168 lines
7.4 KiB
HTML
168 lines
7.4 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><title> RTFM </title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="html_resources/style.css"></head><body><svg class="hidden_filter"><filter id="crunchy_blur" x="0" y="0"><feFlood x="4" y="4" height="2" width="2"/><feComposite width="6" height="6" in2="SourceGraphic"/><feTile result="a"/><feComposite in="SourceGraphic" in2="a" operator="in"/><feMorphology operator="dilate" radius="1.4"/><feGaussianBlur stdDeviation="2.2"></feGaussianBlur></filter></svg><div class="home"><a href="index.html">⌂</a></div>
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<h1>RTFM</h1>
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<!-- perspective: Annie -->
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<p>
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Annie arrives at a house with multiple ground-level entrances.
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She rings one of the doorbells and waits. Nobody answers. She checks
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that it is the right door – yes, this is grandpa Karl's
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apartment. She rings again. Still nothing. She hears a window being opened
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and Isabelle quietly calling her from one of the adjacent houses:<br />
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<span class="quote speech">Annie, we're over here.</span><br />
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She looks over, then walks up to the window.<br />
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<span class="quote speech">Which door?</span><br />
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<span class="quote speech">Number 15, I'll let you in.</span><br />
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</p>
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<p>
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Lucas and Karl are also inside.
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<br />
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Karl says: <span class="quote speech">We needed a little more space.
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This place has been vacant forever, might as well use it.</span><br />
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Annie slides her shoes off and leans her bag against the wall. Then,
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they go into the living room where cables and computer parts are all over
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the floor. Lucas sits in front of the rack between two opened boxes.
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The rack's side panels had been removed, revealing the devices
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mounted inside and the cables connecting them. Lucas is pushing a circuit
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board into a half-assembled metal box that hangs out the front. Karl goes
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over to a stool next to the rack, cautiously avoiding stepping on things,
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and sits down.
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</p>
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<p>
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Annie sits down on the floor next to Lucas and watches as he carefully
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inserts another board. Karl is reading from a binder of documentation
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and tells him to set some tiny switches on its front edge.<br />
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While grabbing the next board, Lucas says:
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<span class="quote speech">Annie, can you take these and prepare the DIP
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switches?</span><br />
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He pushes the box over to her. It contains four circuit boards, all
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identical.<br />
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<span class="quote speech">Uhm, okay.</span>
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She takes one out and looks at it closely. It's full of electronic
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components on both sides and one of the edges holds a tiny red box with
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an even tinier row of switches on it.<br />
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<span class="comment">Above is a meh description. Need naive description
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of DIP switches from someone who doesn't know.</span><br />
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<span class="quote speech">So what do I set them to?</span><br />
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Karl tells her a combination and she tries to push the switches up or
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down as needed with her finger nails.<br />
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Lucas says <span class="quote speech">Here, use this.</span><br />
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He hands her a ballpoint pen. Using it to flip the switches, she sets
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the combination Karl says, then hands the board over to Lucas and grabs
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the next one.
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</p>
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<p>
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Karl takes the racks's power cable and plugs it in. Isabelle gets
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the terminal from a corner of the room and lifts it onto the rack.
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Meanwhile, Annie and Lucas start collecting the cables and loose parts
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from the floor. Isabelle plugs the terminal into power and Karl connects
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a cable between it and one of the devices in the front of the rack.
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They all gather around and Karl powers it on. He follows the same
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procedure that Annie and Isabelle performed in the library: Key switch
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at the top of the rack to <span class="quote non-speech">RST</span>,
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power up the hard drive, hold <span class="quote non-speech">LOAD</span>
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and key switch to <span class="quote non-speech">RUN</span>. Then, he
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pulls a floppy disk out of the documentation binder and inserts it into
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the computer. He enters some commands, the drive clicks a few times, and
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the terminal displays a menu.
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</p>
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<!--
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Hardware in this machine:
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- 1x HDD (platters: 1 removable, 3 fixed)
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- 2x FDD
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- 2x backplane (8 slots each)
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- CPU (1 board)
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- FPU (1 board) (removed, replaced with NC 2000)
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- Number Cruncher 2000 (4 boards)
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- HDDC (1 board)
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- FDDC (1 board)
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- MTDC (1 board)
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- memory (8 boards)
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- 1x PDU
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- 1x MTD
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16M = 16777216 => 0x00000000 to 0x00FFFFFF
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64M = 67108864 => 0x00000000 to 0x03FFFFFF
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128M = 134217728 => 0x00000000 to 0x07FFFFFF
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-> 32-bit address bus
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1 PC SIMM = ~1MiB
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16 SIMMS = 1 memory board => 8 boards installed, 128M
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//TODO: realistic EPROM sizes?
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ROMs:
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32k platform code (bootrom)
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8k FDDC
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8k HDDC
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8k MTDC
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Registers:
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- CPU: 32x 8 bit? - are these mapped into RAM?
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- A (32-bit) / Split registers 2x16-bit, 4x8-bit
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- B (32-bit) / Split registers 2x16-bit, 4x8-bit
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- C (32-bit) / Split registers 2x16-bit, 4x8-bit
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- D (32-bit) / Split registers 2x16-bit, 4x8-bit
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- Address pointer (32-bit)
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- Flags (32-bit)
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- Interrupt Return Pointer (32-bit)
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- software interrupt capabilities?
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- context switching capabilities?
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- timers?
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- ?
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- Number Cruncher 2000:
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- Instruction Register (32-bit)
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- Flags (32-bit)
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- 32x 32-bit / 16x 64-bit general-purpose register
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- DMA load pointer (32-bit)
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-->
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<pre class="terminal">
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[ SYSTEM DIAGNOSTICS v3.15 ]
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----------------------------
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1. Quick Test
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2. Run All Tests
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3. CPU Test
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4. Memory Test
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5. FPU Test
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6. DMA Test
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7. Serial Test
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8. FDD Test
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9. HDD Test
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10. MTD Test
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11. Load Module...
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Choice: █
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</pre>
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<p>
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Lucas asks:
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<span class="quote speech">Odds of this working first try?</span><br />
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Karl says: <span class="quote speech">We will see...</span><br />
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He types a number and presses enter.
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</p>
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<pre class="terminal">
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Choice: 2
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Initializing...
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Loading CPU Test...
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Registers: Pass Branching: Pass
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ALU: Pass Long Words: Pass
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All Instrct:Pass Stress Test:Pass
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Result: PASSED
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Loading Memory Test...
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Memory map:
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00000000-
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Result: FAIL
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Loading FPU Test...
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NC2K OpROM init
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FP Arithmetic Test
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SIMD Test
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<!-- TODO: what kinda tests does this thing do? -->
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Result: FAIL <!-- because memory error -->
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</pre>
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