cmp6131@sys.uea.ac.uk (M. Sylvester) (07/11/89)
Hello netpeople! I've just "inherited" an ancient computer system, and could do with a little help... The beast is built by Southwest Technical Products Corp. (SWTPC), and is called a "SWTPC 6800 COMPUTER SYSTEM" or something similar. Manufactured circa 1980 as far as I can tell. One of the problems is the system software. I have about 100 disks of various stuff, plus all manuals. Trouble is, all the manuals refer to the DOS68 o/s from Smoke Signal Broadcasting (SSB), but this won't boot from the monitor. The monitor in the ROM is GT-BUGS9, but I don't have the docs for this. The o/s that DOES boot is called FLEX, and also appears to have been supplied by SSB, through a UK company called Windrush Micro Systems. I have no documentation for this o/s, and so I am playing it by ear. I am wondering if the problem is due (at least in part) to the processor inside the box. I think it is a 6809 rather than the 6800 the documents centre around. This means that I should be running SSB's DOS69 rather than DOS68 (and could also explain the monitor difference). Does this sound feasable? Using FLEX means that I only have one piece of s/w at the moment, a w-p package from Windrush called SCREDITORIII. This appears to be one program from a system developement system called PHOENIX. I have various other bits for DOS68 but this won't run under FLEX. FLEX does provide various commands to dir, copy and "fix" SSB DOS68 disks but I don't know how to use these (apart from DIRSSB). The actual system configuration (as far as I can tell) is 6809 processor 16K ram on 4 x 4K boards Parallel and Serial comms boards Custom SCREDITORIII / PHOENIX keyboard (i.e. it has keys for virtually all the w-p commands, plus interupts such as IRQ and NMI have keys) 2 x 280K 8" single sided drives. So what I want to know is: 1) Can anyone send me a very basic manual for FLEX (i.e. just command syntax really, possibly application interface points also) 2) Can I get DOS69 from anywhere? 3) Does anyone have any applications running under FLEX that they don't want anymore. I especially want a simple database and a BASIC complier or interpreter. Thanks for your time. Please email replies as I doubt much of this is of general interest! By the way, the system is only a "toy" for me, it is not something that I need for work etc. So don't put too much effort into helping! Love 'n' Hugs Matt -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Matt Sylvester, Nexus TV, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, UK JANet: CMP6131@UEA.SYS or G890@UEA.CPC865 Vox: <various international bits> (0603) 592512