8085/88 First Boot

The cards were popped into the rack, including a partially tested EPROM card with a boot ROM programmed using a file from one of the 8″ floppy disks.

The source showed that on start-up the first serial port to receive a space character would become the console and offer to boot from the Jade DD.

The boot ROM source indicated a serial port speed of 9600. I used an IBM terminal setup accordingly.

I started with a CPU, EPROM, and I/O cards and proceeded to discover the various mistakes i had made with the EPROM card!

Once i could see that code was being read from the EPROM i added the RAM board and the Jade Double FDC. I could see data coming out of the UART, but it wasn’t making it to the terminal and that was because a shorted tantalum on the Jade board had blown the -12V fuse.

Once repaired, i got the boot screen.

I hooked up a couple of goteks and on the second image it booted.

Credit to the original builder/owner/operator.

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