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river Forums Junkie Location: Land of Oz Registered: June 2004	Re: My really old computer Tue, 05 April 2005 21:18 Hi, Yeah, I guess it's technical. In a computer shop you get the various motherboards and bits and peices such as video-card, CD/DVD, RAM modules etc and you make a system out of these bits. If something doesn't work you do the swap-jockey bit to find the bad component and chuck it (or return it to the manufacturer, who probably chucks it). I build my own systems from the actual chip level. This includes the design of the system, the chips required, the wiring between the chips, often I build the power supply from scratch also - but there are a lot of cheap PC/AT type power supplies so I often just use them. or a plug-pack for a small system. If it doesn't work I got to trace my wires in case I've hooked up something wrong, or search for a bad chip. This usually involves using a logic probe/pulsar, CRO, frequency meter and multimeters to find the culprit. After it's built and, from the hardware perspective, it is operational, I then have to develop my own software. For a general purpose system this means writing a monitor - sort of a silicon-operating-system that allows me to check/edit memory and the CPU registers, run programs, download programs. Then I usually add in debug software to provide breakpoints, single-step the system and such stuff. I write the software on a normal PC that has cross-assemblers that convert my code to the appropriate CPU and I then download the code into the system. If it all works then I burn the code into an EPROM and fit the chip and she's all done! I also repair/upgrade old pre-PC (ie 1974-1980) computers that were made by companies (ie not one's I built), such as System80, S100 stuff, Intel MDS and SBC, Exidy Sorcerers and other older stuff where they don't have GAL/PAL and/or surface mounted chips. All this knowledge..... yet, for modern day stuff, totally useless! seeyuzz river [Report message to a moderator]

	Subject	Poster	Date
	My really old computer	river	Tue, 05 April 2005 12:06
	Re: My really old computer	Lench	Tue, 05 April 2005 12:14
	Re: My really old computer	Hi-Ace	Tue, 05 April 2005 21:25
	Re: My really old computer	86DRFT	Tue, 05 April 2005 12:20
	Re: My really old computer	RobST162	Tue, 05 April 2005 12:30
	Re: My really old computer	river	Tue, 05 April 2005 12:57
	Re: My really old computer	ta23	Tue, 05 April 2005 13:16
	Re: My really old computer	river	Tue, 05 April 2005 21:18
	Re: My really old computer	Farkurnell	Wed, 06 April 2005 00:29
	Re: My really old computer	river	Wed, 06 April 2005 00:37
	Re: My really old computer	Farkurnell	Wed, 06 April 2005 02:30
	Re: My really old computer	EvilJack	Wed, 06 April 2005 03:18
	Re: My really old computer	lumpy	Wed, 06 April 2005 03:29
	Re: My really old computer	gold28	Thu, 07 April 2005 00:20
	Re: My really old computer	h3ff44	Thu, 07 April 2005 00:37
	Re: My really old computer	Ribfeast	Thu, 07 April 2005 06:52
	Re: My really old computer	Allan	Thu, 07 April 2005 09:48
	Re: My really old computer	river	Thu, 07 April 2005 11:23

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