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Does anyone have a Grid Compass 1100 (or similar) or know anyone with one?

kyodai

Experienced Member
Joined
Jan 26, 2011
Messages
467
Location
Kerpen, Germany
I am currently making a computer game featuring some vintage computers. One of them is the Grid Compass 1101. Unfortunately the textures are very low resolution, so i would need some high resolution pictures (Actually anything better than a Barbie cam is already an improvement). Most important would be a flat picture on the display side of the lid since obviously you look at the display in the game. Could anyone help?
 
I have a compass but it’s ratty, have the docking station too. Have the military version of the compass and that’s impressive looking. No F key though, imagine they did not need them in 1980, the 1520/30 are good looking systems and I got plenty of them. Also have the very weird looking GRiD palm system. Take a look at my web page:

http://staff.salisbury.edu/~rafantini/grid_1550_and_1530.htm

And see if that helps.

Ray F/AKA QBus
 
I have a compass but it’s ratty, have the docking station too. Have the military version of the compass and that’s impressive looking. No F key though, imagine they did not need them in 1980, the 1520/30 are good looking systems and I got plenty of them. Also have the very weird looking GRiD palm system. Take a look at my web page:

http://staff.salisbury.edu/~rafantini/grid_1550_and_1530.htm

And see if that helps.

Ray F/AKA QBus



Can you make some photos or scans in higher resolution?

It's not super urgent as the game is in an early development stage anyways, but if someone is interested I can make an alpha version...

I have no idea of the boot-up process since i never owned any Grid myself, so the whole system in the game is more of a mock-up. :)
 
I am looking for technical info (manuals, schematics) and software (ROM, disk dumps) -- to emulate GRiD machines in MAME. Preferably the oldest ones (1100, 1101, 1109), but anything would be nice to have, actually.

Google did find diskette images at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm, but no ROMS or manuals, and hardware info is very sparse. Links from GRiDboard (http://web.archive.org/web/20061028161928/http://www.pd.com/gbold/messages/1154.html) are long dead (http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD/compass_manual.html, http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD/compass_peripheral_manual.html) and not in archive.org.
 
I am looking for technical info (manuals, schematics) and software (ROM, disk dumps) -- to emulate GRiD machines in MAME. Preferably the oldest ones (1100, 1101, 1109), but anything would be nice to have, actually.

Google did find diskette images at http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/img/index.htm, but no ROMS or manuals, and hardware info is very sparse. Links from GRiDboard (http://web.archive.org/web/20061028161928/http://www.pd.com/gbold/messages/1154.html) are long dead (http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD/compass_manual.html, http://limbo.netpath.net/hw/GRiD/compass_peripheral_manual.html) and not in archive.org.



I think some Grid stuff has been preserved in archive.org.

For example this:

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20090118152844/www.ari-service.com/ftp/GRID/

I think most stuff is related to later models. here is a file listing with description:

https://web-beta.archive.org/web/20080828182059/http://www.ari-service.com/ftp/GRID/grid.txt
 
The heavy duty Navy Compass looks the best, if I have time this weekend will pull my regular compass out and take some pictures but it looks rough. But if you’re making an image of it that may not be an issue. Do you need pictures of the base adapter too? That has the disk drive internal to it.
 
The heavy duty Navy Compass looks the best, if I have time this weekend will pull my regular compass out and take some pictures but it looks rough. But if you’re making an image of it that may not be an issue. Do you need pictures of the base adapter too? That has the disk drive internal to it.

Since I make a 3D model from it i could use pictures from all sides, preferably totally flat. But most important would be one from the screen part since the player looks directly onto that, being pretty close to it. Many thanks in advance for your help.
 
The heavy duty Navy Compass looks the best, if I have time this weekend will pull my regular compass out and take some pictures but it looks rough. But if you’re making an image of it that may not be an issue. Do you need pictures of the base adapter too? That has the disk drive internal to it.

Could you also take a picture of motherboard, with chip IDs visible? The only one I've found isn't high res enough:

grid1101-mb.jpg
 
Could you also take a picture of motherboard, with chip IDs visible? The only one I've found isn't high res enough:

grid1101-mb.jpg

I thought about it a bit, but i haven't (yet?) found a way to reasonably let your character open up the laptop in the game, but then again maybe i could come up with something at a later point... XD
 
Some progress on GRiD emulation in MAME (this is 1139 BIOS failing to do anything useful):



(thanks to trinitr0n for docs & swre)
 
I think it's actually a 1129 BIOS -- 1139 has higher res screen.

Still figuring out the memory map -- most of the devices are memory mapped, only the PIC is IO mapped (at 0). Intel D7220 bubble memory controller is mapped at 0xdfe80, and TMS9914 IEEE488 controller at 0xdff80
 
Emulated the basics of bubble memory controller + hacked the ROM to accept floppy images and CCOS boots this far (but crashes):

 
I think I understand why it crashes -- all available CCOS floppy images are from model 1101 (320x240 screen), but ROM is from model 1139 (bigger screen). Framebuffer starts at fixed address 0x400, BIOS work area starts after framebuffer, CCOS kernel loads at fixed address. On 1101, that address is in free memory after work area, but on 1139, the memory is not free -- and work area is trashed...

CCOS floppies for model 1131 or 1139 should work -- if anyone has those, please image them.
 
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