atkelar | Retro Computing #1: MPF-I @atkelar | Uploaded February 2021 | Updated October 2024, 10 minutes ago.
After trying (and at the time failing) a bit of higher education, I went for an aprenticeship after completing my mandatory school time. Along that path was mechanical and electrical engineering as well as electronics. It was the early 1990s, so Commodore was still in everybody's mind when talking about home computers and the 80486 just barely made it to market. It was around that time that the curriculum had "microprocessor basics" as a topic. Now here I am, writing programs in GW-BASIC, Turbo Pascal and Assembler since my 12th birthday, that is about five to six years earlier than this, and I should learn about "what is a pointer" again...
Needless to say, even with the Z-80 CPU and a completely different instruction- and register set, I had an easy time here. The MPF-I was the system of choice back then. I loved the simplicity and just how easy you could try out simple hardware related things. This really was the Arduino of its time! Of course there were other similar systems, but... It came in a book-case! And it also had a printer as an add-on! A little thermal printer that came with a ROM chip and disassembler! You could really print program listings in readable code! I still want to find one of those.
Anyhow; These things are now collectors' items of course. Despite several sources claiming that they are still made to this very day...? But they are certainly for the educational market, so getting one as a private person is not quite as easy. e-bay "buy now" auctions usually are in the mid-300 USD range for a complete kit. This one got offered as a regular auction though... And since there were no bids and only some days left when I found it... I sneakily bid a reasonable maximum. Never would I have thought that literally nobody else would bid and I took it home for basically the minimum bid. I almost feel sorry for the seller... but only just. The "minimum bid" is there for a reason.
This video is the cleaning process as well as three projects around the board, including saving out programs to tape (yes, actual tape!) and loading them back in. Also, a conversion program that allows binary to tape-wave file conversion for easy transfer of code from a real PC with a proper assembler to the device for execution. Now it's actually fun!
0:00 Intro, Unpacking & Presentation
1:09 Cleaning
2:20 Power On / Traffic Light Overview / Disassembly
3:30 Decoding LEDs / Working Traffic Light / CTC Overview
4:25 Debugging Clock / Save Program
5:11 Troubleshooting Load Program
6:41 Hex Input vs. Assembler / Wave Converter
7:30 Blink Program Demo / Matrix Setup / Dead?
8:25 Timing Diagnostics
9:26 Timing Fix / Matrix Demo / Tiny-Basic
10:11 Summary / Credits / Outtake
Information Links
MPF-I general info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Professor_MPF-I
and also: https://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/mpf1/
ZASM - Z80 (and 8080) Assembler project: k1.spdns.de/Develop/Projects/zasm/Distributions
Online disassembler: onlinedisassembler.com/odaweb
MPF-I Tape: github.com/Atkelar/MPF-1-Tape
Music:
My Train's A Comin'
Unicorn Heads
(YouTube Audio Library)
After trying (and at the time failing) a bit of higher education, I went for an aprenticeship after completing my mandatory school time. Along that path was mechanical and electrical engineering as well as electronics. It was the early 1990s, so Commodore was still in everybody's mind when talking about home computers and the 80486 just barely made it to market. It was around that time that the curriculum had "microprocessor basics" as a topic. Now here I am, writing programs in GW-BASIC, Turbo Pascal and Assembler since my 12th birthday, that is about five to six years earlier than this, and I should learn about "what is a pointer" again...
Needless to say, even with the Z-80 CPU and a completely different instruction- and register set, I had an easy time here. The MPF-I was the system of choice back then. I loved the simplicity and just how easy you could try out simple hardware related things. This really was the Arduino of its time! Of course there were other similar systems, but... It came in a book-case! And it also had a printer as an add-on! A little thermal printer that came with a ROM chip and disassembler! You could really print program listings in readable code! I still want to find one of those.
Anyhow; These things are now collectors' items of course. Despite several sources claiming that they are still made to this very day...? But they are certainly for the educational market, so getting one as a private person is not quite as easy. e-bay "buy now" auctions usually are in the mid-300 USD range for a complete kit. This one got offered as a regular auction though... And since there were no bids and only some days left when I found it... I sneakily bid a reasonable maximum. Never would I have thought that literally nobody else would bid and I took it home for basically the minimum bid. I almost feel sorry for the seller... but only just. The "minimum bid" is there for a reason.
This video is the cleaning process as well as three projects around the board, including saving out programs to tape (yes, actual tape!) and loading them back in. Also, a conversion program that allows binary to tape-wave file conversion for easy transfer of code from a real PC with a proper assembler to the device for execution. Now it's actually fun!
0:00 Intro, Unpacking & Presentation
1:09 Cleaning
2:20 Power On / Traffic Light Overview / Disassembly
3:30 Decoding LEDs / Working Traffic Light / CTC Overview
4:25 Debugging Clock / Save Program
5:11 Troubleshooting Load Program
6:41 Hex Input vs. Assembler / Wave Converter
7:30 Blink Program Demo / Matrix Setup / Dead?
8:25 Timing Diagnostics
9:26 Timing Fix / Matrix Demo / Tiny-Basic
10:11 Summary / Credits / Outtake
Information Links
MPF-I general info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-Professor_MPF-I
and also: https://fjkraan.home.xs4all.nl/comp/mpf1/
ZASM - Z80 (and 8080) Assembler project: k1.spdns.de/Develop/Projects/zasm/Distributions
Online disassembler: onlinedisassembler.com/odaweb
MPF-I Tape: github.com/Atkelar/MPF-1-Tape
Music:
My Train's A Comin'
Unicorn Heads
(YouTube Audio Library)
