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forum.gifForum - Pocket Computer - Topic #18

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Pocket Computer - Pocket Computer


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active  Topic # 18  How about new hardware for the pockets?

19/11/2002 @ 17:23
by Jürgen

Anonymous



Hello everyone!

Just let me introduce myself. My name is Jürgen, and I am from Germany. My home-town is Augsburg, nearby Munich. I'm 32 years old.

In the early 90's I've been developing several hardware for the Sharp PC-E220. Examples are GPIO-Interface for general purpose I/O, A/D-converters and so on.

At the moment I am developing continously new hardware for the sharps.

Also, I am thinking about, to build my own, small pocket-computer, with BASIC and Assembler. Prototyping is finished.

That's it for the moment! Would be nice, to read from you!

Best regards, Jürgen.
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Answer n° 1
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20/11/2002 @ 00:12
by aldweb

Anonymous

visitor
Hallo Jürgen,

Willkommen on this forum!

I would have guessed that you were between 30 and 40 years old... most Sharp Pocket Computer fans are about this age :-)

I could have also guessed that you were German. When French people work a lot on the software, the Germans like to work on the hardware :-)

Your project of building your own Pocket Computer has been my dream for 20 years now, right from the time I started to have my original TRS-80 Pocket Computer (the Sharp PC-1211 clone) in my hands. Unfortunately, I never took time to learn much about electronics... and I am French!

Could you help us dream by telling us more about this FANTASTIC project? How are you going to build this Pocket Computer? What technical architecture did you choose?
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Answer n° 2
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20/11/2002 @ 21:35
by Jürgen

Anonymous

visitor
Okay, so let me tell you all my story...

All begins in the 1991. I bought a PC-E220. This very nice pocket as a Z80-CPU, and because I have been familiar with this kind of CPU since 1982, I wrote several progs for it, in machine language. But always I was interested more in developing hardware. And I diggered out, that the PC-E220 has a small little valve on it's right side!

So I began... and opened the valve. What should I tell you - I found a complete system bus, containing 40 signals from the CPU!

To digger out each signal, was not so difficult. But I needed to get a connector. So I called Sharp Germany, in Hamburg. I found a helpful man, he told me that a connector, which was used by the former PC1600 for memory-cards, would fit! And he sent two pieces to me. So I built first a 3x8bit I/O-card, with the well-known 8255. This little machine I sent to Sharp Hamburg, and they have been very impressed and invited me to visit them.

So, by this connection to Sharp Co. I got my several secret books, schematics diagrams and so on.

Okay, back to my recent project.

How to make our own pocket computer?

I started by, to talk to Zilog Co. in Munich. They have been very impressed about my power for this developing. They sent two pieces of "Z84C15" to me. These are Z80 CPUs with peripheral as PIO, SIO, CTC and watchdog. All fits into a 100-pin-VQFP-package. I built the hardware on a normal 160x100mm FR-2 board. It's working very well! For the speed, I use a 19,6608MHz-quartz, which is internally divided by-two to 9,8304MHz. The serial RS-232 is compatible up to 115kBaud. Also, I put on it a fully funktional IrDA-connection, for the often-times re-programming of the board with my notebook.

About the software. To get an operating system, I maltreated an old home-computer and took out it's operating system bit-by-bit. I changed the I/O-system for the keyboard - exchanged by a driver for normal PC-keyboard. Also, I exchanged the driver for the monitor, because I use a 4x20-signs-LCD or a 100x32-pixel-LCD.

To get all running, I needed around 8 months.

That's it. This is my story.

I wish you all happy computing!
With my best, personal regards from Germany,
Jürgen.
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Answer n° 3
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26/11/2002 @ 22:11
by aldweb

Anonymous

visitor
I am SO IMPRESSED that I just cannot write something else than "BRAVO" (in French) !!!
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Answer n° 4
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16/12/2002 @ 15:51
by Madis K.

Anonymous

visitor
I love your enthusiasm, I really do!
I wish I had some kind of time or money or ANYthing to start doing things like that.
But what to hope from a 18y. old student :(
Till now the only thing that I have done is optimizing PC-E500 programs(in BASIC!!!), because there is no place to learn Machine Language.
BTW its interesting that FORx:NEXTx loop without "x" in the end is 37% faster :D
Here I quote "How about new hardware for the pockets?"
But I say "How about better software for the pockets?"
Write your opinions soon.
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Answer n° 5
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17/12/2002 @ 22:22
by aldweb

Anonymous

visitor
Hi Madis,

You wrote "(...)there is no place to learn Machine Language."
What do you mean? On this forum is Sébastien, maybe the BEST SPECIALIST IN THE WORLD of Machine Language on the PC-E500. Just ask him :-)

About software optimization, did you give a look to this one of my web pages ?http://www.aldweb.com/pc1360/us80fast.htm
I would have loved to be able to find all possible optimizations with some kind of algorithm to calculate the real gain each time :-}
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Answer n° 6
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18/12/2002 @ 22:38
by Madis K.

Anonymous

visitor
I have already read them through and tested some things. I noticed that(on PC-E500) no matter if there were small, large or floating point numbers — 500 FOR:NEXT loops took 1.713362 ms/loop
negative numbers take more: ~1.77 and imagine that !!!FORX=0TO500:A=0:NEXT took 1.842672 ms/lp!!! And I prooved that powers take time:2^5 took 30.872846 ms/lp
—————————————————————————————————————————
Sebastian, I believe is the best, but he can't help it when I don't have cable nor RAM-card :(
—————————————————————————————————————————
And about gains:You don't have to have an algorithm, you just leave unneccessary things like comments, calculations(don't leave 2^5 but 32), variabes @the end of NEXT,...
It sounds like I'm repeating myself. I think I have written it down somewhere in thi forum :D, ok then, hope to hear from you
-----------------------------------------
P.S. I have optimizations about most complex algorithms and I can give you hints on yours
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Answer n° 7
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20/12/2004 @ 13:31
by Anacleto

Anonymous

visitor
Hi Juergen,

May be you find some time to put on the web some of your schematics and the documents U got from sharp (the technical manual I presume, the service manual also ?).
I would like to build a DCF-77 clock to my E220 (and E500). Sharp never built any Pocket with RTC .I know enough about Z80 and co. but need memory map and some existing bus decoding and interrupt scheme of the E220.
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Answer n° 8
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26/12/2004 @ 21:57
by aldweb

Anonymous

visitor
Anacleto,

Since this forum thread is about 2 years old... it is not sure that Juergen will come again to read it!
Maybe, you'd better write him an e-mail to get in touch with him.
Then, it would be great if you share your findings with us here

Cheers

@+
aldweb
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Answer n° 9
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22/06/2005 @ 20:22
by Jόrgen

Anonymous

visitor
Dear Readers,
dear Sharp-PC-E220-Lovers !

In fact, today, 2005-06-22, I got an eMail about the E220.

Unfortunately, I gave all away to my brother. But only the hardware; the books I still have!!

I believe Sharp wouldn't be angry for me, if I make some copies of them.

If anybody wants to get a copy, just write an eMail to me!

xixi_augsburg ( a t ) yahoo.de

I ask you only for the self-costs. Say about 10 Euro; inkluding post fee.

The book contains this:

- Technical Hardware Manual (inkluding schematics and 40-Pin-Expansion-Port)

- Reference Manual for Programming

- All schematics

- Schematics of Printer

- Schematics of cassette-recorder

- Schematics of RS232-adapter

Hope to read from you!!
Best regards to all!
Jόrgen from Augsburg, Germany.
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Answer n° 10
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07/04/2013 @ 15:57
by Joe

Anonymous

visitor
Dear Jόrgen !

I read your comment and I need a schematic to my Sharp PC-1350 and Sharp PC-E500 (not 500S). I'd like to study tehes schematics. I plan that I upgrade my PC-E500's memory to 128K and I'd like to develope circuits to it.

Thank you for your help and schematics. Regards,

Joe Kiss
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