Hi Larry.. that stuff is a bit over my head - what I do have is what paggps provided. I looked at the disk drive info and it's a bit over my head also.
From the documentation all I can figure out is that the machine could function in either serial or direct video/keyboard input mode, and that IE gave you CPM 3.0 system disks. I've been looking around for Insight EQ-4 CPM disks but nothing comes up.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14F3XUYUuqusBRFkQCx1NGvkbZZdWmFc8?usp=sharing
Hello falter,
Just popped in again to check what was going on to your EQ-4 project.
It is coincidence that the problem you are facing today (the lack of a bootable CPM disk) is the same problem I had in 1984/1985. When I bought the EQ-4 board at that time, the CP/M disks were damaged (or I damaged them, I don´t remember). I could bood perfectly for the first time, but after that I could not boot again, probably because I was playing with the machine using the original disks before doing a backup. This error would cause me anormous headaches. This is what I did at that time, just in case it might help (exact steps ... I don´t remember because it was almost 40 years ago):
1) I wrote my own boot EPROM to create a very basic bootable machine, that could read SS/SD floppy disks, and do the basic things like read keyboard and write to video (I think this is the file
bootrom.asm in my repository, not 100% sure).
2) I wrote also a small program to format 8" SS/SD disks (this is the file
format.asm), and also another program to read/write individual sectors on the disk (this is the file
rwd.asm)
3) Using an RS-232 cable, I managed to transfer the CP/M 2.2 boot files to the EQ-4 from an Apple II I had (it was an Apple II Plus with the Microsoft Z80 card on it). This step would not be neccesary today because CP/M 2.2 images can be found anywhere.
4) Using rwd.asm, I was able to write the CP/M 2.2 files (sectors) to the newly formatted disk.
5) After that... magically, the new disk with CP/M 2.2 booted perfectly, and I used the machine for a lot of time.
In parallel to this work, I kept looking for an original full CP/M 3.0 bootable disk from another user (Insight Enterprises was bankrupt, and I have read its know-how was sold to a mexican company). Then I published an ad in the BYTE magazine (August 1985) asking for help. I received about 7 letters, and finally one user (I remember Mr. Toby Popenfoose) sent me a bootable CP/M 3.0 complete with sources. So I changed EPROM to the original one, and then the machine was working in full, and was used for years.
By the way,
- One of the persons that answer my ask for help in 1985 was Mr. Victor Roberts. I found him in Linkedin and asked (again) if he has something related to the EQ-4. He just donated it to a technology museum, and offered me to try to obtain a copy of the bootable disks. Then came the pandemic. So I don´t know...
- Looking into the documentation I have, I see that the person who wrote the EQ-4 code is Mr. Ralph Nicovich (71). Googling it you can find that he is still related to computer science in the San Francisco area. Perhaps he still has something...
Sorry for such a long post. Best of luck !
Regards,
Pablo