Oh and if anyone is wondering why the TO7 and MO5 beep annoyingly every time you press a key, I think it's because the first TO7 model had a horrible rubber membrane keyboard.

The MO5 was still horrible but a bit less so I guess 😅.

Subsequent versions/models had proper keyboard.

The thing they didn't have is a backspace key. Sooo annoying to have to do it in two steps (left arrow, delete).

Backspace, what a concept!
Kids, don't take it for granted!

#hotkeyEmu #Thomson #MO5 #MO7

Crap, there's another IO/timer chip.

Oh, fun! A rare io chip with next to no technical documentation.
Well, forget about it.

I mean I'm doing this for fun.

Ok, I found a bit of info here and there.
Maybe even enough to implement it.

Would be a lot of work for only this computer.

But I've done IO and timers before.
They're not very fun
But...

...

Fine, I'll do it.
Shut up brain.

2/2

#hotkeyEmu #Thomson #MO5 #TO7

Lightpen - check! OK it reacts on black, which it isn't supposed to do (and red too according to the docs). But it'd be surprisingly annoying to fix. I'm not kidding. There are reasons and everything.
Maybe one day. Or not.

Maybe I could do the TO7, now? How hard could it be?

*checks docs*
Ok, different memory map, not too bad...
I can reuse some components and the video is very similar.
Keyboard decoding is a bit different.
Sounds doable.

1/2

#hotkeyEmu #Thomson #MO5 #TO7

I hate light pens.

Thomson loved light pens. Came stock with all their computers. Even had a BASIC command to read it (INPUTPEN).

The CRT monitor scans from left to right in 64μs, line by line (312 lines), 50 times per second.

Due to persistence of vision we see a solid image but a phototransistor right on the screen would see a "dot" blinking on and off 50 times per second as the electron beam zooms by.

1/3

#hotkeyEmu #thomson #MO5 #emulation

I'm no expert, but that looks like a Thomson MO5 running* BASIC on my very own 6809 CPU :meow_party_bounce:

(Yes it beeps annoyingly every time you press a key. Really.)

*no light pen, no tape, no floppy, just BASIC, but still. I think it's neat.

#hotkeyEmu #Thomson #MO5 #MC6809

Funny thing is I haven't implemented NOP opcode yet (which does nothing), because I go with what the MO5 rom uses and implement as needed.

And the MO5 has not used NOP yet. Maybe it never does.

Yes I know it would take less time to implement the NOP opcode than to write this toot.

Deal with it. :meow_fluffy_deal_with_it:

#hotkeyEmu #MC6809 #MO5

@grum999 Specifically it was the COMPAR subroutine that failed because of a bug in the COMA opcode (complement accumulator).

But I had to understand how it's working to pinpoint where it failed (that's why I explained how the screen is parsed in my first post)

#hotkeyEmu #MC6809 #MO5

@Bkrywicki

Welcome!
J'ai découvert votre bible grâce à l'excellent podcast #mo5! (Toujours personne de chez eux sur mastodon d'ailleurs !)

https://mag.mo5.com/187372/memo5-5-presse-start-lhistoire-des-magazines-de-jeu-video/

The Thomson MO5 is weird.
I mean all 80s computers are weird.

When you type a character it writes a block of 8x8 pixels in the screen memory.

It doesn't store the actual characters anywhere, and there is no line buffer.

So when you press ENTER, it reads back the whole line.
But it's pixels, not characters. It has to check each block of 8x8 pixels and find a match in the character table.

(and there's a bug in my CPU because it always returns blank, more detail in alt text)

#hotkeyEmu #MO5

OK, this is freakin' HUGE.

I've implemented enough of the 6809 CPU so that the Thomson MO5 ROM is able to do some initialization and write a prompt to the screen memory.

(I'm just dumping the content of the pixel RAM when the emulator dies (on an unimplemented opcode))

So you don't get too excited: the CPU is not done, and the MO5 is not really emulated, just some bits hacked together.

Still... :fast_meow_party:

#hotkeyEmu #MC6809 #MO5

Oh fait pour les amateurs de #retrogaming qui ne connaitraient pas @florentgorges et ses émissions, je vous recommande cette fois-ci 𝕮𝖔𝖑𝖑𝖊𝖈𝖙𝖔𝖗'𝖘 𝕼𝖚𝖊𝖘𝖙, il y a 3 saisons, toutes différentes, et il y a même le coffret collector.

#geek #game #nolifetv #nintendo #atari #sega #arcade #collection #histoire #MO5 #otaku #japon #console #jeuxvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daALDWejxL8&list=PLxZAexWBsfEy8AnYihd0opiv7prsbYblk

Et voici la cartouche Cedic Nathan "Synthétiseur de parole" pour MO5/TO7 :-)
Le logiciel est par ici http://dcmoto.free.fr/programmes/parole/index.html , je testerai ça ce week-end !
#retrocomputing #thomson #mo5 #to7

@fgirault : Tu peux rallumer un #mo5 -> https://linuxfr.org/users/devnewton/liens/turbo-rascal-0-17-permets-maintenant-de-creer-des-jeux-pour-thomson-mo5

Bel article sur un beau proqramme noble, d'une époque civilisée !

Le plan « Informatique pour tous » de 1985 – Canard PC
https://www.canardpc.com/retrogaming/l-oeil-dans-le-retro/le-plan-informatique-pour-tous-de-1985

#canardpc #thomson #mo5 #to7 #retrocomputing

Je n'avais pas suivi l'évolution du projet!
Belle acquisition par la non moins belle association #mo5 !!
Une véritable pièce de musée ! 🥰😍😍

Acquisition du Micral N par l'association MO5 - MO5.COM
https://mo5.com/site/micral-article1/

#retrocomputing #micral #r2e

RT @gandi_net

Des technologies marquantes on en a vues... Mais peu étaient aussi magiques que le crayon optique.

#TO7 #MO5 #1980s

🐦🔗: https://twitter.com/gandi_net/status/1620774995189170186

@LaurentFr : @fgirault Cette petite démo devrait t'inciter à te replonger dans le #M6809 non ? Le #Tetalab peut même te préter un #MO5 si besoin.

One of my hobbies is programming under scratch (it changes me from Javascript and InDesign programming); I discovered #scratch with my daughter, who learnt it at school, and in order to try what is possible, I have developed this game: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/641795658/ – this is a clone of #Arkanoid with #Dinosaurs (so its name is "Arkeonoid", even if "Paleonoid" whould have been much more pertinent, for sure)... I invite you to (re)discover this game who enlightened my young years (on the antic #MO5)...

One of my hobbies is programming under scratch (it changes me from Javascript and InDesign programming); I discovered #scratch with my daughter, who learnt it at school, and in order to try what is possible, I have developed this game: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/641795658/ – this is a clone of #Arkanoid with #Dinosaurs (so its name is "Arkeonoid", even if "Paleonoid" whould have been much more pertinent, for sure)... I invite you to (re)discover this game who enlightened my young years (on the antic #MO5)...

Dimanche 27 novembre, sur retrouvez #MO5 sur #twitch pour les #retroNews.