Re: CAT Box Project (interest gauge)

Kurt Mahan wrote:
>
> > If you were going to do this, wouldn't it make sense to
> > add a PC parallel port to the thing and get rid of the
> > display altogether? Or, you could squish the whole thing
> > down to fit on an ISA card with a 40 pin cable coming
> > off of it...
>
> This would be cool. It would also be nice to drive a lot of it from the
> pc itself. (I can help with software if needed..)
>
> Kurt

This is where it gets rather interesting. The hardware is easy to design
for a AT type card, even using TTL level chips, and hte ability to use a
486 to read and evaluate the board under test...look for shorts to
ground, shorts to other address/data lines etc, make it a better project
than re-inventing the cat box (handy as it is - I use one almost daily)
I have been looking at PC based scopes and meters, but THIS I would be
interested in.
About 15 years ago a company called Polar Electronics LTD. (Guernsey,
Channel Islands) devised a neat little device based on the Z-80, that
would plug into the CPU socket and do a "search" of the available
address space and report back where it "found" RAM/ROM and I/O, based on
the type of CPU it was set for. This would work for the Z-80, 6502,
6800, and the 8085. A list of it's capabilities:
1: Rom checksum
2: Test read/write to Ram
3: Print out disassembled Rom
4: read individual location
5: write individual location
6: read a programmed I/O location
7: write a programmed I/O location
8: decode block of ROM and print in HEX or ASCII
9: checks for data buss shorts to Vcc, Gnd, address lines or other data
lines
10: printout a memory map

Not bad for 1984.
Now I did happen to archive the software (on an APPLE II argh) and still
have the schematics. Would this help out project along-a PC based CAT
BOX?
I am interested in working on this project!
John :-#)#

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