pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

Hello, it's Pengan here.

Thank you for explaining a bit of what has happened concerning the development of this. You might want to discuss this info with those whose work he used, as I feel that many people have been in the dark given the language barrier after people had been asking about it and not getting much response.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-11-19, 23:04:

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

Hello, it's Pengan here.

Thank you for explaining a bit of what has happened concerning the development of this. You might want to discuss this info with those whose work he used, as I feel that many people have been in the dark given the language barrier after people had been asking about it and not getting much response.

Yes, I'm trying to do so.

However, in reality, the community of vintage computer enthusiasts in China is far more fragmented than one might imagine.

Even among Chinese enthusiasts active on Twitter, there's a rough division between the "American" and "Japanese" faction.

YKSOFT, leonierX, and Flyingharuka belong to the "Japanese" faction, and their interests mainly around vintage computers produced in Japan. Yksoft1 is one of the few in this community who interacts more frequently with the English-speaking community and GitHub:
https://twitter.com/yksoft1
https://twitter.com/XLeonier
https://twitter.com/Flyingharuka

Wenting and Paizhang are part of the "American" faction, which includes myself, all with experiences of living in North America:
https://twitter.com/zephray_wenting
https://twitter.com/paizhangpi

Tony Wang and Hal are respectively the founders of BASIC-8 and ClockworkPi. I've been fortunate to meet them offline separately. Although their work is closely related, they didn't know each other previously:
https://twitter.com/wangrenxin
https://twitter.com/Hal_clockwork

Then, there's a large number of local enthusiasts who are not active on social media. Among them are some significant collectors with extensive computer collections, such as the Hefei Zimuyuan Museum:
http://www.hfmuseum.com/webnews98.html?classId=3

There are also a few old engineers and computer scientists who began working during the Cold War era. However, they rarely make public statements. Some of the traditions in China's electronics industry can be traced back to them, such as expertise in reverse engineering and imitation, but with a lack of transparency - Reverse engineering was a means of breaking technological blockades during the Cold War, and open-sourcing might have been considered as potential leakage of classified information at that time.

the3dfxdude wrote on 2023-11-19, 23:04:

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

Hello, it's Pengan here.

Thank you for explaining a bit of what has happened concerning the development of this.

I think the same and would also like to say "thank you" here. 🙂

pengan wrote on 2023-11-20, 07:59:

Even among Chinese enthusiasts active on Twitter, there's a rough division between the "American" and "Japanese" faction. […]
Show full quote

Even among Chinese enthusiasts active on Twitter, there's a rough division between the "American" and "Japanese" faction.

YKSOFT, leonierX, and Flyingharuka belong to the "Japanese" faction, and their interests mainly around vintage computers produced in Japan. Yksoft1 is one of the few in this community who interacts more frequently with the English-speaking community and GitHub:
https://twitter.com/yksoft1
https://twitter.com/XLeonier
https://twitter.com/Flyingharuka
[..]

Ah, I see, that makes sense. Thank you for explaining this to us! 🙂
So they probably lack information about us in a similar way that we do lack information about them.

And their part of the internet likely seems very different to us and vice versa.
That's at least how it seems to me each time I visit a vintage computer website in Japan,
the experience is quite different to what I'm used to (it looks to me like the western web was in the 90s).

About the groups.. Personally, I heard a little bit about yksoft1 before.
This user had posted a few YouTube videos in the past years which were related to Windows 2.x.
One used Word on Windows 2.x to display "Bad Apple" demo, I remember.
I saw it by coincidence, while looking for Windows 2.x related things in general.

That's interesting to know maybe, because the early MS Windows runs on both American/Japanese PCs.
It might provide a common platform for both groups to work together, thus.
In principle, at least, I mean. In practice, it may not happen soon if there are so many differences between them, that's understandable.

NOT AFFILIATED

If anyone is on the fence about buying one I think this would be a good time to pull the trigger, between Aliexpress Black Friday promo, store discount and coupon plus an additional Black Friday code (BF20) I was able to save about 70€.
In other words I got the all kitted out V2 from DZT 's Store for about 160€ in total

True, ordered yesterday V2 VGA w/o ISA, but with additional CGA card for $155.
--
If anyone having strange issues with Book - try another 12V power adapter.

n0p wrote on 2023-09-13, 18:55:

Ok, here's my work on BIOS so far. - Very basic int 13h handler for CH375 chip: Will work with floppy images, written to USB fla […]
Show full quote

Ok, here's my work on BIOS so far.
-
Very basic int 13h handler for CH375 chip:
Will work with floppy images, written to USB flash with Rufus or DD. Specs are read from boot (0) sector.
Should take any as long as heads <=2 and sectors>=8 and <=36
Media is always reported as 1.44MB, so format will produce this exact media regardless of previous boot sector settings.
Boots, checked 😀
MS-DOS 3.30 doesn't recognize XT-IDE drive, no idea why.
Inits only if flash drive is present on bios start. That's the way i wanted it to.
Fully replaces original floppy handler, so if flash drive not inserted, zero floppy drives reported.
Media change detection not implemented so far as i've no idea how the logic should work (ch375<->ms-dos).
To boot from "floppy" you need to press A (XT-IDE menu) after "floppy seek and beep" sound.
-
Previous changes there as well - two XT-IDE BIOSes, only one for inserted CPU inits.
It's not handy two swap two chips at once, and BIOS chip has not enough opening for quick replace.
You might always use 8088 version, but V20 version 1,6 times faster.
BIOS boot sound - speaker plays PWM with floppy seek and beep from real XT 😀
-
BTW, Sergey accepted both proposed fixes, so BIOS for Book8088 on his 8088_bios github works for 3-Demon and Turbo Basic now
-
Thanks to author of MartyPC - it's only emulator i know that allows easy BIOS placement, so i could test "Does it even init" without having to flash/test cycle on Book8088.
-
Will sync to github after commenting the code.

Can you, please, create a no-startup-sound version of your latest BIOS with booting from USB? 😀
I'm testing different software on the device and at first it was pretty nice to hear that floppy sound and beeps... But after hundreds of boot/reboots it became too annoying and I'd like to avoid desoldering of the PC speaker off the board.
Unfortunately I'm unable to make the binary out of your sources (I have an invalid 80k rom file) using the standard Windows building instructions.
Thanks in advance!

Errand wrote on 2023-11-26, 18:16:

Unfortunately I'm unable to make the binary out of your sources (I have an invalid 80k rom file) using the standard Windows building instructions.
Thanks in advance!

I read that you have a Mac and trying to build this using Windows on a virtual machine. No need to use Windows, the project can be built on macOS with only a small change to a file to create valid binaries and you can use Homebrew to easily install all the prerequisites:

1brew install nasm cmake

Then clone the project and edit the file CMakeLists.txt replacing all instances of LANG=C with LC_ALL=C so for example:

1	COMMAND dd if=/dev/zero ibs=1k count=40 | LANG=C tr \\\\000 \\\\377 >> bios-book8088-xtide-v20.rom

becomes

1	COMMAND dd if=/dev/zero ibs=1k count=40 | LC_ALL=C tr \\\\000 \\\\377 >> bios-book8088-xtide-v20.rom

At this point use the general Linux instructions to build the project.

I just discovered the quirk in tr in macOS building the project myself and seeing odd sized binaries because instead of getting 0xFF from the command above I was getting 0xC3BF go figure...

If you have a TL866xx you can also install minipro with Homebrew but then I'd suggest to use MiniPro GUI with it

Yrouel wrote on 2023-11-27, 00:06:

I read that you have a Mac and trying to build this using Windows on a virtual machine. No need to use Windows, the project can […]
Show full quote

Errand wrote on 2023-11-26, 18:16:

Unfortunately I'm unable to make the binary out of your sources (I have an invalid 80k rom file) using the standard Windows building instructions.
Thanks in advance!

I read that you have a Mac and trying to build this using Windows on a virtual machine. No need to use Windows, the project can be built on macOS with only a small change to a file to create valid binaries and you can use Homebrew to easily install all the prerequisites:

Copy code to clipboard

1brew install nasm cmake

Then clone the project and edit the file CMakeLists.txt replacing all instances of LANG=C with LC_ALL=C so for example:

Copy code to clipboard

1	COMMAND dd if=/dev/zero ibs=1k count=40 | LANG=C tr \\\\000 \\\\377 >> bios-book8088-xtide-v20.rom

becomes

Copy code to clipboard

1	COMMAND dd if=/dev/zero ibs=1k count=40 | LC_ALL=C tr \\\\000 \\\\377 >> bios-book8088-xtide-v20.rom

At this point use the general Linux instructions to build the project.

I just discovered the quirk in tr in macOS building the project myself and seeing odd sized binaries because instead of getting 0xFF from the command above I was getting 0xC3BF go figure...

If you have a TL866xx you can also install minipro with Homebrew but then I'd suggest to use MiniPro GUI with it

Just a thought, would that work on an ARM architecture based Mac ?

darry wrote on 2023-11-27, 02:27:

Just a thought, would that work on an ARM architecture based Mac ?

Yes, that's what I'm using actually. And just out of curiosity I compared the binary I built with the one provided inside binaries and they match 100%

I altered Makefile to suit my needs for the build (put two builds of XT-IDE), so you need to use WSL under Windows (i do) or Linux/BSD system/Mac, and i don't feel like writing instructions.
All command are basic (awk, du) so simple "make bios-book8088-xtide.rom" should do.
I wanted to implement other method for piping 0xFF instead of tr, but didn't get to it so far.
Comment "%define BOOT_SOUND 1" in config.inc, that should do.

My friend recently scored a 2nd hand one from ebay with all the fruit (all addons) for a very decent price.

It's a interesting piece, so far we ripped some games off my 5160 to put onto it... had some fun..

The most use it has seen so-far is transferring files\talking to other machines that we have setup each month at the Adelaide Retro computer meetup. Very very handy for this!

This is a very minor tip, but it reduced my frustration a bit. I put a "mode 40" at the end of my fdauto.bat (freedos autoexec equivalent) to avoid the annoying screen alignment issue on boot. 40 column mode never seems to be misaligned, and it's usually fine for whatever I need to do.

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

Hello, it's Pengan here. […]
Show full quote

Hello, it's Pengan here.

Today, I replaced Sergey's BIOS on my Book8088. Currently residing in China, the cost of making BIOS chip here is quite low.
4x Windond W27C512 + 5x ST M27C512 = 83 Yuan.
Additionally, I acquired an ATMega8a EEPROM programmer for 50 yuan.
I haven't purchased a UV eraser yet; a second-hand one might cost around 50 yuan.
In total, it's less than 200 RMB, very cheap. I plan to make some extra chips and give them to my friends who have a Book8088.

Hi Pengan, and welcome!
Thanks for distributing my BIOS 😀

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

The serial and parallel ports in Book8088 v2 is my suggestion.

Serial and parallel ports are a welcome addition. Here are some more ideas for improvements:
- Add VGA output. Book8088 V2 already uses VGA controller, so it should be fairly straight forward. Potentially, it should be possible to relocate the graphics module closer to the back of the system, and mount the VGA connector on it. I presume that is how serial and parallel ports are implemented.
- Use Flash ROM instead of the EPROM. This would allow for configuration storage, e.g. configuring floppy drive types. Actually, the use of EPROM puzzles me. I think no one makes new UV EPROMs, only OTP EPROMs. Flash ROMs are being manufactured, and quite inexpensive (e.g. SST39SF010A), older no longer manufactured Flash ROMs are also cheaply available. Since the Flash ROM size is typically bigger, e.g. 128 KiB or more, it should be possible to use it to store VGA BIOS as well. If I am not mistaken Cirrus Logic VGA BIOS will work if mapped at 0xE0000. That would allow saving one chip.
- Implement UMBs. This is actually pretty simple. Use two 512 KiB SRAMs (instead of the current 512 KiB + 128 KiB), and map the upper chip to the otherwise unused areas in higher memory, e.g. 0xC8000-0xEFFFF. Ideally the range should be configurable. That might be implemented as a configuration register in the CPLD, or using separate logic and a few dip switches (e.g., see my Xi 8088 implementation, which I believe, Book 8088 was based on).
- Maybe implement an RTC...

Other than that, I think we'll be more than happy to get the schematic for V2 and the CPLD source code, at least for the system CPLD, but I bet people will be interested in the CGA CPLDs too.

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

I am one of the few lucky individuals who have had the opportunity to interact with Shan Zhongyu, also known as the "Hardcore ex […]
Show full quote

I am one of the few lucky individuals who have had the opportunity to interact with Shan Zhongyu, also known as the "Hardcore expert" in person. His vintage PC project has begin in 2017. Here are some of his previous posts that roughly outline his exploration process:

https://www.mydigit.cn/thread-214214-1-1.html
https://www.mydigit.cn/thread-383605-1-1.html
https://www.mydigit.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=133380
http://bbs.mydigit.cn/u.php?uid=997328

The first three links seem to be inaccessible, the last one needs registration to read the posts. It would be interesting to see the brief translation of these posts to English.
I did see a video some place in Chinese web site, that presumably was showing a Book 8088 prototype, which was implemented using Faraday FE2010A chipset, likely the design borrowed from my Micro 8088 project.
The video was taken down since... Anyhow Faraday FE2010A is currently pretty expensive, so I can understand why the designer went with the CPLD + 82xx chips instead of a chipset for the current implementation.

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

Initially, my goal in engaging with him was to join his team. However, I eventually gave up on that. I spent some time attempting to persuade him to provide GPL-compliant BIOS, but unfortunately, I wasn't successful.
...
"Hardcore expert" isn't a member of the open-source community or the retro-computing community. He doesn't have a account on GitHub and isn't familiar with classic DOS games. His vintage computer project stems from a personal passion for electronics. The initial product designs were more geared towards catering to the nostalgia of collectors.

Thanks for trying to convince him to comply with GPL. The rest is a bit puzzling. Why nostalgia collectors would want to get an "old new" hardware?

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

He invested a lot of effort into dealing with rebuild CGA graphics cards and hacking the firmware of RTD2660 LCD controller to support CGA's 15Khz signal without extra scaler. And all of this is driven by the goal of restoring the "original IBM PC experience."

I guess, for V2 we want it to be reverted to a VGA-compatible firmware... as you might know higher resolution VGA modes don't work well on V2 😉

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

He believes that many people purchase the Book8088 just to have it as a display piece and might not actually power it on - this is quite common among "collectors" in China. That's also why there's a bit of negligence in both the firmware and the pre-installed software aspects.

Maybe, or maybe he is not a software person, and as you've mentioned previously he was less interested in the vintage computers... that might be a result of lack of knowledge or effort.

pengan wrote on 2023-11-19, 17:00:

In the Chinese electronic enthusiast community, I'm a definite minority. I've been living in Canada since 2009 and have attended […]
Show full quote

In the Chinese electronic enthusiast community, I'm a definite minority. I've been living in Canada since 2009 and have attended Vintage Computer Fest and Demoparties(Demosplash, @Party and SynchroNY), but such public events aren't common in China. Most communication is hidden in the deep web, primarily occurring through QQ and WeChat groups.
...
Since meeting "Hardcore expert" back in May, I've been considering writing an article about the Book8088. However, I've realized that I'd almost be writing a paper on cultural conflicts.

In the enthusiast community in China, using open-source code for commercial purposes is seen as shameful because it doesn't allocate benefits to the original authors. Yet, the issue of removed attributions in the Book8088 BIOS is considered tolerable by some because there's no transaction of benefits involved.

This is indeed an act of infringement, and ethically challenging to comprehend, but it does exist. In fact, it permeates even the core ideology of the entire "shanzhai" electronic industry centered around Shenzhen and has achieved significant economic success, despite its controversial nature.
...
"Hardcore expert" Shan Zhongyu's company is based in Guangzhou, and their primary product is engraving machines, also white-labeled. The quality has become quite mature, but they aren't intending to operate under their own brand. They told me that white-labeling saves them branding and legal costs, enabling their products to remain inexpensive - something necessary in the fiercely competitive Chinese market. Initially, he mentioned they only planned to sell Book8088 within China. However, the current situation is that almost all sales are overseas.

Thanks for the cultural background information. Again, since his Book8088 sales are mostly overseas, ideally he should comply with the international copyright law and such. But I do understand that you've already tried to communicate that.

About VGA and 15 KHz.. Generally speaking, the VGA CRTC can do 15 KHz, too, if being reprogrammed.

The approach is pretty generic for all the low-res modes under ca. 300 lines (aka games' resolutions).

Support for higher resolution needs knowledge of the SVGA chipset, due to use of normal interlacing (two alternating fields).

Info: http://www.geocities.ws/podernixie/htpc/misc/dos-en.html

The downside is that some games/applications may reprogram the CRTC and undo the 15 KHz output.
So a native 31 KHz support would be favorable, of course, if possible.

Errand wrote on 2023-11-15, 05:56:

SergeK wrote on 2023-11-14, 23:46:

I guess they had the Trident TVGA9000i option too... That would actually work on 8088, because Trident BIOS doesn't use 186+ instructions

If it only be possible to desolder Cirrus chip and bios on current board and swap it to Trident ones and it’ll work… I would 😀

CL-GD5428 and TVGA9000i have different pinouts. Simply swapping the VGA controller ICs will not work.
I suspect the designer of Book 8088 already has designed a PCB for Trident TVGA9000i, and perhaps they decided against using it because of the chip availability

Found small boards, called "SOIC to DIP adapter" here.
Redone DMA hack, and finally put Waveshare Zero Keyboard Adapter 😀 to a ribbon cable. 5V, Ground and Int lines are now more sturdy AWG30 wire.
Still waiting for kbd chip and V2 Book to arrive.

And a question.
Any ideas what problem on ISA bus could lead to this problem? (see photo, EGA on ISA extender)
EGA card works perfect on Pentium, on Book8088 it gives memory error (beeps) and shows that kind of picture.
EGA BIOS makes three-pass REP STOSW with different pattern fill or video RAM and one SCASW (w/o any rep prefix, most probably a bug, but it catches the error anyway) and beeps if RAM not OK. So on Book8088 it's definetely some video memory access error. I've removed CGA BIOS and RAM chips just to make sure, but that didn't make things better.

As for origins on Book8088 - i would like to summirize what i personally know so far:
Done by a person or a team named "Cycle Logic"
Knows how to program STM microcontrollers (STC8G2K32S4), controls keyboard, Turbo, Mute and some leds - found by Retroplayer @ VCFED
Knows CLPD programming quite good- XT-IO and CGA logic are there, and COM/LPT IO were added on V2 fast
Did a good study on Sergey's BIOS (not only to remove copyrights 😀) - look at the number of Chinese comments in published archives
Both DZT and Hardcore Expert guys @ Aliexpress are not the authors. Both took time to answer simplest tech questions and referred to sending those to "technicians"
Tend to keep production price to a most minimum - that might answer EPROM vs EEPROM question
PR:
Aliexpress store managers are friendly and can help if exact problem is presented (i use two-way Google translate to make sure it says what i mean)
Promised to change BIOS in V2 - did not
Provided wiping copyrights reason is nonsensical - GPL does not prohibit selling.
--
With all that said - it's a really niche product and i'm glad it exists and at that price - as acquiring/making an XT seem to be near impossible task to me.

This is my first post here and thought I would say a quick hello!

I am eagerly awaiting shipment of Book 8088 V2. I recall reading somewhere about an experimental driver that allowed a USB keyboard to be connected to the Book 8088. Has anyone come across this?
Is it even possible to connect a wireless or cable keyboard?

USB wired keyboard is possible, but it ain't an easy task.
I've posted on VCFED and maybe forgot to post here initial release:
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jP_Zx4weHFM
Source code for Pico:
https://github.com/jinshin/BookKbd/tree/stable
--
Traces are very small and i managed to kill original keyboard IC on Book, awaiting new one.
So the project is not complete, idea is to use Pico as a medium controller, which would process external kbd and onboard IC.
--
As Pico lines are 3.3V, IC supply needs to be 3.3V. I plan to use 3.3V from Pico in next try and use resistor block to limit current to it from Pico lines. IC Iworks with that voltage (but i killed it on some point connecting it's output to Pico and don't so far get how) and more, XT-IO CPLD chip is fine with 3.3V signals.