Conversation

Notices

1. Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 05:23:27 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

   So this is a Smith Corona PWP 9000 LT DS: It's a wordprocessor.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 05:35:55 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     It's got a 3.5" floppy drive. On the back it's got serial and parallel and REALLY looks like an Apple IIc.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 05:43:53 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So I opened it up to figure out if the power supply is center-positive or center-negative.
     It's center negative. It's also completely dead. No lights, no nothing. DEAD.

     Soo...

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 05:51:51 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     Motorola MCCS3201FN: This is reportedly a floppy disk controller, but there's not definite info on that.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 05:57:21 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     A National Semiconductor PC16450CV: A UART

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:03:57 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     A Motorola SC38LG018PI01.
     No info on this one, it's probably a custom gate array

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:07:51 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     Two AMI chips: S632000 and S631001A.
     I believe these are mask ROMs: 256 kilobytes and 128 kilobytes

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:15:53 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So this chip has a label that says it's an 80C32... that's an 8051!
     BUT IS IT REALLY?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:18:12 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     NOPE! It's an 80C52.

     Still an 8051, but a different variant.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:21:51 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     and here's the weird part: IT'S NOT THE ONLY ONE!
     There's another one, in a socket:

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:25:25 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     Everything else is 74series logic stuff.

     Like this 74HC244A line driver, for the parallel port.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:27:17 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     And the MC145406P line driver/receiver for the serial port

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:33:40 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     wait I forgot these.
     Two D41464C-10 32-kilobyte DRAM chips, for a total of 64 entire kilobytes of RAM

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:34:56 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     I've got a floppy with it. It's a DSDD disk, so 720 kilobytes if it's PC formatted.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 06:51:11 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     And it IS pc formatted!

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:08:39 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So the disk is weird. It's got a ton of hidden .HLP files and a 215 kilobyte THES.USA file

     But alongside those, it has some DOS files: So it can convert between the native PWP format and WordPerfect, so you can convert between this thing and PC files

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:13:06 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     the files on the disk have 1992-1993 dates, so that's probably when this thing came out.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:14:47 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So I think the help files and THES.USA are used by the wordprocessor. A thesaurus/spellchecker and a bunch of online help info: They stuck them on the disk rather than having them in ROM, because it'd be expensive.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:20:08 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Christian Stankowic

     @stdevel I haven't pulled the keyboard apart, but it doesn't feel like it. I think it's a plastic slider onto a rubber-dome/membrane thing

   • Christian Stankowic (stdevel@chaos.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:20:10 JST Christian Stankowic

     in reply to

     @foone Lovely machine! Does it have mechanical switches?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:22:35 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     So it also has a place for 6 NiCad C-cells.
     I tried powering it from this battery compartment instead of using the barrel jack: No luck.

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:24:06 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     My favorite part is this sticker by the display, which tells you to insert some paper and press Code+Z for a demo.

     Do you see the problem with these instructions?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:34:15 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Neia

     @neia I bet it was an 80c32 in an earlier version of the board, then they swapped in an 80C52 (which just has more RAM) because that chip was cheaper/easier to get by then

   • Neia (neia@fedi.ikeran.org)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:34:18 JST Neia

     in reply to

     @foone@digipres.club Why would they put on a sticker with a misleading label? I'm confused

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:38:37 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     • Caroline Bell :verified:

     @halotroop2288 EXACTLY

   • Caroline Bell :verified: (halotroop2288@techhub.social)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 07:38:38 JST Caroline Bell :verified:

     in reply to

     @foone Where does the paper go?

   • Foone🏳️‍⚧️ (foone@digipres.club)'s status on Wednesday, 08-Nov-2023 08:45:53 JST Foone🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     the disk image is on the internet archive now, in case anyone has one of these but has lost the disk (or needs to convert some PWP files)
     https://archive.org/details/smith-corona-pwp-utility-disk-for-pwp-9000-lt-ds