"First Light"

[Monte Dalrymple]

Many thought that this couldn't be done...

[Massimo Gnerucci (Italy)]

Well done Monte!!!
Eagerly awaiting for samples on sale...

Greetings,
Massimo

[Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)]

I want two!

Luiz

[PeterP]

Nice!!!!

[Gene Wright]

Yes, eagerly awaiting samples OR sales... ha!

Congrats!

[Martin Pinckney]

Quote:

---

Many thought that this couldn't be done...

---

OTOH, some have no idea what was done.

[Reth]

:) Yea, I could have done "that" too - to take a picture of my HP41 with weak batteries and after reset, sitting on top of some wires next to some electronics

[Don Shepherd]

Yeah, what exactly are people lining up here to buy? Please enlighten us.

[Raymond Del Tondo]

Hi,

it's a 3rd party reimplementation of the HP-41 CPU pcb, using modern electronics.

HTH

[Monte Dalrymple]

The electronics is a form-fit-function (plus enhancements)

replacement for a fullnut HP41 CPU board. The board contains

a 2MByte Flash memory containing images of every HP plug-in

ROM, plus a number of others. The RAM on board is 512KBytes

that holds registers and full X-mem. The remainder of the RAM

can be used as program or data memory, RAM disk, etc. The CPU

contains a "turbo" mode that allows it to run at up to 50x

normal speed. Code is present that allows one to "virtually"

plug a ROM image or block of RAM into a port from the keyboard

or under program control. The board will work with HPIL, the

82143 printer, a wand or card reader.


There are still some bugs to iron out. For example, CAT 2

doesn't seem to work, I can't enter PRGM mode or XEQ a named

function. But it powers up and does keyboard functions, which

(at least to me) is no small feat.


More information is available at The NEWT status page


BTW, the BAT annunciator is on in the photot because I have

an error on the PCB that requires that I limit the power supply

to less than 4V. The rev of the PCB will correct that error.



Monte

[John Robinson]

Great work !! - I'd like to see the HP65 board done the same :-)

Cheers,
John

[Gene Wright]

As I said, Monte, where do I line up to buy one?

I'm really thankful you kept working on this project after you talked about it at HHC in San Jose (?) several years ago now.

If you have a version working by this year's HHC, any chance you could bring it and show?

Keep going! :-)

[Monte Dalrymple]

My objective is to be done before September, but debugging is

_very_ slow. The speed difference between the native 41 bus

(155uS cycle time) and the memory bus (220nS cycle time) is a

real pain. Plus I didn't have a logic analyzer until yesterday.

It doesn't help that I didn't include a lot of test points on

the board because of space constraints.


But it's probably only one or two CPU instructions that aren't

quite working right that are the root cause of what doesn't

work, so the task is at least finite.


As far as HHC, we'll have to wait and see...


Thanks, Monte

[Vieira, Luiz C. (Brazil)]

Quote:

---

But it powers up and does keyboard functions, which (at least to me) is no small feat.

---

Be sure, Monte, to most of us who have been following your developments (and cheering...), this is no small feat at all!

THANK YOU!

BTW, I really want to sign for buying two boards.

Luiz (Brazil)

Edited: 24 June 2010, 10:07 p.m.

[megarat]

Wow, if this is half as cool as it sounds, I might want to get one as well. And I don't even own a fullnut. (Yet?)

[Ángel Martin]

The waiting list just got one more (two perhaps?). Pls. add my name as well, can't stop dreaming about this happening in the non-virtual realm!

'AM

Edited: 26 June 2010, 2:50 a.m.

[db (martinez, ca.)]

Hey Monte;
We sat next to each other at the 2004 HHC. I told you i'd be first in line for one but it looks like i'm about fifth. Anyway; sign me up. I've even got a brain-dead full nut to turn into a full NEWT. - db

[Diego Diaz]

Hi there,

First of all, congrats on an impressive job!

... and of course, I'm also in the waiting list... :-))

Cheers.

Diego.

[Paul Dale]

I'm down for one too.

- Pauli

[Geir Isene]

Count me in for at least one unit. And quickly before I completely dehydrate from all the drooling.

[Bill Zimmerly]

Quote:

---

Count me in for at least one unit. And quickly before I completely dehydrate from all the drooling.

---

(Laughing!) Me too! ;) I have an HP-41CV that I would love to upgrade to something like this. ;)

By the way, Monte, what city do you call home?

[Monte Dalrymple]

Livermore, California - home of the world's largest laser and

a couple of the world's fastest computers...

[Meindert Kuipers]

Congrats Monte,

I know how difficult it is to get a project like this done!

Meindert

[Monte Dalrymple]

First, thank you everyone for the congratulations. After all

this time I was afraid that people might have lost interest.



I will start posting status on NEWT status page shortly, but

I am now able to do CAT 2, with the new functions showing up,

and XEQ functions.


Something still isn't right, because Gene's benchmark won't

run properly. And when I try to enter Turbo mode it somehow

messes up the program space available and sets PRIVATE mode.


Now I _really_ have to hook up the logic analyzer.


Monte