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MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 6:41 pm
by UKJONNY
MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE WITH 512K RAM AND 32K/64K RAM DISK AND UTILITIES ROM DONGLE

Hi all

I’ve recently acquired an MCS disk/memory i/f with utilities ROM dongle and am attempting to preserve the main i/f ROM (v1.7) for posterity (I’ve already copied the utilities ROM dongle which has been uploaded to Dilwyn’s website).

Sadly the interface badly overheats and rapidly becomes unusable (reporting RW errors and writing garbage to disk) so it may not function for much longer.

The utilities ROM is called by the command RAM_EXT (and it only works with the main i/f ROM) and the combined extra commands mostly replicate TK2 (including a nifty ‘CLICK’ command on the main ROM that emulates the ZX Spectrum+ key click! :geek: ).

Does anyone have an electronic copy of this ROM they could share please? Alternatively does anyone have a spare working EPROM reader (QEP III?) that I could purchase (or I could send the interface to someone preferably in the UK to copy the ROM chip(s?) for me)?
MCS disk interface.jpg

Re: MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 6:48 pm
by bwinkel67
Regarding the key click, Hermes ROM replacment for the 8049 adds that feature as well. I can be turned off with a key combo.

Re: MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 9:20 pm
by Derek_Stewart
Hi,

There is v1.7a/1.3 on Dilwy's web site.

I suppose I could do the roms for you and post them to the USA, assuminb you can fit the roms okay,

Re: MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Fri Sep 04, 2020 11:11 pm
by Ruptor
Where does the USA feature?
UKJONNY wrote:(or I could send the interface to someone preferably in the UK to copy the ROM chip(s?) for me)?
I am up the road from you in Chiswick with a Universal programmer if you want to go that route but isn't there a utility that lets you do a Hex dump of a block of memory? It would be easy enough to write in Basic I think but must already exist somewhere. Perhaps you could plug each one in the ROM slot and copy that block or am I missing something with memory size problems?

Re: MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:52 pm
by UKJONNY
Derek_Stewart wrote:Hi,

There is v1.7a/1.3 on Dilwy's web site.

I suppose I could do the roms for you and post them to the USA, assuminb you can fit the roms okay,
Thanks Derek, found it! Problem solved :)

Re: MICRO CONTROL SYSTEMS QL DISK/MEMORY INTERFACE

Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2020 9:53 pm
by UKJONNY
Thanks very much for the helpful tips guys!