I make mistakes.  If I have original ROM
images, I do verify the assembled ROM image with the Intel ROM image.

Merry Christmas to all!
Bill

[Herbert Johnson]

Sounds good to me, Bill! And as usual, you have written your own
introduction to your good works. As usual, I point this out and
encourage you to include that introduction on your ROM page.

> I am just a human as you all are and I make mistakes.

Well, I'm glad to hear you confirm your human nature, and mine.
surprisingly, this is not a given, Bill, in year 2024. Pardon the
excuse, for a digressive warning about modern times. Thanks to a recent
"hook the customer with freebies" service called Google Notebooks, in
fact that "human" premise is under challenge. [The following can be
ignored, if the reader is only interested in ROM images and assembly
language.]

With generative AI, Notebooks offers to turn a collection of text and
Web pages, commentary and reports, into among other things a two-person
voiced podcast complete with banter, summary description texts, Q&A
testing and so on. Just point the service to your text/Web resources and
it does the rest.

I learned of these services through a series of events. One, ebay
descriptions of items for sale, which seemed to have a sing-song quality
to them. And, not quite knowing anything useful about the objects for
sale, just their general collectable value. These were/are AI generated,
I learned, when a seller said so.

Meanwhile, in a vintage computing discussion thread, I jumped in to
explain something to someone, trying not to make them look like an
idiot. One of the correspondents said "is this an AI-generated response?
I was fooled recently when someone in another thread used AI as part of
their responses." My social ambivalence misled one of the readers.

I posed the issue immediately above, in another vintage group familiar
with me. I asked them if *I* was an AI. They assured me I am not, but (I
was told) I do sometimes sound like one, because I explain too many
here's-why details, rather than give brief yes/no or do-this results.

"what is wrong with this picture"? The more "human" and informed I
sounded, the more I was compared to robotic ambivalent AI-generated
text. In a few words: use of AI-generated banter and descriptions,
lowers the bar on meat-human communications. When people see AI
dialogs/monologues over and over, *those* become the norm.

Eventually, we/they forget how to do for themselves, the capacity to
review and summarize and explain textual content. Bland descriptions
satisfy requirements, absent depth and insight (if not maths). This is
not good, in my estimation.

I'm not sure I have a winning argument about this, however. When I say
"learning is hard, details matter, learn principles" etc. I sound like a
teacher's pet. All I did was get an engineering degree before the Internet.

Regards for the holidays,
Herb not-a-bot Johnson

[Jon Hales]

Intel Monitor code for Intellec 8 systems (etc.) - further to the previous posts in this thread

I agree with Herb's emphasis on reading code from ROMs as well as Bill's expertise at working with published listings.

As an exercise complementary to Intel-Devsys, I have recently started to develop a 'Directory' of Intel's devices prior to the MDS-800 with the motive to enable owners of Intellec 8s to get more from their systems. An aim is to encourage participants to share software - and even paper tapes - as well as their experiences of restoration, maintenance and more. I hope to include Intellec 4 series and SIM8-01 owners when the initiative is more established. This arises from my nearing completion of a replica Intellec 8 (MOD8 and MOD80) designed by Craig Andrews (and featured in videos on his YouTube channel 'Hello World'), as well as familiarity with the two Intellec 8/MOD80s in the collection of the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.

If anyone in this group would like to have access to the initial collection of information, I'll provide a link to my Google Drive. I hope to find a better platform for the information at some stage. Links to owners of pre MDS-800 Intellecs would be welcome.

I approached owners of Intellec 8s whom I had contacted previously, by finding posts on the VCF Forum and by other searches. In a couple of cases owners have mentioned other Intellecs in personal and museum collections. I asked a number of questions, which included a request for the labels of 1702As on the imm 6-26 PROM board. Most responded with photos of the PROM (and other) boards. Some participants had previously read the 1702As and provided files of the data recovered. In a couple of cases the owners had contributed the contents to Bitsavers.org. One of the systems had a second 6-26 board - partly populated. Some owners don't have the means to read the EPROMs and haven't got a working Intellec to read out the ROMs over a serial link as one owner had done. 

From the photos I have seen, the monitor code is often identified by the version number, which is consistent for the 8 1702As from 3800 to 3F00 (starting addresses) in sockets 0 to 7. The ROM at 3800 includes a processor and version string. It doesn't appear necessary to ask for labels of the individual monitor ROMs in the set. To date, I haven't seen an Intel part number on these ROMs (as I have seen, for example, on the IPB).

The versions are mostly v3.0 for 8080 but also include v1.0 and v2.0 for 8080 (but these have not been read as yet). There is an 8008 set labelled 'Mon 8' with no version number. Another 'Mon 8' set is in an Intellec with an 8080 (Note: the imm 6-26 was used for both 8-bit CPUs). The are opportunities for comparison of code from different sets.

In several cases, there are 1702As at other addresses on the imm 6-26, presumably containing user-created code. In a couple of cases, switch settings (indicating the sockets containing a ROM) suggest some original 1702As have been removed. The code additional to the monitor deserves further attention.

Regards

Jon

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[William Beech]

Herb,

I thought you would like that. And agree it is not the norm today. I will NOT be using AI to evaluate my Web pages. I reserve the right to do that myself. I need a damn computer to do the work, but not one with AI! Other may choose the AI route and that is their right.

I would hope anyone on this group would identify when they use AI to
generate a response or inquiry.

I can see how they might mistake your responses and being AI generated. 
Maybe a "<no_AI>"  or "<AI_Off>" needs to be prepended to all our messages.

Well, the "Woke Generation" use these tools regularly to make up for
true research, remember "Google is your friend"?  Yes, they are the new
normal.

I got an engineering degree in 1988 but I was on the internet in 1975. 
Bill Gore did NOT invent it.  A lot of other good people, many who have
passed, did that hard work. Not TCP/IP yet, but it was coming in 1978.
We had Packet Switched Nodes and Hosts.

I am afraid your argument falls on deaf ears with many.  I guess why we
have a bunch of old farts here working on old systems that no one cares
about because we CAN!  I just spent an hour making sure a line to switch
the Intel ASM80 was at the very, very top of the disassembled source
file.  But I enjoy this.  I suspect nursing homes will be a growth
industry in the future because these people won't exercise their brains
and try to keep current in a subject.  I know I sure as hell cannot stay
on top of all that is happening in my chosen technologies.  How about
you guys?

Good discussion!  I like off topic!

Happy Holidays All!
Bill