RC2014 Pro - Powered on but can't boot to CP/M

[Thomas Crabtree]

Hi All,

I've recently finished building the RC2014 Pro kit and it's powering on, but the Compact Flash Storage (v2.1) light isn't on, and when I try boot CP/M it hangs.

Few more bits of info that might help:

• PCBs connected in this order, from slot 5: Compact Flash Storage, CPU, RAM, pageable rom, dual serial, clock
• Connected / powered using usb to FTDI 
• The compact flash is 128MB and labeled as CP/M SIO/2
• Using minicom to connect with settings 115200 8N1, no flow control
• Boot menu has the following text: Z80 SBC Boot ROM 1.1 by G. Searle
• The 74HCT138 chip needed replacing as it was really hot, when removed it had a leg missing (assume I broke it inserting).

I've tried loading ROM BASIC but when I type 'B' it then asks for warm or cold, and doesn't allow any other input.

I've done a bit of trial and error with clock speeds and moving the FTDI cable to port B, more for general debugging purposes than expecting it to work.

Is it just that the compact flash is dead, maybe cos of the dodgy chip? 

Is there a way to test that it is dead?

Any ideas on what to try next?

Thanks in advance!

Thomas

[Spencer]

Hi Thomas,

If you are getting the boot menu then that's a good start as it confirms that at least most of the computer is running and that you have your clock speed and serial settings all correct.

Your ROM jumpers are set to the "6" image on the ROM, and unfortunately BASIC doesn't run from that one. However it is certainly worth setting the jumpers to the "2" image which should go straight in to BASIC.  Also the "88" image is SCM which is a Z80 monitor ROM that can also boot in to BASIC or CP/M by typing BASIC or CPM at the prompt.

I am not sure if a fried '139 would kill the CF card, but I guess if it was one of the power pins that was missing then it might be drawing all of its power through the CF card. The easiest way to test the CF card is with a USB-CF adapter plugged in to a PC. Note that the format of the card is not compatible with modern operating systems so it won't mount directly. But if it shows up as unfomatted and you can take an image from it then it is probably good. You can compare theimage with the contents of "CPM Inc Transient Apps SIO2.img.zip" here https://github.com/RC2014Z80/RC2014/tree/master/CPM

Hope that helps, and let us know how you get on

Spencer

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[Thomas Crabtree]

Thanks very much Spencer.

Didn't know the jumper settings page existed! I was referring to the page that just covers CP/M.

I've managed to boot to BASIC using the '2' image and also the '88' image. On the 88, when I type CPM it returns: "Compact flash not present". 

The pin on the 74HCT138 chip was the top right - quick google tells me this is 'Output 6 (active LOW)'.

Should the light on the flash storage be on with power on or only if there's activity? I could test the actual flash card but concerned the whole PCB is bust...

Thanks,

Thomas

[Spencer]

Hi Thomas,

The LED is connected to the CF card and will only come on when the card is being read or written. If the card isn't working then I wouldn't expect the LED to work.

If SCM is reporting that a card is not present then that does point to the card being bad. Do you have any spare cards there or a CF adapter? 

Spencer 

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[Thomas Crabtree]

Don't have any spare cards or a CF adapter, but it's something I'm going to look into as I imagine having a writer might be a useful thing to have? At the very least I'll look to get a reader soon and go through the steps you suggested in your first reply. 

Thanks and will report back in a few days!

Thomas

[Thomas Crabtree]

Got a card reader (cheap one from Amazon) and not sure it's reading anything on it....

I'm on Ubuntu, and using a combination of dmesg, lsblk, and the gnome disks GUI, it's seeing the reader and looks like it's seeing the card on /dev/sda but with a size of 0MB. 

I'm guessing that more points to the card (or maybe the fact it's cheap Amazon reader?)?

This is the output from lsblk:

NAME        MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINTS
sda           8:0    1     0B  0 disk 

Thanks,

Thomas

[Spencer]

Hi Thomas,

Yeah, whilst it's possible the reader is faulty, I agree that everything is pointing towards the card.

Mine mounts as sdc with sdc2 being the RomWBW partition.  The exact sizes you see for your card may well be different, but they will be at least 64M (and certainly not 0B!)

NAME          MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE  MOUNTPOINTS

sda             8:0    1     0B  0 disk

sdb             8:16   1     0B  0 disk

sdc             8:32   1 977.5M  0 disk

└─sdc2          8:34   1   384M  0 part

sdd             8:48   1     0B  0 disk

Even though Linux (or Mac or Windows) cannot read the contents of the RomWBW partition natively, it should at least show up.

Spencer

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[Thomas Crabtree]

New flash card arrived today and we are officially booting into CP/M now!

Thanks for the help Spencer. 

Thanks,

Thomas