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zedstarr

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Posts posted by zedstarr

  1. 37 minutes ago, kgallen said:

    No hijack - nice to see a few friends on the thread, seems I'm being watched (eh, Chris... ;-) ! Eeeek!

    Actually my apols to the OP, it seems I'm the one heading towards a thread and project hijack!

    I must have something set somewhere (default?) I heard a beep and saw a notification "kgallen mentioned you in a thread" ;-) And yes, this tab has survived in my browser since Feb!
    More importantly perhaps can I add my apologies for contributing to hijackingness ;-)

  2. Disclaimer: I'm not a software engineer...

    Requires python3 - I'm sure there's a more elegant way that will support both python2 and python3 but it's late and I'm tired. I'll look again tomorrow after some sleep and a chat with an actual software engineer :-D
    (also there's a kludgy hack to define a fprintf function in python so I could get around converting the formatting of the ASCII hex output :-) )

    Tested OK on Fedora 33, RaspiOS (buster) & MacOS Catalina.

    execute as:

    python3 elektor_scms_rom.py


    Enjoy!

    @kgallen I've just spotted an error in a comment in your original code which I've propagated through to the python: your line 72 "0x00 to 0x07" should be "0x00 to 0x06". Obviously doesnt affect the output files at all 

     

    elektor_scms_rom.py

  3. 3 hours ago, kgallen said:

    For those playing along at home

    This is the most fun I've had in a long time :-D

    Quote

    Hold on, I'm sure there must be something more important I should be doing...!

    Isn't that often the way? Out of lockdown boredom I retrieved my MiniDisc kit out of the cellar and look where we are now :-)

  4. 3 hours ago, kgallen said:

    Being from a telecoms background, I bet @zedstarr can relate to this (e.g. ITU-T G.706, 2048kb/s PDH basic frame alignment).

    Aye I was thinking about that last night :-) "Frame alignment words in timeslot 0"... The 2048kb/s interface (well the G.703 & G.704 realisations) are still in use in most (if not all) telecom networks today as synchronisation signals. Even big Cisco etc. switches that support Synchronous Ethernet and PTP (IEEE1588-2008) still have "sync out"/"sync in" interfaces that can handle the old PDH "2 Meg" signals :-) 

  5. 11 minutes ago, kgallen said:

    If you have a hex dump, maybe you could share small parts of any interesting sections here? Might be of interest to the earlier poster where I was trying to describe how such ROM-based FSMs work.

    Snippet:  0x717 & 0x81D locations of note 

    000006e0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000006f0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000700  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000710  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 11  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000720  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000730  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000740  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000750  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000760  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000770  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000780  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000790  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007a0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007b0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007c0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007d0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007e0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  10 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    000007f0  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f 0e 0f  |................|
    00000800  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  |................|
    00000810  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  10 11 10 11 10 13 10 11  |................|
    00000820  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  |................|
    00000830  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  10 11 10 11 10 11 10 11  |................|

    Also - complete binary attached :-) I wanted to exhaust some of the other avenues of looking for the original author etc. before dumping the contents anywhere. 

    Quote

    Echo the thanks to @zedstarr (and forward posthumous greetings from GPT Beeston to GPT Liverpool :-D )

    Gratefully received. I have Happy Memories of riding the paternoster lifts in the Beeston Engineering block :-D

     

    elektor_scms_rom.bin.zip

  6. For completeness here's an update on what I've managed to find out about the original article/author:

    First published in most European language versions of Elektor 12/1997, English language version 07-08/1998
    Author: Dipl.-Ing. Hans-Juergen Hanft (not credited with any other projects on Elektor) no contact details found
    Georg Stippler - Stippler Elektronik, Bissingen Germany (suppliers of the kit/components) no contact details found
    At the time the Magazine Editor was Len Seymour - has his name on some books of collections of projects that were published like "305 circuits" etc. but not much else
    At the time the Technical Editor was Jan Buiting - he's now the Editor, still very active at Elektor and contactable on LinkedIn or via email. I reached out to him and his reply was:

    Quote
    Very sorry but I have nothing on the project. Most project files and software carrier originals relevant to pre-2000 projects were discarded during a move of our labs and editorial offices, and several restructurings of the Elektor website and store.
     
    Best I can advise is to issue a call for help on the Elektor Labs website.

    So, I have registered a trial membership on Elektor's "Labs Website" and have asked there also....

  7. 3 minutes ago, NGY said:

    Great job on getting the ROM image - any chance you'd share the file? Say in private, if you feel inappropriate doing it publicly.

    Seeing as "Stippler Elektronik" the original suppliers are no more and the original Pascal source was never published I don't see why not, for "educational" purposes.

    Are you planning on building a copy?
     

  8.  

    Coincidentally I've just retrieved my Elektor SCMS "copybit killer" from storage and had a play with it :) The pots to light the correct sample-rate LEDs needed a tweak but it still works fine. I'd also retrieved some of my "old" HiFi gear from storage too, including the MDS-JB930 minidisc deck! And my old Technics RS-B665 tape deck which I've since built a wireless remote control for, but that's another story :-)

    I bought the Elektor kit in Jan 2000 (I faxed the order over to Germany, how quaint :-D ) and used it a lot at the time for MD-MD copies. According to the invoice it cost me £48.38

    I've imaged the ROM (and already discussed at length with the OP over on another forum!) initially using a Raspberry Pi (without level shifting) but I was worried about data integrity as the 27C512 is an old 5V part and the Pi GPIO is all 3V3 and not 5V tolerant. So I splashed out on a TL866 USB programmer and double checked. The original image good was after all. Reading the old 5V part at 3V3 at slow speed (1ms between reads) worked for me.

    Fascinating insight into the design of the SCMS stripper - in my career the last time I came across a (very badly designed) ROM state machine was in some Telecom kit (actually deep inside a System X telephone exchange in 1994 8-) )

     

     

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