Epson HX20 - first laptop !EVER! 1981+

[CMcDougall]

Epson HX20 - first laptop !EVER! 1981+
mine says on back sticker : battery installed 9 June 1989
last used per date on micro tape : December 1994

She lives! after......
Soldered a link as the blue ribbon from keyboard to LCD screen eaten by battery,
and -/neg was going nowhere, so soldered to PSU socket & +/pos to the fuse

some pics, as not alot of info on this on net, or insides , :

[CMcDougall]

and the better than CGA graphics card working...
NOTE: the adaptor to recharge the battery is wrong way round , so +/pos side of socket , -/neg middle pin on socket
will do pictures of mini tape deck & printer part if the sun comes back out

[Pernod]

Thanks for the photos, it's good to see it looks like a standard MOSU board. Have you found any other references to the CM6000 anywhere? I can find manuals for the HX-20 but no mention of the CM6000. It has to be different in some way to map those 3x16K ROMs rather then the usual 4x8K found in the HX-20.
Are you able to also dump the mask ROM at location 6G? This is used by the slave CPU, expect it to be 4K.

Date codes on the IC's place this at least 1988, the boards of the HX-20 are much earlier 84/85.

[jonb]

By the looks of it I'd suggest that "CM6000" is a rebadged HX-20. The keyboard surround looks very aftermarket.

HX-20 is one of the first machines I wrote code for professionally.. I recall it had a nice keyboard and a tiny little screen (too small for BASIC but otherwise readable). I keep thinking about getting one for old time's sake.

[Pernod]

By the looks of it I'd suggest that "CM6000" is a rebadged HX-20. The keyboard surround looks very aftermarket.

Agreed, looks like an overlay.

I've been comparing photos of motherboards:
1982 MOSU 20120200000 B:::.
1984 MOSU 20120200003 ?
1985 MOSU 20120200004 E:::.
1985 MOSU 20120200004 E::::.
1988 MOSU 20120200004 H:::

Yours is the latest. Note the dots after the board revision, maybe indicate ROM configuration.

[CMcDougall]

^good investigation work!

dump the mask ROM at location 6G? This is used by the slave CPU, expect it to be 4K.

good news, it's in a socket (& had other 2 out to check for rust before power it up 23yrs later), so no unsolder pump
bad news, my beeb or my Uviprom probably won't read, as not got 28 legs....

I just spent about 30mins blowing 5x 2764 /8k roms from version11 from 'emuparadise' site
and as you thought, not working screen just flashes and its beeps 3 times, then repeats
so much for turning it into a BASIC language machine and the SkiWriter word processor
if you go to that site, there is also Version10, and also a 4k file "hd6301v16d", might be that chip at 6G

suggest that "CM6000" is a rebadged HX-20. The keyboard surround looks very aftermarket

yes, not for general public, just like the Acorn Electron, turning into a business telephone system, and renaming it Merlin
mine has logo on it bottom left by same phone co
just noticed pics on eBay, on back of mine it still says "Seiko Epson Corp." & higher serial No. 049854

this is the screens I get from my 3x16k chip set, being Version4.3 & not clear in MB pic "CM6032A" on them too
can download them here : download/file.php?id=32539

[Pernod]

^good investigation work!

dump the mask ROM at location 6G? This is used by the slave CPU, expect it to be 4K.

good news, it's in a socket (& had other 2 out to check for rust before power it up 23yrs later), so no unsolder pump
bad news, my beeb or my Uviprom probably won't read, as not got 28 legs....

That's a shame, chances are it's the same as standard HX-20, but really need to know for certain.

I wouldn't give up on getting BASIC and SkiWriter working. Here's what we know about a standard HX-20:
- 5 ROM sockets, 8K each
- 11E 6000-7fff Option ROM
- 12E 8000-9fff BASIC
- 13E a000-bfff BASIC
- 14E c000-dfff Firmware
- 15E e000-ffff Firmware

Considering the CM6000 expects 3x16K ROM in 11E, 13E, 15E, let's assume:
- 11E 4000-7fff
- 13E 8000-bfff
- 15E c000-ffff

So with the standard HX-20 ROMs that you have, blow 3x16K as follows:
- 11E = SkiWriter in the top half only, 2000-3fff
- 13E = BASIC, join your ROMS with extensions 12e and 13e
- 15E = Firmware, join your ROMs with extension 14e and 15e

Fingers crossed

[CMcDougall]

back of mine, with dates etc, and the silver rusted thing to cover the 'green' rusty battery:

back of case

let's assume

was contemplating the same, great minds think alike
I was not sure of where the 'OS'/firmware was etc, so thanks for working it out, as does not have OS1.20 at start
so to confirm before 45+ mins of burning eproms, thought would take each of my original 16k chips out once at a time
starting with 11E out being optional rom, I got 'ambulance sounds' and this on screen "HALT 42 62 7E02"
all three eproms must need to be together, but confirmed range &7E02
then took out 13E being 'language' and got same noise with "HALT CD CE 8CCF"
confirming again &range
joined up the 2x8k 'OS'/firmware V11 onto 16k eprom, popped it in and got :

OS v11

carried on same with Basic, but a no show... so played with Monitor :

in MONITOR

done same with 'FF' then SkiWriter, no show, but then thought to play with the CTRL@ change date:

change date scr

111111111111 Return, then done a Break, BINGO! :

reset, now cooking the gas!

when pressing 3, it asks to goto Basic first, so did and got splash SkiWriter splash:

skiW splash scr

pressing 2 for Basic works :

basic prog

but will miss my 'wee man' on the beller

cool

[Pernod]

but will miss my 'wee man' on the beller

Awesome, so was I 100% correct with the mapping?

[CMcDougall]

^sure was
after all this time to solder it up to work & the 'new' 16k roms burning, I noticed the Return key not registering until 3 presses
so took keyboard to bits a little:

keySwitches

so the little shaped metal thing was not very good after all these years, so after 6+ different positions
i then got it to beep on my multimeter tester , put all back together, still did not work
so on close inspection of solder side of the 2pins, it had dry solder joint on one, and could move up/down
soldered on some more, all Working again

pics of Micro Cassette Drive:

deck10pin

deck back

interface connector 40pins:

interface40pin

RS232 lead maybe for it, black left is shielding on right plug to no pins:

lead

to get this machine to use Ear /Mic on right side of it, need to take tape deck aside/out & do a reset.
here is a little basic prog to load, use laptop volume at 66% to play out

TEST2(playVol66.zip

.WAV file tester 19seconds

(202.32 KiB) Downloaded 18 times

the first 4.5 seconds are not needed , nor the last 6 seconds, as probably just lead in/out

the WAV

I found two crap MP3s from years back on the WWW, but had to do a bit of fixing, and loaded some progs being:
STATPAK, FUTURE, DAYDATE, AMORTIZE, TENKEY, PHONE, HANDLER, TIMER, & WRITER (11mins total)
have then saved them back out, so if anyone wants them (or interested at all? ) just shout

& AND if anyone can supply more .WAVs of basic progs, especially City Bomber let me know !!

[Pernod]

I've been in contact with Terry Stuart of http://www.classic-computers.org.nz/col ... n-hx20.htm, and has provided a collection of BASIC programs. You'll need some way of transferring them or have to type them in though.

[CMcDougall]

^ cheers N, just noticed this post

hopefully MP3s , like I found , cleaned up to mono WAV & 95% of them worked.

its now up the loft , as not found City Bomber as yet to play on it

EDIT: does Terry want all my CSW / WAV files, as I can't even remember where I got the crap MP3s from
EDIT2: found all those .TXT files before, not typing them in, someone else must have easy load files!?

[CMcDougall]

checked against my list, & same, but I have another extra 11, two needed for WAV / CSW being: BOMBER & TOWERS

my HX20 is now out loft, now under bed

extra 11 below, some I got from the dodgy 2x MP3s I fixed so loaded 11 of 13 progs from that

Anyone got more 8k ROM images for this? can't find Forth, but someone on FB is going to image when got time
also "Pro...Write" ??

[CMcDougall]

STATPAK, FUTURE, DAYDATE, AMORTIZE, TENKEY, PHONE, HANDLER, TIMER, WRITER & HX20TEST

here is the CSWs for them, confirmed working when using BackToLife prog to convert them back to .WAV
play out laptop vol 23 ~ 66 :